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Why Gay Students Don't Feel Safe
Imagine being a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender teen who loves singing in the school chorus.
Now imagine that experience being spoiled by a thoughtless, homophobic adult -- the music teacher who ought to be striving for harmony.
"My choir teacher constantly makes gay jokes," a 12th-grade Latino student reported in a new national study. "And he doesn't realize that he makes it so uncomfortable for us because it's choir. There's a large LGBT community in choir, and he sits there and cracks gay jokes all the time."
In its groundbreaking report, "Shared Differences," the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network captures what school feels like for America's LGBT youth of color.
The survey results paint a grim picture of kids so hardened to anti-gay remarks, shoving or worse that they don't even bother reporting the abusive incidents to a school official or parent.
These students rarely read about LGBT people in textbooks, nor do they learn about gay history or people in class.
What they too often learn firsthand is that school is a place where they can expect to be hurt -- emotionally or physically. The predictable but sad result is that many of these kids skip classes and see their grades drop.
GLSEN has found that the best antidote is to make sure schools have gay-straight student clubs, LGBT-supportive officials and textbooks, and anti-harassment policies that clearly include sexual orientation and gender identity.
The report, available at glsen.org, draws on data collected during the 2006-2007 school year on 2,130 GLBT students, ages 13 to 21, who are African-American, Hispanic, Asian, Pacific islander or multiracial. In addition, researchers listened to small groups of students.
Key findings:
- Biased barbs: More than 80 percent of LGBT youth of color often heard the phrase "that's so gay" or similar uses of "gay" at school to put people down. Two-thirds heard "faggot," "dyke" or other anti-gay name-calling.
In a particularly alarming finding, more than half of these students said they had heard teachers, principals or other adults at their school make homophobic remarks.
- Ignored cries for help: Only about one-fifth of students reported that school officials "most of the time" or "always" stepped in when anti-gay remarks were made in their presence.
Report co-author Joseph Kosciw says some educators are sending the message that anti-gay remarks "aren't just tolerated in school but acceptable."
Only about one in 10 LGBT students of color said other students stepped in when they heard anti-gay comments.
- Frightened: More than half of these students said they felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation; one-third said they felt unsafe because of how they express their gender.
Close to half of LGBT students said they had been physically harassed or assaulted in the past year in school because of their sexual orientation.
But this experience varied widely by race and ethnicity: 33 percent of LGBT African-Americans said they'd been subject to physical violence in school. Among LGBT American Indian students, the percentage was 54 percent.
- Who am I?: Only 14 percent of LGBT students of color said their schoolbooks include information about gay issues, and only 11 percent said their schoolwork has included positive portrayals of gay people.
Our educators are failing America's LGBT kids of color. And that's certainly nothing to sing about.
68 Comments so far
Show AllWe must all, whether you're straight, bi, or gay, defend the equal rights of all Americans...especially groups in society who r often stigmatized. While today it's gays who are ridiculed as they push for equal rights, in the past it has been catholics, blacks, irish americans, mexican americans, or jews. Who's next?
WE must all be aware of the theocratic agenda of the far-right. Authoritarian theocrats on the right aren't satisfied living their lives according to their religious/moral but want to remake our society as the power of government and law is used to restrict our rights and freedoms...especially whom we choose to marry and what women do w/ their wombs.
Misery loves company eh?
I believe in 'live and let live' as long as I am not forced to think and believe what someone else does. If I want to know, I can research or ask. I am not lgbt and have friends who are and in these days, I don't feel safe, because the elected personages that we send to represent us are quickly captured by the corporate lobbyists that are breaking the law in their 'noble' efforts to dictate behind the curtains how this country is to be run and to enrich themselves at the taxpayers expense with a totally complicit government catering to the corporate wants and needs. I don't feel safe.
I agree with your politics samosamo, but what does all of this have to do with homophobia?
