Bully Bill might be used to protect gay teens at school

Kris Hill

Monday, June 4, 2001 | 10:28 a.m.

Gay, lesbian and bisexual teens don't feel safe in school, a national report released last week says, and state governments and school districts are doing little to help them feel safe.

A report put together by Human Rights Watch, an nonprofit group that works to shed light on human rights abuses worldwide, says that gay and lesbian youth are harassed sometimes to the point of dropping out of school and committing suicide.

It also says that five state governments have passed laws to protect gay and lesbian students. A sixth can be added if Gov. Kenny Guinn signs Assembly Bill 459, a bill originally designed to protect gay students who are being harassed.

Known as the "Bully Bill," AB459 was amended before passage last week, and all language dealing specifically with harassment of gay students was deleted.

"Now it just says 'don't harass,' " Theo Small, chairman of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network of Southern Nevada, said. The group, a national organization, educates teachers about anti-gay bias in schools.

The report said that of the 45 million children ages 5 to 17 in America, researchers believe about 5 percent to 6 percent are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

The report was based on interviews with 140 students and 130 educators in Nevada, Texas, California, Georgia, Massachusetts, Utah, Kentucky and New York, during 1999 and 2000.

Many of the students reported experiences of being verbally and physically harassed, starting in elementary school and continuing through high school, the report says, although it doesn't give specific numbers.

"Gay youth spend an inordinate amount of energy plotting how ... to become invisible," the report says.

Many of the students said their problems were ignored by teachers, counselors and principals, or they were told to deal with it because that's the lifestyle they chose, the report says.

A number of the students interviewed said that the harassment and violence they endured led them to consider suicide, the report says.

"Students who report attractions to or relationships with persons of the same sex were more than twice as likely as their heterosexual counterparts to attempt suicide," the report says.

Comments made by local students during a forum in January with Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman seemed to support the report's findings on harassment.

"School is a place for learning, not a place for hate and violence," Eldorado High School student Holly Welborn said during the forum.

"It really just burns," fellow Eldorado student Angelo Bomasuto said of the insults hurled at gay students by their classmates.

High school students hear anti-gay epithets 25 times each day, according to a 1999 national survey conducted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.

The report suggests training educators about issues gay teens face, encourages state legislatures to pass laws protecting gay students and urges students to start Gay-Straight Alliance support groups at school, among dozens of other strategies.

Though AB459 doesn't provide as much protection as Small or the report suggests, Small says he can now address what he sees as a fundamental problem in education: School district employees, particularly teachers, are not adequately trained in how to deal with harassment of gay youth on campus.

He says that now that there is a state law protecting students from harassment, he can use the opportunity to talk to school district officials about training employees how to deal with situations where students are being harassed.

The report says that there has been a substantial failure of the government to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students from harassment.

"Hopefully this report will tell school districts there is a need" to address the safety of gay students, Small said.

Small says he thinks the report will help create change that will eventually help gay students feel safe in school.