Gay Briarcrest alum said private school’s LGBTQ stance nearly cost him his life – Commercial Appeal
He starred in school plays and led student organizations — one of them a community service club that taught him how to make a career out of helping others.
But it takes a minute for Kevin Dean to remember those parts of high school.
“It’s all under the weight of feeling othered,” he said.
Dean started going to Briarcrest Christian School in first grade and graduated in 1997. He was bullied for being gay, though he never told anyone until his senior year, when he entrusted a small group of friends with the identity that could get him expelled from school.
The bullying pushed him to intense suicidal thoughts.
“I had really decided, ‘I’m probably not going to live very long,'” Dean said.
Dean is among a bevy of alumni and community members speaking out about the private school’s policies for treating queerness as an offense worthy of expulsion, practices the group points out can cause physical and mental harm to kids. The policy received broad attention in recent days after the school circulated a flyer inviting parents to workshops about “a gospel response to culture’s gender theory.”
LGBTQ youth are at increased risk for other negative health outcomes, and are more likely than other young people to die by suicide, particularly if they are transgender, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and The Trevor Project, an organization dedicated to ending suicide among LGBTQ youth.
Kids who have parents that reject their identity are particularly at-risk for depression, substance abuse and risky sexual behavior.
Hosting parent workshops to encourage rejecting LGBTQ identities is therefore harmful, and could be at the cost of lives, Dean and others say.
“I wish I remembered my time at Briarcrest as a time when I felt loved and accepted,” Dean said. “And I felt the exact opposite. And that wasn’t just because I was bullied. That was because of what was being said and how it was being said. I’m never gonna agree that being gay is a choice. But you know, you can have your feelings about something, but Christianity is how you respond to things and how you act and how you treat others.”
For Dean, suicidal thoughts worsened when a visiting pastor repeated something a teacher had said: AIDS, a deadly stage of HIV infection that has killed millions of people since it was identified as an epidemic, stigmatizing gay men in the 1980s, was “God’s punishment upon gay men.”
“There’s something extremely toxic about being in an environment where you’re being bullied for something that is really beyond your control,” Dean said. He remains grateful for a loving family, a small group of friends and some teachers during that time.
Flyer part of schools’ anti-LGBTQ policies, critics say
The school planned to hold two parent workshops Tuesday, promising “an enlightening look into the craziness our culture is throwing at our kids” and training on how to “respond biblically.”
“God Made Them Male and Female. And It Was Good,” begins the flyer, which spread quickly across social media in recent days. “A Gospel Response to Culture’s Gender Theory.”
The school, which in response to criticism said it “teaches and upholds the biblical principles found in Scripture,” codifies the principles in student policy. LGBTQ youth or advocates can be expelled.
“…this isn’t news in any way,” Molly Quinn, executive director of OUT Memphis, said of the flyer for parent training. “It’s not an insidious or secretive dialogue that they’re having. On their website, they make it explicit that the school not only reserves the right but will really kick out any students from Briarcrest that engage in any LGBTQ+ activity.”
Briarcrest can deny tours, applications or continued enrollment to people who don’t conform to the Biblical Principles Policy or who cause controversy, and the decision is at the sole determination of the school.
Among the seven specific violations is “heterosexual, homosexual or alternate gender identity sin,” which cites eleven verses of Scripture. The other six violations cite between one and three parts of the Bible.
Dean was afraid of the policy during his time at the school. Other alumni remember students being punished, too.
Many of the violations to the school’s biblical principles are spelled out again under the “major misconduct policies” of the school’s code of conduct, which includes a section about LGBTQ students.
According to the code, students and parents can also be disciplined for advocating for acceptance of LGBTQ people. There are no tuition refunds for expelled students.
The policies can be harmful, Quinn said. The rhetoric can empower other students to bully one another and contributes to increased risk of physical and mental health problems research has shown LGBTQ youth face.
“Statistically and in practice, these kinds of policies more or less condone parents kicking their kids out,” she said.
Briarcrest Christian School, now located on a sprawling campus in Eads, opened in the 1970s. It has garnered national attention in recent years for its role in the story behind “The Blind Side” film and for its former football coach Hugh Freeze.
The school has said it was founded for religious reasons and has denied being a “segregation academy,” a descriptor given to private schools that opened during integration allowing de-facto segregation for paying white families.
