An Analysis Of Dude You Re A Fag By C. J. Pascoe

Pascoe, in which they both explore sociological topics such as sexuality and gender in relation to American high school students. Though there are some differences, for example in terms of approach. In her book, Pascoe looks at the student body in general, while Woolley focuses on LGBTQ students. Specifically, Woolley’s research expands upon Pascoe’s chapter of LGBTQ violence by using more participants, and includes a much more detailed analysis compared to Pascoe’s. In this context, the two pieces of literature complement each other in a way that one can fill in any gaps that the other piece might have, and vice versa. Because of this, Woolley’s article is useful when analyzing the sociological concepts examined in Pascoe’s

C.J. Pascoe’s book, Dude You’re A Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School, examines masculinity and its connection with sexuality through an eighteen-month study at River High School. The goal of Pascoe’s study is to explain how teenagers, teachers, and schooling construct adolescent masculinity through idioms of sexuality. In addition, the book investigates the relationships between gender and sexuality as it relates to a major social institution. Throughout the book she asks how heteronormitive and homophobic discourses, practices, and interactions produce masculine identities through focusing on gender and sexual practices of the students, teachers, and administrators.

In the article “Dude you’re a fag; Adolescent masculinity and the fag discourse” C.J Pascoe addresses American adolescent boys learning to become masculine through the rejection of the fag identity. Masculinity and sexuality are embedded with the word faggot. This article focuses on the challenges of the relationships between homophobia and masculinity. This article points out three arguments that focus on homophobia demonstrating that the fag is not only an identity linked to homosexual boys, but an identify that can temporarily adhere to heterosexual boys as well and highlighting the radicalized nature of the fag as a disciplinary mechanism. Homophobia is usually used to describe ways that boys aggressively tease each other, girls do not harass each other this way and they often aren’t embarrassed in the same manner. Pascoe provides examples of how the fag discourse is radicalized and that failing at the masculine tasks of competence reveals weakness and femininity with sexual identity.

The traditional definition of masculinity include such qualities as independence, pride, resiliency, self control and physical strength. It can be change into qualities such as competitiveness, toughness, aggressiveness and power. For example, he says that the boy who doesn’t show these qualities and might be called a “fag”. The boy is most likely becoming aware of having feminine qualities.

[The Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) organization at my high school, which meets twice per month, generated a list of concerns that they shared with school administration. The focus was specifically about gender identity, the lack of support from school staff, and the daily scrutiny they face as a result of their sexual orientation and gender identity. Through collaboration with my colleagues it was evident that there had been an increase in teacher and student referrals surrounding gender identity. The feedback from GSA clearly identified that as a school we are not meeting the needs of our LGBT students and those struggling with sexual orientation. Members of the GSA clearly feel that teachers ignore negative comments like “gay” and “faggot” when they hear them in class, that teachers may not clearly understand gender neutral language, and that our Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) students do not feel safe and protected in school. Students needed support advocating for their right to use a restroom, correct pronoun, etc., requiring district, community, parent, and colleague

In the documentary, Noah, an 18 year old male to female transgender, many people in school ask question about her gender over and over again. Because of the harassment, many tend to drop out from school. “Harassment and bullying lead almost one-third of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning) students to drop out of high school” (T Salazar). For most of them dropping out from school means working at a lower wage. Or even worse they became homeless. Some people argue that we should create a separate school of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students. However critics say that it means of “segregation or shielding the youth from the real world.” Giving a class about LGBT people in schools might be the solution, since students then will be aware of it. Education about LGBT people teaches not only students, but also the whole generation. Therefore, schools should be the primary targets to teach the society about LGBT

Education is an important factor in life in order to thrive, but LGBT students face harassment in school due to their identity. According to a Human Rights report conducted in 2001, two million American students in the LGBT

As children we are taught to love and accept other, however, this is not always the case. More often than not we never taught to love those different from us, instead we go on through life only loving those who are similar to us, our unintentional intolerance remaining uncorrected. Growing up without that nurturing hand teaching us to live in a world that is far more diverse than it has ever been, leaves us as intolerant and uneducated adults, whether it is, or is not, by our own doing. In American society, time and time again, the failure to practice what is preached in our so-called values has been our only success. From the segregation of African-Americans to the oppression of Women, and now the fearful and sometimes violent discrimination against LGBTQ oriented individuals is the nation’s most recent atrocity. By standardizing the image of what love and the human identity is to a typical heterosexual individual, society is limiting the diversity of the nation and degrading the lives of so many valuable people. What’s more is the fact that this intolerance that is permeating all levels of society is almost centralized in the most significant aspect of any society: its schools. Schools everywhere are ignoring the high concentration of LGBTQ discrimination by their students and even faculty. It is extremely hard to believe that this kind of behavior is tolerated in schools, not to mention the fact of its being taught in churches all across the nation. With

