Up to 40% of f ALL homeless youth identify as LGBTQ.

In the Life has been doing an expose on homeless LGBTQ youth.

Damn, it is getting cold out there……

I am most frequently consulted on the negative school experiences of children and families dealing with this issue in second and third grade, which fits with research on gender identity and transgender experiences.

So in honor of the Transgender Day of Rememberance…I am going to post the fact today on what school is like for a student who is transgendered.  (As well as for the student who is gender non-conforming who may or may not identify as transgender.)
Here is what GLSEN found out in their 2009 study, Harsh Realities: The Experiences of Transgender Youth in Our Nation’s Schools:

HATEFUL WORDS ARE EVERYWHERE

• 90% of transgender students heard derogatory remarks, such as “dyke” or “faggot,” sometimes, often, or frequently in school.
• 90% of transgender students heard negative remarks about someone’s gender expression sometimes, often, or frequently in school. Remarks about students not acting “masculine” enough were more common than remarks about students not acting “feminine” enough (82% vs. 77% hearing remarks sometimes, often, or frequently).
• A third of transgender students heard school staff make homophobic (32%) remarks, sexist (39%) remarks, and negative comments about someone’s gender expression (39%) sometimes, often, or frequently in the past year.

GENDER CONFORMING VIOLENCE IS PERVASIVE

• Almost all transgender students had been verbally harassed (e.g., called names or threatened) in the past year at school because of their sexual orientation (89%) and their gender expression (87%).
• Over half of all transgender students had been physically harassed (e.g., pushed or shoved) in school in the past year because of their sexual orientation (55%) and their gender expression (53%).
• Many transgender students had been physically assaulted (e.g., punched, kicked, or injured with a weapon) in school in the past year because of their sexual orientation (28%) and their gender expression (26%).
• Although LGBT students overall reported high levels of harassment and assault in school, transgender students
  experienced even higher levels than non-transgender students.

EDUCATORS ARE SILENT

• Less than half (44%) of transgender students reported that they had a student club that address LGBT student issues, i.e., a Gay Straight-Alliance (GSA), in their school. Although transgender students were not more likely to report having a GSA in their school, they did report attending GSA meetings more frequently than non-transgender LGB students.
• Less than half (46%) of transgender students reported that they could find information about LGBT people, history, or events in their school library and only a third (31%) were able to access this information using the school Internet.
• Less than a fifth of transgender students (16%) reported that LGBT-related topics were included in their textbooks or other assigned readings, and only a tenth (11%) were exposed to an inclusive curriculum that included positive representations of LGBT people, history, or events in their classes.
• Only half (54%) of transgender students reported that their school had an anti-harassment policy, and only 24% said that the school policy included specific protections based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

AND THE OUTCOMES ARE ALARMING

• Almost half of all transgender students reported skipping a class at least once in the past month (47%) and missing at least one day of school in the past month (46%) because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable
• Transgender students experiencing high levels of harassment were more likely than other transgender students to miss school for safety reasons (verbal harassment based on sexual orientation: 64% vs. 25%; gender expression: 56% vs. 32%; gender: 68% vs.38%).
• Transgender students were more likely to miss school due to safety concerns than non-transgender students (46% of transgender students compared to 34% of female students, 27% of male students, and 40% of students with other gender identities).
• Transgender students who experienced high levels of harassment had significantly lower grade point averages than those who experienced lower levels of harassment (verbal harassment based on sexual orientation: 2.2. vs. 3.0; gender expression: 2.3 vs. 2.8; gender: 2.2 vs. 2.7).
• Transgender students experiencing high levels of harassment were more likely to report that they were not planning on going to college than those experiencing lower levels of harassment (verbal harassment based on sexual orientation: 42% vs. 30%; gender expression: 40% vs. 30%; gender: 49% vs. 32%).
• Transgender students had lower educational aspirations than male students and reported lower GPAs than male students and
  marginally lower GPAs than female students.

Dionne Malikowski talks to 7NEWS.

Transgender Student Suspended over Bathroom Use

“The 16-year-old high school junior told 7NEWS she was suspended about a month ago for violating the school policy by using a girls’ restroom instead of a staff restroom.”

