Taking educators to school

Wakefield High School was a war zone for Diane Difraia. She preferred sweats and t-shirts to hip-huggers and girly tops. On the athletic field she was so aggressive her coaches told her to play with the boys. In tenth grade Difraia came out as a lesbian to her family and close friends, but asked that they keep it a secret. But word somehow got out. In English class girls began calling her names and directing anti-gay slurs at her behind the teacher’s back. To this day Difraia, now 20 and a senior at Suffolk University, does not know if any of her friends told her secret or if students drew their own conclusions. But she knows how the rumors about her being a lesbian spread: through the power of the Internet.

"About two weeks into school a website was published on a Facebook, MySpace type of thing outing me," said Difraia, who said she does not know who created the page. "They created a site saying I was a lesbian, had tons of pictures on it, [and they] Photoshopped some of them. I don’t even know how they got all the pictures. ... Then in school I was in my English class and I think the third week, or fourth week, the people in my class started making fun of me, saying names. All the girls in class started saying stuff."

When she complained Difraia said the teacher reprimanded the harassers and gave them detention. But the harassment only escalated as the school year wore on. Difraia said girls would continue to harass and taunt her in and out of class, and boys asked her lewd questions about the mechanics of lesbian sex. Soon the attacks turned physical, and they took their toll.

"If I was outside they’d push me, shove me. If I was by myself people would try to get near me and do stuff. As time went on I was very much depressed. I was suicidal at home because I was trying to figure out what was going on," said Difraia. On the home front her parents were supportive, which is not surprising given that Difraia grew up with two moms. But Difraia’s outing coincided with her parents’ divorce, and she said they did not know the full extent of the harassment. But the mother with whom she lived knew that something was wrong when Difraia began skipping school. Difraia racked up more than 100 absences, and officials called her and her mother in to discuss the situation. Difraia said she and her mother asked the school to step in and take action against the harassers, but school officials told them there was little they could do. (Wakefield High Principal Elinor Freedman did not return a call to comment for this story.) Taking educators to school
Bay Windows, MA