Young homosexuals are suffering more abuse than ever, particularly in schools.
Farrah Tomazin / February 8, 2011 / Sydney Morning Herald
JIMMY Yan was only 16 when he had his first real experience of homophobia. It happened two years ago at a highly sought-after government school in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, but he remembers it like it was yesterday.
At the time, Yan was in year 11, putting up posters in the school library, publicising a national day of action in support of gay marriage. A teacher approached, read the material, and spat out the words that still make him burn with indignation: ''You don't know what marriage is, faggot boy.''
The library was packed with students, many of whom heard the exchange and looked up in dismay. News of the teacher's comments quickly spread around the campus, and it wasn't long before students organised a snap rally outside his office, demanding an apology.
The teacher eventually resigned, but for a young bloke who was still coming to terms with his sexuality, the damage was done.
''I was shocked and outraged because you'd never think a teacher, who is meant to be a role model to young kids, would say something like that,'' says Yan.
''But unfortunately you get these characters everywhere. It doesn't just happen at backward religious schools - the most supposedly progressive ones are some of the most dangerous places for lesbian and gay youth. They can be real cesspools for bigotry, so whenever instances like this come up, they need to be taken seriously, they need to be dealt with and they need to be confronted.''
Few could argue with the sentiment, but research suggests that despite years of law reform, changing values and millions of dollars spent on pilot programs and initiatives, homophobic abuse against young people is getting worse, particularly in Australian schools.
A national study into the experiences of thousands of gay youth paints a startling picture. Based on a survey of 3134 people aged between 14 and 21, the La Trobe University study found that 79 per cent of students attracted to the same sex had been physically assaulted or verbally abused.
About one in four of of these cases took place in the home, by parents unable to cope with the fact their child was gay. But the majority of homophobic abuse - 80 per cent - occurred in schools, up from 69 per cent in 1998 when the study first began.
In one incident, a 17-year-old female student reported being ''beaten, stripped and left in a park at night'' by schoolyard bullies; in another, a 15-year-old girl had her hair cut in class. Her hair was then set on fire.
One 20-year-old former student reported being the victim of at least 10 schoolyard bashings and an attempted rape, while another wrote of being put in hospital by her own parents: ''I got three broken ribs, a broken collarbone, a punctured lung, my jaw broken in two different places and seven of my teeth got punched out when my father found out I was a homosexual.''
La Trobe University expert Lynne Hillier, who co-wrote the Writing Themselves In report, says the findings should be a wake-up call for governments, educators and policy makers. Gay and bisexual youths are more likely to have a sexually transmitted infection, are less likely to use a condom and twice as likely to become pregnant compared with their heterosexual peers, partly because they tend to be sexually active earlier and partly because of a lack of relevant sex education.
Almost 70 per cent of participants were sexually active, with young women more likely to have sex than men. But among the women surveyed, one-fifth continued to have sex exclusively with men despite being attracted to other women. This reflects an attempt to suppress their feelings, or a belief that this is what society expected of them.
Perhaps the most worrying sign, however, is that about one in six people who had experienced homophobic bullying had attempted suicide at least once, while a further one in three had tried to harm themselves as they struggled to cope with the torment they felt. But the research also shows a strong correlation between the support offered to gay youth and their well-being.
''The message from the research is clear: where there are policies and support for same-sex-attracted young people, they are less likely to be abused, they're less likely to self-harm and they're less likely to attempt suicide,'' she says.
While some inroads have been made over the past decade in tackling homophobia, experts argue that there is still a long way to go. As the study shows, more than half the people surveyed said they attended schools with no social or support structures for gay students, and more than one in three described their schools as ''homophobic'' or ''very homophobic''.
The irony is that young people are more likely to disclose their sexuality now than they were 10 years ago, and the cultural values have certainly changed - just think of the public outcry last year when former Ivanhoe Girls' Grammar school girl Hannah Williams was banned from bringing her girlfriend Savannah Supski to her high school formal; or the ongoing federal push for same-sex marriage.
''But while more young people are more likely to be out and proud, the level of abuse has gone up - and schools as the place for that abuse has become more common,'' says Hillier.
''These are huge problems that really have to be owned up to and faced by schools if they care about the well-being of students. And it's an issue for governments, too. I don't think any government would want to think they could have higher rates of suicide in student populations because they didn't do enough to make kids feel safe.''
However, there have been some attempts to address this. The Victorian Education Department, for example, provides some guidance to teachers in its Supporting Sexual Diversity in Schools policy, while the Baillieu government recently announced a $4 million plan to develop suicide prevention strategies for the gay youth.
And last year, in an Australian first, a new Safe Schools Coalition of ''gay friendly'' schools was set up to promote tolerance of sexual diversity. Under the program, schools are encouraged to set up ''gay/straight student alliances'', share resources and provide teacher training that identifies, and seeks to stamp out, homophobia in the classroom.