I might argue with you and the other replier to my comments that feeling safe in this country and world is not a because of this or that dictum. If one feels unsafe because of a persausion I feel for them. But how does that person's unsafe feeling register as something a different about someone who fears for a safe future because of a government gone beserk and almost no economy left. If someone's affection for another of the same gender makes that feeling more or less safer what does the destruction of this country, that too many of us grew up in, to think that what is happening now is NOT as endangering of one's own safety than homophobia. And how can YOU pronounce on something that has been around for as long as homo sapiens have been walking or do you think that lgbt came upon the scene like people think the agricultural revolution happened in the next day when ancestral man started planting crops the next day. I feel less safe leaving my house to go to the store these days for any number of reasons, but I go out and face the day. If those who are lgbt are afraid for that reason, there is nothing I can say or do to ally their fears. As much as I know, there is an issue of people being harassed for any kind of ideology, but placing that against what is going down in this country, it is but a part of the whole problem.
I have learned by this mistake, as there are such sensitive feelings about the concise being and meaning of this article I will make it a point not to jump in where my views are made to be as offensive as the actual people that make those feeling unsafe, unsafe. But no matter how you look at it, feeling safe in this world is not a luxury anymore for what ever reason.
It's not really about being safe, it's about what you can expect from the authorities if/when something goes wrong. Take the worst case scenario, if you are murdered. For most people, if the offender is caught, their family can expect that a trial will happen and that the murderer will be hanged or tossed in jail for quite some time. With gays, they're raised in a hostile environment, when beaten; it's our own fault for being gay. If murdered, the murderer can and does claim 'gay panic' or some feeble defence and in most cases walks. If that murderer is caught at all, the police won't investigate a crime against gay people with the same dillegence as they do with straights (yes, matt sheppard did happen, but even then, had the murderers just left him in a ditch with a hole in his head, the cops would have filed it into their unsolved cases.).
Sure, there are some cranks who say 'kill all the liberals' on the radio. Then again. How many schoolteachers could get away with making rascist jokes in class? How many authority figures will get away with doing the same, some might condemn the politicians who argue that gays don't deserve to marry, or the priests who damn gays to eternal damnation, but few say that sort of thing shouldn't be tolerated at all.
The gay kid gets an early lesson on how much value their lives have in north american society. What amazes me is that so few of them - perhaps a third - successfully kill themselves before adulthood.
You sound like those poor white folks who say that it's rough for them too, not just for black folk. You are missing the point, every time you open your mouth. I may agree with you about some things, but not here, in comments for this article. And I make the same argument that Afro Americans make: unless you walk a mile in my skin, breeder, don't be so wise ass about something you can know little of.
Breeder, I haven't heard that term outside of sci-fi movies before now :-)
Too rough? I walk in my own shoes and truth beknown that when you walk in yours, I hope you feel safe because in this country that is all that is, a feeling. Go hunt for your utopia or open your eyes and realize you are in it already, but watch your back because whether you are gay, black, hispanic, oriental or anybody you are not safe.
********************
"Authoritarian theocrats on the right aren't satisfied living their lives according to their religious/moral but want to remake our society as the power of government and law is used to restrict our rights and freedoms...especially whom we choose to marry and what women do w/ their wombs."
********************
Heh,heh,heh. Sounds just a bit too similar to islam and their fundamentalist factions. As a matter of fact both are identical with the difference being both's idea of god and the ideology both written up by a human, a man or men most probably. Religion, that old tried, true and tested concept of human manipulation that somewhere down the road the idea of creating a belief to control large parts of the human animal without doing so with all the expense of aggressive means, such as war and fighing, which along with the controling of information to preserve a fealty of the people to the rigamaroll of a 'bonafides' of a myth never allows for much individual mental, spiritual or physical freedom. This makes me think that however this universe was created and whoever created it, could have taken the idea of individualism and gregarianism, which are opposites so to speak, to never provide for a static society or civilization. Somewhere or sometime people would, I think, realize what the affect of a tripling of the human population in the last 50 or so years really means. If they or we don't, it will just be that much more bewildering when nature will steps in to collect the bill on such outrageous 'civilizing' that we have done.
amen my brother
Samosamo, you take a paragraph that has very little to do with the subject of homophobia in the school, and make political statements about it. While I laud your politics, please keep to the subject, or give your comments on a more appropriate article.
