Harsh Realities Finds Transgender Youth Face Extreme Harassment in School

GlSEN
Reflection:

I was shocked in reading this article at the amount of people who are affected by harassment in schools because they are transgendered.  I have heard a lot about gay, lesbian and bisexual harassment but I feel that transgender issues fly under the radar.  Over 90% of transgender students hear derogatory remarks in the school system.  This is ridiculous to me because that means that in almost every class that student has to attend, there is someone there to basically make fun and torture them.  Almost half of transgender students skip class or miss school just because they are uncomfortable in their classroom.  I don’t understand why nothing is being done to help these students.  Even though most students can confide in at least one person, only a third could find more than one supporter in the entire school.  How can, in a school of hundreds of people, a student only have one person to talk to.  That means that they are hiding from everyone else in hopes that they don’t get made fun or get bullied that day.  The saddest part is that half of the students who are bullied don’t report it because they feel that the situation is not addressed anyway. 

The most shocking part of the whole article, however, is that only one out of five sees a teacher step in when a situation occurs. How can only one situation be addressed and four are overlooked.  For the problem to get better we all must realize that no one is the same as anyone else.  We all have to accept each other and stop comparing one person to the “norm.”

This 14-year old boy, who is gay, spoke out on Ellen DeGeneres on behalf of his teacher who asked a student to leave the room for harassing another student for being gay.  His excitement over this one teacher actually standing up for GLBT students shocked me.  I applauded his courage for standing up and defending his teacher, but at the same time, I was shocked that this doesn’t happen more.  If there are many GLBT students in a school system and they are facing well over 50% of harassment, why are there not more cases of teachers jumping in and speaking out?  It really caused me to feel a mix of emotions.

Lastly, I think that the reason so many problems are started revolving around transgender people is that from the moment we are born we realize that there is male and female.  If you are male, you are treated like you are male.  Same for a female.  This article shows how no matter what age you are, if you are treated for being a person instead of being gay or lesbian or male or female then each person can live without being worried about harassment and bullies at school.


If everyone could just start treating others they way that they want to be treated, then I believe our school system would be a better place for students to go and learn, instead of go to be made fun of.