Every two years, the Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network conducts a school climate survey to assess the experience of LGBT young people across the country. Today, the group released its report from 2011, and though there is definitely marked improvement since the 2009 study, LGBT students still face very high levels of bullying and victimization. Here are some of the key findings:

• 81.9 percent of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed, 38.3 percent reported being physically harassed, and 18.3 percent reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation.
• 63.9 percent of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed, 27.1 percent reported being physically harassed, and 12.4 percent reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year because of their gender expression.
• 84.9 percent of LGBT students heard “gay” used in a negative way (e.g., “that’s so gay”) and 71.3 percent heard homophobic remarks (e.g., “dyke” or “faggot”) frequently or often at school.
• 6 in 10 LGBT students (63.5 percent) reported feeling unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation; and 4 in 10 (43.9 percent) felt unsafe because of their gender expression. 80 percent of transgender students reported feeling unsafe at school because of their gender expression.

In addition to these high rates of negative experiences, the study also found a correlation between how safe and included students felt and how well they performed academically:

• Nearly one third of LGBT students (29.8 percent) reported skipping a class at least once and 31.8 percent missed at least one entire day of school in the past month because of safety concerns.
• The reported grade point average of students who were more frequently harassed because of their sexual orientation or gender expression was lower than for students who were less often harassed (2.9 vs. 3.2).
• Having a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) in school was related to more positive experiences for LGBT students, including: hearing fewer homophobic remarks, experiencing less victimization because of sexual orientation and gender expression, being less likely to feel unsafe because of their sexual orientation (54.9 percent of students with a GSA vs. 70.6 percent of other students) and having a greater sense of belonging to their school community.
• Students in schools with an LGBT-inclusive curriculum, i.e. one that included positive representations of LGBT people, history and events, heard fewer homophobic remarks, were less likely to feel unsafe because of their sexual orientation (43.4% of students with an inclusive curriculum vs. 63.6% of other students), were more likely to report that their peers were accepting of LGBT people (67.0% vs. 33.0%) and felt more connected to their school.
• Compared to students at school with a generic policy that did not include protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity/expression, students attending schools with a comprehensive anti-bullying policy that included specific protections heard fewer homophobic remarks, experienced lower levels of victimization related to their sexual orientation, were more likely to report that staff intervened when hearing homophobic remarks and were more likely to report incidents of harassment and assault to school staff.

School climate is getting better, but only slightly. The programs and policies that are supposed to make a difference are making a difference, but are still not prevalent enough: only 45.7 percent had a GSA, 16.8 percent had an LGBT-inclusive curriculum, and 7.4 percent had a comprehensive anti-bullying policy. These are exactly the kinds of effective interventions anti-gay conservatives are trying to block. More must be done to open up discussions and schools and help these young people feel authentic about who they are.

Dynasty Young, his mother Chelisa Grimes, and his twin brother Darell. (Photo vis Michelle Pemberton, IndyStar.)

Dynasty Young’s story is tragic: When he arrived at his new Indianapolis school, he was constantly bullied for his perceived sexual orientation and gender non-conforming dress. Rather than interrupt the harassment, school officials at Arsenal Technical High School blamed Dynasty’s dress, holding him accountable for ending his own harassment by dressing more masculine. Bullies regularly referred to him as “fag,” spit on him, and on at least one occasion, threw rocks and empty glass bottles at him, leading him into a severe depression with poor academic performance. In April, when six students prepared to attack him, Dynasty activated the alarm on the self-protection flashlight his mother had given him, which successfully dispersed his would-be assailants, but caused the school to expel him. Now, he’s suing the district, which won’t readmit him except at an alternative school for troubled youth.

Dynasty’s mother, Chelisa Grimes, repeatedly called on school administrators to protect her son, but they never held his bullies to account, refusing his repeated offers to show them who his bullies were, even if he couldn’t identify them by name. She hopes the suit will protect other students from future harassment:

GRIMES: It’s important to get justice for Dynasty for the damage that IPS did to him, but it’s even more important that IPS make some real changes in the way it deals with bullying and harassment. We hope IPS will be willing to sit down and talk with us soon about ways they can improve their policies and training so that kids like Dynasty can feel safe in IPS schools.  My son is a wonderful, sweet, talented young man.  He deserves a chance to attend school and learn without being terrorized by other students and told that the school will not protect him unless he changes who he is.

