Teen Makes Mark With Gay Rights Project

By Kati Phillips

Gian Santos says he was ranked No. 1 his freshman year at Oak Forest High School, but by the time he graduated this spring he was barely in the top 20 percent of his class.

His grades slipped to an acceptable A-B average because another, some might say unlikely, passion took over his life. Santos, with his collared shirts and wire-rimmed glasses, got hooked on a national history competition.

His research on the declassification of homosexuality as a mental illness consumed 200 hours of his personal time, connected him with teen history buffs across the country via the Internet and earned a fifth-place medal in College Park, Md., in the national competition.

And Santos, 18, the son of Philippine immigrants, used his research to come out as gay.

The process was safe, he said, because people don’t always assume a student’s identity reflects his project. But, at the same time, most teenage boys would not choose a gay rights topic unless they had a vested interest.

“It was a subtle approach and an interesting approach, and it was a way of making a mark for the LGB [lesbian-gay-bisexual] community because there are not many projects on them at the national finals,” he said.

Hooked on history by sixth grade

Santos was born in the Philippines and moved to Chicago’s North Side in July 1997. His parents wanted their son and daughter to have better job opportunities when they graduated from college.

English language was not emphasized in Santos’ primary school back home, so he found himself lost in an English-only fifth-grade class at a Catholic school. He taught himself to read a favorite of his peers, “The Chronicles of Narnia,” very slowly and deliberately, with a dictionary at his fingertips.

By sixth grade, Santos was fluent and enrolled in a Chicago public school that required students to compete in the Chicago Metro History Fair, which bills itself as a rigorous academic program for 20,000 sixth- to 12th-graders of different socioeconomic and academic backgrounds.

That started his love for researching social movements and competing against his city, state and national peers. He continued on his own time after his family relocated to Oak Forest the second semester of his freshman year.

Senior year, he examined the debate about homosexuality as mental illness, choice or biological predetermination.

His research focused on Frank Kameny, who was fired from working for the U.S. government because he was gay. Kameny led a grass-roots movement that in December 1973 succeeded in having homosexuality declassified as a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association.

Santos’ framed exhibit on Kameny earned top honors at the Chicago finals and the Statewide Expo held in Springfield in May. He placed fifth at the National History Day contest held in Maryland this month. Though he had made it to the national finals several years, this was the first time he placed.

Santos was recently appointed an OUTfront coordinator for Amnesty International and was named an honorary “30 under 30” gay Chicagoan by the Windy City Times last week. In July, he is heading to Washington, D.C., for a summit for future world leaders.

This fall, Santos will pursue a sociology-anthropology major at Loyola University.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-gayteen28.html