The fight for full equality has gone on for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. People of color, the mentally and physically ill, and the disadvantaged have all struggled for equal rights in the face of discrimination, and for the most part, they have won. Very few people today will witness someone in a wheelchair and claim that he is less of a person than one who is able to stand. Yet, there are people all across the country, of any race, age, and manner of health, who still struggle to this day. These people are routinely beaten, alienated, and shamed due to their sexual orientation, gender identity, or any mix of both. One of the most saddening aspects of this is that much of this hateful behavior either takes place in, or is reinforced by, the K-12 school setting. Young children who were called ‘sissies’ on the playground go through puberty and receive the new nickname ‘faggot’. Hateful language is especially prevalent in the high school setting, where the word gay is now considered a synonym for stupid or unfair. Discrimination of students based on sexual orientation and gender identity affects K-12 students of all ages by enforcing shame and hatred of a natural function, and can be solved by adjustments in sexual education and individual open-mindedness.
Gender identity and sexuality come in many different spectrums, and may not always be recognizable at first glance. Sexual orientation, or what kind of person someone is sexually interested in, can basically be seen in terms of heterosexuality and homosexuality: Those who are only attracted to the opposite sex are heterosexual, those who are only attracted to the same sex are homosexual, and those who are attracted to both the same and opposite sex are bisexual. However, ...
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...Influence." World & I 17.7 (2002): 58. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.
McKay, Alexander. "U.S. teenagers' sexual behaviours became more cautious between 1991 and 2005." Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality 15.2 (2006): 115-116. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.
"Pakistan allows transsexuals to have own gender category." Host Aleem Maqbool. BBC News. BBC Online. 26 Apr. 2011. Web. 29 Apr. 2011.
"Statistics." G L I D E: Statistics. Gays and Lesbians Initiating Dialogue for Equality, 24 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Apr. 2011.
"TransWhat? • Glossary of terms." TransWhat?: A Guide Towards Allyship. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2011.
Walley, Shane. "LGBT Vocabulary 101." University of Texas, 7 Oct. 2008. Web. 29 Apr. 2011.
Yoshino, Kenji, and Michael Kavey. "GAY LAW FOR BEGINNERS." Advocate 985 (2007): 28. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.
Sexual orientation is a term used to describe a person’s physical, sexual, and romantic attraction to another person, whether they be Male or Female. The term is relatively new and the idea of having a homosexual identity has only been around for one-hundred years at the most (APA).
Seidman, Steven, Nancy Fischer , and Chet Meeks. "Transgendering." New Sexuality Studies. North Carolina: Routledge, 2011. . Print.
The terms gender and sexuality are usually mistaken for one or the other. Gender refers to the social term that is given to a specific sex. Gender is typically considered female or male. The term sexuality refers to people’s sexual interest or desires to other people. Different types of sexuality are heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, and other types. Gender and sexuality are used for people to identify their sexuality, communication with others, and learn how to find a community of people that are alike.
That is, sexual identity is usually claimed by transgender-identified people in accordance with their gender of identity. While most transgender identified people insist on the differences between homosexuality and transgender identity and many also identify as homosexual, based on their erotic and affective attraction to people who share the same gender category with which they
"Teenage Sexual Behavior." Current Issues: Macmillian Social Science Library. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 24 Jan. 2011.
“What’s the big whoop?” asks a cute, blonde, elementary school aged boy when his teacher discusses homosexuality. He didn’t understand why people cared who other people loved. Little kids are perfect examples of how society’s negativity towards homosexuality creates homophobia. Children don’t understand why it matters who you love because they don’t see it as a problem and their opinions aren’t clouded by stereotypes. If LGBT issues were taught to these innocent, uninvolved children in elementary school, it would be more likely they would be accepting as they grew up. It is important to present LGBT in a positive light before parents, classmates, and media influence their perceptions.
The way that a school will facilitate this is by educating the students and staff on sexual orientation and gender identity. There are few laws dealing with students who are LGBTQ and the school needs to educate themselves on them. While the LGBTQ has few laws to protect them, every student has the right to feel safe and attend a school that is harassment free. The authors state that all students should be able to attend all educational programs, the guidelines on sexual discrimination be diminished, and that they take each and every students complaints seriously. Every school leader should know and understand the laws and policies that exist, and if they don’t the leadership should take it upon themselves to create their own anti-bullying and harassment policies, which may be specific to the sexual minority
Arielle Massiah SW 7300 Sunday, March 29, 2015 Article Critique Teenage Sexuality and Media Practice: Factoring in the Influences of Family, Friends, and School Jeanne Rogge Steele Literature Review and Theoretical/ Conceptual Framework The social problem that the research addresses is the outrageously high rate of unprotected teenage sexual engagement and encounters. The problem was made apparent due to a survey that disclosed that not only had “three quarters of the 2,439 participants engage in sexual intercourse by their senior year, half of the participants reported that they did not use condoms and one third of the population failed to allocate the use of birth control at all; drastically increasing their exposure to HIV, sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy”. Steele, 1999, p. 339.
"Milestones in the American Gay Rights Movement." PBS. WBGH Educational Foundation, n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.
Stoddard, T, Fein, B, (Jan. 1990) Gay Marriage, Personal relationships, Marriage, Legislation, Homosexuality, American Bar Association, (Pages 42, 42)
Ryan, Caitlin, and Donna Futterman. ?Gay and Lesbian Issues in Schools.? Independent School Winter 2001: 57-60 Academic Search Elite. EBSCOhost. SCCC Library, St. Peters. 17 Sept. 2001 . ?Sex Chromosome Abnormalities.? SCCC Library, St. Peters. 17 Sept. 2001 .
Martinez, Gladys, Joyce Abma, and Casey Copen. “Educating Teenagers About Sex In The United States”. CDC.GOV. Center of Disease Control and Prevention, 15 Sept. 2010. Web. 09 Feb.2014
In order to discuss the biology of gender identity and sexual orientation, it is necessary to first examine the differences between multiple definitions that are often mistakenly interchanged: sex, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Sexual orientation is defined by LeVay (2011) as “the trait that predisposes us to experience sexual attraction to people of the same sex as ourselves, to persons of the other sex, or to both sexes” (p. 1). The typical categories of sexual orientation are homosexual, heterosexual and bisexual. Vrangalova and Savin-Williams (2012) found that most people identify as heterosexual, but there are also groups of people that identify as mostly heterosexual and mostly gay within the three traditional categories (p. 89). This is to say that there are not three concrete groups, but sexual orientation is a continuum and one can even fluctuate on it over time. LeVay (2011) also defines gender as “the ...
Baker, Jean M. How Homophobia Hurts Children: Nurturing Diversity at Home, at School, and in the Community. New York: Harrington Park, 2002. Print.
1 vols. Issues: Hate Crimes. 14 March 2014 www.hrc.org/the-hrc-story>. Joanna Almeida, Renee M. Johnson, Heather L. Corliss, Beth E. Molnar. Emotional Distress among LGBT Youth: The Influence of Perceived Discrimination Based On Sexual Orientation.