What’s in a name? A lot. Results from a national survey show that Canadian schools are fraught with bullying for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirited, queer and questioning) students. For example, 70 percent of Canadian students reported hearing expressions like “that’s so gay” every day in school, and only two percent commented that they never heard such remarks.

The good news, however, is that LGBTQ youth are speaking out. Get That Freak is one fine example of the work currently being done on homophobic and transphobic (HTP) bullying. Using a conversational narrative style, Haskell and Burtch spoke to 16 LGBTQ youth about their accounts of HPT harassment in British Columbia high school. Their findings confirm other research in Canada and abroad, which show that some 25 percent of young people experience physical violence due to their sexual orientation, perceived sexual orientation or gender expression. Even more youth are verbally harassed or bullied via text messaging or social networking sites.

Depressed yet? One strength of Get That Freak is that the authors also focus on positive high school experiences, which include celebrating acts of resistance (working within a Foucauldian paradigm). Again, results from their study confirm previous work, which suggests that queer youth who have supportive teachers, supportive schools and supportive school districts/divisions are significantly less likely to report suicidal behaviour and are more likely to have higher levels of school attachment.

Rebecca Haskell and Brian Burtch are to be commended for distinguishing between homophobia and transphobia, especially since research has shown that school are extremely hostile environments for young people who are gender-variant (that is, they do not conform to traditional masculine or feminine scripts). However, the authors overstep their claims regarding such bully. While several participants referred to themselves as being “genderqueer,” no one in their sample identified as being a trans individual. It would be helpful for future work in this are to include a broad range of trans identities.

Nevertheless, this is an outstanding book and a must-read for anyone who is a teacher, school administrator, parent, activist, researcher or simply cares about social justice and security for all young people.- Tracey Peter, Herizons, Summer 2011

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 What’s in a name? A lot. Results from a national survey show that Canadian schools are fraught with bullying for LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirited, queer and questioning) students. For example, 70 percent of Canadian students reported hearing expressions like “that’s so gay” every day in school, and only two percent commented that they never heard such remarks.

The good news, however, is that LGBTQ youth are speaking out. Get That Freak is one fine example of the work currently being done on homophobic and transphobic (HTP) bullying. Using a conversational narrative style, Haskell and Burtch spoke to 16 LGBTQ youth about their accounts of HPT harassment in British Columbia high school. Their findings confirm other research in Canada and abroad, which show that some 25 percent of young people experience physical violence due to their sexual orientation, perceived sexual orientation or gender expression. Even more youth are verbally harassed or bullied via text messaging or social networking sites.

Depressed yet? One strength of Get That Freak is that the authors also focus on positive high school experiences, which include celebrating acts of resistance (working within a Foucauldian paradigm). Again, results from their study confirm previous work, which suggests that queer youth who have supportive teachers, supportive schools and supportive school districts/divisions are significantly less likely to report suicidal behaviour and are more likely to have higher levels of school attachment.

Rebecca Haskell and Brian Burtch are to be commended for distinguishing between homophobia and transphobia, especially since research has shown that school are extremely hostile environments for young people who are gender-variant (that is, they do not conform to traditional masculine or feminine scripts). However, the authors overstep their claims regarding such bully. While several participants referred to themselves as being “genderqueer,” no one in their sample identified as being a trans individual. It would be helpful for future work in this are to include a broad range of trans identities.

Nevertheless, this is an outstanding book and a must-read for anyone who is a teacher, school administrator, parent, activist, researcher or simply cares about social justice and security for all young people.- Tracey Peter, Herizons, Summer 2011

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With the recent suicides of Tyler Clementi, Seth Walsh, Asher Brown, Justin Aaberg and Billy Lucas, it seems like an impossible task to ignore the ramifications of homophobic bullying.

With all of these unnecessary deaths culminating in a short period of time, Rebecca Haskell and Brian Burtch’s new book Get That Freak: Homophobia and Transphobia in High School (Fernwood) feels all the more pertinent. The authors present a nuanced look at how 16 queer adolescents navigate the homophobic and transphobic territory of high school in British Columbia.

While theory does play an important role throughout the work, a more in-depth application of Foucault and Bourdieu only materializes towards the final pages. The rest of the text examines the varying degrees of bullying, the motivation behind this taunting, and the ways that teachers and administration can improve the quality of life for queer teens and their allies in high school.

