Both Sadowski’s paper “Still In The Shadows” and Whitaker and Heiliger”s case study “Not In My School” address the plight of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students have in school and the myriad of controversies that can erupt when teachers or school officials attempt to address LGBT students issues. This is a topic which has been all over the news of late for tragic reasons. There have been high profile incidents of harassment of LGBT students both at schools and online that have led to students taking their own life. What is even more startling is the variety of the harassment that the LGBT teens face. For example, there was the case of a Rutgers freshman who committed suicide after having his privacy violated; then there was the case of a gang torturing potential recruits because they thought they were gay.  While they may not lead to death or physical violence, there are also the ubiquitous homophobic slurs that one encounters in schools such as the word “gay” being used as a general pejorative and the phrase “no homo” often being  said by teen boys after they say something that could sound “gay.” A quote from Sadowski’s article sums up how LGBT harassment affects school performance perfectly; “How can you focus on reading and writing skills when you’re basically trying to survive the day?” What can schools and society do to combat this strain of homophobia that seems so pervasive?

            One of the of the most successful ways that Sadowski talks about is schools creating Gay Straight Alliance groups which have been shown to be helpful for LGBT students in high school to not make them feel like they are alone. Personally, I remember my high school starting a Gay Straight Alliance during my freshman year and it being pretty successful in that many students both gay and straight joined the group. Today on a national level, there is also the “It Gets Better”  project which is designed to help LGBT youth which has got a lot of positive media attention of late. That being said, the word “fag” and other gay slurs were still thrown around my high school at a very high rate and I am sure they are at schools across the country right now.

This leads us to another issue which is that 40% of respondents stated that their teachers never intervene when they hear anti-LGBT language and 43% say their teachers only sometimes intervened. (Sadowski) This jives with my own personal experiences of never hearing a teacher intervene even when words like fag and dyke were said within ear shot of them.  We need more training for teachers and administrative support about how teachers can deal with homophobic comments being made at schools. Teachers need training and support as to how to have frank discussions about LGBT issues in the classroom. Furthermore, as we saw in the case study reading, it would most likely behoove administrators to discuss these issues openly with the school community in order to explain to the community why they are being discussed and the potential dire consequences if these issues are being left in the shadows. There will most likely be ire from some parents who for either religious or other reasons do not want that to be part of a school curriculum. My question is what do we do if a parent or community member is completely against discussing LGBT issues in class or having a GSA at a school? Do we ignore them? Engage them in a public debate? Try to address their concerns in some way? Point them towards private or religious school?