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Education Matters: Confronting Homophobia and
Transphobia in Schools
Brian Burtch, Simon Fraser University
Our awareness of homophobia and transphobia in high schools has been heightened by a growing body of research and media commentary that is beginning to take seriously the dynamics of exclusion and resistance experienced by LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, Two-Spirited, and questioning) students. As Rebecca Haskell and I wrote in our book, Get That Freak, “Sometimes the lessons are brutal, involving bullying that is so persistent and hateful that young people take their own lives, whether they have been targeted for their sexual orientation, gender identity or any other number of reasons.”215 For us, it is important that homophobia and transphobia are not dismissed as incidental but rather are seen as part-and-parcel of school contexts where LGBTQ people have always been, although not always well-represented in curricula and where resources, such as teacher- allies and gay-straight alliances, may not be available to some students.
We are not alone in this concern. Various Equity Matters postings on the Fedcan Blog by Malinda S. Smith,216 Kris Wells,217 Rebecca Haskell218 and me have provided ample evidence of ways in which homophobia and transphobia affect youth, including cyberbullying, suicide attempts, physical attacks, even murder. For example, a report authored by Catherine Taylor and Tracey Peter, Every Class in Every School,219 presented results from a survey of over 3000 Canadian teens. Briefly, the researchers found that 70 percent of students who participated in the survey heard derogatory expressions such as “that’s so gay” on a daily basis, and just over 20 percent of LGBTQ students declared that they had been “physically harassed or assaulted” because of their sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation.
This kind of vital research confirms that schools, for many students, can be a site where a wide range of shunning, threatening and even violent behaviours take place, often on a daily basis. At the same time, there is also evidence of more positive changes in media representations of LGBTQ people and some ongoing efforts to address HTP (homophobic and transphobic) bullying in school settings. There are efforts to establish safer school policies, including specifically anti-homophobia policies, and researchers such as Taylor and Peter in their report have outlined several recommendations for addressing HTP issues, including professional development for teachers, more inclusive curricula, and incorporating “anti-homophobia, anti-biphobia, and anti-transphobia and intersectionality measures.”
215 Burtch, B. & Haskell, R. (2010). Get that Freak: Homophobia and Transphobia in High School. Halifax: Fernwood.
216 Smith, M.a S. (2010, October 15). Queering In/Equality: LGBT and Two-Spirited Youth ‘It Gets Better.’ [Blog Entry]. Retrieved from http://blog.fedcan.ca/2010/10/15/queering-inequality-lgbt-and-two-spirited-youth-%E2%80% 98it-gets-better%E2%80%99/
217 Wells, K. (2010, October 25). Beyond Homophobia: We Need to Make it Better. [Blog Entry]. Retrieved from http:// blog.fedcan.ca/2010/10/25/beyond-homophobia-we-need-to-make-it-better/
218 Haskell, R. (2010, November 9). Making School Better for LGBT: Homophobia and Transphobia lessons. [Blog Entry]. Retrieved from http://blog.fedcan.ca/2010/11/09/making-schools-better-for-lgbt-homophobia-and- transphobia-lessons/
219 The University of Winnipeg News. (2011, May 12). Homophobia Creates Hostile for Canadian Students. Retrieved from http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/index/uw-news-action/story.572/title.homophobia-creates-hostile-world-for-canadian- students
I wanted to reflect on a few examples of how HTP behavior can be confronted in Canadian schools. While I have the floor, I also wanted to consider the larger picture, to appreciate some examples from Canada and other countries of efforts to establish in schools and universities greater inclusiveness in terms of sexual orientation.
By way of background, Rebecca Haskell and I continue to work together on her research based on interviews with recent high school graduates. In our book, Get That Freak: Homophobia and Transphobia in Schools,220 we documented many instances of students coping with HTP bullying and exclusion in school settings. We also highlighted ways in which students and their allies worked to establish what we in our concluding remarks termed “A Better Place.” Some findings from the book are provided in our initial November 2010 Equity Matters blog posting, “Making schools better for LGBT: Homophobia and Transphobia lessons.”221
The interest in this area of research is growing. Other venues have been welcoming: Rebecca was present for a conversation and book launch of Get That Freak this past June in Toronto. Under the auspices of the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies (GSWS) at Simon Fraser University, I travelled to Nelson, B.C. in February to give a public talk on homophobia and transphobia in schools, followed by a talk to students at L.V. Rogers Secondary School in Nelson. I was alerted to the music video “It gets better” by Rebecca Drysdale. This video is posted under the “It Gets Better” heading on YouTube.222 Issues of safety and recognition in schools have also been championed by many organizations in Canada, including ‘Out in Schools,’223 which works on several fronts to combat homophobia, including listing resources for queer youth.
Along with work on schools, I think it is important to consider the larger picture. There has been a rich legacy of LGBTQ work on many fronts in Canada. To begin with, Canada recognizes same-sex marriage. I have shown documentaries by Canadian filmmaker David Adkin (“Out: Stories of Gay and Lesbian Youth”224 and “Jim Loves Jack: The James Egan Story”225) in my university classes, for instance.