Though bullying does garner attention from the media, often these reports ignore the gender and sexuality aspects of this torment. Further, when bullying becomes a hot topic, it is usually sensationalized and focuses on extreme forms of physical violence. While the authors argue that cases of bashing are to be taken seriously, it’s the more subtle forms of intimidation—name calling, verbal taunts, gossip and exclusion—that inform the experiences of their sixteen subjects.

These forms of ‘gentle violence’ often heighten when teachers ignore them. Further, when teachers put a stop to the use of ‘bad words’ like ‘fag,’ ‘dyke’ or ‘gay,’ they fail to address the homophobic nature of the dialogue.

The adolescents provide three primary motivations behind the homophobic and transphobic actions of their peers. First is the strict adherence to gender codes. When queer youth defy the rules of the traditional gender binary, they face a barrage of insults. These taunts serve to harm and to regulate ‘proper’ versions of femininity or masculinity. As such, sexual orientation and gender identity intertwine, making it difficult to discern if the bullying is homophobic, transphobic or both.

However, most of the students, as well as the authors agree that trans individuals face the most virulent forms of attacks. Another motivation for bullying is the lack of queer issues, or queer figures, presented in school. The students felt that if their classmates could see and hear positive messages of same-sex relationships, the desire to bully might diminish.

Finally, the students suggested that the bullying they faced was simply part of the maturation process in high school.

It was disheartening to read about the students’ interactions with some of their teachers — especially when professors acted as though bullying wasn’t taking place or that homophobic and transphobic intimidation was not an issue whatsoever. In other cases, teachers behaved in a manner that was outwardly hostile to queer students. One lesbian student recalls her teacher saying that Jesus did not approve of gays and lesbians.

If queer youth must face the harassment of their peers, as well as the apathy or bigotry of their teachers, it’s not surprising that many gay teens skip school, withdraw from their social circles, drop out altogether, or end up on the street.

One point of contention with this book is that it doesn’t investigate how gender and sexuality intersect with cultural background, ethnicity or social class. These identities influence how queer teens are perceived and treated in and out of school. However, the authors acknowledge this omission within the first few pages, just as they explain that while their research does not address cyber bullying, this particular form of violation through digital social networks is on the rise.

Yet, I appreciate that the authors do not portray their subjects as helpless victims or suggest that everyone’s high school experience is 100% negative. They make a point of discussing moments of resistance, of queer youth fighting back or founding gay-straight alliances in their schools. Likewise, some of the students brought up instances where their teachers offered them support, encouraged dialogue, or introduced queer sexuality and history as normal parts of the curriculum.

In addition, whereas the book outlines a great deal of hurt and turmoil, the authors insist that there must be more research on moments of positive interactions. In examining these uplifting exchanges, perhaps we will be able to create a better learning environment for queer youth and their allies.

While this book is an engaging and accessible read for anyone interested in queer youth culture, it’s my hope that it ends up on the desks of teachers, councilors, principles and administrators, so that there is a larger network of individuals in positions of power that can work together to eradicate homophobia and transphobia from the educational system altogether.

—Mark Ambrose Harris, Lambda Literary, Nov. 22, 2010

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Pop quiz: Can you name three gay people you learned about in high school? What about books you studied with positive homosexual characters? Did sex education cover safe homosexual sex? Chances are, if you went to school in this province, the answer is no, and queer advocates say this lack of education doesn’t just result in an ignorant population, but puts homosexual, bisexual and transgendered people at risk.

There have been a number of high profile gay teen suicides this year as the result of bullying at school, and though it isn’tuncommon in Canada, it was the deaths of seven American teenage boys in recent months that spurred an online video campaign by sex columnist Dan Savage called the It Gets Better Project, where celebrities and everyday people post YouTube videos telling queer teens to hold on, life gets better after high school.

Unfortunately for some youth in Vancouver, life outside of high school isn’t better when you live in fear of violence, also known as gay bashing, simply for being who you are and loving who you do. In 2008, Metro Vancouver reported the highest number of sexuality-based hate crimes for a municipality in the country, double the crimes of the previous year, making Vancouver the unofficial gay bashing capital of Canada. There is debate over whether the number has increased because people feel safer reporting the incidents, but there is no doubt it isn’t safe to be gay in the city.

When Rebecca Haskell arrived in Vancouver in 2005 to do her masters in criminology at Simon Fraser University (SFU), she was shocked to find that a city with the reputation of being one of the most welcoming to lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgendered and queer (LBGTQ) people had a big problem with gay bashings.

