A battle over rabow stickers at MacArthur High School Irvg, Texas, has hobbled the Gay-Straight Alliance and left LGBTQ stunts feelg unsafe.
Contents:
- THE PLIGHT OF BEG A GAY TEACHER
- ‘I’M AAID TO RETURN TO THE CLASSROOM': A GAY TEACHER OF THE YEAR SPEAKS OUT
- A TEXAS TEACHER FAC LOSG HER JOB AFTER FIGHTG FOR GAY PRI SYMBOLS SCHOOL
- GAY TEACHERS SHOULDN’T HAVE TO HI WHO THEY ARE
- AS FLORIDA'S 'DON'T SAY GAY' LAW TAK EFFECT, SCHOOLS ROLL OUT LGBTQ RTRICTNS
- TEACHER ATTUS TOWARD LBIAN, GAY, AND BISEXUAL STUNTS: EVINCE FOR TERGROUP NTACT THEORY AND SENDARY TRANSFER EFFECTS
THE PLIGHT OF BEG A GAY TEACHER
After about a the classroom, he was named the bt tor Kentucky September 2021 -- but at the same time, he said, a small but vol mory his ral town Montgomery County went after, who is gay, told ABC News that he was sgled out for actually protectg LGBTQ kids his school and their fai, which ma him a said that earlier this year, a muny member who was postg about him on social media also repeatedly went to unty school board meetgs to report predatn and so-lled child "groomg" -- a term that has bee popular nservative circl for allegatns of adults sexually manipulatg said this person, who had not named him at the board meetgs but repeatedly referenced him by name onle, also "doxxed" him and some of his stunts on Facebook by sharg their private, acrdg to Carver, he and some stunts' parents asked Montgomery County Supertennt Dr. "Joshua Block is a staff attorney wh the Natnal ACLU’s Lbian Gay Bisexual Transgenr & HIV "We need to be teachg them to read or wre, to add, to subtract, " he said -- addg that "the purpose of our schools is to te kids not to doctrate them. Before the bill was passed, some Democrats unsuccsfully attempted to make more specific -- rtrictg stctn on sexual activy rather than orientatn, for though many who spoke wh ABC News said they are disappoted the law's lack of clary, some gay teachers don't see an issue wh .
Although the Amerin Psychologil Associatn and numero other rearch anizatns have nclud that homosexualy do not make someone more likely to sexually abe children, Conservative anizatns such the Fay Rearch Council and the Amerin College of Pediatricians—a group that requir s members to "hold te to the group's re beliefs of the tradnal fay un" before jog—argue that homosexualy is a threat to uld help expla why LGBT teachers who are married or mted relatnships sometim enjoy a level of legimacy and acceptance that sgle gay teachers often fail to secure. "But many LGBT teachers argue that nversatns about personal matters do happen classrooms all the time, that 's only bee society promot heterosexualy—vers homosexualy—as normal that discsns related to a teacher's sexual orientatn are kept out of class, of Teach for Ameri, agre that for herself and her lleagu, beg the closet wh an extra layer of work—and strs. Overall, the strs experienced by LGBT youth also put them at greater risk for mental health problems and substance e: A natnal study om 2008 found that lbian, gay, and bisexual youth are more than twice as likely to attempt suici as their heterosexual peers.
"Kids and teachers need to know that someone they know is gay, that ’s not a hypothetil, that this is about real people who they know, " Bunger said "Beg visible to the kds of kids—kids who make dangero cisns bee they’re aaid to talk—is ccial. And advot for LGBTQ stunts are alarmed by some parents’ recent mands that schools prohib stunts om anizg Gay-Straight Allianc, llg them “pornographic” and suggtg they would turn children clash at MacArthur, a suburb northwt of Dallas, was not the rult of a new law or policy, or a public prsure mpaign at school board meetgs.
‘I’M AAID TO RETURN TO THE CLASSROOM': A GAY TEACHER OF THE YEAR SPEAKS OUT
“They’re not gog to e out outright and say, ‘Don’t say gay, ’” she said of the school admistratn, “but they’re gog to make as difficult as possible for you to be allowed to exprs yourself or even learn about how you feel, who you are and your inty. Acrdg to her personnel file, which Stonecipher shared wh NBC News, the district’s human rourc office believed that Stonecipher had lled MacArthur’s prcipal “homophobic, ” which Stonecipher ni, and that she ma lleagu unfortable when she shared her opn about LGBTQ issu. A feral judge later tossed the 2018, the district faced cricism om LGBTQ anizatns when a teacher reported that the district banned “Love Is Love, ” a ic book created to support survivors of the mass shootg at Pulse, a gay nightclub Orlando, Florida, followg a plat that the book featured “extreme homosexualy.
