Hostile School Climates: Below the Surface

A school can function like an ocean; there may be beautiful islands on the surface made out of successful musical ensembles, athletic teams, or powerhouse academics, but lurking beneath the waves can be an unforeseen abyss of bullies, derogatory remarks, and danger for LGBTQ+ people, and especially transgender students.  

This page dives deeper into the lived experiences of trans/LGBTQ+ students through qualitative and quantitative data, explores ways to identify unsupportive community members (e.g., parents, teachers, administrators) as well as provides a few strategies to support these students do what the great oceanic philosopher Dory (2003) once advised: "Just keep swimming."

The National School Climate Survey provides perhaps the largest snapshot of what K-12 LGBTQ+ students endure in their academic environments. 

The 2017 version of the School Climate Survey (Kosciw et. al, 2018) had 23,001 student respondents, with ages ranging from 13–21. Take a look at the data collected from this (now more dated) version and then compare the results to other iterations of this survey, including the most recent on Glisten's website: 

· 59.5% of LGBTQ students felt unsafe at school due to their sexual orientation, 44.6% because of their gender expression, and 35.0% because of their gender.

· 98.5% of LGBTQ students heard “gay” used in a negative way, with 95.3% hearing other types of homophobic remarks. 87.4% heard negative remarks specifically about transgender people.

· 71.0% of students reported hearing negative remarks about gender expression from teachers or other school staff.

· 55.3% of LGBTQ students didn’t report assault or harassment in school to staff due to fear of effective intervention or of the situation worsening.

· 42.1% of transgender and gender non-conforming students had been prevented from using their preferred name or pronoun.

· 46.5% of transgender and gender non-conforming students had been required to use a bathroom of their legal sex.

· Transgender students overall reported more hostile school experiences than LGBQ cisgender students.

For those who did their own data diving on Glisten's website, how did 2017 compare to more recent surveys?

These statistics might be shocking for some educators, while leaving others unfazed, based on what part of the “academic ocean” they have witnessed. Some educators might not have heard negative remarks about gender expression or sexual orientation while walking through the halls of their school, while for others it is a daily occurrence.

Every paradigm is different-- we all experience the world in our own way. In a single classroom, with 1 teacher and 30 students, there are 31 different perspectives of what is occurring at the same time. An action or joke perceived as innocent by one individual in the group could be construed by another as offensive, insulting, or triggering. Often,  unless the action or joke is brought specific attention, the inadvertently offensive party remains wholly unaware.

Parse through some of the qualitative reports of  trans student experiences, grouped thematically.

Hostile Students/Peers:

“For Ryan, the first day of sixth grade marked the start of a long and arduous personal journey. He began middle school by unapologetically identifying as gay and cross-dressing in a more flamboyant manner that suited his personal taste. Ryan’s inaugural act was to borrow a T-shirt from his best friend, a girl, and proudly wear it to school...This simple act reverberated throughout the hallways and inducted Ryan into an inescapable social strata—Ryan was a target. No one—students, teachers, administrators alike—knew how to respond.” (Nichols, 2012, p. 267)

“The eyes are still staring. The energy is smothering. Suffocating. I feel cornered. Suddenly, I feel hot with rage. Can’t they see it? Their gazing is a continuous attack. Their confusion, which used to feel exciting to me, now feels like relentless probing. Their faces say: ‘You are a freak. You are less than human, a monster.’” (Nordmarken, p. 41)

“Rie says she could ‘count her allies on one hand.’ The school administrative response was tepid. The guidance counselor regularly talked with Rie and made her office available as a refuge, but did not appear to intervene on Rie’s behalf with the teachers and students to stop the incessant bullying.” (Nichols, 2012, p. 267)

“In bathrooms and locker rooms, cisgender children are portrayed as endangered by T/GNC students, whereas students whose clothing challenges gender norms are accused of being disruptive to the educational space of their classmates."  (McLaughlin, p. 3)

Hostile School Officials:

“I think one of the worst things that my [school] choir director said to me was, ‘I really just want you to kind of fade into the background and I want you to kind of keep quiet because there are some people when we go on tour that are going to find this disgusting.’ And he used that terminology...With that one statement, I didn’t feel like I really belonged in the choir and it wasn’t a feeling that ever changed.” (Bartolome, 2016, p. 37)

“Rie believes that her principal found his opportunity to rid himself of a difficult student and used the comment to justify searching Rie’s school locker, where he found her intensely personal poetry diary.” (Nichols, 2012, p. 268)

“An LGBT friend of Rie’s committed suicide. “In their grief and desire to bring something positive from something so unspeakably awful, Chrystal’s family reached out to Rie, and together they worked to create a local support group modeled after Prism. Their vision was to create an open, nonjudgmental forum for all youth to provide care, support, and assistance...The principal who presided over Rie’s expulsion in the eighth grade was now the superintendent of schools, and he unceremoniously rejected the proposal.” (Nichols, 2012, 271-272)

