There’s always some new report out about anti-gay bullying, but a new UK Stonewall report may provide the most startling numbers yet:
Sixty-five per cent of lesbian and gay school pupils have been bullied because of their sexuality, a survey has found.
Half of teachers ignore homophobic language when they hear it and the 30 per cent of the kids say adults at their school are responsible for the bullying.
Stonewall, which wrote the survey, says this means that of current secondary school pupils, 143,000 children have suffered from anti-gay name-calling, 64,000 have been physically attacked and 26,000 have had death-threats.
Those astonishingly high – and equally unbelievable – numbers are estimates based on a tally of 1,145 students.
Regardless of their accuracy, the news that 30% of the guppies claim teachers bully makes one reconsider home schooling.
troublenyc
I was always amazed at the ability of administration to ignore blatant homophobia in the school system. I was once verbally attached right before school started by another student who roller bladed around me screaming out loud that I was a fagot. When I tried bringing this up to the school they basically hushed me.
Jules
It’s entirely believable. When I came out at school I was spat on, had things thrown at me, names were yelled at me from across the school concourse, people crossed to the other side of the corridors to avoid me, and I was threatened with being beaten up. This went on for two years. Teachers did nothing. It’s bog standard normal in the UK.
John C
When I was at (UK) school in the Seventies the figure would have been 100%. So this can probably be regarded as some kind of dismal progress. Poor kids, and shame on the teachers. At least gay teens have legal protection when they’re older and get into work.
George Bubble
And if this is the case in the UK, what sort of statistics can we expect from American schools?
But I’m not surprised. Even ignoring the fact that many teachers don’t give a shit about gay students, there is the tendency to dismiss gay-bashing as innocuous disparagement. Oh, Billy called you gay? How shocking. How many students are called gay each day? Only the most idealistic teacher would attempt to separate actual gay-bashing from innocent ribbing.
I’m kind of surprised that as many as 30% of teachers actually dish out gay-bashing. Most of the teachers I’ve known wouldn’t waste the effort. Gym teachers and coaches, certainly, but I have trouble imagining math teachers calling students dirty faggots for fucking up equations at the blackboard.