Along with SFU criminology professor Brian Burtch, Haskell interviewed 16 queer youth in B.C. who graduated high school ”I thought to myself, ‘There has to be a way we can prevent the abuse from happening in the first place,’ and high school seemed like a logical starting place,” Haskell told The Tyee.

Along with SFU criminology professor Brian Burtch, Haskell interviewed 16 queer youth in B.C. who graduated high school n the last five years. They found that while physical abuse as a result of homophobia does happen, it’s rare compared to the mental and verbal homophobic abuse that both straight and queer youth face daily in B.C.’s schools.

”There were no really positive discussions around queer people, and a lot of homophobic language being used, so they were enduring direct homophobic insults, as well as people saying things like, ‘that’s gay,’ or calling one another ‘fags’ in the hallway,” says Haskell.

”Those kinds of subtle forms of bullying were not challenged by teachers, and that created an unsafe environment. They didn’t really feel welcome, and they felt like they couldn’t really be themselves because they were afraid of what they might endure if they came out.”

Ciara Kelly knows what it’s like to grow up gay in a school system that ignores homophobia. She attended Catholic schools in the Lower Mainland from elementary all the way up to two years at a Catholic college, enduring homophobic harassment from Grade 9 on despite not coming out until the end of high school.

”There was this specific group of guys that would call me gay all the time, call me dyke,” Kelly told The Tyee. “I was already going through a really hard time because I was growing up in a community where gay people weren’t talked about, so I internally was having a really hard time, and I struggled kind of quietly with my own internal bullying of myself for a few years. So when it started with other people saying things and calling me names, I was upset a lot.”

Haskell and Burtch’s findings are backed up by two surveys of high school students conducted by EGALE Canada called the National Climate Survey on Homophobia in Canadian Schools. The most recent survey, scheduled for release in December, found two-thirds of LBGTQ youth feel unsafe in at least one area of their school; 51 per cent have been verbally harassed about their sexual orientation; and 21 per cent have been physically harassed or abused. The study involved 15 Canadian school boards, including the Vancouver School Board.

Safe and supportive schools

Haskell and Burtch used their findings as the basis for a new book, Get That Freak: Homophobia and Transphobia in High Schools, which includes recommendations for improving the situation in schools, including a positive representation of LBGTQ people and their history in the classroom, and ensuring schools are a safe and inclusive space for LBGTQ students everyday.

Research from the Vancouver School District has shown adult support in school goes a long way to helping LBGTQ youth feel safe and welcome. In 2008 the anonymous Social Responsibility Safe School Survey asked 19,551 secondary students (Grade 8 to Grade 12) to identify their sexuality and indicate whether they felt supported by adults in their school, as well as if they felt safe at school.

The survey found that students who identified as LBGTQ and had adult support overwhelmingly fared better than those without adult support, with 76 per cent of lesbian and gay youth with support feeling safe, compared to the 68 per cent of youth without support who felt unsafe.

It’s a finding some B.C. school districts have taken to heart, with 10 districts implementing their own supportive LBGTQ policies, and four other districts with policies in the works. The policies range from incorporating queer and gender issues into the K-12 curriculum, as well as into teacher training, to supporting gay-straight alliances within schools, and a zero tolerance policy for homophobic harassment and physical abuse.

But making these policies province-wide has been difficult. EGALE has been trying to work with education ministers across the country to implement these policies, with little progress.

”It’s slow,” Helen Kennedy, executive director of EGALE, told The Tyee. “It takes time to change the policies around this issue. I mean there are a lot of factors: there’s homophobia within the political system, there are religious issues to take into account, there’s parental issues to take into account, and these are all hurdles we have to overcome and we will overcome because we’re not going to stop until this issue is addressed properly.”

Social Justice 12 an important start

EGALE hasn’t entered into formal negotiations with the B.C. government yet, but the B.C. Teachers Federation (BCTF) has not only encouraged its local presidents to educate their districts about LBGTQ policies, but has also been actively lobbying the ministry of education to make them mandatory. However, they echo Kennedy’s claim that it’s been a challenge.

”In the 1990s, both queer youth and teacher activists pushed the province to upgrade its curriculum to make sure that [LBGTQ] people were reflected in the curriculum of B.C., and under the NDP government, the ministry dragged its heels on that,” says Glen Hansman, second vice president of the BCTF. An agreement was finally reached in 2006 only after a challenge had been filed with the B.C. Human Rights Code.

