Accelerating Acceptance 2016

Non-LGBT Americans are increasingly accepting of LGBT people, but many don't realize what battles remain to be fought for full equality, a new GLAAD report indicates. GLAAD's second annual Accelerating Acceptance report, based on information gathered for the organization by the Harris Poll last fall, found that respondents' comfort level with LGBT people rose since the previous year.But many participants in the survey were unaware of the challenges still facing LGBT Americans. Half of non-LGBT respondents thought LGBT people had "the same rights as anybody else," as the survey put it, when actually 31 states have no law preventing a person from being fired or denied housing simply for being LGBT. The assumption that LGBT people have equal rights across the board may be due to the widespread publicity about last year's Supreme Court marriage equality ruling, GLAAD officials said.A significant minority of non-LGBT respondents -- 27 percent -- thought violence against transgender people was not a serious problem, even though at least 21 trans women, most of them women of color, were murdered in the U.S. in 2015. Also, 37 percent said homelessness among LGBT youth was not a major issue, when in reality an estimated 40 percent of homeless young people identify as LGBT. And a third of non-LGBT respondents, including some allies, said they had no strong opinion about LGBT issues.The 2015 survey was conducted online October 5-7 among 2,032 Americans age 18 and older. The non-LGBT sub-sample was 1,781. The previous survey was conducted in November 2014 and involved 2,010 American adults, 1,821 of them non-LGBT

The Experiences of LGBT Students in School Athletics

This research brief examines the experiences of LGBT student athletes between the ages of 13 and 20. Findings in this research brief uncover four key concerns:1. Physical Education classes were unsafe environments for many LGBT students. 2. LGBT students may be underrepresented on extracurricular sports teams. 3. Many LGBT students experienced discrimination and harassment in school sports. 4. LGBT student athletes may not be fully supported by school athletics staff and policies

Teaching Respect: LGBT-Inclusive Curriculum and School Climate

For many students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT), school is a hostile environment that can negatively affect academic performance and personal well-being. One strategy that educators can employ to promote safe and affirming school environments is including positive representations of LGBT people, history, and events in the curriculum. Among the LGBT students in GLSEN's 2009 National School Climate Survey, attending a school with an LGBT-inclusive curriculum was related to a less-hostile school experience for LGBT students as well as increased feelings of connectedness to their school communities. Despite these benefits, the vast majority of LGBT students do not have access to an inclusive curriculum

Hate crimes against the LGBT community in the Commonwealth: a situational analysis

This report outlines the nature and extent of anti-LGBT hate crime and its impact on individuals and societies in the Commonwealth. Section 1 outlines the methodology and approach of this report, and sets out the legal and social context in which hate crimes are committed against LGBT people. Section 2 assesses the extent and nature of anti-LGBT hate crimes, exploring trends across the Commonwealth and surveying regional and country-specific case examples. Information on the perpetrators of anti-LGBT victimisation is also outlined. Section 3 examines the impacts that anti-LGBT hate crimes have on individuals, communities and society. Commonalities and differences in experiences across different sectors of LGBT communities are described. Section 4 of the report concludes with recommendations on how Commonwealth states should legislate against anti-LGBT hate crime, and why statutory agencies must implement monitoring tools to ensure that anti-LGBT victimisation becomes visible and is measured

Progress and opportunities in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender health communications

This article describes elements of effective health communication and highlights strategies that may best be adopted or adapted in relation to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) populations. Studies have documented the utility of multidimensional approaches to health communication from the macro level of interventions targeting entire populations to the micro level of communication between health care provider and consumer. Although evidence of health disparities in LGBT communities underscores the importance of population-specific interventions, health promotion campaigns rarely target these populations and health communication activities seldom account for the diversity of LGBT communities. Advances in health communication suggest promising direction for LGBT-specific risk prevention and health promotion strategies on community, group, and provider/consumer levels. Opportunities for future health communication efforts include involving LGBT communities in the development of appropriate health communication campaigns and materials, enhancing media literacy among LGBT individuals, supporting LGBT-focused research and evaluation of health communication activities, and ensuring that health care providers possess the knowledge, skills, and competency to communicate effectively with LGBT consumers

DISCOURSES AGAINST LGBT ISSUES

The issues of LGBT in Indonesia produce two major groups of society, anti–LGBT groups and pro–LGBT groups. The former is usually positioned as the groups that in their social practices often dominate the later. They position themselves as the ones that have legitimate rights to control the LGBT people, so the dominated groups feel to be discriminated. The paper purposes to study the discourse produced by the dominant institutions in articulating their power against the LGBT issues. The research problems answered are (i) how the dominant groups practice their discourse againts LGBT issues and (ii) whether or not the discourses contain the practice of social wrong such as the power abuse and discrimination. The research data were taken from twenty texts of pro- and contra-LGBT downloaded from Kompas.com and Republika.co.id. The data are the utterances realizing the discourses against LGBT produced by people representing 18 institutions. Using the critical discourse analysis approach, I found that mostly, the text producers from the dominant group exploited lexico-grammatical expressions to oppose the LGBT communities. They used material, relational, and verbal processes to represent the negative activities and identities of LGBT commnity. They used certain vocabularies representing strong controls and hate attitudes. There are discourse articulating power abuse to control all aspects of LGBT community’s life, discrimination, and legitimation of power practices

