Teaching LGBTQ Topics in Schools in a Declining Democracy

The histories of people with same-sex attractions and those who differently express their gender are filled with incredible pain and enormous pride, of overwhelming repression and victorious rejoicing, of stifling invisibility and dazzling illumination.

Throughout the ages, their sexuality and gender identity and expressions have been called many things: from “sinful,” “sicknesses,” and “criminals,” to “orientations,” “identities,” and even “gifts from God.”

Though same-sex behavior and gender non-normativity have probably always existed in human and most non-human species, the concept of “homosexuality,” “bisexuality,” and “transgender identities,” in fact, sexual orientation and gender non-normativity in general and the construction of an identity and sense of community based on these identities is a relatively modern social construction.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, non-binary (LGBATQI+) people, as is still often the case for many other minoritized communities, grow up in a society primarily without an historical context in which to project their lives. They are weaned on the notion that they have no culture and no history.

In the famous words of African American social activist Marcus Garvey: “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.”

The lives, stories, and histories of LGBATQI+ people have been intentionally hidden by socially dominant individuals and groups through neglect, deletions, erasures, omissions, bans, censorship, distortions, alterations, trivializations, change of pronouns signifying gender, and by other unauthorized means.

Examples of these erasures abound. Historian John Boswell cites an example of censorship in a manuscript of The Art of Love by the Roman author Ovid. A phrase that originally read, “A boy’s love appealed to me less” (Hoc est quod pueri tanger amore minus) was altered by a Medieval “moralist” to read, “A boy’s love appealed to me not at all” (Hoc est quod pueri tanger amore nihil).

In addition, an editor’s note that appeared in the margin informed the reader, “Thus you may be sure that Ovid was not a sodomite” (Ex hos nota quod Ovidius non fuerit Sodomita).

One of the first instances of an unauthorized changing of pronouns signifying gender occurred when, according to historian John Boswell: “Michelangelo’s grandnephew employed this means to render his uncle’s sonnets more acceptable to the public.”

We know about the figure of Sappho and her famed young women’s school on the Isle of Lesbos around the year 580 BCE, where we find the earliest known writings of love poems between women, and other important writings. Unfortunately, only one complete poem and several poem fragments survived after centuries of the Catholic Church’s concerted effort to extinguish the works of these extraordinary women.

An order in 380 CE by St. Gregory of Nazianzus demanded the torching of Sappho’s poetry, and the remaining manuscripts were ordered by Papal Decree in 1073 CE to be destroyed.

October is now Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ) History Month. It originated when, in 1994, Rodney Wilson, a high school teacher in Missouri, who had the idea that a month was needed to commemorate and teach this history since it has been perennially excluded in the schools. He worked with other teachers and community leaders, and they chose October since public schools are in session, and National Coming Out Day already fell on October 11.

Schools are conducting educational efforts around several special events, for example:

• National Day of Silence: a day in mid-April each year when students across the nation take a vow of silence to call attention to the epidemic of oppressive name calling, harassment, and violence perpetrated against LGBATQI+ students in schools and in the larger society.

• National Coming Out Day: October 11 each year in the U.S., October 12 in the United Kingdom, set aside to take further steps in “Coming Out of the Closet” of denial and fear around issues of sexual and gender identity as a personal and community-wide effort to raise awareness.

• National LGBTQ History Month: originally proposed in 1994 by Missouri High School teacher, Rodney Wilson, it has become a nationally recognized observance of LGBTQ history (October in the United States, February in the United Kingdom).

• Bisexuality Day (also known as Bi Visibility Day or Bi Pride Day): September 23 to commemorate bisexual awareness and the accomplishments of bisexual people.

• Transgender Day of Remembrance: November 20 to commemorate the estimated two people killed every day somewhere in the world for expressing gender nonconformity.

• No Name Calling Week: based on an idea proposed in the best-selling young adult novel, The Misfits (2003) by James Howe, in which four seventh grade friends suffer the daily effects of insults and taunts.

• National Gay/Straight Alliance Day: January 25 meant to strengthen the bond between LGBTQ people and straight allies, and, in particular, to recognize and honor Gay/Straight Alliances (GSAs), which work to educate peers to stop heterosexism and cissexism in schools and colleges.

