Volume 22, Number 3
May/June 2006
Making Schools Safer for LGBT Youth
Despite signs of progress, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students say harassment persists
by Michael Sadowski
Shelby is an openly gay junior at a large suburban high school near Boston. On most days, she says, she feels lucky to attend a relatively affluent, liberal school that offers her “an excellent education, opportunities to pursue my passions, and a fairly safe place for me to express my sexual orientation.” Issues like same-sex marriage, now legal in Massachusetts, have been discussed in several of her classes, and incidents of homophobia are addressed swiftly.
Nonetheless, Shelby says the undercurrents of homophobia run deep among her peers.
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