Bullying in school has always been an issue for children. There are countless stories about children being made fun of verbally and even attacked by fellow classmates based off differences. An increasing amount of these incidents are being targeted at homosexual students. It is an issue that mainstream does not hear often and with the numbers increasing, it’s important to make light of the issue.
To put this issue into perspective to the reader, here are some statistics that show that LGBT students are facing hardships in their very own schools. Students who fall into the gay, bisexual, lesbian or transgendered identity groups report being five times as more likely to miss school because they feel unsafe after being bullied due to their sexual orientation. (1) About 28 percent out of those groups feel forced to drop out of school altogether. (1) In a 2005 survey, the number two reason why kids are bullied is because of their sexual orientation or their perceived sexual orientation. (1) In a 2007 study, 86% of LGBT students said that they had experienced harassment at school during the previous year. (2)
According to the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network 2007 National School Climate Survey of more than 6,000 students...
• Nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT youth reported being verbally harassed at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation
• Nearly half (44.1 percent) reported being physically harassed
• About a quarter (22.1 percent) reported being physically assaulted.
• Nearly two-thirds (60.8 percent) who experienced harassment or assault never reported the incident to the school
• Of those who did report the incident, nearly one-third (31.1 percent) said the school staff did nothing in response
It’s clear to see that there is a problem with kids being bullied at school based off of their sexual orientation. There are several ways a kid can be bullied. They can be physically, verbally, indirectly bullied; and with the increasing amount of children getting access to the internet, there is also cyber bullying. I will go through each and describe the type of bullying.
Being physically bullied is pretty self explanatory. A child could get beat up, or knocked down by another student. They can be pushed or shoved. Things can be thrown at them. Verbal bullying is like name calling, and things of that nature. Indirect bullying is a very common type of bullying. Many people don’t even realize they’re doing it. This can be spreading rumors or stories about a person, and even excluding someone from a group. Cyber bullying is a new way of bullying that causes just as much damage. People can use text messaging, email, chat rooms, and things of that nature to verbally attack a person.
Bullying has many psychological effects on a child. Homophobic teasing is often long term, systematic and perpetrated by groups of students (3); it places targets at risk for greater suicidal, ideation, depression and isolation and substance abuse (4). These findings show that sexual minority youth are at a greater risk of mental illnesses. It is clear that there is a problem with homophobic bullying. It is affecting students all over America and the world. Youth feel scared and victimized and as a result, they are suffering from many psychological and physical struggles. I believe that it is important for people to be educated on the subject and to speak out against it. No child deserves to feel scared and victimized at school or anywhere else for that matter. Youth need to be educated on LGBT issues and to learn how to deal with differences so that one day, everyone can feel safe in a school.
Work Cited
1. No Author. “Gay Bulling Statistics.” 2009. Web. March. 2012. http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/gay-bullying-statistics.html
2. No Author. “Fact and Statistics. The Number Continue To Rise Every Month.” 2009. Web. March 2012
3. Rivers, I. (2001). The Bullying of Sexual Minorities at School; Its Nature and its Long- Term Correlates. Education and Child Psychology, 18(1), 33-34. March 2012.
4. Elliot, M., & Kipatrick, J. (1994). How to Stop Bullying. A Kidscape guide to training. Kidscape, London. March 2012.
Cody Shields, March 4th 2012
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