• National LGBTQ/Queer Pride Month: June each year when members of Gay/Straight Alliances join in annual Pride Marches and other festivities throughout the month in their local communities throughout the country.

The California legislature passed, and Governor Jerry Brown signed into law in 2011, SB48, the first in the nation statute requiring the state Board of Education and local school districts to adopt textbooks and other educational materials in social studies courses that include contributions of LGBT people.

Other states are following this emerging and important trend. Primarily in academic environments, greater emphasis and discussion is centering on what has come to be called “queer theory” (an area of critical theory), where writers, educators, and students analyze and challenge current notions and categories of sexuality and gender constructions.

For LGBATQI+ people and allies, this information can underscore the fact that their feelings and desires are in no way unique, and that others like themselves lead happy and productive lives. This in turn can spare them years of needless alienation, denial, and suffering.

For heterosexual people, this can provide the basis for appreciation of human diversity and help to interrupt the chain of bullying and harassment toward people based on sexual identity and gender identity and expression. For all students, this content area has the potential to further engage students in the learning process from multiple perspectives.

California was also the first state to ban so-called “Reparative” or “Conversion Therapy” in August 2012: a cruel and oppressive pseudo-therapy intended to change a client from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual, or transgender to cisgender.

Though the inclusion of LGBTQ history has established a good beginning, we see it as only a beginning, as only a meager supplementary or additive measure of history that belongs to everyone regardless of sexual and gender identities and expressions.

In actuality, LGBTQ history must be viewed as a historical cannon that transforms and infuses the curriculum, one that needs to be taught and studied all year, every year, age-appropriately across the academic and non-academic disciplines pre-kindergarten through university graduate studies.

We are seeing increasing emphasis within the schools on issues related to bullying and harassment prevention. Current prevention strategies include investigation of issues of abuse and unequal power relationships, issues of school climate and school culture, and how these issues within the larger society are reproduced in the schools, among other concerns.

Often missing from these strategies, however, are multicultural curricular infusion. Unfortunately, still today educators require some amount of courage to counter opposing forces.

For LGBATQI+ violence- and suicide-prevention strategies to have any chance of success, in addition to the establishment and maintenance of campus “Gay/Straight Alliance” groups, on-going staff development, written and enforced anti-discrimination policies, and support services, schools must incorporate and imbed into the curriculum across the academic disciplines and at every level of the educational process, multicultural perspectives, including LGBTIQ, age appropriately from pre-school through university graduate-level programs and courses, from the social sciences and humanities, through the natural sciences and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math).

LGBATQI+ experiences stand as integral strands in the overall multicultural rainbow, and everyone has a right to information that clarifies and explains these stories.

Historical Overview

Since the early to mid-19^th century, a linear history of homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgender identities predominantly first in the West, begins with the formation of a sense of “identity” and community brought about by the growth of industrialization, competitive capitalism and wage labor, and the rise of modern science, which provided people with more social and personal options outside the home (John D’Emilio).

It is only within the last 170 or so years that there has been an organized and sustained political effort to protect the rights of people with same-sex and both-sex attractions, and those who cross traditional constructions of gender expression.

During this time, many individuals and organizations have rejected the medical and religious models of homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgender identities while embracing a social justice model, which investigates and attempts to address the ways in which social structures promote and maintain issues of domination and subordination.

From the “Homosexual Emancipation Movement” beginning in Germany in the 1860s when Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, a lawyer from Hanover wrote on the topic of same-sex love (in his Vindex and Inclusa) that he termed “Uranian” to refer to this type of love, which he borrowed from Plato’s Symposium describing love between two men as “the beautiful love, this Heavenly love, the love belonging to the Heavenly ‘Muse Urania’.”

Then a Hungarian doctor, Karoly Maria Benkert, also known as Karl Maria Kertbeny, coined the terms “homosexual” and “heterosexual” in 1869 in his attempt to convince the religious, legal, and scientific communities that same-sex attractions, though not the norm, were widespread and therefore should not be legally penalized.