It is clear that heterosexuality isn’t the norm. Instead of desperately attempting to exemplify the norm like Ms. Mac unfortunately did in her classroom, we must start addressing everyone on equal footing. Homosexuality is gaining momentum day by day in congress as state legislators continue to legalize gay marriage. As we start to see a shift in legislators it is time to start teaching equality in school by targeting our adolescent community. The only way to start to change the norm of heterosexuality is to target adolescents as the first come in contact with sexuality and gender. If we are able to reach kids from an early age, we may notice a dramatic shift in how we interact with each other. If river high choose to teach that there is no such thing as normal in terms of masculinity and femininity and teach students that we are all equal, students like Ricky would never face the hardships he did. While this isn’t an easy process, just the admission that Heterosexuality is not the norm is a

Supported by my high school principle, I researched the topic, created and presented a multimedia workshop to the Roslyn School District faculty discussing positive interventions for LGBTQ youth facing discrimination. The purpose of the training was to increase awareness of LGBTQ youth, to identify language that supports inclusion, and to offer interventions that address bias and discrimination in school settings.

In “We must celebrate gender and sexual diversity in our schools” published in The Conversation, February 16 2016, Lucy Nicholas argues that the current commentary on the LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex) community against schools and the SSC (Safe Schools Coalition) is extremely out of touch. Many of youths already understand their sexuality, whether it be heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual.

More than 25% of LGBT community are students in high school. Two-fifths of the LGBT student population have been beaten up because they are different. Because of the verbal and physical harassment 66% of these kids feel scared to attend school. The outcome of finishing school and getting the right learning skills is low when they feel unwanted where they are put to learn. Students in high school feel targeted and bullied because of their sexual orientation, therefore leading them to drop out of high school. Failure to get a GED results in failure to get a real job later on in life and succeed. More failure rises when the outcome of no GED produces a low amount of money, therefore contributing low amounts of money to the economy. A persons sexual orientation does not need to determine the type of education they will uphold (Salazar). In February of 2016 a bill was passed denying schools to have transgender bathrooms. The students would have to go the restroom with the gender they were born with. North Carolina also passed legislation that discriminated against LGBT community. House Bill 2 provided protection against discrimination for all communities except LGBT. Schools were banned from giving LGBT kids the permission to use the bathroom they sexually orientated with. Many workers were not happy about this and spoke against the bill. Later, Dennis Daugaard, repealed the law. The

Setting the proper context gives due diligence to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, (LGBT) community. It shows the great effort put forth in fighting for equality. Setting the proper context requires research of historical and statistical data, which are limited. A majority of the population wishes to suppress the efforts in achieving LGBT equality. Illustrating a historical overview creates a timeline of the major events leading up to the role colleges and universities have in the United States in bringing awareness to the social awakening concerning LGBT issues. By changing curricula, higher education raises awareness of its faculty and students. This provides a safer environment for LGBT students, and helps prepare heterosexual and cisgender students for the diverse world they will encounter after leaving their college/university.

Sexual orientation and gender identity are two things that members of the LGBTQ community often fear opening up about. They fear that they will be rejected or harmed because of who they are, and it is important that we make all aspects of our society a safe place for every human being, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. As School-based risk and protective factors for gender diverse and sexual minority children and youth: Improving school climate explained, “64% of students feel unsafe at school because of sexual orientation prejudice, and 44% feel unsafe at school because of gender expression” (American Psychological Association). Therefore, schools in America should be making a conscious effort to make their buildings a safe, comfortable place for members of the LGBTQ community. Schools can do several things to promote the

Along with verbal abuse, LGBTQ youth also experience physical violence in schools across the country everyday. Back in the 1980’s and 1990’s sociologists such as Joyce Hunter thought that much of the physical abuse happening towards the LGBTQ population stemmed from the stigma and fear that came from the AIDS epidemic that was spreading rapidly among the gay community in that time. In a study as recent as 2003, 60% of LGBTQ youth had reported being assaulted physically due to their sexual orientation (Chesir-Taran, 2003) These physical actions towards the gay and lesbian youth has caused many to fear going to school. In fact, many LGBTQ students avoid school in order to escape the physical harassment. This drop in attendance has detrimental effects on the student’s academics (American Educational Research Association).