Creating Safe Places

[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

The Bullying Policy has been introduced around the world which, according to the 2014 observations , rates of bullying vary across studies from 9% to 98%. An observation of 80 studies analyzing bullying involvement rates for both bullying others and being bullied for 12-18 year old students reported an estimate rate of 35% for traditional bullying involvement and 15% for cyberbullying involvement (Modecki, Minchin, Harbaugh, Guerra, & Runions, 2014). This means the Bullying Prevention Policy affects million of students nationwide due to the programs created. More specifically, females face a higher indication of bullying victimization than males do. To explain, high percentages of each gender are faced with the aggressive acts of violence, making it extremely hard to perform well in the school environment. Furthermore, as many as 93 percent of students hear derogatory words about sexual orientation at least once every day at school or in their community (violencepreventionworks). Negative name calling and harassment about sexual orientation can be disrespectful to all students. For an example, 3 out of 4 students who are bullied/harassed with such remarks are not identified as lesbian, gay,

GSA groups have been around since the 1980’s and according to the Gay-Straight Alliance Network there are currently over 4,000 school based groups throughout the United States (Currie, Mayberry, and Chenneville, 2012; Tommey, Ryan, Diaz, and Russell, 2011). GSA groups came out of the Gay Rights Movement during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Adolescents identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) or align within the context of this spectrum have been victims of bullying, discrimination, prejudice, persecution, and hate within the school system. For one decade, between 1999 and 2009, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) in the United States asking students to describe their high school milieu. According to the findings, 61% of LGBT students feel unsafe, 72% report hearing degrading comments, 85% are verbally harassed, and 40% are physically harassed (Fetner, Elafros, Bortolin, and Drechsler, 2012). The statistics for minority high school students including Latinos and African Americans had slightly elevated rates in both verbal and physical harassment. It was not until the realization that LGBT adolescents, like other adolescents, spend the majority of their time within the confines of the American public education system and suffer, did acknowledgement of creating a safe space for LGBT students develop (Toomey et. al, 2011).

You see someone being bullied at school due to their sexuality. What do you do? What can be changed to fix this? All men are created equal? The LGBTQ community should not be experiencing bullying or anytime of harassment during school, parents of those who are LGBTQ should not abandon their child and lastly the LGBTQ community should not be discriminated by not allowed them to enter a public place.

When 11% of Australia’s population as a member of the LGBT community, having 61% of these people facing homophobic abuse is a real issue and it needs to be solved now. Since it’s first appearance in 2010, the safe schools program has helped gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender kids to feel acceptance and combat against homophobic bullying. Although the ‘Safe Schools’ program has showed extremely positive outcomes when it came to reduction of bullying and overall happiness of students, however, the current Australian Government

The article, “We must celebrate gender and sexual diversity in our schools”, published by The Conversation in 2016, written by Lucy Nicholas argues that the Safe School’s Coalition is out of touch with the science of sex and gender identity. Essentially, Nicholas claims that the Safe Schools Coalition needs to be updated and modernized to suit young LGBTI students. She explains that the only way to effectively tackle homophobic bullying is to go beyond tolerance and actually change the attitude of the wider school population.

The common thought has been bullying is a normal reaction to school. Studies show that bullying is the result of underlying issues. Traditional bullying was a common thug trying to make a place for themselves, whereas now it has gone to new heights, it now includes physical trauma and even death. We find that bullying affects the bully as well as the victim. The victims tend to have more problems in school with attendance and achievements within the academic world. This is not just about the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students, it involves all students that don’t fit societies idea of normal then the person gets bullied. The amount of attention given to this issue is a direct result of this escalation in events within the school system from grade schools to universities. The most pressing problem with getting the bullying policies changed is the conservative communities that school boards serve and convincing them that these policies need to be