Sexual diversity on the small screen : mapping LGBT+ characters in Flemish television fiction (2001 – 2016)

Apart from figures on LGBT+ characters in television fiction produced by the American television industry, such as the ‘Where We Are On TV’ – reports by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), quantitative data on LGBT+ representation television fiction series remains scarce internationally. With this working paper, we aim to address this lack in the context of Flemish television fiction. To meet the challenges posed by a lack of centralized data on Flemish television fiction in general, and LGBT+ characters and storylines specifically, we constructed a three-tiered database. Comprising of all 156 domestic television fiction series between 2001 and 2016, the quantitative presence of LGBT+ characters in these series, and individual traits of the 117 collected LGBT+ characters respectively. In doing so, we provide an overview of Flemish television fiction in general, the distribution in these series of characters who identify as LGBT+ and the storylines that relate to sexual and gender diversity, and offer a tool to identify individual pertinent characters. Flanders presents itself as having a dynamic television fiction industry in the past fifteen years, with genre diversity and a sizeable output. In its general output, LGBT+ characters have had a significant habitual presence since 2001, with a noted correlation to specific ‘lowbrow’ genres, and a noted lack in ‘quality’ series. The collected characters display a severe lack of diversity, with most LGBT+ characters being gay male characters, a significant majority being middle class, and few non- white LGBT+ characters

The 2011 National School Climate Survey: The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth in Our Nation's Schools

In 1999, GLSEN identified the need for national data on the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students and launched the first National School Climate Survey (NSCS). At the time, the school experiences of LGBT youth were under-documented and nearly absent from national studies of adolescents. For more than a decade, the biennial NSCS has documented the unique challenges LGBT students face and identified interventions that can improve school climate. The survey explores the prevalence of anti-LGBT language and victimization, the effect that these experiences have on LGBT students' achievement and well-being, and the utility of interventions in lessening the negative effects of a hostile school climate and promoting a positive educational experience. The survey also examines demographic and community-level differences in LGBT students' experiences.The NSCS remains one of the few studies to examine the school experiences of LGBT students nationally, and its results have been vital to GLSEN's understanding of the issues that LGBT students face, thereby informing our ongoing work to ensure safe and affirming schools for all.In our 2011 survey, we examine the experiences of LGBT students with regard to indicators of negative school climate:hearing biased remarks, including homophobic remarks, in school;feeling unsafe in school because of personal characteristics, such as sexual orientation, gender expression, or race/ethnicity;missing classes or days of school because of safety reasons; andexperiencing harassment and assault in school.We also examine:the possible negative effects of a hostile school climate on LGBT students' academic achievement, educational aspirations, and psychological well-being;whether or not students report experiences of victimization to school officials or to family members and how these adults address the problem; andhow the school experiences of LGBT students differ by personal and community characteristics.In addition, we demonstrate the degree to which LGBT students have access to supportive resources in school, and we explore the possible benefits of these resources, including:Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) or similar clubs;anti-bullying/harassment school policies and laws;supportive school staff; andcurricula that are inclusive of LGBT-related topics.Given that GLSEN has more than a decade of data, we examine changes over the time on indicators of negative school climate and levels of access to LGBT-related resources in schools

Strengths and Silences: The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Students in Rural and Small Town Schools

For more than 20 years, GLSEN has worked to make schools safer for all students; it has sought specifically to reduce the bullying and harassment targeted at students' sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. For lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students across the country, violence and harassment experienced in school affect their ability to learn. Although schools in urban areas are typically regarded as more violent or dangerous than schools in other areas, findings from our National School Climate Surveys consistently show that it is most often rural schools that may pose the greatest threats for LGBT students. It may be that community characteristics, such as religious and cultural traditions, income, and educational levels, influence individual beliefs and attitudes toward LGBT people in these areas. It may also be that a lack of positive LGBT-related school resources negatively affects LGBT students' school engagement and academic performance, particularly if they also experience bullying and harassment. Although research on the educational experiences of LGBT youth has grown considerably over the past 25 years, less is known about rural students specifically. This research report examines the experiences of LGBT students in small town and rural areas on matters related to biased language in schools, school safety, harassment and victimization, educational outcomes, school engagement, and LGBT-related resources and support. It also examines the prevalence and utility of LGBT-related resources in rural schools. Finally, this report concludes by advocating for more intentional policies, measures, and programs that protect LGBT students

Out Online: The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth on the Internet

This report examines the online experiences of LGBT students in 6-12th grade. LGBT youth experience nearly three times as much bullying and harassment online as non-LGBT youth, but also find greater peer support, access to health information and opportunities to be civically engaged