To First Wave Feminism in Germany, the UK, and the United States, and the first homosexual rights group in the U.S. formed in 1924 in Chicago—called the Society for Human Rights founded by Henry Gerber, a German U.S.-American who had been influenced by the emancipation movement in Germany.

And from the “Homophile Movement,” in the United States with such groups as the Mattachine Society and Daughters of Bilites, to the tumultuous 1960s and early 1970s, with the birth of the Gay Liberation Front, Gay Activists Alliance, Radical Lesbians, Second Wave Feminism, to the Bisexual Movement and the Transgender Movement, Queer Nation, AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, and Intersectional movement organizing, and No Kings organizing to the present day.

Many historians and activists place the beginning of the modern movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality at the Stonewall Inn, a small bar frequented by young people including trans people, lesbians, bisexuals, gay males, street people, students, and others located at 53 Christopher Street in New York City’s Greenwich Village.

At approximately one-twenty on the morning of June 28, 1969, New York City Police officers conducted a routine raid on the bar. Feeling they had been harassed far too long, people challenged police officers on this morning lasting with varying intensity over the next five days by flinging bottles, rocks, bricks, trash cans, and parking meters used at battering rams.

Out of the ashes of the Stonewall Inn, the Christopher Street Liberation Day Umbrella Committee formed in New York City to plan activities and a march on Sunday, June 28, 1970, up Sixth Avenue. From that first march others grew throughout the world. dJune each year is now reserved for local “Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride” activities.

Bisexuals, who had since the beginning been alongside gay and lesbian activists, began to organize for the rights of bisexuals in the mid to late 1970s. For many reasons neither the gay and lesbian rights movement nor mainstream political movements initially responded to the needs of bisexuals. At first, bisexual women organized themselves in same-sex groups for support and consciousness-raising; bisexual men later followed this example.

By 1972, parents and friends were organizing support groups for themselves and their loved ones. Today, a national network of local chapters of the organization Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (or PFLAG) offer support and is on the front lines in helping to defeat heterosexism and transgender oppression.

Founded to fight governmental and societal inaction, in 1986, the intergenerational direct-action group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) formed in New York City. A network of local chapters quickly grew in over 120 cities throughout the world under the theme “Silence = Death” beneath an inverted pink triangle.

In addition, the youth-oriented group Queer Nation formed in 1990 with independent chapters soon appearing in local communities around the country. Chanting “We’re here. We’re queer. “We’re fabulous. Get used to it,” Queer Nation members stressed “queer visibility” and an end to heterosexual privilege and homophobia.

And on the cutting edge in the movement for equality and pride are transgender people who have come out of another closet in large numbers, and are making the links between transgender oppression, heterosexism, sexism, racism, classism, and many other forms of oppression.

And young people are “coming out of the closet” with pride earlier than ever before, and they are organizing groups (like Gay/Straight Alliances) in high schools, on college campuses, and in communities throughout the country.

A growing number of LGBTQ people are raising children proving that love is what it takes to make a family. We have won the right for same-sex couples to marry, others are working to lift the ban against LGBTQ from openly serving in the military, while the opposition continually tries to thwart our efforts.

Originally meaning “different” or “outside the norm,” the term “queer” has often been used as a derogatory term. Some lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, however, have turned the term around by using it in an inclusive way and as a term of empowerment.

First, young people adopted the term as non-label in order to deconstruct sexual and gender categories as a form of resistance. It is used now at times to denote a person who is not heterosexual or not gender-normative.

Following the lead of young people, what has come to be referred to as “Queer Theory” and “Queer Studies,” with such notable writers as Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Eve Kosovsky Sedgwick, among many others, is now having enormous impact on college and university campuses as a bone fide academic discipline.

Based on Peggy McIntosh’s (1988) pioneering investigations of white and male privilege, we can, by analogy, understand heterosexual and cisgender privilege as constituting a seemingly invisible, unearned, and largely unacknowledged array of benefits accorded to heterosexuals and cisgender people, with which they often unconsciously walk through life as if effortlessly carrying a knapsack tossed over their shoulders.

