by Daniel Dermont

Created on: June 16, 2009

While most people consider bullying to be the biggest problem facing GLBT youth, I disagree. If kids don't bully their peers based on sexual orientation then it'll be due to academics or hobbies or accents or any number of other things. The solution to bullying is a strictly enforced policy at the home, school, and community levels. Sending GLBT students to different schools simply means they'll be teased for something other than their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

However, schools catering to GLBT youth can have a much more varied curriculum than their mostly straight counterparts. For instance, even schools that teach comprehensive sex education have very little to say to the young lesbians in class (and less to the transgendered students). Schools that cater to GLBT youth can focus less on how to prevent pregnancy and more on turning a condom into a last minute dental dam.

If thinking about high school students having sex makes you squirm, there are certainly other areas of life that are different for GLBT youth. Everyone knows Oscar Wilde was gay, but how many know about Walt Whitman's same sex trysts? Or Emily Dickenson's love letters to "close female friends". How about the fact that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in favour of gay rights? These details may be small to others, but to GLBT students they are a link to historic and cultural ties that are not passed down from parent to child.

This lack of generational connection is part of what makes the GLBT community different from other minority groups. As a second-generation American I was exposed to both my home culture and that of the outside world. My grandmother taught me to make tamales for Christmas while in school I learned about gingerbread men. GLBT youth do not have these ties; instead they are forced to stumble onto cultural signifiers such as the Stonewall riots or the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence by sheer luck. By having GLBT schools we are allowing the students who attend to learn about a culture that may or may not be their own.

Yes, I did say that GLBT culture may not be that of the students attending a GLBT school. Take a close look at the admissions application for the Harvey Milk High School in New York City (the first GLBT public school in the US). Nowhere does it ask for sexual orientation. In fact, the school is forbidden from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or gender presentation. Most students applying are likely GLBT in some way, but it is absolutely not a requirement. A student may have GLBT friends or family or simply be an ally.

Either way, the end result is the same. A safe, affirming environment for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities where students can learn about GLBT culture in ways that are not possible in other schools.

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