In what class is gay history supposed to be taught in?
In a regular history class, you idiot! Geese.
What is the purpose of teaching 'gay history' in a regular history class? And where do you fit Liberace?
I think you are demonstrating purposeful ignorance. I'm a classroom aide in HS History classes and the LGBT backround of historical personages would be brought up just as their "race", religion, or sex is brought up about Frederick Douglas, Sequoia,Elizabeth Cady Staunton, Simon Bolivar, Golda Meir or or any other personage is discussed as being a shaper of thought, political action, social trends and how these characteristics of LGBT, race, religion,educational backround, sex, immigrant status contribute to influence that person and others in the movements, trends, expressions of policy through history. The purpose of discussing any of a historic personage's characteristics is to give insight and convey meaning to a student's own backround, life,and world. CONTEXT, in other words.
Unfortunately none of my history classes mentioned jack about LGBT people/issues.
hmm. at first mention, 'gay history' sounded like a curriculum. I have no problem with mentioning so-so was homosexual in a history class so long as its pertinent to the actual lesson. But again, what events taught in American history classes feature prominent homosexuals?
Your question de-values gay people themselves. The story of the emergence of minorities from oppression is itself central to American history. Black history is the history of black people. Women's history is the history of women. Gay history is the history of gay people. It's not just: "so-and-so was important for doing x and also happened to be a woman, or happened to be black, or happened to be gay." The story of America is, hopefully, the story of the enfranchisement of ever more, previously excluded groups within the processes and potentials of democracy. The fight that gay people have fought (beginning in America in the 19th century) to be enfranchised and included - seeking both formal legal equality as well as the right to our own dignity in society at large - is a story worthy of being studied on its own merits. Just like, for example, women's history.
Why is your question limited to American history?
Some famous gay, lesbian, and bisexual people: Plato, Socrates, Alexander the Great, Virgil (probably), Michelangelo, Leonard da Vinci, Alan Turing, Walt Whitman, Bayard Rustin, Virginia Woolf, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jane Addams, William Shakespeare (probably), Tchaikovsky, Marcel Proust, Franz Schubert, Sappho, the Emperor Hadrian, Edward II, Caravaggio, Christopher Marlowe, E. M. Forster, Arthur Rimbaud, Ernst Roehm (unfortunately), Roy Cohn (unfortunately), Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Hart Crane, Catullus, Roland Barthes, Julius Caesar, Francis Bacon (probably), Thomas Mann, Hilda Doolittle (H.D.), John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Lou Harrison, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, John Ashbery, Adrienne Rich, Paul Verlaine, Willa Cather, Wilfred Owen, King Louis XIII, Michel Foucault, etc.
Your reduction of gay and lesbian history to "Liberace" is just a cheap shot. You should be ashamed of your homophobia. The implication of your posting is that gay men are all frivolous, fluffy, over-stylized poseurs, and that the very idea of a history of such persons is an absurdity. You may as well call us all "faggots" and have done with it.
This article sounds like a paranoid report. First of all, relax. It's ok to tell jokes. It means that progress is coming. Second, why limit the debate to just same sex couples? Why is it that singles are feeling safer than same sex couples? Simple, they don't demand as much. Society mistreats singles just as much as they mistreat same sex couples economically speaking but I see no complaining there. Now, I'm happily married to my lovely wife but I'm not going to go beating down on a same sex couple living next door so long as they don't try telling us or my children to be homosexual. See, I'm fair and balanced.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
You're joking, right? If not, read your note very carefully and then try actually using your head. Try to demand a little more from the old grey matter.
Well, why not reframe the anti-gay remarks as the same as attacking people with disabilities?
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
Perhaps your reading comprehension skills are a bit rusty, or perhaps you just enjoy being contrary. I have a hard time relating your comment to the content of the article in any way. Did you even read the whole thing?
"Society mistreats singles just as much as they mistreat same sex couples economically speaking but I see no complaining there." A senseless statement and a spectacular non sequitur. The article relates a poll of "minority" LGBT youth and their experiences in their various school systems. Where you have taken that in your cogitations (if any there be) is beyond me.
