Senior Spotlight: Brian Hamel
Student created support group, led charge against hate speech

By COURTNEY LAMDIN | Staff Writer
courtney@miltonindependent.com

While Brian Hamel’s peers were busy serving up ice cream sundaes and dishing out gossip hotter than the sweltering sun last week, he was trying to bring order to the talkative crew.

The occasion was the last meeting of Milton High School’s Gay-Straight Alliance, and Hamel, the unofficial club president and official club founder, waited patiently and cooked spaghetti as his friends chatted away.

  Meetings are always that chaotic, Hamel explained later that day at his parents’ home, but said he created the group with a specific purpose: To give gay teens resources he never had.

  Hamel, an MHS senior who will graduate this Saturday, came out as gay in April 2008, the end of his freshman year. Today, his peers say Hamel is the only 100 percent openly gay male in school, opening him up to ridicule. But they said he doesn’t care.

“If somebody were to say, ‘Brian, you’re really gay’ and mean it in a rude way, he’d be like, ‘Uh huh; I am,’” said Cecelia Simms, friend and GSA member.

MHS senior Meghan Reen followed up, “He’s gotten crap for being gay. He doesn’t care, and at this point, people realize he’s not going to pay any attention to it, and they just stopped.”

Hamel started questioning his sexual orientation around seventh grade, he said, and took online tests to determine it – the same kind of personality tests that answer “What kind of superhero are you?” and “What color is your aura?” In other words, tests that mean nothing.

Hamel went with the “bi-sexual” label until he met a boy and realized he had real feelings for him, he said. His first year of high school, Hamel came out to his mom in a meeting set up with his guidance counselor – on April Fools’ Day, no less. His parents immediately clued in, they said.

“[I said] ‘Let’s see – either he’s gay or someone’s pregnant,’” joked Hamel’s mother, Kim Hamel. “‘I’m voting gay.’”

Hamel’s father, Dennis Hamel, said he and his wife figured it out long before their son did and always tried to create a welcoming atmosphere. Their biggest concern was how Hamel’s peers would react and if he’d be safe at school – and as Hamel prepares to graduate and go to college, it’s still a worry, they said.

“He is who he is, and that’s fine,” Kim Hamel said. “Here’s been so lucky, and I just hope that’s because the world is moving forward.”

Think before you speak

Even if the world isn’t, Hamel thinks his peers in Milton are. Thanks to some of GSA’s campaigns, particularly one focused on eliminating slurs, his classmates have at least stopped using offensive language around him – and awareness is what he hopes for, he said.

In one campaign, GSA tackled one of the commonly used insults, “That’s so gay,” to mean stupid. Posters with similar phrases like, “That’s so jock that can finish a pass but not a sentence,” showed how offensive the saying is, Hamel said.

Joanne Davidman, high school teacher and GSA adviser, said this “Think Before You Speak” campaign caused some discomfort among students who felt the posters attacked other groups; Davidman said the reaction and resulting dialogue was exactly GSA’s point.

“They want people to talk and to think, to push people out of their comfort zone,” she said. “The end result was really great.”

GSA also visited middle school classrooms to talk about bullying and suicide. Hamel polled one class to see who had used these offensive terms. Every student raised his or her hand.

“It was really surprising how honest they were about it,” Hamel said. “It really hit them that people their age would be hurting themselves because of those things they were doing.”

Davidman said avoiding offensive slang is important as Milton students prepare to enter the real world and workplace; what may be acceptable here may not somewhere else, she said.

“To me, this is the first step in thinking beyond your world,” Davidman said. “It’s almost easier to change words than it is sometimes other things.”

High school principal Anne Blake said the school mostly deals with anti-gay language rather than physical aggression. Though Milton students are understanding, she said, there are still harassment claims filed, and that’s why GSA’s campaigns are important.

“It is about alliance,” Blake said. “It is about students mutually supporting each other regardless of their choices around their personal lives.”

Hamel said he’s only been bullied once, and the offender apologized to him later, on his own accord.

The only time Hamel felt discriminated against was when he was kicked out of his Boy Scout Troop after a parent called the then-Scoutmaster and said Hamel had come out on Facebook.

Scouts has a policy of not allowing gays – or girls, for that matter – membership into the group. This position was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 after a former Scoutmaster and Eagle Scout, the organization’s highest ranking, came out as gay.

Cliff Thorpe, Milton Troop 631 Scoutmaster for 10 years, said the policy was formed to prevent incidents of pedophilia within Boy Scouts.

“That’s where it came from – not people like Brian Hamel, who is really an upstanding kid,” Thorpe said, adding it was difficult to let him go, especially since Hamel was headed for Eagle Scout. “Once it was in my hands, my hands were tied. There was only one avenue I could go down.”

Despite losing a Scout like Hamel, Thorpe said he agrees with the organization’s policy: “Although kids like Brian are hurt by it, what it does is protect boys from predatory adults,” he said.

Thorpe said Hamel probably could have gotten away with being gay, but Dennis Hamel said lying wasn’t an option.

“We’ve been teaching him all these years: Be honest, be who you are, be up front,” he said.

Besides, Kim Hamel said, the free time away from Scouting gave Hamel a chance to start GSA, become active in theater and work as a teen assistant for the Milton Community Youth Coalition. He also got to work on the Milton Family Community Center’s garden, which was the original concept of his Eagle Scout project – just no badge to show for it.

It doesn’t bother the Hamels: “You make lemonade” out of these lemons, Kim Hamel said.

Moving on

Back at the last GSA meeting of the year, Hamel’s peers signed yearbooks and reflected on how much they’ll miss him and his impact on the school.

Though never officially club president, Hamel always had discussions with the administration, sometimes a difficult task, they said.

Reen was particularly upset that her write-up in the yearbook, which gave a shout-out to Hamel, was censored. It originally read, “Cheers for Queers,” but now just “Cheers” remains. Reen said she learned from Hamel that “queer” is an accepted term, in the right context.

Blake, speaking in general, said it all comes back to appropriate language: “Words can be triggers. The word, out of context, looks like it’s a slur,” she said.

For Hamel, education about gay issues – including accepted language – is a major part of combating ignorance.

“The more you educate, the less hate there will be,” Hamel said. “Most people hate something because they don’t get it.”

Davidman is sad to see Hamel graduate, saying it’s impressive at age 15 that he saw a need for a support group and safe space like GSA. Although Hamel didn’t get a principals’ award, he made an impact, she said.

“It’s just because he is who he is, and that is almost more important than anything,” Davidman said.

Hamel will begin a nursing program at Adelphi University on Long Island this fall. He worries that GSA will fade once its founder leaves town, he said.

He is optimistic, though, that several middle-schoolers have already expressed interest in joining – especially if they need a place to talk, just like he did at their age.

“I just want people to realize that there is always going to be help out there for them,” Hamel said. “You’re not alone at all.”