Annotated bilbleography/misc research

Hatzenbuehler, L Mark. "The Social Environment and Suicide Attempts in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youth." Pediactrics 127. 5. (2011): 896–903.


This is a scholarly journal article that adresses the rate of teen suicide in the LGBT community based on their social environment. they began by creating an index based of different factors, such as

• The number of same sex couples.
• The number of registered democrats.
• Whether or not the schoolhad a GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance).
• School policies that protected LGBT kids specifically.

The results were that LGBT youth were almost 17.3% more likely to commit suiced then heterosexual youth, and 20% more likely when they are in an unsupportive environment. This study was done across 34 oregon counties, by way of the "Oregon Healthy Teens Survey". The results were adjusted to include factors on the idividual level, including binge drinking, abuse by an adult, depressive symptoms, and peer victimization (IE. Bullying).


Gould, Erik Jens. "Seths Law: Can a Bullied Boy Leave California a Legal Legacy?" Time Aug. 05, 2011.

This is an article from Time magazine. Seths law is a measure passes in california aimed at schools, that requires them to update their anti-bullying policies anti-discrimination policies. It puts more focus on bullying aimed at people because of percieved sexual orietation, and was created in response to a story about a boy names Seth Walsh commited suicide shorthly after his mother saved him from a group of bullies. This atricle points out that key parts of this act have been removed, and it leaves room for it not to work. They took out a part that would requre bullies to do programs like anger management and counseling due to budget problems, instead of simply being suspended. This act is a sign that things are changing, but it is still very likely that schools wont particiapte fully. They worry that the state wont do enough to enforce this new law, and 80% of gay students still claim that schools do little or nothing to protect them.

Kosciw, J. G., Greytak, E. A., Bartkiewicz, M. J., Boesen, M. J., & Palmer, N. A. (2012).

The 2011

National School Climate Survey: The experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in our

nation’s schools
. New York: GLSEN.
This study contained a lot of good data and statistics. I want to include them all  because I like the range of information they collected, it really gives you an idea of the impact of school environment and what it can do to a student. The ones in bold are the ones I find most important to the actual paper im going to write and I wanted to make sure I keep them in mind.

• 81.9% of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed, 38.3% reported being physically harassed and 18.3% reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation.
• 63.9% of LGBT students reported being verbally harassed, 27.1% reported being physically harassed and 12.4% reported being physically assaulted at school in the past year because of their gender expression.
• 84.9% of LGBT students heard "gay" used in a negative way (e.g., "that's so gay") and 71.3% heard homophobic remarks (e.g., "dyke" or "faggot") frequently or often at school.
• 6 in 10 LGBT students (63.5%) reported feeling unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation; and 4 in 10 (43.9%) felt unsafe because of their gender expression.
• LGBT students reported feeling unsafe in specific school spaces, most commonly locker rooms (39.0%), bathrooms (38.8%) and physical education/gym class (32.5%).
• Transgender students experienced more hostile school climates than their non-transgender peers - 80% of transgender students reported feeling unsafe at school because of their gender expression.
• Nearly one third of LGBT students (29.8%) reported skipping a class at least once and 31.8% 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).
• Increased levels of victimization were related to increased levels of depression and decreased levels of self-esteem.
• 60.4% of LGBT students never reported an incident of harassment or assault to school personnel.
• A considerable number of students reported discriminatory policies or practices against LGBT people by their school or school personnel. Students indicated the most common discriminatory policy or practice was related to treatment of LGBT relationships (e.g., related to dates for school dances and public display of affection).
• Being out in school had positive and negative repercussions for LGBT students - outness was related to higher levels of victimization, but also higher levels of psychological well-being.

Positive Interventions and Support

• 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% of students with a GSA vs. 70.6% 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.
• The presence of school personnel who are supportive of LGBT students contributed to a range of positive indicators, including higher grade point averages (3.2 vs. 2.9), greater likelihood of pursuing higher education, lower likelihood of missing school and lower likelihood of feeling unsafe in school (53.1% of students with supportive school personnel vs. 76.9% of other students).
• 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.
• Despite the positive benefits of these interventions, less than half of LGBT students (45.7%) reported having a Gay-Straight Alliance at school; few (16.8%) were taught positive representations about LGBT people, history or events in their school; only about half (54.6%) could identify six or more supportive educators; and less than a tenth (7.4%) attended a school that had a comprehensive anti-bullying policy.

Changes in School Climate for LGBT Youth over Time

• The percentage of students hearing homophobic remarks, such as "dyke" or "faggot" frequently or often has seen a major decline since 2001.
• In 2011, there was a significant decrease in harassment and assault based on sexual orientation compared to findings released from previous years.
• There was a small increase in portion of students who reported having a Gay-Straight Alliance at school.
• Students reported a significant increase of positive representations of LGBT-related topics in their curriculum.
• There was a small increase in portion of students who reported having access to LGBT-related Internet resources through their school computers.

I think this study was very important because it shows that things are in fact getting better, and it really dosnt take much to see improvment. there are a lot of programs out there that are making a HUGE impact on the mindset of youth, such as the it gets better project


http://itgetsbetterproject.tumblr.com/