“Because transgender voices do not always match outward gender expression, trans people may be silenced from speaking or singing out of fear or embarrassment.” (Miller, p. 61)

Hostile Selves:

“Melanie became convinced that she was “a freak” and, like so many other transgender individuals, she came to the ultimate conclusion that it would be easier to end her own existence than continue to suffer. Overcome with desperation, Melanie attempted suicide one night during her sophomore year of high school...” (Bartolome and Stapleton, 2017, p. 120)

“How can this isolation, this pain, this rage engender productive possibilities for resistance? How can we find freedom in and through the monsters in ourselves? What freedom can this be? “ (Nordmarken, 39)

Even in matters that are not exclusive to trans or LGBTQ+ issues, sometimes the biggest obstacles that educators encounter are those within their school community that hold differing beliefs as to what is “best” for others. Unfortunately, it is all but guaranteed that trans/LGBTQ+ students (and their teachers) will  eventually run into at least one community "shark" who is unsupportive and/or hostile towards those who are not cisgender or heterosexual.

Since specific situations and contexts can vary greatly, it's difficult to broadly provide the “best practices” for working with parents, administrators, teachers, or those unsupportive to  trans/LGBTQ+ students. There’s no "one size fits all" approach, and it would be irresponsible to say there was one. Lack of support for a trans/LGBTQ+ student can be defended through various explanations, whether they be religious, political, or ideological in nature. Some may rationalize this belief due to a poor prior experience with a trans/LGBTQ+ person or proffer the desire to strictly adherence to a “that’s the way it’s always been done” approach." 

At times, it can be hard for an educator to know if community members are supportive or not; other times the lack of support reveals itself pretty plainly.

Below are a few ways to identify the behaviors of unsupportive parents and administrators/teachers, followed by recommendations of strategies to support trans/LGBTQ+ students dealing with these individuals.  

Note: Educators tend to already be experts in navigating behavioral issues or interpersonal conflicts between students and the effects of bullying and harassment are well documented. As it's likely to be superfluous to explore how to identify unsupportive student behaviors, that information will not be addressed here.

For both trans and LGBTQ+ students alike, unsupportive parents may force cisnormative and/or heteronormative ideals onto their child's appearance or gender expression (ex: forcing a child to wear skirts that is at odds with how said child presents). Some might prevent their child from enrolling in certain subjects or from associating with certain "types" of individuals. Others might attempt to force certain "masculine" or "feminine" behaviors that are incongruent to the child.

Parents of trans students in particular may showcase their lack of support in minor ways, perhaps in an overt reinforcement of their child’s legal name or usage of pronouns indicative of the student’s assigned sex at birth (ex: "BRADLEY is going to sit with HIS team no matter what HE wants). 

The lack of support for trans/LGBTQ+ youth may reveal itself  in more serious behaviors, such as derogatory language towards the student, abuse, or complete rejection from the family unit. 

Sadly, this is not uncommon for trans/LGBTQ+ students to endure: 

“...One in five transgender individuals have experienced homelessness in their lives. Family rejection and discrimination and violence have contributed to a large number of transgender and other LGBQ-identified youth who are homeless in the United States – an estimated 20-40% of the more than 1.6 million homeless youth.” (NCTE, 2020, para 2) 

Data consistently have shown that LGBTQ+ youth, and in particular trans youth, experience housing insecurity or abuse at far greater rates than their cis/het peers. Such evidence highlights why it can be so risky to out a trans/LGBTQ+ student to their parents or family without their consent. 

Often times if a trans/LGBTQ+ student doesn't feel safe disclosing their identity to their families, there tends to be a good reason why. 

Many of the same unsupportive behaviors towards trans/LGBTQ+ students  demonstrated by parents can likewise be shown from administrators or other teachers in the community. However, as these individuals hold institutional power, other actions can hold considerable weight on a trans/LGBTQ+ student's environment. 

Some school officials may deem a trans/LGBTQ+ student to be a "trouble" student and seemingly selectively focus on or completely ignore said student in detrimental ways. They may learn that student's class schedule or spent extra time "monitoring" areas where the student will likely be to "keep an eye on them." Others might inconsistently grade students, enforce school policies or "take sides" in interpersonal student conflicts or disciplinary situations.

Consider the case of Jonathan Escobar, a 16-year-old cisgender boy in Georgia who decided to wear feminine clothing as a way to express dissatisfaction with rigid gender expression. He was told by school officials, citing their dress code policy, that in order to return to school, he needed to dress more manly or consider homeschooling. (Farber, 2009). 

The effects of unsupportive teachers and administrators can be so severe in circumstance, that trans/LGBTQ+ students may effectively be blocked from acquiring a safe and unbiased education.

As educators must navigate the politics of being "professional" or "collegial," this