This system of benefits confers dominance on heterosexuals and cisgender people while subordinating members of LGBTQ communities. These systemic inequities are pervasive throughout society. They are encoded into the individual’s consciousness and woven into the very fabric of our social institutions, resulting in a stratified social order privileging dominant (“agent”) group members while restricting and disempowering subordinate (“target”) groups.

As the old saying goes, the fish is the last to see or even feel the water (read as heterosexual and cisgender privilege) because it is so pervasive, and therefore, the fish takes the water for granted. Often, those beings situated outside the confines of the water (LGBTQ people) can, in effect, perceive the water’s existence with its edges, depths, surfaces, consistencies, and reflections.

By analogy, what many (most likely the majority) within our schools and the larger society consider as “normal” and appropriate, upon critical reflection, are perceived by many as (re)enforcements of heterosexual and cisgender standards and what is referred to as “heterosexual and cisgender privilege.”

No matter how loudly critiques protest that this is merely a “bedroom issue,” we know that the bedroom is but one of the many places where we write our stories. Therefore, while each October is a good time to begin the classroom discussions, the full stories of LGBTQ people need to be told throughout the year.

We have come far in psychiatry, religion, education, medicine, and science from a time not so long ago when these social institutions viewed topics of sexuality and transgender identities as unhealthy, sinful, criminal, or as morally suspect.

Teaching, especially teaching that has social change as one of its goals, raises many questions from different quarters. Anytime one begins to raise topics about deeply rooted assumptions, however, one is likely to encounter some resistance, and even hostility, especially in these ultra-conservative MAGA-enforced times.

While I hope that educators are teaching these topics in a totally supportive environment, to assume that this is the case would be naïve and would misunderstand the times and the potential resistance.

Levels of Curricular Inclusion and Integration

Multicultural education is a philosophical concept built on the ideals of freedom, justice, equality, equity, and human dignity….It challenges all forms of discrimination in schools and society through the promotion of democratic principles of social justice….

(National Association for Multicultural Education, emphasis added)

A multicultural educational pioneer, James Banks, discusses levels of Multicultural Curricular Content Integration as an assessment tool.

1. Monocultural Approach

a. Mainstream curriculum approach with little or no content related to other perspectives and cultures.

2. Contributions Approach:

a. Focuses on heroes, holidays, foods, dances, music, artifacts of groups, and other discrete cultural elements.

b. Little emphasis is given to the meanings and importance of these cultural elements within the communities in which they exist.

c. Mainstream curriculum remains basically unchanged.

3. Additive Approach:

a. Content, concepts, themes, and perspectives are added to the curriculum without changing its structure, purposes, and characteristics.

Disadvantages:

• Often views “ethnic” content from the perspective of the mainstream.
• Fails to help students view society from diverse perspectives & understand interconnections.
• Can result in pedagogical problems, trouble for the teacher, student confusion, and community controversy.

4. Transformation Approach:

a. Goals, structure, and perspectives of the curriculum are changed.

b. Infusion of various perspectives, frames of references, and content from different groups.

c. Expands students’ understanding of the nature, development, and complexity of U.S. society.

5. Social Action Approach:

a. Includes all the elements of the Transformation Approach.

b. Adds components that require students to make decisions and take actions related to the concept, issue, or problem studied in the unit.

c. Students make decisions on important social issues, and they take actions to help solve them.

d. Education for social criticism and social change, and decision-making skills.

A. Other Educators and Administrators

Administrations may or may not share your enthusiasm, or at least not to your extent, at the prospect of introducing these topics and themes into courses. Sometimes they may either reject the proposal, if one needs to be submitted, or they will need to be convinced of its merits.

They may fail to appreciate the educational value of these materials; others may fear the disapproval of the community. Some may not see LGBTQ topics as particularly important pedagogically.

