Abstract
The paper will examine the gay youth and what happens when they come out in the school setting. It uncovers how the dynamic of the school system stifles one’s ability to be themselves and how the American youth through various channels have been forced into thinking that there is only one way of living one’s life and how straying from this norm affects one’s quality of life.
The LGBT Youth in School-Gina’s Story
The LGBT youth is discriminated and teased for several reasons, but the major reasons are because they have different mannerisms from their straight peers and their choices of unconventional lifestyles make them easy targets for their peers. Their peers find it hard to accept them as the LGBT youth are, and they turn to assaulting them, either verbally or physically. (Obediallah, 2012).
Gina is a 16-year-old student at a local institution who recently came out as gay to her family and peers. Her mother her fear of feeling like a failure because she found it hard to accept her daughter’s lifestyle at first while her partner, Gina’s stepfather, was fully accepting. Her mother could be having trouble adjusting to her daughter’s lifestyle because she feels it could be her fault Gina is gay, perhaps she did not raise her right to like men. Ultimately, she feels she has failed as a parent.
Rituals such as prom that schools hold religiously are some of the ways they promote heterosexuality, and the students are each expected to show up with the opposite gender as their dates. Gina’s friend, who is a lesbian expresses her interest in attending the prom with her. Same-sex prom is something that is unusual because it deviates from the conventional boy-girl coupling observed during many proms. (Dean, 2011).
My campus has strict zero tolerance and non-discriminatory policies that it uses to prevent LGBT students from exclusion in any campus activities and make them feel included. The LGBT youth is treated with the same respect as all other students and the campus even holds a mini "gay parade" for the community.
References
Dean, J. J. (2011). The Cultural Construction of Heterosexual Identities. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell Publishing.
Obeidallah, D. (2012). Why Are Gay People Treated as less American than Straight People? The Huffington Post. Retrieved online <m.huffpost.com/us/entry/why-are-gay-people-less a_b_1505824.html>
Video retrieved from http://wwnorton.com/common/mplay/5.10/?p=/college/socio7dvd//&f=gay_youth.mp4 =gay_youth.jpg
