The rumors began in seventh grade.

Maddy Van Horn's classmates, girls and boys alike, gossiped about her sexual orientation. They invented fantastical tales that now make Van Horn laugh.

Apparently, she would try to grope female students as they walked down the hallway. One time, she attempted to kiss a girl in the locker room after gym class. Or so the rumors went.

The gossip started after Van Horn, now a senior at Cato-Meridian High School, challenged classmates who were calling each other “faggot,” and using the word “gay” as a pejorative.

Her middle school science teacher asked students not to use that language in class. The students protested, saying there was nothing wrong with those words, that they didn't really hurt anyone.

But Van Horn stood up to those students.

“No, it is wrong,” she said.

From that point on, Van Horn resolved she wouldn't let people push her around with their words.

That was the exact moment her life became nearly impossible.

She had been outed.

“The entire world knew within two days,” Van Horn said.

The rumors about Van Horn swirling around the school weren't entirely false. She was a 13-year-old lesbian who was coming to terms with her own sexuality. But she was hardly predatory. For years, she lacked confidence about her sexuality, so she was hardly about to come on to a girl at school.

When her best friend started dating boys, life became much harder for Van Horn. She felt isolated and wondered why she'd rather be holding hands with girls than with boys.

“Seventh grade was not my year,” she said.

At a bigger school in an urban area, Van Horn might not have felt so alone. At a time when more gay youth than ever feel comfortable enough about their sexuality to be out at school, resources for gay students exist at many schools around the country.

But in central New York and in particular at a small rural school like Cato-Meridian, support for gay students is hard to find. In Cayuga County, only two high schools, Cato-Meridian and Auburn, offer Gay Straight Alliances (GSAs) for students, but they are hardly the most popular student clubs.

Instead of dwelling on numbers, the students in these clubs - no more than a baker's dozen altogether - are working toward creating a safe, tolerant school environment for all students.

But gay students still have to endure taunts, threats and bullying, both verbal and physical, and many rural schools are still not safe for such teens. Being gay might be hip in the city, but in the country, gay students don't enjoy that universal popularity.

According to a recent TIME magazine article, nearly one in 10 high schools around the country has a GSA. In the 2004-2005 academic year, GSAs were started at a rate of three per day in U.S. schools.

Those numbers seem to suggest that schools nationwide are embracing ideas of tolerance for sexual orientation and gender identity/expression. But as Van Horn and her gay peers know, starting a GSA can be monumental task.

During her freshman year, Van Horn attempted to start a GSA at Cato-Meridian, but found it more difficult than she anticipated.

“Nobody was very cooperative. The administration said it shouldn't have ‘gay' in the title,” she said.

Hence the current name, the Acceptance Coalition, which Van Horn helped organize during her 10th-grade year. She went through the appropriate steps to start the club. She found a willing teacher to serve as club advisor in Donna Cappellano, a high school health teacher and cross country coach, and she registered the club with the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which helps GSAs across the country get started and make a positive impact.

But rallying classmates to join or even support a GSA was not like getting students to join the French Club or Future Farmers of America. Many of Van Horn's classmates were less than charitable about the club's activities.

“To a lot of people it was just the ‘gay club.' We would get harassed,” Van Horn said. “Some teachers would try to help out, but a lot were indifferent.”

The group found a faculty ally in Cappellano. She advises the group, but prefers a hands-off approach to let the students shape the club's focus themselves.

“We have big ideas, but we're a small group of people,” Cappellano said.

While the district approved of the idea of a tolerance group, says Cappellano, they rejected the idea of calling it a GSA. With tolerance and acceptance in mind, the district hopes the club can help promote the importance of a safe school environment for all students. The club name might be a bit of a cop-out, but students like Van Horn are just happy it exists.

In its two years of existence, the Acceptance Coalition has participated in the National Day of Silence, where students take a vow of silence in support of tolerance of all gays.

Van Horn remembers the first year they celebrated the Day of Silence. The group, which numbers only about a half dozen on a good day, made about 30 signs with messages of acceptance and respect and statistics about teen suicide. More than half were defaced or ripped down.