I suggest looking at the following strategies to build support for teaching these topics:

• Invite speakers from local LGBTQ groups, parents of LGBTQ people, teachers who have had success with the materials in your and other communities to address faculty or at department meetings.
• Develop alliances with other staff members and prominent representatives from the community, which may include parents.
• Have available, whenever possible, evidence of the need for and success of these materials in other schools around the country.
• Emphasize both the behavioral as well as the cognitive dimensions of these materials.
• Relate your defense of these materials to other areas of multiculturalism and intersections of identities. Include LGBTQ themes within courses and units discussing others topics of diversity.
• Help the administration become aware of possible legal repercussions of harassment of students who are perceived as LGBTQ as well as pointing out the possibility of improved personal relations among students after presentation of these topics.
• Encourage the administration to view their permission to adopt these materials as being an indication of their personal commitment in setting a positive school climate.
• Make clear that the skills learned by students from these units can translate into benefits in other academic areas: in particular, the focus on critical thinking encourages students to greater creativity and intellectual autonomy. Also, historical information helps students to place other subject areas into perspective.

Assessing the social and school climate before deciding how to proceed is important. In some schools, course proposals and syllabi must be approved. You may choose to subsume these topics under, for example, “social studies,” “history,” “attitudes and prejudice,” “socialization,” “families,” “civil and human rights,” “the law,” and many others.

You might want to invite staff and other teachers to participate in educational workshops with you so that all your efforts presenting these topics in a positive light are not undone by colleagues’ conflicting views.

(The organization, History UnErased, facilitates teacher training sessions and provides professional curricular materials on LGBTQ topics for elementary, middle school, and high school-aged students.)

B. Parents

For many educators, a major consideration may be parents’ views and opinions. Here are several strategies for working with parents:

• In some cases, educators have sent home a letter to parents outlining their entire courses. This places the responsibility on parents to respond if they have any questions or objections.
• Other educators choose to teach the materials without notifying parents beforehand. In these cases, you might expect to handle phone calls or parents’ requests for classroom meetings. This may happen at any level of the educational ladder from pre-kindergarten through college.
• When talking with parents, be sure to avoid acting defensively, and instead point out all the benefits that discussions of these topics will ensure. You may want to include research articles or statistics on the needs for and effectiveness of studying these topics. Assure parents that by teaching the topics, you are not attempting to change or place judgment upon students’ moral or ethical beliefs. Rather, in presenting discussions on these topics you are examining human diversity, and that knowledge of this will help students better live and function in a rapidly changing world.

I suggest that when talking with parents, you make clear your own availability to discuss any concerns they might have. Some parents only need to air their concerns to allow students to participate. Even with all your preparation, though, some parents may object to these topics and even try to have discussions, or even the entire course, cancelled.

If this happens, you might invite speakers from local LGBTQ groups, parents of LGBTQ people, or empathetic community leaders to address the PTA/PTO, other parents’ organizations, or other community meetings. Sometimes the objections come from exaggerated fears of the materials to be presented. In this case, you might want to share these materials with parents for their consideration, emphasizing the benefits for this proposed course of study.

C. You

I make no claim that the materials are presented neutrally, and I begin with a set of assumptions:

• Human sexuality and human gender identity and expression rest on a multivariable continuum with no position on that continuum having greater or lesser value than others.
• What is “normal” to one person may not be so to another.
• Being lesbian, gay, and bisexual is more than merely having sex with someone of the same or other sexes.
• LGBTQ history stands as a valid and authentic area of academic inquiry, which has been marginalized and often erased from study. LGBTQ history is an important and essential aspect of human history and of U.S.-American history.
• One’s sexual identity and one’s gender identity are different aspects of identity.
• Heterosexism and Cissexism are forms of oppression, and like other forms, are devastating and insidious, which close off life options and stifle the human spirit. These are not simply “irritational fears” like the fears of elevators or spiders. They are taught and often learned responses, like racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, adultism, classism, religious oppression, xenophobia, and others.

With this in mind, I urge you to examine their own assumptions and feelings on these topics. Following are some questions you might want to ask yourself:

• How comfortable am I in talking about these topics?
• Do I have any lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender friends?
• How do I respond to heterosexist and cissexist epithets or “jokes”?
• What was I taught about these topics?
• What would I do if I knew that one or more of my students was or possibly could be lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, queer, intersex, non-binary? What am I doing since I learned that one or more of my students is lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, queer, intersex, non-binary?
• How would I feel if I found out that one of my own parents was lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, queer, intersex, non-binary? My child? My best friend?
• How would I handle having my sexuality or gender identity called into question by my administrators? Other teachers? My students? My parents and family? Students’ parents?

