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Educating students about LGBT issues could foster an environment where LGBT students feel safer in the classroom, improving their overall educational experience for years to come. More than one-third of gay youth have missed a day of school because they felt unsafe, and nine out of ten of LGBT teens have been bullied in school, which can cause students to suffer academically. Including LGBT content in curricula could also offer LGBT students-who disproportionately feel the effects of bullying in schools-a safer, improved educational experience. Furthermore, as the TCF contributors Amy Stuart Wells, Lauren Fox, and Diana Cordora-Cobo explain, learning in diverse environments has been shown to improve one’s educational experience, as it “promote creativity, motivation, deeper learning, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.” Interacting with people from different backgrounds and varying preferences is an integral skill, as employers today are seeking professionals who can collaborate with our world’s increasingly diverse population. Similar to the benefits of racial and socioeconomic integration explored in The Century Foundation’s report How Racially Diverse Schools and Classrooms Can Benefit All Students, the inclusion of LGBT issues in a school’s curriculum could reduce stereotypes and biases against the LGBT population. With that in mind, teaching students about LGBT issues and individuals within the classroom could help them better understand LGBT people. …teaching students about LGBT issues and individuals within the classroom could help them better understand LGBT people. Seeing Caitlyn Jenner on TV, for example, can help make the change from misunderstanding to acceptance, which is extremely important given that only 16 percent of people know someone who is transgender. LGBT education can be fulfilled in a variety of ways, including getting to know a family member who is gay or a friend that is transgender it can also include consuming media that features LGBT people or characters. Sign Up Reducing Discrimination through EducationĪs the American public learns more about the LGBT community, this can foster LGBT acceptance. Taking that into consideration, one can’t help but wonder: what would have happened if state lawmakers or the Orlando shooter had received more education about LGBT people? Yet, there is a lack of education across the nation on this sector of the population, with only one state-California-mandating the implementation of LGBT figures and history into school curricula. Reports from GLAAD have found that increased knowledge about LGBT people leads to lower levels of discomfort toward this community, and thus can reduce anti-LGBT discrimination. Sexual minorities have a greater risk of substance use disorders than straight individualsĬompared to non-sexual minority youth, sexual minority youth are twice as likely to report being bulliedĮnsuring that these instances of anti-LGBT violence and discrimination do not continue to repeat themselves may require society to turn to one of its oldest tools: education. Suicide attempts are 3 times more common among bisexual individuals than straight individuals. LGBT individuals are more than twice as likely as straight individuals to have a mental health disorder. These include North Carolina’s contentious bathroom bill (HB2), and a Tennessee bill (HB 1840) that denies mental health services to LGBT people, who are more than two times as likely to struggle with a mental health disorder than heterosexuals. Since January, more than 160 anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) bills have been brought to state legislatures. While many Americans have responded to this tragedy with calls for gun control, that’s only a piece of the issue at stake.
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This is the narrative of the worst mass shooting in modern American history that took place in Orlando this past Saturday. Now imagine forty-nine people being targeted, in large part, because of how they identify or who they love.
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Take a moment and count to the number forty-nine.