Different Families and Homophobic Bullying

I recently attended a talk at my local town hall about different families. It was was part of National LGBT history month (here is the UK) and National LGBT fostering and adoption week. I was pretty excited to have such a talk in our area of London which is not very alternative or affluent.

 

All in all I found the talk a bit of a let down but did learn about Stonewall's Different Families campaign. We watched part of film made to educate UK teachers on how to work with children who come from non-traditional families. It is to help teachers combat bullying and homophobia in schools from a young age. It was refreshing to hear teachers speak of how they never assume that a child has a mother and a father at home and that family units come in all shapes and sizes. I also liked that one teacher spoke about using the word "gay" in class, essentially normalizing the term, the fact that same sex couples exist, and that children may come from families with two moms, two dads, or more parents. Of course this is made as a teaching tool and reality probably doesn't look as positive but it does give me faith that schools are moving towards the right direction. It is so important that children and young people who identify as LGBT or have LGBT parents have a safe and supportive environment for learning.

Thinking about homophobic bullying made me think of an article I read recently in Rolling Stone titled "One Town's Way on Gay Teens". It's a long article but very much worth the read and tells about a recent string of suicides in a Minnesota school district. There were nine suicides of middle school and high school aged young people in one year and four of those were young men and women identified at LGBT or were perceived to be so. The story outlines the far reaching effects of a local conservative religious group on how teachers were allowed to teach and how they responded to homophobic bullying. I many many feelings about this article but I'd rather you read the article and reflected on your own feelings rather than blabbering on about my own.

Although I know that not every American school district does not behave or react in the same ways, I could not help but see the stark contrast of the UK educating children from primary school about same sex couples and different families and in the USA high school teachers not confronting homophobic bullying or even acknowledging that LGBT people exist in health classes. Again, I know that not all UK schools are so open-minded about LGBT issues but in general I find that the UK is far ahead of much of USA with regard to this issue.

I hope that this string of suicides in Minnesota is a wake-up call throughout the country to how schools deal with homophobic bullying and educating teachers to support LGBT youths. I also hope that teachers of younger children help to create a safe learning environment for children and young people who come from families with LGBT parents or any other non-traditional family unit (grandparents, step parents, single parents). Children are too often the battleground for social and political issues and this needs to change.