The case illuminates the importance of specific protections for students who may identify as LGBT. Dynasty’s freedom of expression, which did not even violate the school’s dress code, should not justify the treatment he experienced. Conservatives are seemingly too focused on protecting the rights of bullies to appreciate how much damage is done when young people like Dynasty are disregarded, ignored, or even punished for trying to protect themselves. Read the full complaint for more details of his experiences, via the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

Conservatives have been outraged about the passage of California’s FAIR Education Act (SB 48) last year, which mandates that schools develop curricula that are LGBT inclusive. Last year, they attempted to challenge it with a referendum, but failed. Now, they have failed again to overturn the law with a ballot initiative. LGBT-inclusive education isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

It’s important to remember the significance of SB 48. Anti-gay forces in this country regularly allege that homosexuality is a threat to children, encouraging parents to feel like they need to protect their children from learning about even the existence of gay people, lest they be “indoctrinated” or even molested or “recruited.” Consider the situation in Erie, Illinois, where parents objected to a children’s book that on one page pointed out that some families include same-sex parents. The Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly the Alliance Defense Fund) argued that through GLSEN’s inclusive curriculum, students could be “indoctrinated into homosexual behavior.” Here is a quick recap of other negative responses to the FAIR Education Act:

- RANDY THOMASSON: “Realize that the raft of school sexual indoctrination mandates imposed on all children in California government schools amounts to mental molestation.”

- Signature collectors said that overturning SB 48 would protect children from child molesters.

- The campaign to overturn the law argued that kids will learn about Chaz Bono instead of George Washington.

- NOM’S JOHN EASTMAN: Evil will be with us always, and it requires constant vigilance to defeat… We need to be involved in the immediate defense of threats against marriage, but also take a long-range view by educating the next generation about the importance of the issues we’re confronting.

But despite the backlash against the law, which hasn’t even been implemented in all school yet, research has shown it will make an important difference. GLSEN analyzed data from its 2009 school climate survey and found that having LGBT-inclusive curricula helped students feel safer, experience less victimization, miss less school, and define their peers as accepting. The California Safe Schools Coalition similarly found that inclusive curricula helped students perform better academically and feel more connected to their schools. Conservatives know that learning the basics about sexuality is the key to ending anti-gay stigma, which is why they stand opposed at every opportunity.

On Friday, LGBT students and their allies will participate in the GLSEN-organized Day of Silence as a form of protest for the anti-gay and anti-trans bullying abuse that takes place in schools every day. Tomorrow, however, is the conservative Christian response, Focus on the Family’s ironically-named Day of Dialogue (formerly “Day of Truth”), which encourages students to express God’s condemnation of homosexuality to their gay peers. Over the past week, various anti-gay groups have promoted the Day of Dialogue’s harmful message while decrying the Day of Silence as anti-Christian intolerance that children shouldn’t be exposed to. Here are some examples:

• A coalition of anti-gay groups promote a Day of Silence Walk Out because “homosexuality and cross-dressing are immoral.”
• The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins said the Day of Silence should be banned because it’s a “cover for the promotion of homosexuality.”
• The Liberty Counsel encourages parents to remove their students from school on the Day of Silence, and the group’s chairman, Mathew Staver, described the day as “a radical and forced agenda of homosexuality.”
• The American Family Association sent out an alert to its subscribers, encouraging parents to pull their students from school because GLSEN promotes “controversial, unproven, and destructive theories on the nature and morality of homosexuality.”
• Truth in Action Ministries described GLSEN’s efforts as using bullying to “promote and essentially indoctrinate children” into the “deadly lifestyle” of homosexuality.
• Barb Anderson (Minnesota Family Council), Peter LaBarbera (Americans for Truth About Homosexuality), and Laurie Higgins (Illinois Family Institute) condemned the Day of Silence as”evil propaganda,” “brainwashing,” and “child abuse” comparable to the Nazi Party and slavery.
• The Manhattan Declaration, a document committed to anti-gay values even if it means violating laws, promoted the Day of Dialogue as a mean for students to “express a Biblical viewpoint in a loving and Christ-centered way.”
• The Alliance Defense Fund hopes the Day of Dialogue “shatters the silence,” countering messages that homosexuality is unchangeable.
• Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) is encouraging students to hand out fliers encouraging students to believe their homosexuality can —and should — change.

