Last week, one private school became the nation’s first public high school for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students.

Harvey Milk High School, located in New York City’s Greenwich Village, made the switch following renovations; a bold move that is an opportunity for the homosexual community.

But not everyone agrees with me, or the Board of Education’s decision for the school to go public.

A New York state senator even filed a lawsuit last month to stop the school from reopening, accusing it of discriminating against heterosexuals, according to an article last week in the Chicago Tribune.

In fact, several heterosexual students have attended the high school.

The article quotes homosexual youths who consider the school an opportunity to express themselves, a chance to make friends who understand them and a break away from what they see as harsh discrimination.

Critics just call it “Homo High.”

At first, I questioned the idea of a gay school. I attended a Catholic high school and it left me feeling like I had been through a sheltered education when I left for college. I felt like I really hadn’t been made ready for the world as I went from period to period in a white, middle-class, seemingly heterosexual bubble.

I liked the classes and the teachers, but I never went through a day without someone calling me a “fag.” At the time, I was pissed I was gay. I didn’t understand why, and I’m not sure going to a gay high school would have changed that. But I never faced hostile discrimination.

I questioned whether Harvey Milk would keep its students in a bubble, whether it would educate them about the real world; a world not only of gay bashing and ridicule, but one of people who are nothing like them, but accept them completely anyway.

Still, the Chicago Tribune article said the high school was fulfilling a need. Statistics show homosexual youth are more likely to commit suicide. At Harvey Milk, students are asked how many times they’ve attempted to commit suicides, instead of if they’ve ever tried it.

Some students can now go to school happy.

Gay students aren’t the only ones who are harassed, however.

I would cheer for any high school that could stall discrimination for its students, while not discriminating against others at the same time.

Soon there could be schools for all the overweight kids, for the dorks, for the “four-eyed, gum-chewing, braces-wearing geeks” of the world who just don’t seem to fit in. There will be a school for everyone who ever had a bad experience at McDonald’s, or for everyone who felt like their teacher purposely never called on them in class.

But I would like to see them try to prove a need to create a high school just for them. People are often discriminated against for aspects they will outgrow. They could lose weight, or go from dorky to cool in one semester.

But being gay is something you are for a lifetime.

Harvey Milk is named for a gay San Francisco city supervisor who was murdered in 1978. His memory lives on in the about 100 students who attend high school there.

The school expects enrollment to increase to 170 by 2004.