GSA promotes a safer school through awareness
by Dwayne Codding
The Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) is a club open to all students, regardless of sexual orientation. This club has the intended purpose of educating students and staff on how to create and maintain a safe environment for everyone. This being just the 3rd year of the club's existence on our campus, it comes as no surprise that some raiders to this day have yet to meet this club or find any reason for it even being around. To better understand how the club came to be, the results of a national school climate survey* illustrates what the club considers to be more than enough reason to be present on our campus. Considering that out of the gay community at SOH:ay community
86.2% reported being verbally harassed,
44.1% reported being physically harassed at school in the past year
22.1% reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year
73.6% heard derogatory remarks such as "faggot" frequently or often at school.
60.8% reported that they felt unsafe in school because of their sexual orientation
38.4% felt unsafe because of their gender expression.
31.7% of LGBT students missed a class in the past month because of feeling unsafe, compared to only 5.5% of a national sample of secondary school students.
32.7% missed a day of school in the past month because of feeling unsafe, compared to only 4.5% of a national sample of secondary school students.
These are just statistics of what has been reported, who's to say how much more goes on off the records.
In collaboration with the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network(GLSEN), the GSA intends to change these numbers, promoting a more safe and comfortable environment to all students in our community. To achieve this goal, events such as the Day of Silence and National Coming Out Day are introduced to bring awareness of the underlying problems of bullying and homophobia, thus hopefully simplifying the life of the average teen here on campus.
(*The 2007 survey of 6,209 middle and high school LGBT students)
They should ban this club outright
ReplyDeleteit is wrong and if all people are like this then all of socirty would crumble and their will be no more children
yea because everyone knows of the great success that straight marriages and parenting has, even though gay marriage has a much lower divorce rate than regular marriage.
ReplyDeleteF.Y.I. its a Gay-STRAIGHT Alliance, its suppose to bring our differences together from all the ignorance in the world