220 Burtch, B. & Haskell, R. (2010). Get that Freak: Homophobia and Transphobia in High School. Halifax: Fernwood.
221 Burtch, B. & Haskell, R. (2010). Making Schools Better for LGBT [Blog]. Retrieved from http://blog.fedcan.ca/ 2010/11/09/making-schools-better-for-lgbt-homophobia-and-transphobia-lessons/?lang=fr
222 Beckdrys. (2011, January 4). It Gets Better-a Music Video by Rebecca Drysdale. Podcast retrieved from http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTQNwMxqM3E
223 Out in Schools. (n.d.). Youth Resources. Retrieved from http://www.outinschools.com/content/Youth_Resources/4
224 National Film Board of Canada. (2010). Out: Stories of Lesbian Gay Youth. Retrieved from http://www.onf- nfb.gc.ca/eng/collection/film/?id=30499
225 Yahoo Movies. (2012). Jill Loves Jack: The James Egan Story (1996). Retrieved from http://movies.yahoo.com/ movie/1809402235/info
At the risk of leaving out many other fine works, publications by Michel Dorais with Simon L. Lajeunesse’s Dead Boys Can’t Dance: Sexual Orientation, Masculinity and Suicide,226 Douglas Victor Janoff ’s accounts of gaybashing and other violence in Pink Blood: Homophobic Violence in Canada227 ), and Gary Kinsman and Patrizia Gentile`s detailed account of national security, The Canadian War on Queers228 – are part of this Canadian legacy of highlighting how LGBTQ people are treated and how the struggle for equity is ongoing.
The need for strong research has also been promoted by initiatives such as SVR (sexuality, vulnerability, resistance)229 at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Here in Vancouver, the ‘We Demand’ conference was held in late August 2011, showcasing activist and academic (not that the two are necessarily separate) work over the past four decades. Activist work continues with print and online productions such as XTRA!, including updates on homophobic bullying and anti- homophobia policies in schools.
Clearly, the work continues. Again, locally in British Columbia, events leading up to the passage of an anti-homophobia policy by the Burnaby School Board this June confirmed the sharp divisions that can surface, with some favouring the policy and others seeing it as regressive. The continuing controversy over attempts to ban what are variously termed gay clubs or gay-straight alliances in Catholic Schools in Ontario, and the recent efforts by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty to reinforce equity considerations have also garnered news headlines and countless online postings by those opposed to and in favour of LGBTQ-themed clubs and curricula in schools.
Other issues surfaced when I chaired a panel on LGBTQ issues at the British Society of Criminology annual conference in Newcastle, England in early July. I met Angela Dwyer230 from Australia and became familiar with her work documenting police dealings with LGBTQ youth in Brisbane and issues of risk for these youth. At the BSC conference, during the presentation of work by Rebecca and myself, I posed the question that Rebecca and I have often been asked – “are things getting better?” One person in the audience responded that things are definitely getting better in some important ways. One example he gave was the repeal of section 28 of the Local Government Act of 1988 in the United Kingdom and the continuing efforts231 to break the taboo on discussing the wider spectrum of sexuality in school curricula and classrooms.
We can also see the continued efforts of groups such as Stonewall UK in fighting for protection of and recognition of LGBTQ people and work on homophobic bullying of students in Ireland (example, James O’Higgins-Norman’s book, Homophobic Bullying in Irish Secondary Education).232 We look to other places where people are speaking up, including the very recent example of Krystl Assan protesting what she called “the last acceptable discrimination” in Bermuda.233 She has confronted stereotyping of LGBT people and argued for an extension of Bermuda’s Human Rights Act to include sexual orientation.
226 Dorais, M. (2004). Dead Boys Can’t Dance: Sexual Orientation, Masculinity, and Suicide. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
227 Janoff, D.V. (2005). Pink Blood: Homophobic Violence in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
228 Kinsman, G. & Gentile, P. (2010). The Canadian War on Queers. British Columbia: University of British Columbia Press.
229 Sexual and Gender Diversity: Vulnerability Resilence. (n.d.). What’s New. Retrieved from http://www.svr.uqam.ca/ EN/actualites.asp
230 Dwyer, A. (2011). Damaged goods: riskiness and LGBT young peoples’ interactions with police. Retrieved from http://eprints.qut.edu.au/38877/2/38877.pdf
231 Gillian, A. (2003, November 17). Section 28 gone... but no forgotten. The Guardian. Retrieved from http:// www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/nov/17/uk.gayrights
We need to pay greater attention to protection – and especially lack of protection – for LGBTQ youth in schools. What we aim for is to be part of a conversation about gender variance, sexuality, and strategies for making schools more welcoming and safer places for all students. The outlook is not entirely bleak. Consider the following comments from Catherine Taylor in the context of the possibility of common cause in the classroom: “It really surprised me that 58 percent of straight students report feeling upset when they hear homophobic comments. What that tells me is there is a great deal of untapped solidarity in students, and that the public school culture can change.”
With growing awareness, greater resources, ongoing research and, not least of all, this continuing conversation about sexuality and resistance, we may be at a turning point where traditional, oppressive practices are called into question and where people are called into account if they do not address bullying and other mistreatment of LGBTQ students.
232 O’Higgins-Norman, J. (2008). Homophobic Bullying in Irish Secondary. Dublin: Munsel & Co.
233 ‘Homophobia Last Acceptable Discrimination.’ [Blog Entry]. (2011, May 28). Retrieved from http://bernews.com/
2011/05/homophobia-last-acceptable-discrimination/