School advocacy groups like GLSEN recognize that not every GSA will be greeted with enthusiasm from teachers or students. But they advise students that creating a GSA is protected by federal law, said Joshua Lamont, director of communications and spokesperson for GLSEN. Not only that, but a number of states have anti-bullying measures in place that include sexual orientation and gender expression or identity.

New York state law prohibits harassment and/or discrimination based on sexual orientation in schools and is considering including gender identity in the legislation. But in GLSEN's 2004 State of the States report, New York was one of 42 states received failing grades with regard to school safety, particularly for gay students.

“Many communities still have barriers for (gay) students, and so do many schools,” Lamont said.

In a recent poll conducted by GLSEN, the top three factors that made gay students feel safe and comfortable were a supportive faculty, the existence of a GSA, and school policies that protected the rights of all students. A combination of all these factors leads to a greater sense of belonging, which in turn often leads to more attention paid to schoolwork, higher grades and students who are more likely to go onto college, Lamont said.

For Robbie Schmicking, a junior at Auburn High School, those three factors have made the challenges of being a gay teen easier to shoulder.

Schmicking's school bag bears a rainbow patch with a slogan that says “I Don't Even Think Straight,” and a pair of rainbow shoelaces keep his black skateboarding shoes tied to his feet. The 17-year-old strides down the halls of Auburn High School with confidence, a confidence that he wasn't sure he'd find when he came out as a middle school student.

“It was hard to come out. You lose a lot of friends,” he said.

After revealing his sexuality to his peers, Schmicking fell into a state of depression. His schoolwork suffered, as did his personal relationships, many of which were on shaky ground to begin with.

Schmicking grappled with the idea that he was part of a sexual minority. Many of his friends drifted away simply because he was not like them.

“It was hard to grasp the concept that I was not considered normal,” Schmicking said. “But now that's what makes me stand out.”

He realizes that people refer to him as “the gay kid” for his frankness about his sexuality, but the soft-spoken boy who is still growing out of his adolescent ungainliness feels it's more endearing than anything. Because he is now so comfortable with his sexuality, he is able to help educate others about LGBT issues through the GSA he helped start last year.

Ashley Bowley, an open lesbian and classmate of Schmicking, enlisted the help of Beth Butera, a resources teacher at Auburn High School, to serve as the group's advisor. Currently, they meet two times a month, but their agenda isn't set yet. For now, Butera just wants it to be a place where students feel comfortable being themselves.

“It's a group for everyone regardless of sexual orientation,” Butera said. “The kids don't have to share unless they want to.”

In addition to Schmicking and Bowley, only one or two other students in the Auburn GSA identify as gay. The rest of the students identify as straight allies, a group that GLSEN's Lamont says is essential for the advancement of tolerance.

Lamont said most GSAs nationwide are dominated by straight-identified students who either want to support their gay friends or perhaps have a family member who is gay. This year, GLSEN helped a group of students organize the first-ever Ally Week, which encouraged students to become allies against bullying and harassment. Students at 400 schools registered to participate in Ally Week activities held in mid-September.

“Straight students are incredibly effective messengers to talk about the impact of ... bullying and harassment. This could be a big movement moving forward,” Lamont said.

Danielle Dusharm, 17, is Maddy Van Horn's best friend and co-organizer of the Acceptance Coalition at Cato-Meridian. She participates in the group to support her friend and to hopefully help break down barriers and misconceptions about gays.

After Van Horn came out, Dusharm worried that she might be gay, too. Students teased the two girls and often asked if they were dating.

“But I decided she's still my friend. She's still the same person,” Dusharm said.

Cato-Meridian's group may be small and not explicitly a traditional GSA, but Van Horn and her fellow students know it's an important group to help foster a safe school community. Even if all they do is make posters and participate in the National Day of Silence, Van Horn is happy with that.

She knows it's been a long journey just to get to this point and if the existence of this club helps other gay teens, the effort will be worth it.

“There's got to be people out there who are closeted or questioning,” Van Horn said. “I'd like to be able to reach them to let them know it's OK.”

Staff writer Lauren Ober can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 245 or

e-mail lauren.ober@lee.net