Bullying For Queer Students

Bullying For Queer Students

Letting Queer Students Express Themselves

In Dane County, 6.2% of the high schoolers identified as queer. This means that they aren't heterosexual (straight) and/or cisgender (identify as the gender your 'biological gender'). But at the same time, 56% of LGBTQ youth have experienced discrimination at school or other places.

But if you live here in Wisconsin, don't fear. Protecting the rights of LGBTQ students is a priority in our schools. Wisconsin was one of the first states to list sexual orientation as part of the pupil nondiscrimination policy.

Lots of LGBTQ students feel unsafe at school. In fact, about 60% of LGBTQ students feel unsafe at school. A way you can help is by setting up a GSA at your school. Stopbullying.gov reccomends it, and you can visit their website for more information. Thankfully we have one at Sennett but not every middle or high school does. But we really do need to set up support systems at our schools. 62% of LGBTQ students feel unsupported at school in a survey. This could be why 40% of homeless youth are LGBTQ.

Although we can help at school, home is a place we can't control. Unfortunately, 30% of LGBTQ youth report being physically abused at home. 30% of LGBTQ youth say that they are sexually abused at school. Sexual abuse can be as simple as saying something about their sexuality, or an LGBTQ slur.

Queer students can even be discriminated against by adults. Wisconsin has tackled this, but not every place because 56% of LGBTQ youth say that they are discriminated against. This could be in school or the other public.

According to stopbullying.gov, LGBTQ youth that are bullied or discriminated against are twice as likely as the non-queer students to think about suicide, and even act on it. This is haunting, because one little thing like sexuality could take someone's life because of mean people.

Hopefully their lives will improve for these students. It isn't a small group anymore, as 14.6% of bullied kids in Dane County are LGBTQ. But over 75% of LGBTQ youth say that they know things will get better.