"Hello everyone and welcome to New Directions!" Emma said perkily.
"Hello!" a brunette girl responded eagerly. Everyone else stared at her.
"Okay. Um, I'm Emma, I'm the main counselor here, but you'll be meeting with Will and Sue sometimes too, especially the boys. I'd like for each of you to tell the group your name and why you are here. Specifically, it's important for you to say out loud, that you have a problem, before you deal with it."
"So, what, this is like AA, Hi, I'm Santana, and I'm gay." Santana asked in a mocking tone.
"Yes, actually, that's perfect. Though if you'd care to elaborate in addition, that would be fine. And we prefer that you use the term homosexual, instead of gay. If there's anything else you would like to tell us about yourself, like anything you like to do, now is a great time." Emma said, seeming not to notice Santana's sarcasm. "Why don't you start, Santana?"
"Okay yeah, I'm Santana, I'm homosexual, and I'm here because my stepmom caught me making out with a girl and she flipped out. When I'm not being gay, I'm in glee club. And I think gay is okay." She said defiantly.
"I'm Tina, I'm bisexual, and I think this is silly because really, I think everyone's a little bisexual. I think my parents mostly don't like the way I dress, but it's who I am." A girl dressed in goth clothes with short spiky hair said next.
"I'm Rachel, I'm Jewish, and I'm a homosexual." The brunette perky girl said.
"Kurt, actor, singer, homosexual."
"Um, I'm Blaine, I'm also a performer, and I'm gay." Emma gave him a look. "I mean, homosexual."
"I'm Dave, I play football and hockey, and I'm a homosexual and I really want to get better because there is no way the guys on my teams would be okay with it."
"That's great, Dave." Emma said encouragingly. Dave clearly wanted to get better. And Tina was only bisexual, those were the easiest to help back onto the right path.
"I'm Mike, I'm a dancer, and…I don't know, I guess I'm gay. I never really thought about girls or guys, but my parents think I'm gay because I dance, and they're usually right. So I just want to get this fixed too, like Dave."
"I'm Sebastian, and I'm not sure why you losers think you are going to get straight, because newsflash, you aren't. Maybe you can learn to fake it. Me, I just need to learn to fake it until my dad pays for college. Oh yeah, and I'm a homosexual." He said with a sneer.
Brittany was the last person in the circle, sitting next to Santana who had started it.
"Um, well I'm Brittany, and I shouldn't even be here. I'm not a homosexual. Everyone just thinks I am."
"That's a perfectly normal place to start, Brittany." Emma said. "Why don't we discuss the issues in your intervention."
"Well. I'm a vegetarian."
The group nodded.
"What, I love animals! I have a pet cat named Lord Tubbington. Why would I eat animals if I love them? I don't think that's about sex at all."
"Go on, Brittany, what were some other issues in your intervention?" Emma asked.
"I have pictures of women around. I make out with girls at parties."
"And you think that's normal?" Rachel asked.
"Sure. I…never really thought about it."
"Have you ever had a boyfriend?" Emma asked.
"Yes. For two years, we've been going steady. I really love him. He's smart, and popular."
"He's got the biggest dick I've never seen." Santana interrupted.
"Well, have you ever…had sex with him?" Rachel asked.
"I'm in the celibacy club." Brittany said haughtily. Quinn had made her join with her, freshman year.
"It's really easy to be a prude when you're not attracted to him, isn't it?" she replied with a grin.
"He's very cute." She said, confused. "Everyone says we look cute together, because we're both blonde. And he plays football, and I'm a cheerleader. I'm not like all of you! Everyone reads cosmo. Everyone looks at other girls, all the time."
"But you only assume that they're thinking what you're thinking when they look. But they're not." Dave pointed out.
Brittany thought about it. Thought about how she felt when she looked at other girls, thought about how she looked forward to parties where she could get drunk and make out with other girls.
"I thought everyone had those thoughts." She said softly. "I just want to be normal."
"Then you admit you aren't normal." Emma jumped in. "So why don't you admit you're a homosexual?"
"I'm a homosexual." Brittany said. She burst into tears.
"Congratulations, everyone, you have all taken your first step in a new direction!" Emma clapped. "Will has clothes for everyone. You can go put them on, and have some free time until lunch, okay?"
Will passed out garish clothes – blue shirts, pants, and ties for the boys, and pink shirts and skirts for the girls.
"At least the clothes are cute." Rachel commented.
Tina, the goth girl, groaned.
The first two weeks of training were focused on "rediscovering your gender identity." Most of the girls had a relatively easy time with this. Tina was the only one who fell over while walking in high heels and a skirt. None of them had trouble with the household chores that Sue and Emma apparently thought were women's work, although Santana protested the entire time on principle.
"This is racist. Just because I'm Hispanic you think I should be vacuuming floors." She huffed.
"Um, we're all vacuuming." Rachel countered. "Well, except for Brittany, because she keeps getting tangled in the cord." She corrected. The blonde girl was vigorously attacking the floor with a broom instead.
"Not the point! I don't plan on doing my own housework. That's what maids are for." She grumbled.
From what they heard at meals, the boys were having a harder time with it. Kurt was surprisingly adept at car repair, but aside from that was utterly failing at being "butch," and Sebastian, Blaine, and Mike were only a bit better. Dave was doing fine, but was openly wondering how this was supposed to make him straight since he was already a pretty masculine guy.
"One of the most important things in understanding how not to be a homosexual is understanding why you have those feelings in the first place. For instance, some homosexuals were molested as children. Others had inappropriate interests or attachments to parents. We call this a root. Does anyone have an idea what their root might be?" Emma asked.
The group looked around, seemingly waiting for someone to announce childhood molestation. Nobody did.
"Okay, well, how about an early memory of homosexual feelings? Or an early instance of gender-inappropriate behavior?"
Dave turned red and looked down. Simultaneously, Blaine spoke up.
"My brother used to dress me up like a girl for make-believe games."
"That's perfect , Blaine, you've got the idea." Emma praised him. "David, did you have something to share?"
"Well, um. I joined Pop Warner football when I was 9. We practiced at the middle school field and after practice, we would all shower together. I um, I liked that. I think that's my root. Also, it might be why I was so interested in football."
Mike spoke up. "I guess maybe mine's just dance in general. Boys don't usually do it. I was usually the only boy in my classes, and I was mostly friends with girls growing up."
Nobody else had any great ideas, so Emma let them go early, with the provision that they continue thinking about what their root might be.
"You just have to dig down into those painful memories, and you'll find it!"
Over the next few days, many possible roots were tossed around, along with many stories of the first time they had been attracted to someone of the same sex.
Tina started spouting off genetic ideas about how animals could be gay, which Brittany had not known and she made a note to ask Lord Tubbington if he might be gay when she got home. Tina also thought maybe it was because her favorite color as a child had been black, and her mother had let her get away with never wearing skirts.
Kurt's mom had died when he was a child, and he wondered if not having a mother figure had made him gay.
Santana jumped on that idea and decided that hers was when her mother had left her and her father to put her career first. Also, she went to an all-girls school.
Rachel wondered if it was her obsessive love for Barbara Streisand, who she claimed was her idol, and also a gay icon.
By the time their next session happened, everyone but Brittany had a root that was pronounced acceptable by Emma. Somehow, even Sebastian's, which was just that he was born in France, passed muster. Brittany didn't understand that one. Were all French people gay? Yet despite the low bar, she literally couldn't think of anything. Emma told them all that they would discuss it more when their parents came, and told Brittany in particular to come up with something.