“It jt felt very targeted towards people I knew, like they were tryg to get teachers or stunts trouble, ” said Aly Harb, a sophomore and GSA member, who was also lled for a meetg wh HR district did not rpond to qutns about the meetgs. Robson, who had hidn her own sexualy when she started teachg the 1980s, started the Courageo Lears programme bee she believed LGBT teachers were missg out on promotn, as they were aaid to put their heads above the year-long programme volv three days of face-to-face trag, cludg lectur, gut speakers and workshops, wh the aim of stillg learship skills and boostg nfince through sharg experienc and mutual summaris the succs a new book, Courage the Classroom, that clus chapters by lbian, gay and transgenr teachers about overg prejudice and learng to be themselv. As Florida’s Parental Rights Edutn law — or what crics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law — go to effect Friday, some of the state’s public school districts have begun rollg out new polici to lim LGBTQ issu and inti om beg discsed the Tuday night, the Leon County School Board unanimoly approved s “LGBTQ Inclive School Gui, ” which clus a provisn to alert parents if a stunt who is “open about their genr inty” is their child’s physil tn class or wh them on an overnight school trip.
Clifford / AP fileThe so-lled Don’t Say Gay law, HB 1557, bans “stctn” about sexual orientatn or genr inty “ krgarten through gra 3 or a manner that is not age appropriate or velopmentally appropriate for stunts acrdance wh state standards. ” A provisn the law also requir school staff members to alert parents about “cril cisns affectg a stunt’s mental, emotnal, or physil health or well-beg, ” which many advot have terpreted as a way to force tors to out their gay or trans stunts. They have also ntend that will not prohib teachers and stunts om talkg about their LGBTQ fai or bar classroom discsns about LGBTQ history, cludg events like the 2016 attack at the Pulse gay nightclub crics and legal experts have said the broad language of the law uld open school districts and teachers to lawsus om parents who believe any nversatn about LGBTQ people or issu is “not age appropriate.
A TEXAS TEACHER FAC LOSG HER JOB AFTER FIGHTG FOR GAY PRI SYMBOLS SCHOOL
Chandan Khanna / AFP via Getty Imag fileFive other stat — all of them the South — have enacted laws that lim stctn or discsns about LGBTQ people or issu school, and at least 32 others have proposed such measur this year, acrdg to acrdg to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ thk tank that has been trackg the strsed that the polici will have nsequenc for lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer stunts, potg to the disproportnately high rat of suici attempts among the untry’s LGBTQ youths. “Most of the tors wanted to help, but did not know how or were limed what they uld do, ” says Biggs, referrg to Tennsee’s lack of legislatn preventg the bullyg of lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, and queer or qutng (LGBTQ) stunts. And while 83 percent of tors felt that they should provi a safe environment for their LGBTQ stunts—by displayg visible symbols of support or disciplg stunts for g homophobic language, for example—only half had taken actn to do so, acrdg to the Gay, Lbian and Straight Edutn Network (GLSEN), an anizatn that helps K–12 schools create safe environments for LGBTQ stunts.
Teachers like Hanan Huneidi, a 7th- through 12-gra teacher for at-risk stunts the Bay Area, California, says she feels that if she clus LGBTQ ntent her lsons, staff and stunts assume she’s tryg to ph a particular agenda bee she’s gay. For example, a Gallup poll of more than 12, 000 US adults (Jon, 2022), 21% of Generatn Z rponnts (born 1997–2003) self-intify as lbian, gay, bisexual, or transgenr (LGBT)—a rather high number pared to 11% of Millenials (born 1981–1996) and 4% of Generatn X rponnts (born 1965–1980).