Oh, and "fair and balanced" is no longer a positive assertion, if it ever was.
I am hoping he is being satirical.
Uh, I think I ate too much pizza and soda.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
Yes, I read it all but young boys and girls who are same sex don't get the kind of harassment as say a boy wearing tights even under his pants or a boy or girl who's not interested in teen dating. The same sex kiddies should do what I do every time someone laughs at me wearing tights under my pants, turn the other cheek. Oh, and those kids should not let anyone know that they're homosexual but just act like singles to avoid embarassment and harassing if they're not prepared to handle it.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
Not everyone thinks that lying about yourself is a healthy thing to do. Most kids in the article wouldn't dream of 'coming out', they are quite aware of the potential cost. Unlike yourself, they cannot 'remove' their gayness as you can take off your nylons. Some of them might be able to hide their orientation better than an exhibitionist can hide the fact he likes to wear women's undergarments, but that's not really what the article is talking about.
I think he just means that childhood teasing goes in all directions. As a kid, you can get teased for anything. If you're gay you'll get teased, and the other hand if you're a heterosexual geek, you'll get teased too. But if you get teased about a hot-button topic (i.e. race, religion, disability etc...) Then it's treated like a hate crime.
But sure, it's inappropriate for a teacher to tease like that, unless they have a special understanding with the student.
Another interesting aspect is the idea that to say "that's so gay" is an insult. It can be. But much like the word "n*gga" it's more acceptable for a gay person to say "that's so gay" than a heterosexual. In the short term, that can create a lot of confusion.
Also, there are fair uses. If I went to a burlesque show with gay and transvestite entertainers, and some asked me how it was, if I said "oh, well, it was really gay", I don't see that as offensive. The show could aptly be described that way. On the other hand, if a student is bad at sports and a teacher says "you're so gay" that is clearly derogatory.
Thanks joehope. I don't mind the jokes but I do draw a line at violence although I have to admit I don't mind my wife beating the daylights out of me and getting me to learn but that's the exception.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
Sure, kids can be teased about anything...but many gays have been murdered just for being gay, or others were killed because someone just *thought* that person was gay. I have yet to hear about anyone murdered because their level 8 sorcerer just kicks so much ogre ass.
Uh, wearing nylons is not wearing women's garments. There are tights for men. Look it up. As for the kids coming out and risking abuse, I don't expect them to but they'll just have to learn to turn the other cheek. I may goof up in life like that fat kid Louis Anderson, Garfield the fat cat, or even Family Guy's Peter Griffin only to have my wife beat the daylights out of me and sometimes cry about my screwing up but I still learn, turn the other cheek, and then kiss and make up. I know it feels tough at first but, eh, once you get used to it, well, you know. But hang in there. I'm starting to see the picture. Maybe it's all that pizza and soda I scarfed down last night.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
Did you read the part of the article that mentions PHYSICAL ASSAULT?
I don't approve of the physical violence. Thanks for getting me to clarify.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
Now I know you're just being arch. I've read your comments long enough to have a sense of your style and usually appreciate your input. But I suggest this topic warrants a bit less cheek.
(replying to Terrance, 3:37pm; comment nesting strikes again)
Arch? Why, I'm just being consistent here. Look, people get discriminated for looking or acting different and I sympathize with them and respect their differences. I'm just saying the gay thing is being over-dramatized while there are others with similar differences undergoing exclusions as well. Uh, maybe I'm missing something here.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
It is true that most of us have idiosyncrasies that might at some time be criticized or ridiculed by someone else, and it is true that it is good to learn to shrug off that sort of thing and not let oneself be overly bothered by it. But why do you conclude from this bit of simple wisdom that it is wrong to try to end the millenia-old prejudice against gay men and lesbians, which has destroyed countless lives and continues to be to be extraordinarily powerful, both in the U.S. and around the world? The point is to create a more just, more humane society, in which differences of race, gender, sexuality, religion, and so on are tolerated and affirmed, a world in which majorities do not always tyrannize over minorities.
