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The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with North America & the UK and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(August 2024) |
Bullying of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) people, particularly LGBT youth, involves intentional actions toward the victim, repeated negative actions by one or more people against another person, and an imbalance of physical or psychological power. [1]
LGBT youth are more likely to report bullying than non-LGBT youth. [2] In one study, boys who were bullied with taunts of being gay suffered more bullying and more negative effects compared with boys who were bullied with other categories of taunting. [3] Some researchers suggest including youth questioning their sexuality in any research on LGBT bullying because they may be as susceptible to its effects as LGBT students. [4] [5] [6]
LGBT youth are more likely to report bullying than non-LGBT youth, particularly in schools. Victims of LGBT bullying may feel unsafe, resulting in depression and anxiety, including increased rates of suicide and attempted suicide. LGBT students may try to pass as heterosexual and/or cisgender to escape the bullying, leading to further stress and isolation from available supports. Support organizations exist in many countries to prevent LGBT bullying and support victims. Some jurisdictions have passed legislation against LGBT bullying and harassment.
Homophobic and transphobic violence in schools can be categorized as explicit and implicit. Explicit homophobic and transphobic violence consists of overt acts that make subjects feel uncomfortable, hurt, humiliated or intimidated. Peers and educational staff are unlikely to intervene when witnessing these incidents. [ citation needed ] This contributes to normalizing such acts that become accepted as either a routine disciplinary measure or a means to resolve conflicts among students. Homophobic and transphobic violence – as with all school-related gender-based violence – is acutely underreported due to subjects' fear of retribution, combined with inadequate or non-existent reporting, support and redress systems. [7] [8] [9] [10] The absence of effective policies, protection or remedies contributes to a vicious cycle where incidents become increasingly normal. [11]
Implicit homophobic and transphobic violence, sometimes called 'symbolic violence' or 'institutional' violence, is subtler than explicit violence. It consists of pervasive representations or attitudes that sometimes feel harmless or natural to the school community, but that allow or encourage homophobia and transphobia, including perpetuating harmful stereotypes. Policies and guidelines can reinforce or embed these representations or attitudes, whether in an individual institution or across an entire education sector. This way, they can become part of everyday practices and rules guiding school behaviour. [12] [13] [11] Examples of implicit homophobic and transphobic violence include:
Egale Canada, along with previous research, has found teachers and school administration may be complicit in LGBT bullying through their silence and/or inaction. [14] [15] [16] [4]
Graffiti found on school grounds and property, and its "relative permanence", [16] is another form of LGBT bullying.
American sociologist Michael Kimmel and American psychologist Gregory Herek write that masculinity is a renunciation of the feminine and that males shore up their sense of their masculinity by denigrating the feminine and ultimately the homosexual. [17] [18] Building on the notion of masculinity defining itself by what it is not, some researchers suggest that in fact the renunciation of the feminine may be misogyny. [15] [16] These intertwining issues were examined in 2007, when American sociologist CJ Pascoe described what she calls the "fag discourse" at an American high school in her book, Dude, You're a Fag .
Victims of LGBT bullying may feel chronically depressed, anxious, and unsafe in the world. [19] [20] Bullying will affect a student's experience of school. Some victims might feel paralyzed and withdraw socially as a coping mechanism. [14] Others may begin to live the effects of learned helplessness. [20]
LGBT and questioning youth who experience bullying have a higher incidence of substance abuse and sexually transmitted infections. [5] [21] [22] LGBT bullying may also be seen as a manifestation of what American academic Ilan Meyer calls minority stress , which may affect sexual and ethno-racial minorities attempting to exist within a challenging broader society. [23]
Gay and lesbian youth can develop severe forms of depression and anxiety as they grow up. Around 70% of LGBT people experience major depressive disorder (MDD) sometime in their lives. [24] For LGBT individuals, MDD can be caused by any of the following: self-esteem, pressure to conform, minority stress, coming out, family rejection, parenting, relationship formation, and violence. [25] A person can be harassed to the point where their depression becomes too much and they no longer experience any happiness. These factors all work together and make it extremely hard to avoid MDD. [25]
The rate of suicide is higher among LGBT people:
LGBT or questioning students may try to pass as heterosexual in order to avoid LGBT bullying. Passing isolates the student from other LGBT or questioning students, potential allies, and support. [16] Adults who try to pass also may feel the effects emotionally and psychologically, of this effort to conceal their true identities. [18]
