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 LGBT people and LGBT bullying. The term covers violence against and bullying of people who are LGBT, as well as non-LGBT people whom the attacker perceives to be LGBT.
GLSEN is an American education organization working to end discrimination, harassment, and bullying based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression and to prompt LGBT cultural inclusion and awareness in K-12 schools. Founded in 1990 in Boston, Massachusetts, the organization is now headquartered in New York City and has an office of public policy based in Washington, D.C.
A gay–straight alliance, gender-sexuality alliance (GSA) or queer–straight alliance (QSA) is a student-led or community-based organization, found in middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities. These are primarily in the United States and Canada. Gay–straight alliance is intended to provide a safe and supportive environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and all LGBTQ+ individuals, children, teenagers, and youth as well as their cisgender heterosexual allies. The first GSAs were established in the 1980s. Scientific studies show that GSAs have positive academic, health, and social impacts on schoolchildren of a minority sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Numerous judicial decisions in United States federal and state court jurisdictions have upheld the establishment of GSAs in schools, and the right to use that name for them.
LGBT culture is a culture shared by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals. It is sometimes referred to as queer culture, while the term gay culture may be used to mean either "LGBT culture" or homosexual culture specifically.
The origin of the LGBT student movement can be linked to other activist movements from the mid-20th century in the United States. The Civil Rights Movement and Second-wave feminist movement were working towards equal rights for other minority groups in the United States. Though the student movement began a few years before the Stonewall riots, the riots helped to spur the student movement to take more action in the US. Despite this, the overall view of these gay liberation student organizations received minimal attention from contemporary LGBT historians. This oversight stems from the idea that the organizations were founded with haste as a result of the riots. Others historians argue that this group gives too much credit to groups that disagree with some of the basic principles of activist LGBT organizations.
LGBT History Month is an annual month-long observance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history, and the history of the gay rights and related civil rights movements. It was founded in 1994 by Missouri high-school history teacher Rodney Wilson. LGBT History Month provides role models, builds community, and represents a civil rights statement about the contributions of the LGBTQ+ community. As of 2022, LGBT History Month is a month-long celebration that is specific to Australia, Canada, Cuba, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Gay is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'.
Ally Week is a national youth-led effort encouraging students to be allies with the LGBT members of their community in standing against bullying and harassment. It takes place in K-12 schools and colleges. It is led in the same spirit as Day of Silence: to educate on anti-LGBT harassment issues. Ally Week is usually held in September or October.
MassResistance is an American organization that promotes anti-LGBT and socially conservative positions. The group is designated an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, in part for claims linking LGBT people with pedophilia and zoophilia, and claims that suicide prevention programs aimed at gay youth were created by homosexual activists to normalize and "lure" children into homosexuality.
Janet Jackson is an American pop and R&B singer and actress. Jackson garnered a substantial gay following during the 1990s as she gained prominence in popular music. Recognized as a long-term ally of the LGBT community, Jackson received the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Music Album for her Grammy Award-winning sixth studio album The Velvet Rope (1997), which spoke out against homophobia and embraced same-sex love. In 2005, Jackson received the Humanitarian Award from the Human Rights Campaign and AIDS Project Los Angeles in recognition of her involvement in raising funds for AIDS Charities and received the Vanguard Award at the 19th Annual GLAAD Media Awards in 2008. In June 2012, Jackson announced she was executive producing a documentary on the lives of transgender people around the world titled Truth, saying she agreed to sign on to help stop discrimination against the transgender community.
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.
Kevin Brett Jennings is an American educator, author, and administrator. He was the assistant deputy secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools at the U.S. Department of Education from July 6, 2009 – June 2011.
LGBT sex education is a sex education program within a school, university, or community center that addresses the sexual health needs of LGBT people.
Spirit Day is an annual LGBTQ awareness day observed on the third Thursday in October. Started in 2010 by Canadian teenager Brittany McMillan, it was initially created in response to a rash of widely publicized bullying-related suicides of gay school students in 2010, including that of Tyler Clementi. Promoted by GLAAD, observers wear the color purple as a visible sign of support for LGBTQ youth and against bullying during National Bullying Prevention Month, as well as to honor LGBTQ victims of suicide.
In the United States, the Day of Dialogue is the Christian fundamentalist group Focus on the Family's annual event to oppose LGBTQ rights. It was founded by the Alliance Defense Fund in 2005 to oppose the Day of Silence, an annual day of protest against the harassment and bullying of LGBTQ students that was organized by Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network. Since 2018 the Day of Dialogue is not marked on a single date or organized nationally.
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 (LGBT) 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.
Anti-LGBT curriculum laws are laws approved by various U.S. states that limit the discussion of sexuality and gender identity in public schools. In theory, these laws mainly apply to sex ed courses, but they can also be applied to other parts of the school curriculum as well as to extracurricular activities such as sports and organizations such as gay–straight alliances. In July 2022, a wave of anti-LGBT curriculum resurgence saw ten such laws beginning to take effect in six different states. Some states enacting these new laws appear to have mirrored similar laws from other states.
Students identifying as LGBTQIA+ have a long, documented history at Brigham Young University (BYU), and have experienced a range of treatment by other students and school administrators over the decades. Large surveys of over 7,000 BYU students in 2020 and 2017 found that over 13% had marked their sexual orientation as something other than "strictly heterosexual", while the other survey showed that .2% had reported their gender identity as transgender or something other than cisgender male or female. BYU is the largest religious university in North America and is the flagship institution of the educational system of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints —Mormonism's largest denomination.
LGBT Pride Month, often shortened to Pride Month, is a month, typically June, dedicated to celebration and commemoration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) pride. Pride Month began after the Stonewall riots, a series of gay liberation protests in 1969.