Even educators who are comfortable with these topics will want to create support networks from the ranks of sympathetic colleagues and people in the community. An option to consider for the presentation of these materials is a team-teaching approach, which may help to alleviate possible hesitations.

Anytime educators explore personal life topics will almost inevitably raise questions about the educator’s personal life, and deciding to teach LGBTQ topics might raise people’s questions about your sexuality or gender identity. There are several possible responses if this becomes an issue.

In deciding how or whether to respond, you might imagine first how it is for LGBTQ educators. If teachers who are LGBTQ are asked about their sexual or gender identities, there may be no problem if they answer honestly. However, in many situations, telling the truth could possibly jeopardize their standings within the school, and, therefore, they may be forced to lie and deny who they are, or they may find a way not to answer. More and more states and municipalities, however, provide legal protections for LGBTQ people generally, and educators specifically.

It is sometimes effective to use this curiosity about you as a way of making students aware of the perils that LGBTQ teachers sometimes face. At other times, it is useful to turn the question back to students and ask them to discuss why the issue of your life seems important, and how the classroom relationship might be different given all the possible options.

In addition, it is advisable to raise larger issues of human differences, and why students might find a teacher’s race, ethnicity, physical abilities, religion, age, socioeconomic class, appearance, and other social identities important.

Realizing that students come from disparate backgrounds in terms of social identities, and that students learn in a variety of ways, educators must develop “cultural competence,” and must understand the historical and cultural backgrounds of diverse student populations, pedagogical frameworks, theories of cognitive development, personality types, preferred sensory modes of learning, and others.

In the ideal classroom, the overriding climate is one of safety. This is not, however, the same as “comfort,” for very often, comfortable situations might feel fine, but they are not necessarily of pedagogic value.

By “safety” I are suggesting an environment where educators facilitate a learning process: one in which one can share openly without fear of retribution or blame; where one can travel to the outer limits of one’s “learning edges” in the knowledge that one will be supported and not left dangling.

In addition to teaching the “3 Rs” (reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic), we need to teach students how to investigate issues around Self Awareness: how to “Read” the Self and “Solve” social, emotional, and ethical problems.

We must provide students with, what Jonathan Cohen terms, “Social, Emotional, Ethical, & Academic Education” (SEEAE).

D. Your Students

Students – some who may be pre-adolescents or adolescents and dealing with their own feelings about love, sex, gender, relationships, and other identity issues in volatile ways – may likely respond energetically or even aggressively to LGBTQ topics. Some students may tend to use these topics as vehicles to ask all kinds of questions about sex and relationships, probably because there are few avenues available to them to safely and factually explore the topics.

In working with young people, it is often helpful to start with more impersonal approaches, having them respond to third-person situations, for example, and to move toward their own experiences and feelings as trust develops. Very few young people are willing to jump into a discussion of their own concerns. Many are trying to grapple with this privately for the first time, and they need to feel at ease with their peers before they are comfortable exposing their actual thoughts and feelings.

There are often some students who express very strong anti-LGBTQ feelings (for instance, “that’s so gay” or “it’s disgusting” or “sick”). Some of this is the energy of youth as well as bravado, which may seek support from peers. Older students may think the very same things, but they have been socialized to submerge some outward expressions of prejudiced beliefs.

In both cases, we encourage the venting of a full range of emotions within certain parameters. Only by airing the gut reactions to these topics can we move into a different kind of discussion that allows for change.

At the beginning of each new semester, educators are encouraged to introduce and continually follow up throughout the semester a list of classroom discussion guidelines. Sometimes educators keep this list on a wall in easy access of students. Some possible classroom discussion guidelines could include:

• We will have respect for all ideas.
• We will “try on” new ideas.
• We will engage in active listening,
• We will not interrupt others when they are speaking.
• We will not attack or blame others.
• We will share airtime and allow others also to speak.

