Defining "normal"

Homosexuality and the LGBTQ community have been becoming increasingly accepted in society throughout the last couple years. Yet students who associate themselves with the community still face backlash and scepticism through the form of everyday negative rhetoric and cultural ideals. Although we as a community have come a long way from the stonewall riots, public schools are still seen as an exclusionary heteronormative site with tremendous consequences for the health and safety of sexual minority youth. Evidence from two large-scale Canadian surveys has reaffirmed earlier research, finding that sexual-minority youth reported more emotional and behavioral difficulties, higher symptoms of depression and externalizing behaviors, more hostile peer environments and victimization, greater rates of bullying and sexual harassment, and less social support in both their family and peer group contexts than their heterosexual peers.

It is no surprise then that what Rick Mercer is talking about in the above video is a serious factor affecting a lot of LGBTQ youth. Depression and externalizing behaviours reported by sexual-minority and questioning youth are largely a result of their experiences with victimization and a lack of social support. Importantly, these risk factors are not increased by a youth’s sexual orientation or gender identity alone but are intensified by the lack of a supportive and understanding social and educational environment.

Due to this, school boards are going through massive changes in order to tackle bullying and the culture of silence that goes on. In Ontario efforts such as Bill 157, Keeping Our Kids Safe at School Act, is specifically implemented to tackle bullying problems and the culture of silence by requiring all school staff to report incidents of bullying and principals to contact the parents within 24 hours. Despite the good intentions of Bill 157, homophobic bullying was still a problem and therefore Bill 13, The Accepting Schools Act, was put into place. Bill 13 mandates that all teachers participate in professional development on homophobic bullying and cyberbullying in addition to allowing Gay-Straight Alliances to be formed in all schools. This includes the Catholic school board whose traditionally been in opposition of the LGTBQ community. 

Despite all these commitments to social justice, interviews with teachers leading the Gay-Straight alliances found that there was still considerable fear amongst the straight ally participants’ of being perceived as LGBTQ. While straight allies were eager to learn more and participate in events where they would be identified as political and social allies with LGBTQ people, their discomfort with being labelled LGBTQ suggest a lack of self-awareness and perhaps even unchecked latent homophobia. This fear of being perceived LGBTQ seems to carry some insidious and unchecked prejudice. Perhaps it stems from the experience of relative safety that comes from the social privilege straight people experience.

So the real question is: 

Is it acceptable and good to be a friend to LGBTQ people, but not to be perceived as such by others?

I personally think that regardless of your preferences, accommodating diverse student needs and respecting other people's opinions and way of life is something that should be customary in every society. This is protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom, and although we are living in a society that has accepted it fully on paper, there are still Jim Crow-esque laws that hinder the LGTBQ community. We are in the moving in the right direction by advocating Gay-Straight Alliances, and although some students may be fearful of being labelled LGBTQ, I feel like this is something that will diminish in time if we keep up our efforts in reducing the stigma around the community and stopping discriminatory behaviour right away. As a future teacher, this just tells me that we need to continue the fight, that students are eager to learn more and are more accepting ever than before, we just need to stress that it is completely normal since normaltiy is a social construct that we decide.

Many places like the Royal Ontario Museum and even some schools are paving the way by including gender-neutral washrooms in their facilities. They are acknowledging that safe is more than just physically safe, it is emotionally safe, and any student or teacher who feels they need to use the space can use it. Based on the research indicated above, I feel the best avenue to implement these gender-neutral washrooms is by getting rid of the binary system of washrooms we have now so that no one feels singled out, yet policies need to be implemented to protect the safety of women and men being in the washroom together. It is a controversial subject area, but I am sure by introducing gender-neutral washrooms we are not escalating the problem, but diminishing the problem.




With this in mind, I am glad a lot of celebrities such as Caitlyn Jenner, Macklemore, Young Thug and other people of influence are coming out in public and breaking down the stigma of the LGTBQ community and redefining what "normal" is in today's society.

References 

Potvin, L. (2016). Radical heterosexuality: Straight teacher activism in schools: Does ally-led activism work? Confero: Essays on Education, Philosophy and Politics Confero, 4(1), 9-36. Doi:10.3384/confer.2001-4562.1606614

Thompson, E. (2016). Peel region high schools to get gender-neutral bathrooms. Retrieved November 06, 2016, from 

                http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/peel-school-bathrooms-1.3744018

Wells, K. (2010). Generation Queer: Sexual Minority Youth and Canadian Schools. Education Canada, 48(1), 18-23.