Bullying of LGBTQ students on the rise this year according to high school principals

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/12/bullying-lgbtq-students-rise-year-according-high-school-principals/

Seriously is anyone surprised at this news. This is what the don’t say gay and the anti-trans rhetoric are all about. The guy who wrote and pushed the don’t say gay bill said the reason he wrote it was he couldn’t stand that gay kids were coming out in school and accepted by the other students. He wanted them targeted and bullied to stop other kids from coming out. He said that! It is the goal. Oh and yes he claims he is a deeply religious Christian. It is the Russia model of removing the LGBTQI+ from society / the public. These red states have now removed any anti-bullying programs or campaigns based on it would violate parents’ rights according to these laws to teach their children that being gay of trans is an abomination to their god and so they need to be beaten / removed to make god happy. Think of it, kids who get told that gays are molesting kids they are going to beat up and pick on gay kids and right now teachers cannot stop it in places in Florida. This is the end result the maga religious right thugs love, the right to force others to live as they demand, do what they demand, they are the US Christian Taliban. Hugs

There has been a marked increase in parents demanding limits to LGBTQ+ students’ rights that may have spilled over to bullying in schools.

By John Russell Thursday, December 1, 2022

Photo: Shutterstock

Nearly half of the public high school principals who participated in a new nationally representative survey say they faced efforts from parents or the broader community to “challenge or limit LGBTQ+ students’ rights” during the 2021–2022 school year. The new study’s results suggest that adult efforts to limit LGBTQ+ students’ rights has led to increased bullying of LGBTQ+ students in schools.

During the summer of 2022, the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at UCLA and the Civic Engagement Research Group at UC Riverside surveyed 682 public high school principals and found that culture war issues have their jobs increasingly difficult.

As NPR reports, policies and practices related to LGBTQ+ students’ rights were among the topics that 69 percent of those surveyed said led to “substantial political conflict” with parents or members of their communities.

Researchers found that principals in narrowly divided purple districts were almost twice as likely as those in more conservative or liberal areas to say they faced multiple efforts to limit LGBTQ students’ rights.

A similar 2018 survey found that 15 percent of principals indicated multiple attacks on LGBTQ students. That percentage rose to 24 percent across all schools in the 2022 survey, with the number more than tripling in purple districts.

The 2022 survey also indicated that adult efforts to limit LGBTQ students’ rights paralleled an increase in students harassing LGBTQ classmates.

“It’s quite disheartening to work so hard and care for all our students when so many people are being hateful and threatening,” said one California principal, who reported an incident in which a parent screamed an anti-gay slur at a school counselor over the phone.

Other issues that caused significant conflict, according to 69 percent of the principals surveyed, include teaching issues around race and racism, social-emotional learning, and student access to books in school libraries. They also reported that rampant misinformation is making it harder to teach many subjects, particularly current events and media literacy.

Despite their grim findings, John Rogers, a professor of education at UCLA who helped lead the survey, and collaborator Joseph Kahne, a professor of education at UC Riverside, said that many principals believe that a majority of parents do not support the conflicts raging in public schools.

Rogers told NPR that principals believe that most parents stay silent, however, “because they’re too busy or overwhelmed or are afraid that if they become engaged, they’re going to face danger.”

“If the vast majority of folks are quiet, then folks who have very strong opinions or who are willing to engage in very contentious politics will have an outsized influence,” Kahne said. “If all parents and community members speak up, and if they have reasoned and focused conversations, that dialogue will be good for schools.”

The schools use to be the place to combat prejudice, bigotry, and hate. But now the teachers are told they cannot support the attacked kids, they cannot affirm anything positive about gay or trans kids. Meanwhile this is what the right wing parents are hearing all day on right wing media and the kids are being told. Wonder why a right wing kid would think trans kids are trying to attack them in the bathrooms? Wonder why right wing kids think all gays are child molesters?