Ask students if they would like to suggest additional classroom discussion guidelines.

It is important to note that the absence of negative reactions does not necessarily indicate the absence of negative feelings. Instead, you might assume that the students are being polite, shy, or do not yet feel secure in the classroom by sharing their responses.

Sometimes educators might also encounter more direct hostility. This might manifest itself in a variety of ways such as defensiveness, yelling, name-calling, obstructiveness, arguing, and withdrawal. Such hostility can be a symptom of a host of emotions such as anger, fear – often a function of lack of knowledge – or hurt; at times these topics strike so close to home as to elicit powerful emotional responses.

In one case, for example, it turned out that the brother of a particularly hostile student had recently “come out” as gay, and the student was questioning his own sexuality.

These topics can bring up strong emotions, and such hostility might be a direct expression of insecurity. There are no set rules on how to deal with these sorts of responses. At times, other more empathetic students will speak up, and a lively dialogue will then ensue. Sometimes the best strategy for an educator is simply to listen. At times, however, if hostility appears more abusive, educators need to set limits.

As educators, it is often common to hear students calling one another names in the classrooms or hallways of the school. Frequently this is done in jest. Occasionally, however, it is done in anger as a way of humiliating. During these times, not only is the educational environment compromised, but also feelings are hurt and the situation can escalate.

Each school should have written policies regarding bullying-reduction strategies. In addition, most schools conduct training sessions for teachers and staff regarding behavioral issues of students.

Students’ epithets can vary from general “four letter words,” to remarks intended to defame a person’s background: comments that are racist, anti-religious, anti-ethnic, sexist, heterosexist, cissexist, ableist, looksist, and so on. There are some things that can be said to students, which can help, in the short-term, to reduce some of this language.

Educators can refer back to the classroom discussion guidelines whenever anyone violates any of the list of guidelines. Again, it is best to continually post this list in the classroom. Also, depending on the situation, educators can ask the student to remain after class or later in the day, or can be taken aside or talked to on the spot. Some simple statements you can try are:

• That comment is inappropriate.
• That word is offensive (to me) and will not be tolerated here.
• That remark hurts people.
• I have no control over what you say when you are elsewhere, but at this school/in this classroom, that kind of language will not be tolerated.
• (bringing the focus back to the student) What do you really mean by that remark? What is going on within you to make you feel that you need to say that?

As a preventive measure, educators can announce to the class that certain words are not to be used in the classroom.

As with other forms of name-calling, students will frequently use an express or term without having any true sense of its meaning. Relating to heterosexist or cissexist language, the educator can inform students that what they are saying is used to put down lesbians, gay males, bisexual, and/or transgender people, and this kind of language is inappropriate. Within the classroom, educators can turn the discussion into a “teachable moment” by going into the derivation or history of an epithet or expression.

E. Your LGBTQ Students

Another area to consider beforehand regards the present of LGBTQ students and parents/guardians of students in your class. Statistically, this is very likely.

Students’ awareness of their own sexuality and/or gender identity may or may not have emerged. Even those students who are aware and comfortable need to share (or not share) this information in their own way. The more comfortable the environment for all students, the more LGBTQ students and/or those with LGBTQ parents/guardians, the more students will benefit from discussions.

Given the nature of heterosexism and cissexism, though, some students may not “come out” to their peers. Though you may be aware of their sexual and/or gender identities, it is not their responsibility to educate other students or to “speak for” other LGBTQ people.

Some students may be struggling with concerns around their identities on a personal level, and they may turn to you for guidance. Furthermore, if you are an out LGBTQ educator, you might expect LGBTQ students to come to you not only for support, but, in some cases, because of an attraction to you.

Just as heterosexual and cisgender students sometimes develop infatuations on their teachers, it is very common for students who are first “coming out” to attach a crush to the first “out” LGBTQ role model they have known.

You might want to put your students in touch with groups or places in the community where they can meet other people on a more equal footing. Sometimes counseling is appropriate to help them sort out their feelings; some communities have LGBTQ counseling centers.

