• Article by: JEREMY OLSON , Star Tribune
• Updated: June 28, 2011 - 11:26 PM

The new survey, drawn from 181 Minnesota teens, also found that a majority of GLBT students have been verbally harassed at school.

The majority of gay students in Minnesota have been verbally harassed in school, and one in five has been punched, kicked or violently injured over sexual orientation, according to new survey.

The results, based on responses from 181 Minnesota teens in 2009, show that bullying remains a particular problem for students who identify themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (GLBT). The results also amplify the concerns, raised last year by the suicide of a gay student at Anoka High School, that some districts don’t do enough to protect this population.

“More needs to be done to ensure that LGBT students are safe and have an equal opportunity to learn,” said Dr. Joseph Kosciw, a senior director with the New York-based Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, which produced the survey data.

The network originally released national bullying data last fall, based on survey responses from 7,261 students of U.S. middle or high schools. The Minnesota figures were released Monday.

Eight in 10 Minnesota GLBT students reported verbal harassment in school because of their sexual orientation, while 47 percent reported physical harassment (pushing) and 19 percent reported assaults (punching, kicking). Almost all the students reported regularly hearing “gay” used in a derogatory manner, while 92 percent reported hearing other anti-gay terms.

A federal school safety report in 2009 estimated that one-third of students ages 12 to 18 were bullied at school. Advocates believe that gay students are bullied at a rate higher than other students.

Concerns about the safety of GLBT students in Minnesota heightened with the suicide last July of Justin Aaberg, an Anoka High student. His mother, Tammy, criticized the district for a policy that she said limited how staff could support gay students. Aaberg was one of six students in the Anoka Hennepin School District to die by suicide in a recent 12-month period. A district review found bullying wasn’t the principal issue, but many parents and students believe that it was a key factor.

In the latest survey, nearly all the GLBT students identified at least one supportive teacher. But only 34 percent said their districts had “comprehensive” anti-bullying policies that protected students based on sexual orientation.

The national survey showed that students in schools with strong anti-bullying policies reported fewer problems and better grades. More than half of the gay students in Minnesota who were bullied never reported harassment or assaults to school officials or parents, the survey found.

Jeremy Olson • 612-673-7744

May 12, 2011

Kristin Rushowy

EDUCATION REPORTER

Anti-gay comments are so common in Canadian schools that most students hear them on a daily basis, says a national survey of both homosexual and heterosexual teens.

Seventy per cent of students who took part said they hear phrases like “that’s so gay” and 48 per cent hear derogatory terms like “faggot,” “lezbo” and “dyke” every day.

Very few gay students reported never hearing homophobic comments, which suggests “that if you are a LGBTQ student in a Canadian school, it is highly likely that you will hear insulting things about your sexual orientation,” says the survey, to be released Thursday.

(LGBTQ is a term that includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer, and also those questioning their sexuality. Queer is also often used as a more general term to indicate sexual orientations.)

More than 3,700 students across Canada took part, either online or in class; about 2,600 identified themselves as heterosexual.

The survey was commissioned by Egale Canada Human Rights Trust, charitable arm of the gay rights group Egale, and conducted by two university professors in Manitoba.

The authors call on school boards to implement a more inclusive education as well as better teacher training.

It also recommends schools implement gay-straight alliances — common in public high schools in Ontario, but not permitted in Catholic schools — and if no students come forward to create one, principals should ask teachers to do so.

The survey found:

•  64 per cent of queer students and 61 per cent with queer parents feel unsafe at school;

•  21 per cent of queer students report physical harassment/assault;

•  27 per cent of queer students report physical harassment about their parents’ sexual orientation and 37 per cent report verbal harassment;

•  Transgender youth “are highly visible targets of harassment” who “may report experiencing particularly high levels of harassment on the basis of perceived sexual orientation” the report says;

•  About 10 per cent of heterosexual teens report being physically harassed or assaulted for their “perceived” sexual orientation;

•  58 per cent of heterosexual teens “find homophobic comments upsetting.” Researchers said that suggests there is a lot of common ground to help push for an improved school climate.