How Children Experience Prejudice
Like any form of prejudice, prejudice against gay and lesbian people is expressed in a range of ways: from the subtle to the sinister. Here are a number of common ways in which children experience it at school.
Their Families are Ignored
In some of their first classroom experiences, many preschool and kindergarten students explore "the family," often using illustrations of their own family activities and relationships to prompt discussion. Yet while many pre-school classes spend time on certain "non-traditional" family forms, such as households headed by single parents, grandparents or mixed race couples, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender-headed families are frequently excluded from the variety of different family forms.
What's the lesson for your child? Quite simply, children who have two moms, two dads or a transgender parent are invisible. They don't count like everyone else.
As the years go on, things often don't get much better in many schoolrooms across the country. Silence about gay and lesbian people and issues, for example, in literature, social studies or history classes, sends the message that your child's family is not like everyone else's. Indeed, it appears not even to be acceptable for people to mention it.
Teachers Appear Uncomfortable Talking About Their "Two Moms" or "Two Dads"
If the teachers at your child's school have not worked with lesbian or gay parents before, they may feel uncomfortable dealing openly and directly with you, even in simple situations such as parent-teacher conferences. In many cases, such discomfort stems from ignorance, or, more simply, inexperience. They may simply not know what to say to you or whether to mention your family structure at all. In other cases, teachers may have strong prejudices about homosexuality that make it difficult for them to behave professionally or to respond easily when your child mentions his or her parents in the classroom.
Without doubt, your child will sense this discomfort. Moreover, your child will learn from a teacher's silence or uneasy response to certain questions or topics that some subjects are taboo. Dismissive or negative responses to students' queries or comments also send a powerful message to your child, namely: Something is wrong with your family.
They Hear Demeaning Language
As early as 5 or 6 years old, children use the terms "gay" and "faggot" when they want to lob an insult at another young person; and by sixth, seventh and eighth grades, the words become all-purpose put-downs. Indeed, the majority of boys in grades eight to 11 have reported that "faggot" is the most humiliating of insults, according to a 1993 survey conducted by the American Association of University Women.
But while some children may barely even think about what these words mean when they use them, the children of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender parents cannot help but think about them, as they are implicitly directed at the closest people in their lives.
They Witness Anti-Gay Harassment
Anti-gay verbal harassment and violence are surely the most extreme forms of homophobia children witness or experience at school. Unfortunately, they also are very common occurrences at middle schools and high schools nationwide.
For example, 69 percent of an estimated 500 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth surveyed reported that they experienced some form of harassment or violence at school, according to a School Climate Survey conducted by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN.) This included persistent taunting, pushing and shoving and physical assault. While experiencing or witnessing such harassment can be traumatic for any child, it clearly can be especially frightening for the child of a lesbian or gay parent.
