Education and Homophobia

Education budget cuts combined with tuition increases in California have impacted students from elementary school level through college. On March 4th protests organized by students occurred throughout the state. For lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender young adults, as for members of ethnic minority communities, budget concerns are only a fraction of the story.

James T. Sears' book, "Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Issues in Education: Programs, Policies, and Practices," the voices of LGBT young people recount their personal experiences as do educators and counselors who also have both an intimate understanding of anti-gay bullying and harassment and the high cost of allowing it to run rampant in an educational setting.

Arthur Lipkin's, "Beyond Diversity Day: A Q&A on Gay and Lesbian issues in Schools" is structured in a question and answer format that includes actual quotations, press clippings of actual incidents and statistics. In an accessible yet analytical style. Lipkin documents the homophobia that he finds to be pervasive throughout the American educational system.

This video "Larry's Law: Fostering Safe and Hate Free Schools is about a California Assembly bill was named after 14 year old Larry King of Oxnard California, an openly gay eighth-grader who was murdered in his classroom by a fellow student.