Indeed, all of Focus on the Family’s materials on the Day of Dialogue encourage students to use the Bible to condemn homosexuality as “broken” and promote ex-gay therapy that is known to be traumatic and ineffective. Given the overt antipathy encouraged against any LGBT-inclusive information, the day is perhaps better described as a Day of Monologue. This is a concerted effort to paint blatant in-school evangelism as welcome free speech and the stark silence of LGBT awareness as indoctrination, intolerance, and an unprotected disruption to school activities.

The Day of Dialogue is nothing short of encouragement to bully. Even if DoD participants do not attack or harass their targets, the stigma they encourage through condemning homosexuality helps maintain an unsafe climate for students with consequences that can last a lifetime. Students who have experienced prejudice-motivated bullying and victimization are more likely to attempt suicide, become clinical depression, or contract a sexually transmitted disease by early adulthood. In fact, simple exposure to stigma can increase the chances that LGBT teens experience suicidal thinking throughout the rest of their lives. Even living in a community that generally has socially conservative anti-gay attitudes can increase the suicide risk not just for gay, lesbian, and bi teens, but their straight peers as well. Minority stress also contributes to higher rates of substance abuse in the LGBT community, one of many negative consequences that can be mitigated by having gay-straight alliances in schools.

The Day of Dialogue is a direct attack on our nation’s youth, a campaign to impose not just religion in schools, but harassment, shame, and a lifetime of consequences. Not only do social conservatives oppose visible day of silence, they don’t want there to be a place in our schools for LGBT students at all.

A new study from researchers at Northwestern and Brown Universities found that bullying and harassment of LGBT people can have a significant impact on suicidal thoughts and self-harm for young people, particularly for those who have attempted suicide before:

The victimization of LGBT youth is widespread and has been characterized as an important but unexamined reason for higher rates of self-harm. The current study found that victimization experienced across the assessment waves prospectively predicted self-harm and suicidal ideation. Indeed, after suicide attempt history, LGBT victimization was the strongest predictor of self-harm, being associated with a 2.5-fold increased risk. Similarly, gender nonconformity was another LGBT-specific risk factor with significant effects.

The researchers pointed out to NPR that family acceptance without judgment is key to deterring suicidal thoughts. If young people are ostracized or bullied at school, they need to be able to find social support at home. The Family Acceptance Project has similarly found that there is a high correlation between family rejection and suicide attempts, as well as illegal drug use.

It’s important to point out that bullying and victimization do not directly cause suicide, but they do contribute to an individual’s depression and hopelessness, which can lead to self-destructive behaviors. Other studies have also shown there are long-term health consequences to bullying, but social support through gay-straight alliances at school can mitigate those impacts.

When the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee marked up the Elementary and Secondary Education Reauthorization Act (ESEA) of 2011 last month, two anti-bullying provisions were noticeably absent. This week, a coalition of LGBT groups and allies is calling upon the committee to do better, arguing in a letter that the bill should not advance without protections for LGBT students:

Discrimination and harassment of LGBT students, and those perceived to be LGBT, is a serious problem in public elementary and secondary school districts across the United States.  Despite this fact, the ESEA Reauthorization Act of 2011 fails to include any express protections for this vulnerable student population, or even to make reference to them.  While we recognize and appreciate the leadership of some members, including Senators Casey and Franken, who have been tireless in their advocacy on behalf of all students, including those who are LGBT, this reauthorization fails to ensure that LGBT students have access to a public education unhindered by discrimination and harassment.

Sen. Franken (D-MN) has said he plans to introduce the Student Non-Discrimination Act (SNDA) as an amendment when ESEA is brought to the Senate floor. It is unknown if Sen. Casey intends to do the same with the Safe Schools Improvement Act (SSIA). Without either, the ESEA would have no specific mention of LGBT students and the unique challenges they face.

Among the signers of the letter were legal groups GLAD and Lambda Legal, family groups PFLAG and the Family Equality Council, the ACLU, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The Washington Blade notes that the Human Rights Campaign and GLSEN did not sign the letter, though both support SNDA and SSIA.