While it is not the intention here to give a comprehensive narrative on how to bring equity in terms of sexual and gender identity in the public schools—for what might work effectively in one school might not function in another—some foundational guidelines for educators and school administrators can be considered.

• Assessment: Hold public hearings, and/or conduct interviews, or distribute research surveys in your school, community, and/or your state to access the needs, concerns, and life experiences of LGBATQQI youth, their families, and school staff. This can help in assessing the overall “climate” or your school.

• Policies: Schools are encouraged to develop policies protecting LGBTQ students from harassment, violence, and discrimination. Include “Sexual Identity & Gender Identity and Expression” as protected categories in your anti-discrimination policies. Extend benefits to LGBTQ employees on par with heterosexual employees.

• Personnel Trainings: Schools are encouraged to offer comprehensive training to all school personnel in violence prevention, suicide prevention, and specifically the needs and issues faced by LGBTQ youth.

• “Safe Zone” (or “Safe Space” or “Brave Space”) Programs: Implement and participate in a “Safe Zone” program in your school. Following a comprehensive training, participants are given a sticker, which they can affix to their classroom or office doors stating that their room is a safe zone for discussions related to sexual and gender identities, and that if students have any questions, they can come to the person who displays the sticker to receive resources and referrals.

• Gender Inclusive Facilities: Schools are encouraged to provide gender inclusive facilities, including restrooms and physical education changing rooms. Most gender inclusive facilities people are advocating include primarily single-user lockable restrooms. These types of facilities substantially increase safety for all users.

• Support Groups: Schools and communities are encouraged to offer school- and community-based support groups for LGBTQ and heterosexual youth. Thousands of schools across the United States and other countries have established these groups, generically called “Gay/Straight Alliances.”

• Counseling: Schools and communities are encouraged to provide affirming school- and community-based counseling for LGBTQ youth and their families.

• Library Collections: School and community libraries are encouraged to develop and maintain up-to-date and age-appropriate collections of books, videos, CDs, DVDs, journals, magazines, posters, internet websites, and other information on LGBTQ topics.

• Educational Forums: Schools are encouraged to organize and sponsor community-wide forums to discuss topics related to sexual and gender identities and expressions.

• Curriculum & School Programs: Schools are encouraged to include accurate, honest, up-to-date, and age-appropriate information on LGBTQ topics at every grade level, across the curriculum, and in other school programs and assemblies. Also, announce LGBTQ topics and events in your school and local community newspapers.

• Adult Role Models: Schools are encouraged to select and hire “out” LGBTQ faculty and staff to serve as supportive role models for all youth.

• Teacher Certification: Include information and training on LGBTQ youth issues in college and university teacher education programs.

• Continuing Education:

1. 1. Educate yourself to the needs and experiences of LGBATQQI youth and their families. Without having the expectation that it is their responsibility to teach you, listen to, and truly hear their voices when they do relate their experiences to you. Attempt not to become defensive, argumentative, and do not downplay or minimize their stories. These are their experiences, their perceptions, and the meanings they make, and, therefore, it is not up for debate. (Dialogue not Debate)
   2. Attend LGBTQ cultural and community events.
   3. Wear pro-LGBTQ buttons and T-shirts and display posters.
   4. Interrupt heterosexist and cissexist jokes and epithets.
   5. Be aware of the generalizations you make. Assume there are LGBTQ people at your school, in your workplace, and in your community.
   6. To sensitize yourself to the concept of heterosexual privilege, notice the times you disclose your heterosexuality if you define as heterosexual.
   7. Monitor politicians, the media, and organizations to ensure accurate coverage of LGBTQ topics.
   8. Work and vote for candidates (including school board members) taking inclusive LGBTQ stands.
   9. Use affirming or gender-inclusive language when referring to sexuality and gender identities in human relationships in everyday speech, on written forms, etc. Say the words “lesbian,” “gay,” “bisexual,” “asexual,” “transgender,” “intersex” each day in a positive way.
   10. In general, a holistic approach is the best approach to take. This means that all areas of the school as well as the local community need to come and work together to address the problem of bullying in all forms, including on-line.