Egale Canada conducted a survey of more than 3,700 high school students in Canada between December 2007 and June 2009. The final report of the survey, "Every Class in Every School", [30] published in 2011, found that 70% of all students participating heard "that's so gay" daily at school, and 48% of respondents heard "faggot", "lezbo" and "dyke" daily. 58% or about 1,400 of the 2,400 heterosexual students participating in EGALE's survey found homophobic comments upsetting. Further, EGALE found that students not directly affected by homophobia, biphobia or transphobia were less aware of it. This finding relates to research done in the area of empathy gaps for social pain which suggests that those not directly experiencing social pain (in this case, bullying) consistently underestimate its effects and thus may not adequately respond to the needs of one experiencing social pain. [31]
About two-thirds of gay and lesbian students in British schools have suffered from gay bullying in 2007, according to a study done by the Schools Education Unit for LGBT activist group Stonewall. Almost all that had been bullied had experienced verbal attacks, 41 percent had been physically attacked, and 17 percent had received death threats. It also showed that over 50% of teachers did not respond to homophobic language which they had explicitly heard in the classroom, and only 25% of schools had told their students that homophobic bullying was wrong, showing "a shocking picture of the extent of homophobic bullying undertaken by fellow pupils and, alarmingly, school staff", [32] with further studies conducted by the same charity in 2012 stated that 90% of teachers had had no training on the prevention of homophobic bullying. However, Ofsted's new 2012 framework did ask schools what they would be doing in order to combat the issue. [33]
A research study of 78 eleven to fourteen-year-old boys conducted in twelve schools in London, England between 1998 and 1999 [15] revealed that respondents who used the word "gay" to label another boy in a derogatory manner intended the word as "just a joke", "just a cuss" and not as a statement of one's perceived sexual orientation. [16] [34]
A 1998 study in the US by Mental Health America found that students heard anti-gay slurs such as "homo", "faggot" and "sissy" about 26 times a day on average, or once every 14 minutes. [35] In a study conducted by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, a union for UK professionals, the word "gay" was reported to be the most popular term of abuse heard by teachers on a regular basis. [36]
In 2000, the state of California enacted the California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act (AB 537), a bill that prohibits harassment and discrimination on the basis of perceived or actual gender identity or sexual orientation. [55]
The state of Illinois passed a law (SB3266) in June 2010 that prohibits gay bullying and other forms of bullying in schools. [56]
In the Philippines, legislators implemented Republic Act No. 10627, otherwise known as the Anti-Bullying Act of 2013, in schools. According to the said law, gender-based bullying is defined as ˮany act that humiliates or excludes a person on the basis of perceived or actual sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI)ˮ. [57]
This article incorporates text from a free content work.Licensed under CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0( license statement/permission ).Text taken from Out in the Open: Education sector responses to violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity/expression ,26,UNESCO,UNESCO. UNESCO.
Transphobia consists of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger towards people who do not conform to social gender roles. Transphobia is a type of prejudice and discrimination, similar to racism, sexism, or ableism, and it is closely associated with homophobia. People of color who are transgender experience discrimination above and beyond that which can be explained as a simple combination of transphobia and racism.
Gay bashing is an attack, abuse, or assault committed against a person who is perceived by the aggressor to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ+). It includes both violence against LGBTQ people and LGBTQ bullying. The term covers violence against and bullying of people who are LGBTQ, as well as non-LGBTQ people whom the attacker perceives to be LGBTQ.
Heterosexism is a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination in favor of heterosexuality and heterosexual relationships. According to Elizabeth Cramer, it can include the belief that all people are or should be heterosexual and that heterosexual relationships are the only norm and therefore superior.
A sexual minority is a demographic whose sexual identity, orientation or practices differ from the majority of the surrounding society. Primarily used to refer to lesbian, gay, bisexual, or non-heterosexual individuals, it can also refer to transgender, non-binary or intersex individuals.
Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who identify or are perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred, or antipathy, may be based on irrational fear and may sometimes be attributed to religious beliefs.
The questioning of one's sexual orientation, sexual identity, gender, or all three is a process of exploration by people who may be unsure, still exploring, or concerned about applying a social label to themselves for various reasons. The letter "Q" is sometimes added to the end of the acronym LGBT ; the "Q" can refer to either queer or questioning.