I thought civil unions are taking care of this. So what's missing in civil unions that's needed?
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
Huh? What does civil unions have to do with this? Civil unions aren't going to prevent beatings. Civil unions are not going to prevent being sacked from jobs.
In any case, civil unions are often not fully binding. A hospital, a doctor / medical professional, in a medical emergency, can choose to ignore a partner in a civil union as "next of kin", to use one example.
And a very important example it is.
I don't think anyone is saying that there shouldn't be efforts made to teach kids to peacefully and politely co-exist. But it's hard when some groups get highlighted for protection over others.
How many nerds do you think would respond that they have been taunted or physically assaulted in high school? How many overweight kids? How many many immigrants? Etc... Mistreatment of any of these groups is something schools should work to overcome. But the resources of a school are limited and children learn most of their bigotry at home or from their peers (hopefully not from teachers).
So how should schools deal with this? If they call a general assembly every time a gay person gets teased or assaulted, then the treatment should be equal for other groups, i.e. a person is teased about their religion, their economic level, or their choice of clothing. But that would just be too many assemblies to call. So the result is similar to hate crime laws. If you insult a fat kid, it's perhaps frowned upon or just ignored. But if you insult a gay person, it's a hate crime.
Also, if you are discussing the treatment of gays in school, geography and socio-economic level are important. Gays are treated quite differently at a high school in Marin, CA vs. a high school in Little Rock, AR. In Marin, gay rights issues might be considered cool or even trendy. In Little Rock, there's probably more of a stigma against gays. So if a gay person got teased in Marin, is it really such a big deal if the person doing the teasing then gets ostracized by the majority of the students at the school? Whereas in Little Rock, it would feel much more oppressive if the majority of the school supported the teasing.
Where you see consistency, I read false equivalence. And I do consider telling the "same sex kiddies" to suck it up an inappropriate use of humour, since I know you are not mocking those who genuinely suffer. But that is the line you are walking.
one of the purposes for writing this column was to let gay kids know they're ok and don't have to become heterosexual or kill themselves.
for peace and sustainability
From the article,
"Close to half of LGBT students said they had been physically harassed or assaulted in the past year in school because of their sexual orientation.
But this experience varied widely by race and ethnicity: 33 percent of LGBT African-Americans said they'd been subject to physical violence in school. Among LGBT American Indian students, the percentage was 54 percent."
Yes, GLBT people demand so very much. They demand that they do not get assaulted and beaten.
How very demanding of them.
I don't approve of the physical violence. Thanks for getting me to clarify.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
Adolescent students will always be ass holes. The teachers should be fired immediately upon making homophobic remarks or jokes. Only in f**** America (or perhaps Iran or Saudi Arabia) would you even have this problem!
When I was a kid in school, everything was in the closet, and it was "sissy" for those of us unfortunate enough not to be gay wrestlers or football players. I can't see that it's too much better now that students are identified as gay or want to be, and have to suffer sh**t from their teachers and bullying from their fellow classmates. Every school should have a gay/straight club where students can learn to understand each other. This is at least as important as learning the three Rs. I just can't believe gay intolerance is still going on in the 21st century in our schools. When are the ignorant creeps of this land going to grow up?
From what I've heard and seen, the problem isn't just in f**** America. It's a problem for gay youth (and some adults) the world over. The ignorant creeps will grow up when they have to worry much more about putting food on their own tables than they do about who's putting which sausage where.
maybe....i think it's more likely that scapegoating will increase as economic insecurity increases. certain groups (e.g., immigrants right now) make easy targets.
My point is that in this country you hardly need economic insecurity for racism and biggotry to raise its ugly head. We are supposed to be the leader of the 'free world', and yet we are being led through the nose by self ignorant 'christians' who believe the world was created 5000 years ago and that Africans have smaller brains and that faggots should be burned. As a 68 year old faggot who's been out for 50 years, I'm damned tired of it. And by the way I'm really aghast at those black 'christians' who were foolish enough to vote for prop. 8. Next time you'all need someone, don't look to the gay community.