Here, Queer and

Full of Fear
the impact of LGBT-phobic bullying
on students and how to end the cycle of abuse

N.B. “queer” is a slur that was/is used to dehumanise and marginalise LGBT+ people. Many of

us have reclaimed it but agree that those outside our community should not use it to refer to us.

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 Figure 1: Human Rights Commission – Key issues for LGBT people

Our perception of sexuality and gender influences our views of who we are and who we

are meant to be. This perception is affected by an extensive variety of factors such as a

person’s community, culture and society. Up to 2.7 million Australians have a diverse

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sexual and/or gender identity. This includes people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans

and intersex. Despite the increase of legislative and societal support of the community,

LGBT+ people still face an array of abuse and discrimination. 60% of LGBT+ people

experience verbal abuse while 20% experience physical abuse. Trans people face an

even higher rate of abuse when compared to gay men and women. It is estimated that

80% of bullying that LGBT+ people face occurs in the school environment. It is no

wonder that LGBT+ people are 3 times more susceptible to suffering from depression

(AHRC, 2014). Clearly, gender and sexuality have great impacts on how a person is

perceived and treated. The hateful treatments are very familiar to me as a trans and bi

man. I, as well as many other members of the LGBT+ community, can attest to how

being raised in a cisnormative and heteronormative society has negatively impacted me,

especially in a school environment.

According to some researchers, male and female gender roles have been curated over

time to serve political systems that create and uphold “white, heterosexual, middle and

upper class male privilege.” (Tolman, Striepe & Harmon, 2003). The education system

plays a significant role in this, perpetuating these roles knowingly, as well as

unknowingly. The bias we have formed throughout our lives as participants in society

affects how we conceptualise sexuality and gender and how they influence every aspect

of our lives. Bronfenbrenner’s model of ecological systems theory demonstrates the

interconnectedness of how identity is structured and policed by our society and culture.

From an ecological perspective, LGBT-phobic bullying is a phenomenon which “has

been established over time as a result of the complex interactions between inter- and

intra-individual factors.” (Hong & Garbarino, 2012). At the microsystem level,

adolescents’ peer groups have been shown to be a primary socialising agent which

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reinforces LGBT-phobic bullying. The involvement of a peer group’s influence can be

adverse, often playing a major role in promoting aggressive behaviour.

Figure 2: A social-ecological framework of LGBT-phobic bullying

A study conducted by Goodenow in 2006 revealed that LGBT+ students who attend

larger schools, with more class and racial diversity, were less likely to be attacked.

However, the bullying LGBT+ students face is found to be most frequent in schools

where teachers were “unable or unwilling to address the needs of sexual minority

students.” (Hong & Garbarino, 2012). Another study by Norman in 2004 found that 87%

of teachers were aware of homophobic bullying occurring multiple times. The majority of

the teachers reported that the “negative reactions from parents, staff and students” were

one of the major reasons they didn’t intervene when LGBT+ students were harassed

(Hong & Garbarino, 2012). This data correlates with my own high school experiences.

Many teachers witnessed the hate speech directed towards me and did nothing to help

me. I never reported incidences that occurred to anyone at my school because, through

the indifference shown, I understood no one cared. More value was places on the

reputation of the school, teachers and students, than on students’ wellbeing. In 2010,

McGuire reported findings that students reported “feeling greater school connection and

safety when teachers and officials actively took measures to prevent bullying situations.”

(Hong & Garbarino, 2012). This demonstrates that caring for LGBT+ students not only

increases their mental and emotional wellbeing but is also conducive to better learning.

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From an exosystemic level, mass media perpetuates negative stereotypes of non-cis

genders and non-heterosexual sexualities. Some teachers have argued that students

learn hate and aggressive behaviour from mainstream media and that the conditioning is

so powerful that schools will never be able to eradicate the problem. They claim that

students “learn bias from their families, which places schools in the difficult position of

fighting cultural and familial values in the interest of greater tolerance.” (Payne & Smith,

2013). As Payne and Smith state: “Neither educator acknowledges the possibility that

school culture could be reproducing and reinforcing those same biases.” (Payne &

Smith, 2013).

The inclusion of LGBT+ related content in the classroom has a positive effect on

students. 83% of LGBT+ students reported that they “do not hear or see positive

representations of LGBT people, history, or events in their lessons at school.” (Langmuir,

2013). Students from schools with inclusive curriculums “hearing fewer homophobic

remarks, missing fewer days of school, and feeling safer” (Langmuir, 2013). From my

personal experience, learning about Walt Whitman’s identity as a gay man in the late

1800s, as well as other famous members of the LGBT+ community such as Oscar

Wilde, reinforced a positive image of LGBT+ people for me and for other students. The

ripple effects of Bronfenbrenner’s model can be seen as follows: “lack of anti-bullying

policies in school districts (macro) can be a potential barrier to creating a safe school

environment (micro) for sexual minority and gender non-conforming youth. Likewise,

heteronormativity (macro) is frequently reinforced by the mass media (exo), which might

engender homophobic peer interactions in school (micro).” (Hong & Garbarino, 2012).

Cyber bullying is the face of a new LGBT-phobic reality of hate that I’m very familiar with.

