xviii Introduction GSAs have significant impact and benefits for schools that host them. There are measureable drops in truancy rates, fewer suicide attempts, lower rates of smoking, and a reduction in the number of students engag- ing in risky sexual behaviors. Students who participate in GSA clubs gain increased self-esteem and leadership skills. Although a school’s GSA is often viewed as the “gay” club, straight students also benefit. Antibullying programs, often initiated by GSAs, benefit all students. Sex education has been controversial in the United States. The goal is to provide information relevant to a young person’s life and is medi- cally accurate. This empowers adolescents to make informed choices, leading to a decrease in teenage pregnancy, helping with sexual orienta- tion identity formation, and slowing the spread of sexually transmitted infections. Unfortunately there is no national standard, so there is a wide range of programs in the different states and school districts. Some states require parents to sign a consent form before their children can attend sex-education classes. Some states’ curricula specify an “abstinence-only” approach to sex education. Research has clearly demonstrated that these programs are inef- fective and only result in higher levels of unwanted teenage pregnancy. Typically these programs are antigay, characterize LGBTQ identity as a perversion, and advocate marriage as the only legitimate path to sexual outlets. Alabama, for example, requires that discussions of homosexuality must state explicitly that it is an unacceptable lifestyle. Oklahoma’s state curriculum requires educators to blame LGBTQ people for the spread of HIV and AIDS. There are many benefits to developing a school sex-education cur- riculum that includes LGBTQ information and a gay-positive perspec- tive. Other courses, such as history, sociology, biology, and language arts, should include LGBTQ topics. Learning how other cultures at other times construct human sexuality, identity, and family structure is instructive in forming personal identity. Understanding that history is replete with famous (and not-so-famous) gay people helps reduce feelings of being alone. And all of this can be made age-appropriate, with simpler sto- ries for elementary schoolchildren to the complexity of LGBTQ politics and history at the high-school level. The greatest challenge to making a school curriculum LGBTQ-inclusive is the fear of parental and community backlash from conservatives. At this time only California has passed an LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum law. To make schools safe for all students, teachers and staff need to be trained on LGBTQ topics. Many schools engage in cultural-awareness training, antibullying workshops, or the like but, unfortunately, rarely
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