LGBT
By August

Extended Comments

In this our modern era when there are issues about LGBT people, others have harassed or abused them causing some young lives lost through suicides.  Classrooms of this era should lay the foundations for an inclusive and safe society: a just community where common interests and individual differences coexist according to August.  Any adult interested in creating safe spaces for LGBT youth needs to consider the impact of schooling on the social and psychological development of young people.

As a community, we must discuss and describe how some educators reinforce lGBT exclusionary attitudes and beliefs that find expression in everyday acts of discrimination against LGBT people.  August states that heterosexism is one of those unexamined avenues of privilege.  Assumptions that everyone is heterosexual shape most classroom interactions whether academic or social.  August goes on to say that educations and all adults must forge new paths or widen existing ones to make room for all youth.

Tammy Aaberg spoke about the challenge to all adults in the aftermath of her 15 year old son's suicide.  The son was bullied because of his sexual orientation.  I personally think that lGBT students need advocacy and protection, not neutrality, according to August.https://www.hrw.org/topic/lgbt-rights

Other students might see negative representations of the LGBT community in the health or biology classroom, where they learn about HIV/AIDS as a gay related disease.  History classrooms are no different, even though the themes of oppression and the struggle for civil rights are routinely examined.  There are constitutional protections waged by African Americans, women and the disabled.

If we officially acknowledge the roles of LGBT individuals in the development of this country's harmful stereotypes that have contributed to recent suicide attributed to antigay bullying.