GLSEN
Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network
Established in 1990 by Kevin Jennings.
-Gay Straight Alliances (GSA's)
-Advocacy for LGBT Youth
-"GLSEN seeks to develop school climates where difference is valued for the positive contribution it makes to creating a more vibrant and diverse community."
-Safe Schools Improvement Act
"I started thinking that I needed to view every lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender child as if they were MY children and fight for them as parents...
ADVOCACY
Bullying it is a big deal.
Kevin Jennings
"You know, you are just like your daddy. You've just got a little bit of a different sermon." Alice Jennings
Does it get better?
Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son
A Memoir of Growing Up, Coming Out, and Changing America's Schools
Kevin Jennings
May 8, 1963-Present
Birthplace: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
"Southern Belle"
-Extremely religious, adherent to the Bible.
-Relationship with Kevin?
-Hard worker, loved to sing, intelligent.
-Worked many fast food jobs to support her family.
Happy 8th Birthday Kevin!
-Did not find "God" until he met Alice's brother. Southern Baptist preacher.
-Great oratory skills, with a strong conviction to save others.
"Being a real man meant never showing emotions or "weakness," even if you were eight and at your dad's funeral. And any male who deviated from those standards had a name. That name was faggot. That would be me."
Mama's Boy: Alice
Constructionist Perspective
Reality is perception and perception is reality.
Preacher's Son: Chester:
2001: 84.3 % of LGBT students in Iowa admit to being called "fag" or "dyke."
Don't Say Gay!
The youngest out of 5 children,
-Alan: "The eldest, most responsible, most athletic and most handsome.
-Carol: "The Rebellious One, the Hippie"
-Mike: "The Jock"
-Paul: "The Golden Child"
-Kevin: "The Fag"
WHAT IS A FAG OR A DYKE???
"The names we give to things can shape or even alter the meaning of things named. The word that stands out as the one which has shaped much of my life is the word 'faggot.' I have spent years dealing with what it means to be this thing that society calls a faggot, trying to find a foxhole of self-esteem in which I could hide from the incessant negative bombardment of gay people face every day in the United States."
"Like a white-trash version of the Kennedys, our family recreation revolved around competitive games of touch football, church, softball games, and basketball at the Y."
Claudette
For Claudette, who has always been family.
The "GNITTY GRITTY"
"God, think of how fat her nigger lips must be! It must be disgusting to to kiss them!" "Does Alan 'axe' people questions now or does he still 'ask' them?
"Alan must be eating chitlins for dinner every night now. I bet his stomach is full of chitlins!"
"Being sissy was bad enough: being a "nigger lover" was even worse.
"Unlike other traditional minorities in American society (Jews, people of color), gay people aren't raised by people like themselves when growing up. As a result, we internalize the typically homophobic attitudes of those around us, and devaluing and demeaning homosexuality becomes part our own self-image. This voice in your head- the voice that constantly tells you that you are worthless- is the real enemy. Like a lot of gay people, I found that other people sometimes accepted me long before I had completely accepted myself.
Conflict Perspective
Religion and Homosexuality
18 Year Old Steven: "I just began hating myself more and more, as each year the hatred toward me grew and escalated from simple name-calling in elementary school to having people in high school threaten to beaten me up, being pushed and dragged around on the ground, having hands slammed in lockers, and a number of other daily tortures. Throughout the eight grade, I went to bed every night and every morning waking up being disappointed. And so I finally decided that if I was going to die, it would have to be at my own hand."
DYKE SPIKES!
"Convincing me that I was guilty of patricide was an easy. Plus, they were my older brothers, and were real men who knew what was right and good. I was the opposite, and deserved what I got. My internal policeman would remind me every day: You are bad. You are bad. You are bad. So bad you killed your father and you wanted to kill your mother. I had broken the Fifth Commandment (Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which thy God Giveth thee committed one of the sins that was unforgivable. There was no chance for me. I would go to hell. It didn't matter, though, because I felt like I was already there. "
Bullying
You FAG!
19 Year Old Stacey: "My teachers and counselors labeled my 'confusion' as rebellion and placed me in the category of a troubled discipline problem.... I had nothing to identify with and no role models to guide me, to help me sort out this 'confusion' and I began to believe I was simply alone... A few weeks into my sophomore year, I woke up in the psych hospital in Brookline after taking my father's camping knife to my wrists.... I was placed in thirteen hospitals in two years. By what was supposed to be my junior year of high school, I had accumulated a resume of five suicide attempts, four half way houses, several high schools, and one family in shock."
Many studies have found that LGB youth attempt suicide more frequently than straight peers. Garafalo et al. (1999) found that LGB high school students and students unsure of their sexual orientation were 3.4 times more likely to have attempted suicide in the last year than their straight peers. Eisenberg and Resnick (2006) found LGB high school students were more than twice as likely as their straight peers to have attempted suicide.
Fast Forward
http://www.suicidology.org/c/document_library/get_file?folderId=232&name=DLFE-334.pdf
What perspective does bullying fulfill?
What perspective does suicide fulfill?
Is it really "kids being kids?"
The Story of Amanda Todd and Cyber-Bullying
Does media hurt or help us?