70% of LGBT+ students have experienced cyberbullying. It has been shown that there is

a positive correlation between cyberbullies and on-sit bullying at school: “the

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phenomenon of cyberbullying is highly linked to school bullying, and is starting to be

addressed as a digital extension of it since, on many occasions, it facilitates contact

beforehand between bullies and their victims as it follows in contact bullying.” (COGAM,

2016). LGBT+ students have reported that they are mostly targeted via social media

(58%), instant messaging (45%) and blogging platforms such as Tumblr (33%). Giménez

points out that there is “serious damage caused to victims, as they are currently one of

the tools most used by adolescents to define their social relationships. Thus, they are a

very important psycho-social space for them.” (COGAM, 2016). From students who were

witnesses to these acts, 41% reported that they did nothing to intervene, therefore

becoming complicit in the abuse. Practically speaking, there is little teachers can do to

affect cyberbullying other than address the in-school bullying that tends to occur

beforehand. However, schools can liaise with families and emphasise the impact of

cyberbullying as they have more resources to supervise students’ use of technology.

There is also a need for “raising the awareness of minors about how serious this abuse

is” (COGAM, 2016).

Indigenous people “represent diversity within the already diverse Aboriginal culture” but

“they also belong to some of the most marginalised groups in Australia” (Korff, 2017),

often being overlooked in discussions surrounding the LGBT+ community. Steven Ross,

a gay Aboriginal man explains that LGBT-phobia for Indigenous people is “just another

extra burden that people have to bear and something they have to respond to in their

lives.” (Korff, 2017). LGBT+ people have been a part of Indigenous culture since long

before colonisation. Aboriginal LGBT+ people face many challenges including isolation,

access to sexual health, racism, suicide, mental health problems, low self-esteem and

questioning the authenticity of their identity. While many LGBT+ people focus on finding

a community that accepts them, Aboriginal LGBT+ people find that being connected to

their people and culture is incredibly important for their sense of identity. An Aboriginal

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trans man, Kai Clancy, explains: “I thought I might have to sacrifice my culture just to be

happy in my body, but that’s not the case. Culture means the most to me; a lot of

Aboriginal people feel that way. Acceptance in my own community is vital.” (Korff, 2017).

The effect of Western thought being forced onto Indigenous communities has impacted

them negatively, Dr Sandy O’Sullivan says: “I can say from my experience that it did

make it harder and part of that was other people’s expectations, some very old-

fashioned ideas, that this wasn’t how we lived, you know, pre-colonisation and so on, but

that’s really challenged.” (Korff, 2017). Indigenous LGBT+ activism has grown over the

years and Facebook support groups such as Sistergirls Brotherboys (for gender diverse

First Nation people) and Black Rainbow (for LGBT+ Indigenous people) provide an

accessible community for Aboriginal people nation-wide. The mainstream LGBT+

community is guilty of marginalising Indigenous members: “racism exists within those

communities just as much as it does in mainstream straight communities”. (Korff, 2017).

Although many anti-bullying procedures have been studied and implemented, many of

them fail to consider contexts at large and tend to fail, especially for minority groups.

These programs are designed to manage behaviour but not disrupt the “cultural patterns

of power, privileging, and marginalization” (Payne & Smith, 2013) that are the core

source of LGBT-phobic behaviour, neglecting to consider, as Ringrose puts it, the

“situational and socio-cultural dimensions of power.” (Payne & Smith, 2013). In a study

conducted by Langmuir, 80% of students reported that their school had an anti-bullying

policy but only 7.4% reported that the policy mentioned sexuality or gender identity

(Langmuir, 2013).

Payne and Smith challenge the notion that bullying is an anti-social behaviour and

expose it as a deeply social behaviour that is a reflection of larger societal values. This

explains why the same group of students are the ones being harassed decade after

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decade: “cultural privileging of heterosexuality and gender normativity goes

unquestioned, LGBTQ marginalization is reproduced and re-entrenched in new ways,

and schools avoid responsibility for complicity in LGBTQ harassment.” (Payne & Smith,

2013). Providing training for teachers and administration, monitoring school policies on

discrimination, and working with LGBT+ organisations are a few ways that have made

school environments more inclusive. Working to undo teachers’ bias is an important

aspect as their negative attitudes towards LGBT+ people is translated to their students.

Crisp and McCave urge teachers to “first acknowledge their attitudes… and participate in

specialized training on developing and providing support” for students who are LGBT+

(Hong & Garbarino, 2012). Moe suggest implementing programs that provide teachers

with the tools and opportunities to “support healthy identity development and acceptance

of all students.” (Hong & Garbarino, 2012). There is no one strategy to implement that

will end LGBT-phobic harassment. Experts, such as Kosciw and Eamon, agree that

conducting research on a community-level will help understand a school’s climate, from

which programs and policies can be built from that would be appropriate for that context

(Hong & Garbarino, 2012).

Despite the prevalence and extent of LGBT-phobic harassment, positive change can

occur. There are continuing efforts to “transform the human ecology of homophobic

bullying into a human ecology of love and acceptance.” (Hong & Garbarino, 2012). If

teachers stress the importance of “acceptance” in place of “rejection”, schools can

become a place where LGBT+ students feel comfortable and safe. Ultimately, schools

should strive to assure that each member of their community is valued and respected

(Langmuir, 2013). Just as the negative impacts of LGBT-phobia ripple through

Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system, so can the positive effects. Change can start small

and still have a significant effect with time.

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