The queer youth are mainly fighting for equal protection rights. If students take their harassment concerns to teacher or administrative staff and they do not adequately take care of the problem, these teachers would be held responsible. There was studies done on a group called GSA (gay-straight alliance) which shows that schools with this group are more welcoming and students feel much safer. Despite the findings a lot of schools and communities were against having them and it took a very long time to finally get them accepted in schools (Meyer, 2009). The main goal of queer youth bringing these issues to court is to update their policies on how this is dealt with, provide the teachers with professional development workshops on how to handle this and to create and a safer and more inclusive classroom for all students. Any student who took a stand brought these concerns to court has helped improve the equality for queer youth (Meyer,

The First Amendment gives citizens the most power to use their voice in our country, but it does not, and cannot, always apply to colleges. Using safe spaces, academic freedom, and discrimination between better and worse ideas, colleges simply cannot always fit into the First Amendment, especially when it isn’t relevant.

They receive harassment at home and then arrive at school only to receive more harassment. They have no where to turn, so they turn to homeless and the even more horrific alternative, suicide. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention aka the CDC, "LGBTQ+ youth are more likely than their heterosexual peers to experience difficulties in their lives and school environments, such as violence." There are 1305 LGBTQ+ hate crimes that occur each year. An example of this in teens is when gay teenager Matthew Shepard was beaten and raped, causing him to experience depression and a panic disorder, and later in his life was beaten and tortured to death. This was proven to be a hate crime against him because he was gay. Matthew is just one example of millions around the globe. It is appalling to see the amount of LGBTQ+ students who would rather take their own lives than go to school. It is appalling to see that teachers are allowed to share their personal homophobic views with their classes without any consequence whatsoever. It is appalling that in the year of 2016 we are still dealing with accepting people for who they are and who they love. This is a time of

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).

31% of the homosexual youths that reported attacks or bullying said the school did not do anything to help but instead ignored or down played the attacks or bullying, which only makes the problem worse because the bullying will continue until the student breaks, or, although it is very unlikely, the bullies stop on their own. 86% of homosexual students are bullied or harassed; compared to the 27% of overall students that are bullied, those who are lesbian, gay, transgender, or bisexual are at a much higher risk than the average student. Finally, and perhaps the most worst of it all, is that someone who is homosexual is 2 to 3 times more likely to attempt or commit suicide, and they are eight more times likely to attempt suicide if their family doesn’t accept them and abandon them which is sad because family is something we expect to always be there and be there for us through anything, I never understood how someone can just disown their child because of their sexual orientation. Because of this, 1/3 of all suicides are because the person was harassed due to conjectures about their sexual orientation by others. Suicide and bullying is a very serious issue, and those who are homosexual are more likely to be trapped by its giant hands, and disappear into the

Ladies and Gentlemen, over a tenth of our society is made up of the LGBTI ( the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex) community. In 2010, the Safe Schools Coalition Australia was founded, this establishment brought hope and protection to hundreds upon thousands of students experiencing bullying. However, being the nation we are, extreme right wing bigots are attempting to withdraw this life-saving initiative from nationwide primary and secondary schools.

According to Nicole C. Raeburn, “…safe spaces may seem like they are just now on-trend when actually they trace back to the feminist consciousness-raising group from the 1960s and 1970s, others to the gay and lesbian movement of the early 1990s. In most cases, safe spaces are innocuous gatherings of like-minded people who agree to refrain from ridicule, criticism or what they term “microaggressions” – subtle displays of racial or sexual bias – so that everyone can relax enough to explore the nuances of, say, a fluid gender identity. As long as all parties consent to such restrictions, these little islands of self-restraint seem like a perfectly fine idea.”[1]

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself”, said by Harvey Feinstein. In today’s society the federal law Title IX of The Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits any person in the United States , on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. Even while this law is intact bullying is still prevalent in our school systems, particularly targeted towards lesbian, gay, and transgendered students. 2011 National School Survey reported 63.5% of students felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation. It was also noted that gay and lesbian students are 4 times more likely to attempt suicide because of bullying. Schools are less likely to investigate accusations of bullying and protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) students because they want to remain neutral. Unfortunately, all states have not mandated nondiscriminatory laws designed to protect students based on their sexual identity. All states should implement anti-bullying laws tailored to the LGBT students.