Peer-reviewed articles

The problems and effects of anti-LGBT bullying in schools are clear – students who face discrimination are more likely to have emotional, educational, health, and societal setbacks 1. It is clear to see that there is a significant anti-LGBT discrimination problem in the nation’s schools. What is less-than-clear, however, is exactly how to target the problem. Many theories exist, ranging from zero-tolerance policies, to the establishment of Gay Straight Alliances, to community involvement, including grassroots organizing.  All aim to deal with the issue, but exactly how effective can such policies be? What should be focused on? How can an issue as complex as discrimination be dealt with? Using two peer-reviewed articles these questions shall be considered in order to inform and evaluate possible grassroots efforts and their effectiveness.

Two articles have been selected to display how a range of opinions when it comes to dealing with anti-LGBT discrimination exists –

 Mayberry, M.’s “Gay-Straight Alliances: Youth Empowerment and Working toward Reducing Stigma of LGBT Youth” evaluates the historical reasons for GSAs, what they provide to students currently, and what opportunities they have to better serve the community. 6

Payne, E., and Smith, M.’s “LGBTQ Kids, School Safety, and Missing the Big Picture: How the Dominant Bullying Discourse Prevents School Professionals from Thinking about Systemic Marginalization or… Why We Need to Rethink LGBTQ Bullying” critiques current viewpoints on and explanations for bullying, with a particular focus on what actually, influences the problem, and what need be considered when trying to combat the issue. 5

Mayberry states that GSAs “are increasingly orienting their mission toward the disruption of heteronormalizing institutional practices that excuse and stigmatize non heterosexual identities” (6, p.36). Payne and Smith also suggest that this is an important part of anti-bullying efforts, but suggest that efforts such as GSAs prove ineffective – “Gay-Straight Alliances, and other such interventions fail to be disruptive and LGBTQ and gender nonconforming students’ position in the social hierarchy remains largely marginalized” (5 – 18).

Payne and Smith describe the current stance on bullying prevention as a system of “managing the aggressive behavior and changing the attitudes of students who are identified as bullies” (5 – 4). The problem, as put forth throughout the article, with such an intervention is that it fails to address the issue that heteronormativity exists beyond schools, and forms a part of larger society, as well as part of home life. Using QuERI research as a base, it is explained that “[the victims] claim that students learn bias from their families, which places schools in the difficult position of fighting cultural and familial values in the interest of greater tolerance between youth” (5 – 5).

A similar sentiment is echoed by Mayberry, who noted that despite an understanding among educators as to why anti-LGBT language, in particular, needs to be eliminated, many administrators and teachers are fearful against attempting to combat the issue. LGBT issues, in Mayberry’s study, formed no part of professional development or faculty meeting time. One administrator explained –

I was not going to allow it, not going to cross any lines where parents would feel that the information was given to students without their signing off on it or their approval

Indeed, having to curtail in-school anti-discrimination efforts around the personal beliefs of parents forms part of the problem. A member of a GSA echoes the sentiment of the overall discourse around school –

On the whole homosexuality is not discussed because the last thing you need is to have some parent call and say “why was my child being told such and such about homosexuality?”

It’s these views that Payne and Smith believe need to be abated – “Instead, anti-bullying interventions are designed merely to manage behaviors, not disrupt cultural patterns of power, privileging and marginalization” (5 – 6)

While both articles agree that the problem exists, and that it is in-part rooted in out-of-school experiences, how to actually deal with the issue is where a divide starts to form. Mayberry suggests that GSAs are powerful because they empower the individual to speak up and speak out against the smaller injustices that they witness, that as an organization they empower the community as a whole, and that they have to power to involve themselves with other local community efforts. Unfortunately holes exist in all three arms of the argument, as pointed out by Mayberry, but additionally signaled indirectly by Payne and Smith.

One such example would be the existence of “Safe Spaces”, including stickers that designate their existence. Mulberry quotes a GSA member who describes the effect of events aimed at raising visibility –

Some teacher will put up Safe [Zone] stickers in their classrooms or will put up Equality Stickers, things like that, Raise Your Standards, Not Your Fists, all those sorts of campaigns that have stickers and posters and slogans, some teachers pos that openly in their rooms. I have had a lot of teachers who, when we tell them about events that are going on like youth conferences, will announce them.

While many current anti-bullying efforts center around such issues as visibility, Payne and Smith argue differently –

Safe Space stickers, Gay-Straight Alliances, and other such interventions fail to be disruptive, and LGBTQ and gender nonconforming students’ position in the social hierarchy remains largely marginalized and unchanged and the systems of power that put them there remain intact. (5 – 18)

Essentially, throughout their article, Payne and Smith show that a complex system of gender expectations, heteronormativity, and institutionalized homophobia all feed into the explosion of what then become bullying. At the heart of it, bullying isn’t only about the existence of in-school harassment, but more the importation of outside influences that manifest inside schools.

Being disruptive, for Payne and Smith looks markedly different from Mayberry’s view, who suggests that giving a voice to students who otherwise go unnoticed is the key to dealing with the issue. For Payne and Smith the real issue isn’t getting the minority voice heard, but more challenging the environment in which the discourse takes place, by tackling heteronormativity head-on throughout society.

Enacting sweeping social change will be a very large task, and in order to reach the level of success set out by Payne and Smith would require an extremely large amount of work from a cross section of community members. While Mayberry’s findings are somewhat discredited by Payne and Smith, they prove to be more accessible with tangible goals and steps laid out to help achieve them. That doesn’t mean that Payne and Smith’s findings are any less possible, however the road to making them a reality is much longer, and will require much more work.

Using both articles can help inform grassroots organizing efforts. Organizations should be aiming to raise visibility to the issue, combat antisocial behavior, and at the same time spread more forward thinking concepts, such as acceptance and respect across all of society. All grassroots organizing efforts serve a great purpose, and while no single organization can begin to  combat every single issue faced by every student, they can aim to work together in order to provide a holistic approach and unite in the fight against homophobia in schools and in society.