Students and teachers get access to gay and lesbian health networks and are encouraged to create posters, newsletters or forums that promote sexual diversity in schools. The hope is that all students - gay or straight - are comfortable to be themselves.
When the program was launched by the Brumby government in the lead-up to last November's state election, 11 schools had signed up. Now, 22 public and private schools are on board - including Methodist Ladies College, the King David School and Northcote High School - and The Age understands about five more are considering joining.
Victoria's Education Minister, Martin Dixon, says he's yet to be briefed on the success of the program, and has refused to be drawn on whether the new government would continue to fund the scheme when its contract expires in July.
But Dixon, a former school principal, says the extent of youth homophobia is troubling, and agrees that the curriculum should be more inclusive of gay issues, and teachers better trained to identify and tackle homophobia. However, schools aren't the only ones responsible, he says.
''This is a community-wide problem. One of the key issues here is about respect for any minority group or any group of individuals, and what we're seeing is a loss of that respect throughout the community,'' says Dixon. ''We've seen increasing violence on the streets, more vandalism and crime and this is just another manifestation of that growing lack of respect for others. That's something that we want to tackle across the whole of government.''
While initiatives like the Safe Schools Coalition have the backing of the government, psychologists and gay groups, not everyone agrees with the concept. When the program was launched last year, Victoria's powerful Christian lobby warned that the program could ''normalise'' homosexuality in schools and ''promote homosexual or lesbian behaviour, rather than allowing children the time to work these things out for themselves''.
''Are they going to suggest that children who might be homosexual attend these schools?'' Rob Ward, the Victorian director of the Australian Christians Lobby, said at the time. ''Are we creating a homosexual ghetto?''
David Warner, principal of Eltham College of Education, one of the first schools to join the coalition, certainly doesn't think so. Last Sunday, for the first time, the college had a contingent of students, parents and teachers marching at the annual gay and lesbian pride march in St Kilda. Earlier this month it conducted a workshop to teach staff how to deal with homophobia in the classroom. Asked why his prestigious private school decided to join the coalition, Warner replies: ''All young people need to feel safe in school. They can't learn if they can't feel safe.''
A few kilometres down the road at Eltham High School, year 12 student Sean Miles couldn't agree more. Miles first ''came out'' in year 8, firstly to a few close friends, and eventually to his family. But he knows he's one of the lucky ones - Eltham High has long and proud history of being a gay-friendly school: students march at Pride every year, and according to principal Vincent Sicari, it's ''the sort of place where two boys could hold hands and no one would bat an eyelid''.
Miles reckons being educated in this sort of environment can make a huge difference. ''I have some friends from other schools in the region, and they didn't come out until after they left because they would have felt like the odd one out, they might have been subject to bullying, or they were just afraid,'' he says. ''I'm very thankful I'm at this school, because of how comfortable it feels to be gay here.''
Other schools have also sniffed the wind. Two years ago, Melbourne High School student Jordan Boulter and a friend convinced teachers to allow them to set up a gay support group at the school, known as SOFA (the Same-sex attracted, Other, Friends of, Alliance). Boulter was questioning his sexuality at the time, so the idea was to start a group for other like-minded students to chat, seek advice, get health resources and condoms, or listen to guest speakers.
''It was my second year at Melbourne High School when we started the group,'' says Boulter, who graduated last year. ''I had found the first year really difficult because I never felt like I was ''one of the boys'' so having this group was really helpful. I could meet like-minded people, learn about [homosexuality] and I began to feel more confident and comfortable. To be able to come out to my peers at school like that was really beneficial, and I earned a lot of respect for it.''
Anne Mitchell, director of Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria, says programs like the Safe Schools Coalition are critical, and disagrees with suggestions that they ''encourage'' homosexual behaviour among young people. ''This isn't about gay recruiting,'' she says. ''This is a serious health problem.''
Recent events also suggest the consequences of inaction can be fatal. Last year in the US, school officials were forced to rethink their efforts against bullying after a spate of teen suicides was linked to anti-gay harassment. One was the death of Tyler Clementi, who jumped off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate allegedly posted on the internet video of him having sex with another man. In the UK, a 15-year-old student from South Wales, Jonathan Reynolds, lay in front of train after being called a ''faggot'' and a ''poof'' at school.
Australia may not have had the spate of tragic cases seen in the US, but experts agree more needs to be done, and the report makes a range of recommendations: introduce police programs that liaise with the gay community and make it easier for young people to report homophobic abuse.
Schools should have specific policies on gay bullying, including protection for gay students; a rethink of sex education to include more information about homosexuality; and better training for teachers and health professionals.
''But what we're really talking about here is social change,'' says La Trobe's Lynne Hillier. ''And social change never happens without a struggle.''
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