The Think Before You Speak campaign is a television, radio, and magazine advertising campaign launched in 2008 and developed to raise awareness of the common use of derogatory vocabulary among youth towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning (LGBTQ) people. It also aims to "raise awareness about the prevalence and consequences of anti-LGBTQ bias and behaviour in America's schools." As LGBTQ people have become more accepted in the mainstream culture, more studies have confirmed that they are one of the most targeted groups for harassment and bullying. An "analysis of 14 years of hate crime data" by the FBI found that gays and lesbians, or those perceived to be gay, "are far more likely to be victims of a violent hate crime than any other minority group in the United States". "As Americans become more accepting of LGBT people, the most extreme elements of the anti-gay movement are digging in their heels and continuing to defame gays and lesbians with falsehoods that grow more incendiary by the day," said Mark Potok, editor of the Intelligence Report. "The leaders of this movement may deny it, but it seems clear that their demonization of gays and lesbians plays a role in fomenting the violence, hatred and bullying we're seeing." Because of their sexual orientation or gender identity/expression, nearly half of LGBTQ students have been physically assaulted at school. The campaign takes positive steps to counteract hateful and anti-gay speech that LGBTQ students experience in their daily lives in hopes to de-escalate the cycle of hate speech/harassment/bullying/physical threats and violence.
Various issues in medicine relate to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. According to the US Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA), besides HIV/AIDS, issues related to LGBT health include breast and cervical cancer, hepatitis, mental health, substance use disorders, alcohol use, tobacco use, depression, access to care for transgender persons, issues surrounding marriage and family recognition, conversion therapy, refusal clause legislation, and laws that are intended to "immunize health care professionals from liability for discriminating against persons of whom they disapprove."
Research has found that attempted suicide rates and suicidal ideation among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) youth are significantly higher than among the general population.
Sexual bullying is a form of bullying or harassment in connection with a person's sex, body, sexual orientation or with sexual activity. It can be physical, verbal or emotional in nature, and occurs in various settings, including schools, workplaces, and online platforms. Sexual bullying can have serious and lasting effects on the mental and emotional well-being of victims.
Youth pride, an extension of the Gay pride and LGBT social movements, promotes equality amongst young members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, and Queer (LGBTIQ+) community. The movement exists in many countries and focuses mainly on festivals and parades, enabling many LGBTIQ+ youth to network, communicate, and celebrate their gender and sexual identities.
Historically speaking, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) people have not been given equal treatment and rights by both governmental actions and society's general opinion. Much of the intolerance for LGBT individuals come from lack of education around the LGBT community, and contributes to the stigma that results in same-sex marriage being legal in few countries (31) and persistence of discrimination, such as in the workplace.
Discrimination against gay men, sometimes called gayphobia, is a form of homophobic prejudice, hatred, or bias specifically directed toward gay men, male homosexuality, or men who are perceived to be gay. This discrimination is closely related to femmephobia, which is the dislike of, or hostility toward, individuals who present as feminine, including gay and effeminate men.
The following outline offers an overview and guide to LGBTQ topics:
Homophobia in ethnic minority communities is any negative prejudice or form of discrimination in ethnic minority communities worldwide towards people who identify as–or are perceived as being–lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT), known as homophobia. This may be expressed as antipathy, contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred, irrational fear, and is sometimes related to religious beliefs. A 2006 study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in the UK found that while religion can have a positive function in many LGB Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) communities, it can also play a role in supporting homophobia.
Education sector responses to LGBT violence addresses the ways in which education systems work to create safe learning environments for LGBT students. Overall, education sector responses tend to focus on homophobia and violence linked to sexual orientation and gender identity/expression, and less on transphobia. Most responses focus in some way on diverse expressions of gender and support students to understand that gender may be expressed in a different way from binary models. Responses vary greatly in their scope ; duration ; and level of support that they enjoy.
LGBTQ psychology is a field of psychology of surrounding the lives of LGBTQ+ individuals, in the particular the diverse range of psychological perspectives and experiences of these individuals. It covers different aspects such as identity development including the coming out process, parenting and family practices and support for LGBTQ+ individuals, as well as issues of prejudice and discrimination involving the LGBTQ community.
Due to the increased vulnerability that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth face compared to their non-LGBT peers, there are notable differences in the mental and physical health risks tied to the social interactions of LGBT youth compared to the social interactions of heterosexual youth. Youth of the LGBT community experience greater encounters with not only health risks, but also violence and bullying, due to their sexual orientation, self-identification, and lack of support from institutions in society.
Sexual assault of LGBT people, also known as sexual and gender minorities (SGM), is a form of violence that occurs within the LGBT community. While sexual assault and other forms of interpersonal violence can occur in all forms of relationships, it is found that sexual minorities experience it at rates that are equal to or higher than their heterosexual counterparts. There is a lack of research on this specific problem for the LGBT population as a whole, but there does exist a substantial amount of research on college LGBT students who have experienced sexual assault and sexual harassment.
"Suicidal ideation" or suicidal thoughts are the precursors of suicide, which is the leading cause of death among youth. Ideation or suicidal thoughts are categorized as: considering, seriously considering, planning, or attempting suicide and youth is typically categorized as individuals below the age of 25. Various research studies show an increased likelihood of suicide ideation in youth in the LGBT community.