Recap:

Dionne Malikowski, a 16-year-old female who is transgendered, was recently banned from using the girls bathrooms in Fort Collins High School. 

According to school district officials Dionne was required to ONLY use staff bathrooms because the school/district felt they could not create an environment where it was safe for her Dionne to pee in student facilities.  However, if you read between the lines here, Dionne was actually also being banned from using student bathrooms. 

PSD Board of Education President Nancy Tellez recently explained that Dionne was offered use of staff bathrooms in order to give her what every student has, something that approximates an equal opportunity:

“Its intent is to provide equal opportunity to all students. It would seem to me that every student should have the opportunity to use the bathroom.”  

But guess what?   One day when Dionne opted to use a student bathroom instead of a staff bathroom she was the one suspended from school…. for her own good.   Her equal opportunity was only ment to be available if she didn’t try to access things a normal student takes for granted, like a public bathroom.

Tellez went on to justify suspending Dionne for using the student bathroom:

Tellez said that she believes the requirement to use the staff bathrooms does provide an equal opportunity for transgender students, as seven staff bathrooms are spread throughout the school.
“I remember three different times when I was over there, and I found a staff bathroom to use in several different areas,” she said.

Okay so this school/district is looking out for Dionne’s safety right, they are advocates for her student/human rights.  They are somewhat aware of the potential violence she faces at school although their ongoing defense would suggest that they think that violence is acceptable, inevitable, and should be accommodated.

Here is the best quote illustrating that point:

“It’s a step backward to say it’s not safe, so they won’t integrate,” Raccuglia (a local advocate) said. “If a student were getting beat up in the bathroom for having red hair, they wouldn’t ban red-haired kids from using a specific bathroom.”

But really… the best the district can offer to create a safe educational environment for Dionne is to limit her rights to student facilities and suspend her if she refuses to be invisible?! 

On Friday Dionne announced she plans to transfer schools. 

So here are just a couple important equity issues this article brings up for me:

1. Gay, lesbian and bisexual teenagers in the United States are far more likely to be harshly punished by schools and courts than their straight peers, even though they are less likely to engage in serious misdeeds, according to a study published in the medical journal Pediatrics.(NYT link)   Suspending Dionne because you feel that your school is not a safe place for her to go potty is par for the course in this arena.

2.  LGBTQ students are at a much higher risk of skipping school, transferring due to hostilities, and ultimately dropping out of school altogether.  Dionne has now dropped out of Fort Collins High School, she says she is transferring… lets hope that happens.
• LGBT youth are 4.5 times more likely than non-gay peers to skip school because they feel unsafe
• 31% of gay students had missed at least an entire day of school in the past month because they felt unsafe based on their sexual orientation
• Nearly one-third of LGBT students drop out of high school to escape the violence, harassment, and isolation they face there — a dropout rate nearly three times the national average  (link)

3.  There are very real safety concerns for transgender students while at school.  Ordering Dionne to hide or be sent away does nothing to address the pervasive gender and sexuality violence going on in schools.
• 74% of transgender youth reported being sexually harassed at school, and 90% of transgender youth reported feeling unsafe at school because of their gender expression. (GLSEN. (2001). The 2001 national school climate survey: the school related experiences of our nation’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth.)
• 55% of transgender youth report being physically attacked. (GLSEN. (2003). The 2003 national school climate survey: the school related experiences of our nation’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth.)  (link)

When minority student safety = suspension and queer youth drop out of your program in order to get an education… 

I am pretty sure  your, intent to provide equal opportunity to all students, is a big fat fail.

I took a blog break over the summer but I am back to work.  I admit I have been quietly watching the media and tracking the lives of LGBTQ youth during the summer and up through these early days of the school year.

This most recent news story about the death, funeral, and post-mortem harassment of Jamey Rodemeyer at his school forced me to finally kick-start the old blog once again.  This horrible and ongoing series of half-filled incidents indicate that after a year of raised public awareness it still simply put  “gets better” primarily and consistently only if and when a child leaves school.

I often use the short film “Homecoming” from Media that Matters when talking about how very possible it is to have a safe school as well as how very simple it is to ignore the violent gender and sexuality environment in a school.

