by Evelyn Bailey
It is not only individuals who have provided us with Shoulders To Stand On, it is also organizations, agencies and groups. This month Shoulders To Stand On will look at GLSEN Rochester and Gay Straight Alliances (GSA’s) in the Rochester area.
GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, is the leading national education organization focused on ensuring safe schools for all students. Established nationally in 1995, GLSEN envisions a world in which every child learns to respect and accept all people, regardless of sexual orientation or genderidentity/expression. Founded as a local group in 1990, the Gay and Lesbian Independent School Teachers Network (GLSTN) began as a volunteer group of 70 gay and lesbian educators.
At that time, there were two Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) in the nation, only one state with policy in place to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students, and a general lack of awareness of the needs of LGBT students. LGBT youth did not have a voice in the education community or in the LGBT movement. There were few, if any, resources available for teachers to discuss LGBT issues.
In 1995 GLSTN became a national organization and hired it first full time staff person, GLSTN's founder and Executive Director Kevin Jennings. In 1997, GLSTN staged its first national conference in Salt Lake City, UT to respond to the legislature's move to ban all student groups in an effort to prevent the formation of GSAs in the state. It is also this year that GLSTN changes its name to the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, or GLSEN, in order to attract new members to the struggle for safe schools for all students, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/ expression.
Gay–straight alliances are student organizations, found primarily in North American high schools and universities, that are intended to provide a safe and supportive environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth and their straight allies (LGBTA). The first GSA was started in Concord, Massachusetts by Kevin Jennings, the creator and head of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network GLSEN, who also happens to be a native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The first public school gay–straight alliance was started at Newton South High School (Newton Centre, Massachusetts) by teacher Robert Parlin.
The history of and the struggle to create a safe environment for our young people here in Rochester continues. On Oct. 8, 2008, GLSEN released the most comprehensive report ever on the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students, the 2007 National School Climate Survey. The survey of 6,209 middle and high school students found that nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT students (86.2%) experienced harassment at school in the past year, three-fifths (60.8%) felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation and about a third (32.7%) skipped a day of school in the past month because of feeling unsafe.
In Rochester at the November 25, 2005 Rochester City School Board Meeting, a tall African-American student from Edison Tech, stood to address the board. In sharp contrast to the delighted students who had preceded him, a serious Miller-Lowe looked down at his notes and began to describe what a day in school is like for him as a gay student.
"Things are so bad, I can't get an education," he said. "Everyday, someone is harassing me and calling me names." One of his teachers, he said, jokingly calls him "Gay-lord."
Marshall High student Joshua Arpon was next. "I feel homophobia has reached an all-time high," he said. "Teachers stand there and do nothing when someone calls you a faggot. Discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation shouldn't be tolerated, just as racial discrimination shouldn't be tolerated."
Miller-Lowe and Arpon are not alone. Verbal abuse and harassment over sexual orientation are common in both city and suburban schools.
"I'm afraid sometimes to go into the bathroom," says Josh Winslow, another student at Marshall. "They [other boys] will say things like I'm going to try to rape them, or they'll turn around and put their butts up against the wall if I walk in. One day, they threw baby powder all over me. They said if I wanted to be a girl, I might as well smell like one. I don't want to be a girl."
"One kid asked me what I was carrying and if that was my purse," says Rush-HenriettaHigh School student Joe Giro. "I told him, yes, what about it."
"The constant teasing can really get you down," says Giro.
Miller-Lowe and Arpon were among more than a dozen students and faculty members at the Rochester School Board meeting, trying to convince the board to act more aggressively about discrimination toward lesbian, gay, bi and transgender —LGBT — students. They also urged the board to be more supportive of Gay-Straight Alliance clubs, organizations of both gay and straight high-school students that discuss issues of diversity and discrimination and try to provide support for LGBT students.
Miller-Lowe and Arpon's presentation was not the first time the Rochester School Board had heard about gay students' problems. A similar presentation was made by students and members of the gay community in December 2002. In response, the School Board formed a 14-member Task Force on Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Bias, representing the board, the Rochester Teachers Association, the Gay Alliance, and others. School Board member Jim Bowers chaired the group, which issued its report in June 2004.
The report was a thin one, giving a brief summary of anecdotal evidence rather than extensive documentation of harassment. "Incidents reported to the task force from 2003-04," says the report, "suggest that many RCSD teachers, staff, and administrators remain uncomfortable with and uncertain how to address LGBT students' issues."
The task force recommended the district:
• Include a statement in employee handbooks saying that the Rochester school district is a “Bias Free Environment.”
• Immediately implement top-down, district-wide sensitivity training for all school personnel.
• Provide domestic partner benefits for district employees by 2006.
The board accepted all three recommendations, and despite the report's brevity, Bowers says the task force was "extremely productive, given where we started."
So in November, 2005 Keith Powell, a Kodak executive and chair of the Rochester chapter of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, lead the sensitivity training at Rochester's Marshall and CharlotteHigh Schools last week was. The organization has a guide and videos that walk teachers and school administrators through the questions that come up during sensitivity training sessions: "How do I handle parent objections to the formation of a student club that addresses gay issues?" "A same-sex couple wants to attend a school dance. What is the proper course of action?" "I have students wearing both pro-gay and anti-gay messages on T-shirts. I'm getting complaints on all sides. What am I supposed to do?"
"A lot of teachers have been dealing with it [harassment] for a long time on their own," says Powell. "They didn't know there were specific techniques that can be used."
Powell instructed teachers to do three things: when they see harassment or bullying, intervene and stop it, point out the behavior, and remind the offending student about the school's policy.
During this school year, 2008 – 2009 GLSEN Rochester will continue the sensitivity training begun in 2005. Already the majority of RCSD administrators have undergone training. The goal is to have all sch
ool personnel trained by the end of this school year. According to follow up statistics, the presence of supportive staff contributes to a range of positive indicators including fewer reports of missing school, greater academic achievement, higher educational aspirations and a greater sense of belonging to their school community, and students from a school with a safe school policy that included protections based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression heard fewer homophobic remarks, experienced lower levels of victimization related to their sexual orientation, were more likely to report that staff intervened when hearing homophobic remarks and were more likely to report incidents of harassment and assault to school staff.
Currently, GLSEN has registered more than 4,000 GSAs, has approximately 40 full time staff, a governing board of 20 members and two advisory committees at the national level. Students in schools with a Gay-Straight Alliance reported hearing fewer homophobic remarks, experienced less harassment and assault because of their sexual orientation and gender expression, were more likely to report incidents of harassment and assault to school staff, were less likely to feel unsafe because of their sexual orientation or gender expression, were less likely to miss school because of safety concerns and reported a greater sense of belonging to their school community. Here in the Rochester area there are GSA’s at Brighton HS, Rush-Henrietta HS, East High, Marshall, Charlotte, School of the Arts, and in Pittsford and Webster to name a few.
GLSEN Rochester and the Gay-straight alliances in the Rochester area continue to work toward creating a safe environment for our future Shoulders To Stand On, our YOUTH. Shoulders To Stand On is proud of the accomplishments and contributions you have made in providing a safer and more supportive environment for our LGBT students in the Rochester region. We invite you, our youth, to share your stories of struggle and success at www.shoulderstostandon.org. We also invite you to participate in your schools GSA or become involved in starting a GSA. Together our Shoulders can advance the quality of our lives and that of our youth, the future Shoulders To Stand On.