Perspectives on gender and sexual diversity (GSD)-inclusive education: comparisons between gay/lesbian/bisexual and straight educators

Too Scared to Teach: Secondary Students’ Insights into Educators Silencing and Stigmatization of Gender and Sexual Diversity in Public Schools in Alberta, Canada

“…Grace (2006) concurs that teachers must first study their own lives, and the intersection of their personal values and beliefs and their professional practice, to better understand how they profoundly impact students' lives and It is critical to underscore that it is unfair to place all of the ownership and blame on classroom teachers, but rather, consider the system in which teachers operate and the level of support they perceive they have or would have to engage in these controversial conversations. This aligns with findings from Fredman et al (2015) and Meyer, Taylor, and Peter (2015), that teachers may avoid this topic out of concern for a lack of administrative backing. Without these conversations from the top down, it is unreasonable to expect teachers to take a leap of faith and hope they will have administrative backing and support if they do open up the classroom space to these critical dialogues.…”

“…Several participants commented teachers could potentially get into trouble from parents or from administration if they approached the topic, through parents getting upset at them and/or their administrator not supporting their decision to include these topics. This is supported by Meyer, Taylor, and Peter (2015)'s study, which explored teachers' fear of parental backlash and limited administration support as two primary reasons for the persistent silencing of these topics. Dana shared her perspective on the issue: I think there's kids in the class who would go home and be like, Ms. G was shoving gay stuff down our throats in class, and she would get into trouble or something.…”

“…Robinson and Ferfolja (2002) found many teachers in training were resistant to including gay and lesbian concerns in their teaching, based on a belief that discussing sexual diversity was irrelevant to the schooling context. More recently, Meyer, Taylor, and Peter (2015) affirmed many teachers continue to resist approaching topics pertaining to gender and sexual diversity, in an attempt to avoid negative repercussions from administrators, parents, and community members. Avoiding the topic of gender and sexual diversity sends messages to gender and sexual minority students about their place and relevance in the school.…”

Mental Health Status and Associated Contributing Factors among Gay Men in China

“…Sexual minority individuals are subject to more misunderstanding, prejudice, discrimination, and even insult compared with heterosexuals [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ]. Perceptions and treatment of homosexuality in today’s society has been improved over the past few decades, with the American Psychiatric Association removing homosexuality from the classification criteria for the diagnosis of mental diseases in 1973 [ 9 ].…”

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“…As the site contains innovative rights-based information, it has generated mixed reactions and has encountered resistance among its expected facilitators in education and health provision institutions. This means that education and health practitioners may choose to recommend the site or not based on their normative judgements on its content (Allotey et al 2011;Meyer, Taylor and Peter 2015). Furthermore, a systematic plan to present it in schools would require considerable human and financial resources, as well as needing a long process of formal approval.…”