Essay On Homophobia In American Schools

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Introduction Many youth are examining their sexual identities at earlier ages than in previous years which lead to youth disclosing their sexual orientation identity in schools. LGBT students in American schools systems tend face harsh treatment from students and faculty because of how they define oneself and how they choose their sexual orientation. American schools practices, policies, local and state laws affect LGBT students greatly. LGBT youth in american schools are more likely to experience homophobia in their school setting than anywhere else noted. American schools tends to try to focus greatly on faculty, school administration to provide advocacy for LGBT youth. The youth are victims of physical harassment ,violence ,victimization and are targets of homophobic slurs. Suicide, emotional stress, self harm, and depression, are at an all time high for youth in the american school systems.

Background

LGBT is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.The initialism has become mainstream as a self-designation and has been adopted by the majority of sexuality and gender identity-based community centers and media in the United States and some other English-speaking …show more content…

Graybill (2009) found that 74% of preservice teacher surveyed on a measure of homophobia scored in the homophobic range, suggesting that these teachers in training hold negative views about LGBT students. Also studies show that without proper knowledge of LGBT and continued under-representation of LGBT history in school psychology textbooks there will always be limited knowledge in this area. The problem of discrimination and harassment in schools needs to be addressed through policy. It is time to focus on state laws and district policies that can make our schools safer for all

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