Schools must be held accountable for the education of youth about gender and sexuality diversity.  And educational leaders must be held accountable for supervising and managing violent and hate-filled hallways where “different” students are verbally harassed, physically intimidated, and assaulted nearly daily while they attempt to pass through childhood and get an education.

Tracking this mess year after year takes a toll on me as an adult.  I can only imagine the futility Jamey felt after moving to a place of self acceptance and beginning to use his own voice to “stand-up” to bullies.  He left behind a summer of freedom only to return to school to be terrorized day after day about his gender and sexuality under the professional supervision of a silent or woefully inadequate high school faculty and administration.

There are a lot of participants in the terrorizing of minority students at school.

I continue to think less focus should be placed on the ‘bullies’ and more on the silent curriculum, the silent student supervision, and the silent leadership.

Bullies are simply taking up power offered to them by the glorification of macho athleticism and competition; and the glorification of heterosexuality exhibited by an array of ritual dances, ordinations, and coupling recognitions.

There are a million ways schools teach youth and adults that being physically dominant, crushing ‘weaker’ competition, and having a heterosexual partner to be ‘going with’ make you fully human in high school while everyone else is at best worth less and at worst a loser.

Bullies simply enforce that consistent and pervasive institutional message on a primal level.

Peace be with the Rodemeyers and may Jamey rest in peace.

“I want to apologize to my fans and the gay & lesbian community for my choice of words at my recent stand-up act in Nashville. I’m not a hateful person and don’t condone any kind of violence against others,” said Morgan, 42.

“While I am an equal opportunity jokester, and my friends know what is in my heart, even in a comedy club this clearly went too far and was not funny in any context.”

Wanna hear the joke?

Tracy said if his son that was gay he better come home and talk to him like a man and not [he mimicked a gay, high pitched voice] or he would pull out a knife and stab that little N*!!** to death.

What a jokester, huh ?!

I kind feel like throwing up when I try to track and write about this story.  Please go read Cath Lugg at Thinking Queerly’s post on the brutal violent and murderous context for Morgan’s humor. 

I can’t do another post explaining the same damn thing today, I feel just a bit too much like Sisyphus this morning.

And I completely agree, this comedian should be fired.

I have to cast my lot with those
who age after age, perversely,

with no extraordinary power,
reconstitute the world.

A passion to make, and make again
where such un-making reigns.

Adrienne Rich, Excerpt from Natural Resources
in Dreams of a Common Language

I am more than a little broken-hearted when we are all done.

Today was my last class.  In a little more than a week I will watch many of my learning colleagues from this year graduate from college.

Some have already begun the move away, off to Portland, off to New Mexico, off to other programs, other jobs, other lives.

I learned so much from and with them all.

And tonight I got me the teacher getting left behind blues.

It doesn’t feel much different from when my 8th graders did a bridging ceremony and headed off to high school.  Back in those days I wanted to keep them all for another year of middle school and I knew the next class could never compare to their awkward awesomeness and foolish brilliance.

Now the students are adults and the life paths they are taking will send them off on so many journeys I will never know and I am mourning that goodbye.  Mourning the knowledge that this thing we created together, this community of learning and excitement and engagement, this little living space is over.  Our time together is done.

I guess that’s just what it is to be called to teach.  You gotta love it with a fury and then you gotta let it all go to the winds in the end.

And what I now know after some 20 years of teaching is that the it  of teaching is more than a passion for the content, the space for learning, and the eager or at least present students engaging…

The it you gotta love on some pretty real level in teaching is the them.  Every time. 

So here’s to another school year ending and another bittersweet goodbye.

Nobody tells you about that when you are in teacher training…

Do they?!

Listen to CNN’s inverview with athlete and straight ally Ben Cohen.

Not only should Ravi be held accountable but Rutger’s University should be held accountable for managing a climate so openly hateful and hostile to a young gay student.

I’ll post the Oregon  bullying laws here later today.  Systems can and should be held just as accountable as individuals who make life unlivable for other people.

Add that one to the Ireland BeLonGTo Campaign video that came out not to long ago:

And of course here in the good old U.S.A. Cyndi Lauper has been trying for some time to get teh straights to give a damn:

It’s enough to make a gal hopeful on a sunny Sunday morning.

Enjoy.