03/18/2002 "From Freaks to "People Just Like Us""

From Freaks to "People Just Like Us"
- By CATHERINE WATSON (MCV)

When youth worker Daniel Witthaus asked a group of Year 9 Geelong students what words they associated with gays, their response was immediate: "Freaks," said one. "Weirdos," said another.

Six weeks later, there was an overwhelming consensus amongst the students: "Gays and lesbians are just like us."

"I didn"t realise that gay people worked," said one student. Others wanted to know why people were gay and whether their families still talked to them. One student even wanted to know what gay people liked to eat.

Now a youth worker with Moonee Valley youth services, Witthaus developed the 'Pride & Prejudice' program for schools while working with a gay and lesbian youth support group in Geelong.

"I was coming across a number of young people having a very bad time in secondary school. When students talked about the problems to teachers or school authorities, the inference was often that they brought problems on themselves and should tone down their appearance or behaviour to be as invisible as possible.

"I felt like I was just putting on a Band-Aid and sending them back into battle." When he wrote to secondary schools in the area asking to trial a program to combat homophobia, he got just two acceptances: surprisingly, one was from an all-boys Catholic school.

Witthaus was presented to the students not as a gay man but as a youth worker. In the first three weeks, the class discussed a range of issues: being different, sexual stereotyping, gender roles. At the end of the third week, he asked how many of them knew any gay or lesbian people.

Very few of them did; he then asked them what sort of questions they would like to ask gay and lesbian people. Between the third and fourth weeks, he took the students' questions, put them to young gay people and videotaped their responses.

There was an added surprise for the students in the fourth week after they'd watched the video, Witthaus also answered their questions, and they realised for the first time that he was gay too.

He says his coming out has a powerful effect. "It's about providing real examples of gay and lesbian people to students who might not have had examples before."

The big question was whether the program would work without someone coming out. In association with Daryl Higgins and Ross King from Deakin University's School of Psychology, and funded by VicHealth, Witthaus made a video of six young gay and lesbian people that teachers could use without his presence.

The four young men and two young women talk about a range of issues in the first three weeks. It's not until the fourth episode, by which time most students have begun to feel a rapport for them, that they talk about their sexuality.

A formal evaluation of the program showed that it significantly changed student attitudes toward gay men and lesbians.

Since then the program has been delivered in Ballarat, Melbourne and several smaller rural cities.

Witthaus says inquiries have also come from Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia.

"The fact that there is so much interest in it is due to the fact that there is so little available for schools. The 'Pride & Prejudice' program is not the answer, but it's an answer."

The 'Pride & Prejudice' kit for schools is being launched by VicHealth.

For more information, contact Daniel Witthaus (03)-9248-8793