”But the province has always had to go kicking and screaming every step of the way through this, unfortunately. And that’s too bad.”

In an email to The Tyee, a spokesperson for the ministry of education said respect for diversity and the themes of equity, respect and social diversity are found throughout the B.C. curriculum, including Social Justice 12, an optional secondary course that discusses sexual orientation. The ministry also requires all school districts to adopt the government’s anti-bullying stance, and has developed classroom resources on bullying, sexism and homophobia.

But it isn’t enough for the BCTF or for EGALE.

”We need to start addressing curriculum. We have to look at education for pre-service teachers, before teachers actually end up in the classroom, that they have a really good understanding and knowledge of LBGT issues,” says Kennedy. “We need to have role models, we need to have curriculum that reflects same-sex families, parents, kids with same-sex parents. We need to have a whole overhaul, basically, of the education system.”

Kelly isn’t waiting for the ministry of education to jump on board, however. Not only has she her own It Gets Better video, but she’s started an online Facebook group and website called LEZ Help, offering support to other LBGTQ youth facing a hostile school environment, and to let them know that for her, it has definitely gotten better.

”A huge difference. I have great friends that like me for who I am, so definitely it’s got a lot better, especially from high school. Even some of the friends who alienated me in high school, we’re now friends again,” she says. “I think that also everybody’s matured a little bit more, so it definitely has gotten better.”

For more information on LBGTQ school resources for youth, parents, and educators, go to EGALE’s gay-straight alliance website.

—by Katie Hyslop, The Tyee, Nov. 5, 2010

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Queer-identified youth point mostly to exclusion and other subtle forms of homophobia rather than physical bashing as the key problems in schools, according to the authors of Get That Freak: Homophobia and Transphobia in High Schools.

Some of the 16 young people interviewed did talk about “really severe, physical forms of homophobia,” says co-author Rebecca Haskell. But every one of them spoke about everyday incidents like anti-gay graffiti on lockers and gay-straight alliance posters, as well as the pervasiveness of homophobic put-downs like “fag” and “dyke.”

“There would be debates about same-sex marriage in classrooms, and homophobic things would be said under the guise of personal opinion, and that would go unchallenged,” Haskell notes.

And yet, Haskell adds, most of the students interviewed, ranging in age from 19 to 23, indicated they had support in school and described their high school experience as positive. Haskell says having a teacher or a supportive group of friends step up and challenge homophobia when it occurred made all the difference.

“Either they intervened when someone said something homophobic, or from the get-go said, ‘That language isn’t acceptable in my classroom; it’s hurtful language, and it’s not okay,’ or they had counsellors who at least they could talk to, [to] kind of offload and get some support,” Haskell elaborates.

“That’s really important for students who feel they have nobody,” says Brian Burtch, Haskell’s collaborator. 

But Haskell notes that teachers very often don’t intervene to stop homophobia because they feel they won’t be supported if they do.Teachers want clear guidelines from school administrators and the education ministry that they must intervene, Haskell continues, “because they see it as a controversial issue and one that may come back to bite them.”

Just as important is inclusion of queer-specific topics in school curriculum, Burtch adds. “It shouldn’t be something that is secreted or sequestered into, say, Social Justice 12 that is optional for students, but rather embedded in curriculum,” he says.

One thing that students emphasized, Burtch continues, is their need to be taken seriously when they bring the subject up, instead of being brushed off.

“Some people are going to be very insistent that homosexuality is not a healthy approach,” Burtch acknowledges, but “other people are going to be extremely gay-positive, [and] I’d even go further and say, be sex-positive.”

One of the lingering problems, he notes, is schools’ unwillingness to “cope with the fact that people do have desires and in most cases are sexual beings. “I’d say [that’s] part of the work: how do we bring these things in?” he says. “It’s definitely going to engender some resistance, and I don’t see that as entirely unhealthy.” 

“I think you have to deal with that,” Burtch adds.

Tackling homophobia and transphobia has to be a broad-based, constant effort, Haskell agrees, not a one-speaker-at-one-assembly approach.

“It’s really important we find ways, every day, to celebrate and reflect the community that is actually in BC,” she says.

—Natasha Barsotti, Xtra!, Oct. 27, 2010

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