Pat Tagliavia’s mind swirled with thoughts as he walked out of his house each day before school. He ticked off a mental list of responsibilities: classes, homework, after school activities. Like most other high school kids, he had a lot on his plate. But stepping outside the safety of his front door came at a price: inevitable, chilling fear.

“I had a reasonable expectation, pretty much every time I left my house, that I very well might be assaulted or worse,” Tagliavia said. “That’s kind of like Jim Crow-South hostile. And I kind of just grew to accept that.”

Tagliavia came out during his freshman year at West Auburn High. Most of his harassers thought he was gay. Actually, Tagliavia is a male to female transsexual; that is to say, a woman trapped in a man’s body. He resonates most with the term gender queer, adopting an androgynous appearance in high school.

There is no way to track the homosexual community in Auburn or how many citizens identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transsexual. Those in the community aren’t required to sport name tags broadcasting sexual orientation like scarlet “A”s, and a Gay Pride parade fails to march in conjunction with the annual Good Ol’ Days festivities. But the City is growing, and with growth comes a more evolved spectrum of diversity. In Auburn, the gay community is coming out.

Auburn, like any other city, accommodates people with widely varying opinions, belief systems and means of treating other people. One of the only tangible indicators of a GLBT revolution are the people in Auburn who go to work, interact with other residents and live their lives as members of the gay community.

Mike Grenz has seen a lot of changes in Auburn’s attitude toward GLBT people in the 10 years he has taught social studies at Auburn High. The school’s Gay/Straight Alliance club adviser for seven, he fights for the rights of all his students.

“Auburn is definitely a different place in the last decade from when I started to where I am now,” he said. “People are becoming a little bit more accepting of people despite their differences.”

Nationally, a mission of the Gay/Straight Alliance clubs is sponsoring the Day of Silence, an event to raise awareness about the suffering and repression of gays. The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, whose mission is to protect and equalize students regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, tracks what schools hold this event.

“Every single high school in Auburn have all to some extent participated in the Day of Silence in the last few years,” said Joe Bento, interim director of GLSEN Washington. “That tells me that there’s LGBT youth, or supporters of LGBT youth in the Auburn school district somewhere.”

For Tagliavia, supporters in Auburn ran few. Calmly, as if relating the plot of particularly mind-numbing novel, he paints a picture of his high school years in Auburn.

“I’m on a bus to school and people want to make my day difficult,” he said. “If I’m walking around to get groceries, if I’m trying to do homework, going to Green River. Things that normal people have to do to go about their lives, those things become really difficult when people are accosting you at every chance they get.”

Tagliavia moved to Tacoma last year. Pursuing his bachelors as a full-time student at the University of Washington – Tacoma, he has found a way to move on from the pain he suffered in Auburn. Tenderly, but with a fatigue rendered by years of damaging encounters, he recognizes that he is one of very few exceptions.

“For every person like me that does rise above, there are probably a dozen that don’t,” Tagliavia said. “I can see how in some of my friends’ lives and in the lives of people in my community, bigotry and prejudice and discrimination have really stunted their ability to succeed and to prosper.”

The other side

Debra Rexroat identified as straight for most of her adult life. Only after ending a 23-year marriage did the thought of mixing it up cross her mind.

“(A good friend said) ‘I really think that you need to consider women. I just detect this vibe from you.’ I was very open-minded. And he was right.”

Rexroat met her partner, also named Deb, at a bar in Kent 12 years ago. They live in a homey fixer-upper in downtown Auburn, dealing with unreliable contractors and planning for retirement. Basically, Rexroat says, “we’re just like everyone else.”

The couple has never been harassed or made to feel unwelcome by neighbors or others in the Auburn community. Like most older couples, they are demur about their relationship in public, maybe holding hands, striding arm in arm on an evening walk, but never much more.

“Older people tend to think as long as you’re a good neighbor, you walk your dog, you feed your cat, you mow your lawn, you take in your mail, (it doesn’t matter),” Rexroat said. “Our neighbors really don’t care.”

Rexroat’s experience in Auburn stands in glaring opposition to stories like Tagliavia’s. While he escaped his hometown at long last, Rexroat voluntarily moved to Auburn, maintaining a contented life with the woman she loves for 11 years.

“Auburn is definitely one of those places where the GLBT community is kind of struggling to win the hearts and minds of their neighbors,” Tagliavia said. “There are a lot of people who just aren’t okay with the GLBT community living in their community. And you have a lot of people that couldn’t care less.”

It’s difficult to determine who falls where. In schools, there are more resources for gay students, yet more outright hostility, while the adults in Auburn lack resources, and, in Rexroat’s case at least, experience little to no resistance. In Auburn however, high school students are more “out” and the most willing to open up about their sexuality. Many adults steer clear of ruffling feathers, preferring modesty on the subject.

It may be a function of age. Younger people, especially in middle and high school, have a tendency to ostracize those who show any sign of weakness or deviation from prescribed norms. Burned by this discrimination, many in the gay community leave soon after graduating. While adults are certainly capable of bullying and harassment, it doesn’t happen as often, or with such totality, as in the school system.

To bridge this gap, Rexroat wants more resources to help the gay community thrive and to end the cycle of trauma for GLBT youth.

“Auburn needs something outside of the school, some affirmative program. Not that everyone in Auburn has to absolutely embrace all their gay and lesbian neighbors, but something to teach people that this is not right, and this is what’s happening.”

Bento agrees.

“It’s about that community connection as well,” he said. “And educating that community.”

Intern reporter Rebecca Nelson, an Auburn High graduate, is a student attending the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism.