Underage Shaming

"The stigmatization of homosexuality begins early in childhood and intensifies during adolescence." --Tangney & Dearing

Despite the successes and advances of the GLBT Community, there continues to be a notion that being gay is bad. From a young age we are taught that being gay is something to be ashamed of and that, somehow, it is ok to ridicule and hurt those that are different. For youth struggling with their sexual identity, school can be an especially harsh place to be open and feel safe. As of 2003, almost 40% of GLBT youth said that they had experienced some kind of physical violence at school and 84% had been victims of verbal harassment, all because of their sexual orientation.

The effects of these degrading and shaming experiences can be devastating. Gay youth are at an increased risk for social isolation, depression, substance abuse, dropping out of school and even thoughts of suicide. In fact, of the 5,000 suicides of young men and women each year in the United States, over 30% of them have been attributed to the emotional turmoil over sexual preference and societal prejudices and discriminatory behaviors regarding same-sex attractions and relationships.

In February of this year, a California middle school had a school shooting that barely made a blip on the news radar. Why? The victim, Lawrence King, was shot and killed by a fellow student because he was gay. We think its time for a new lesson to begin.

Watch these videos for more:






For more information on this tragic event visit:
http://www.rememberinglawrence.org/.

For more information on GLBT youth, read the following article:
Snively, C. (2004). Gay-Straight Alliances. An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Culture.