Protecting gay youth in our schools

By Robert-Jay Green, Ph.D.
February 15, 2008

The recent shooting death of a 15-year-old student in Oxnard, California highlights the need for programs that help students accept peers who are different. Lawrence King was described by classmates as a self-identified gay youth who had started to wear gender-bending clothing and makeup. “That was freaking the guys out,” said a fellow student. Now a 14-year-old male classmate is in police custody accused of the shooting.  Media reports suggest the attacker’s motives were specifically antigay and connected to the cross-gendered behavior of the victim.

Violence against gay or otherwise gender-nonconforming youth is all too commonplace.  Researchers at Pennsylvania State University and New York University found 80 percent of a sample of lesbian and gay kids reported verbal taunts. About two-thirds of these incidents occurred at school. Fourteen percent reported physical assaults related to their sexual orientations, with most of these events also occurring at school. The effect of this mistreatment was so severe that nine percent of the youths met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder.  University of Illinois researchers recently found many heterosexual youths also are the targets of antigay slurs in school and suffer similar mental health consequences.

Is there a link between the incidence of verbal taunts in a school and extreme acts of violence?  If we know anything about adolescents, it’s that they are exquisitely attuned to the attitudes of their peers.  Research conducted at California School of Professional Psychology reveals that antigay violence reflects cultural norms about appropriate male and female behavior, with the assailant viewing himself as righteously enforcing traditional gender expression. Most such assaults are carried out with or in front of friends, a sign of group influence. Thus antigay sentiment among peers seems to set the stage for violence by particularly aggressive individuals.

We do have programs nationally that point the way for improving this situation. For example, a 2003 evaluation of the Massachusetts Safe School Program showed that Gay/Straight Alliances (GSAs) in the schools are effective.  In schools with GSAs, 90% of students were aware of the group’s existence.  Most could identify a teacher or staff member who was supportive of lesbian/gay students, and students were more comfortable referring a friend for counseling.  Also in these schools, fewer students heard antigay language daily. A separate study found that in schools with GSAs, lesbian/gay youth reported fewer days of skipping school and less victimization.

Sadly, Oxnard has GSAs, but only in the high schools, not the middle school district where this shooting took place.  Young people are coming-out as gay or lesbian earlier, and approaches to reducing antigay behavior in high schools should be extended and evaluated in earlier grades now.  In addition, interventions must focus not only on support for gay students but on educating and increasing the tolerance of heterosexual students.

The California Safe Schools Act of 2000 and similar legislation elsewhere cannot guarantee safe learning environments unless the general public takes these matters much more seriously than ever before.  Laws can only go so far in preventing crimes if underlying social attitudes remain unchanged. California and the entire nation need to wake-up to the risks that all levels of antigay behavior carry for heterosexual and gay children alike.  Unfortunately, lip-service in the form of inert written policies remains the rule in most schools.

Models have been developed for a range of school-based prevention approaches including Gay/Straight Alliances, inclusive health science curricula, designated support personnel in each school, and specialized counseling services. What’s lacking is the will to implement these programs in combination and fully. Although school officials often fear reprisals from conservative groups for establishing such programs, there are exceedingly few parents who want to see gay children harmed. The days of considering antigay name-calling and harassment acceptable rites of passage for heterosexual youth should end here. Let this one student’s death stand as a clarion call to the American public and its schools—never again, never again.