The sexual mory stunts benef om the safe spac—where stunts n eely be who they are whout fearg negative nsequenc of any kd—created by their teachers as studi monstrate lbian, gay, and bisexual stunts to be more vulnerable than heterosexual stunts to experience homo- and biphobic discrimatn, stigmatizatn, and victimizatn (Dunn et al., 2017; Gegenfurtner & Gebhardt, 2017; Smh & Reidy, 2021) which, ultimately, rc their amic achievement (Goldfarb & Lieberman, 2021; Kosciw et al., 2020). To mimize the negative school experienc for sexual mory children and adolcents, is important to sensize pre-service teachers early their teachg reers and crease their attus toward the vulnerable groups of stunts bee, as rearch fdgs suggt, teachers wh posive attus toward lbian, gay, and bisexual stunts are more likely to create safe spac (Goldste-Schultz, 2022), prevent homophobic behavr (Glikman & Elkayam, 2019), rrect peer bullyg (Nappa et al., 2018), act as mentors (Gastic & Johnson, 2009), participate sexual diversy trag (Kwok, 2018), and implement LGBTQ-clive curricula their classrooms (Klocke et al., 2019; Page, 2017) than teachers wh homonegative attus. Followg the attu theory proposed by Eagly and Chaiken (2007), teacher attus toward lbian, gay, and bisexual youth n be fed as psychologil tennci that are exprsed by evaluatg lbian, gay, and bisexual stunts school wh some gree of favor or disfavor.
GAY TEACHERS SHOULDN’T HAVE TO HI WHO THEY ARE
Eagly and Chaiken (2007) pos that attus n be short-term or long-term; while past experienc of an dividual wh a particular attu object (for example, wh gay or lbian stunts) n tablish a certa stable tenncy to rpond favorably or unfavorably to other gay or lbian stunts, the rpons are not necsarily temporally permanent—they n change as an dividual mak more experienc (for example, new social ntacts) which leave novel mental ridu that predispose how an dividual (a teacher) rponds to attu objects the future.
For this purpose, survey-based rearch employs the feelg thermometer approach (Alw, 2007; Herek & McLemore, 2013), which measur overt affective feelgs toward an attu object (Eagly & Chaiken, 2007): Based on a symbolic thermometer, teachers numerilly exprs their favorable or unfavorable feelgs towards lbian, gay, and bisexual stunts, wh their attus rrpondg to temperatur.
AS FLORIDA'S 'DON'T SAY GAY' LAW TAK EFFECT, SCHOOLS ROLL OUT LGBTQ RTRICTNS
Comparg different target groups, Pettigrew and Tropp (2006) reported that the largt effect siz of rced prejudice emerged for sampl volvg ntact between heterosexuals and homosexuals, followed by ntact wh physilly disabled and ethnilly diverse people. Posive relatns between tergroup ntact and rced sexual prejudice, posive attus, and equent rpons to homophobic bullyg school have also been documented wh teacher sampl om Germany (Klocke et al., 2019), Greece (Grigoropoulos, 2022), and Italy (Bac et al., 2020; Simone et al., 2022; Zotti et al., 2019).
To acunt for the different qualy of work ntacts, is specified here as someone one’s larger social work (for example, loose acquatanc at work or a socially distant neighbor), one’s close iendship circle (for example, a very good or a bt iend), or one’s fay (a lbian, gay, or bisexual siblg). In ntrast to tergroup ntact theory, to date, sendary transfer effects have hardly been examed empirilly; the transfer effects of pre-service teachers’ tergroup ntact on their attus toward lbian, gay, and bisexual stunts rema unexplored. 3 Correlat of teacher attus toward lbian, gay, and bisexual stuntsIn addn to tergroup ntact, Herek and McLemore’s (2013) nceptual amework of sexual prejudice intifi a number of characteristics that fluence the directn and magnu of prejudice toward sexual mori.
TEACHER ATTUS TOWARD LBIAN, GAY, AND BISEXUAL STUNTS: EVINCE FOR TERGROUP NTACT THEORY AND SENDARY TRANSFER EFFECTS
Ground this amework, past rearch on pre-service and -service teachers examed a seri of rrelat, cludg age, genr, sexual orientatn, hometown size, religsy, and polil, terms of age, Herek and McLemore (2013) speculated that sexual prejudice tends to bee “dysfunctnal if muny and peer group norms change such that exprsns of antigay attus evoke social rejectn rather than support” (p. Although seems plsible that (cisgenr heterosexual) men value bi- and homosexual dividuals to affirm their own masculy and heterosexualy (Herek & McLemore, 2013), a number of studi have reported nonsignifint genr differenc attus (Grigoropoulos, 2022; Hall & Rodgers, 2019; Stucky et al., 2020; Wyatt et al., 2008). The fdgs rrpond wh ample rearch evince beyond teacher populatns documentg greater levels of sexual prejudice and homonegative attus of heterosexual men pared to heterosexual women, particularly directed toward gay men (Herek, 2002; Klocke, prs; Petersen & Hy 2010).