Would middle school GSAs help curb anti-gay bullying?

During an April 14 legislative briefing by the Massachusetts Commission on GLBT Youth, commissioners, lawmakers and young people debated whether middle schools would be the next frontier for the gay/straight alliance (GSA) movement. Three youth panelists testified to the importance of GSAs and other LGBT youth support groups during their high school years, but commission vice-chair Eleni Carr pointed out that research suggests students are now coming out at much younger ages. The briefing took place in the House Member's Lounge inside the State House.

"Today the average age is actually 13.4, which is middle school. ... I'm wondering if there are any thoughts here on the panel or in the room of the appropriateness and possibilities that might exist in gay/straight alliances in middle schools," said Carr.

The discussion of GSAs in middle schools was prompted by the April 6 suicide of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, an 11-year-old Springfield resident who allegedly was driven to end his life as a result of enduring repeated bullying at school (see "Springfield suicide prompts discussion of school harassment at legislative briefing," p. 1). Although Walker-Hoover never publicly identified as gay his mother has told media outlets that his classmates taunted him by calling him gay, in addition to threatening him and teasing him about his clothes.

Cambridge state Sen. Anthony Galluccio said he believes Walker-Hoover's death points to a larger need to address all forms of bullying and to teach young people about the consequences of harassing comments.

"I think there's a broader issue here. What kids hear at home and what they're exposed to as young people themselves, being beat down and beat up, I don't think there's a sense of how hurtful words can be. And I'm not trying to skirt the issue of the day, but I don't think there's a commitment to that, and maybe this is an opportunity to deal with that with kids," said Galluccio.

Coleen Motyl-Szary, a 24-year-old Spanish teacher at Sutton High School and one of the youth panelists, said in her experience efforts to reduce bullying without specifically addressing LGBT harassment have little success. Motyl-Szary, the faculty advisor to her school's GSA, said there is no GSA in the adjoining middle school and questioned the effectiveness of the school's "peace-builders" program, which works more broadly to encourage respect among students.

"The kids talk about it sort of as a joke, because if someone's a bully, you can tell them time and time again ... that kids are committing suicide, it's not going to get through. If we have specific GLBT programs for kids who are interested and kids who maybe know people who identify as GLBT, then they can come together in a safe place," said Motyl-Szary. "I think it is important to do a specific GSA type, even a discussion forum, even if it's once a month, in the middle school. And I think it would be a great way to start, our GSA kids going down to the middle school and holding a meeting once a month."

Dishon Laing, a 21-year-old Dorchester resident and another one of the panelists, said that while forming GSAs in middle school may be one way to confront the problem of bullying, it is more important to ensure that all middle school teachers and administrators are trained to respond to anti-LGBT bullying and to create a LGBT-friendly school. He said he believes that bullying will happen regardless of what policies schools put in place, but schools can reduce the harm caused by bullying by intervening to discipline bullies and to encourage students to report harassment to school officials.

"I don't think that GSAs are mandatory in middle schools ... but if every teacher and principal, it's required for them to get the training so they know how to deal with these situations and so that they are enforcing those [anti-bullying policies] not just at a GSA level but from an entire school level, if the leaders in the school say things have to be safe for everybody, then people are more likely to report that they're getting bullied because they're gay, because they're more feminine," said Laing, who serves as an outreach worker for Boston Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services (GLASS), a drop-in center that primarily serves LGBT youth of color.

Commission member Arthur Lipkin, a former Cambridge Public Schools teacher, said that it is just as important to train students to stand against bullying as it is to train teachers and staff.

"The most important voice for cutting this kind of behavior down is the voice of peers, and for peers to have the knowledge and the courage and to feel empowered to do that they have to be involved in the discussions," said Lipkin. "So having gay/straight alliances or peace clubs or whatever they're called where these kind of discussions can happen is so important. ... We do need the opportunity to have the groups, we need the trained adults, we need to create a culture among the youth themselves."

Lipkin said he believes the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is nervous about the political response to encouraging GSA formation in middle schools, and he urged lawmakers to make their support for expanding GSAs into middle schools clear.

"I think what the legislature can do is give encouragement and backbone and backup to the Department of Education that if there are middle schools where the kids want to have gay/straight alliances, we will back you up if you're attacked by the right wing," said Lipkin.