Is the World's First School for Gays Creating a New Sexual Apartheid?

Beginning of article

Byline: LAUREN MILNE HENDERSON

FROM the street, it could be just another anonymous Manhattan office block, flanked by bookstores, a Gap clothes store and coffee shops.

But step past the uniformed security guards into the freshly painted halls of Harvey Milk High and you can tell instantly that this is no ordinary innercity school.

It is the students - aged 14 to 19 - that mark the school out as different. Even among exuberant New Yorkers, they are loud, flamboyant and confident, their gestures extravagant and theatrical. One boy with strings of beads round his neck is posturing for a Russian TV crew, sinking into a deep curtsy and flirting with the interviewer.

These could be the Kids From Fame but they are no showbusiness wannabes.

Harvey Milk is the world's first publicly funded high school for gay and lesbian teenagers - and is at the centre of a raging …