“Briarcrest has consistently maintained that it was founded for the purpose of providing Christian education,” Beth Rooks, the school’s spokeswoman, told Chalkbeat in 2019. At the time, she said 20% of the school’s students were non-white.
A statement in response to the flyer concluded that “as our culture attempts to silence biblical truth, we will proclaim the hope of the Gospel.”
“We will continue to strive to teach our students what is true and just in light of God’s word,” the statement said. “We love people enough to tell them the truth about biblical sexuality.”
Reducing a complicated issue to something simple is only hurtful to kids, said Dean, angered by Briarcrest’s response.
In doing the lecture series for parents, Dean, the former student, wonders what Briarcrest hopes to accomplish.
“When I think about it, I think about the result being the kid sitting at home while his parents are there,” Dean said. “Is he gonna pick his dad’s gun or his mom’s pills?”
“That’s what I think the end result can often be,” Dean said. “And there’s statistics to show that…Do they think they’re going to convince kids not to be gay? Is this gonna make themselves feel better?”
Alumni want LGBTQ students to know: ‘It gets better’
While the strict interpretation at Briarcrest has pushed some alumni away from church, the Christian view is not monolithic.
“(Briarcrest) can dig in their heels as much as they want, but at the end of the day, it’s going to hurt the kids, and it’s not going to get them what they want,” Dean said. “They’re not going to convince children or teenagers, that they’re not gay. And (the kids) might be able to do that for a while, but that will…fester inside of them and will hurt them long term.”
Some private schools are taking advantage of the ability to craft their own educational policies and practices and have sought training resources from OUT Memphis, the local group, Quinn said.
On the one hand, schools can implement practices without fearing legal action, but on the other hand, private schools can choose to be forward-thinking in serving students, she said.
“It’s a sad kind of irony about what they’re doing,” Quinn said of Briarcrest.
Locally, at least one other private school has made an overture related to the matter, if an indirect one: A photo caption describes a “welcoming” shot of a rainbow over the school’s entryway.
Dean’s relationship with Briarcrest is complicated. It’s not sour grapes, he said, but a hopefulness that the school can do better. Kids at the school should know they can be successful — Dean is chief executive officer in nonprofit management and holds a doctorate — and that many people are rooting for them, he said.
Tony Fielding graduated from Briarcrest in 2016. Although he left nearly 20 years after Dean, the two share similar experiences, but also similar messages of hope for LGBTQ youth.
Fielding has a distinct memory of the historic Supreme Court ruling from the summer of 2015 that legalize same-sex marriage. The day had been a joyous, celebratory one for millions of LGBTQ people across the country.
Chapel, usually held on Wednesdays, was rescheduled for the Monday right when students returned to Briarcrest from the summer, Fielding remembers. Sessions ran longer than the typical hour for the next month, as the school talked to students about same-sex marriage. It hurt most when a teacher he trusted, who helped him balance his grades and school sports and band, gave the sermon.
“To have a teacher turn on you, because you’re gay,” Fielding said. “…I didn’t realize that there was ever a problem with me being the way that I was.”
“You never know what you’re going to say that really affects people and hurts them,” he added.
It was also during those sermons that Fielding remembers school leadership bluntly stating the school’s policies: LGBTQ students and allies could be expelled.
“What was I to do other than to, you know, force myself back into the closet?” Fielding said.
Fielding, Dean and other alumni pointed to stories in the Bible of Jesus’ love and acceptance.
Fielding wants students to know that “it does get better. And there are different types of Christians that do love and accept you for who you are. And you know, there’s a whole community out there that loves you and cares about you,” he said, a catch in his breath.
- The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24 hours, 7 days weekly in English and Spanish. The phone number is 1-800-273-8255
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has LGBTQ youth resources for kids, parents and schools. Find them online at the department’s website.
- The Trevor Project also has educational resources and counselor access for LGBTQ youth. People visiting the website from a computer can press the “escape” key quickly three times to close the webpage.
- Locally, people can seek resources from OUT Memphis.
Laura Testino covers education and children’s issues for the Commercial Appeal. Reach her at laura.testino@commercialappeal.com or 901-512-3763. Find her on Twitter: @LDTestino