LGBT Respect in Schools
In schools, there should be LGBT+ topics discussed in classes.
If people were introduced to the LGBT+ community, then the students would be able to be more accepting of them. If the schools were focused on the best choices for the students, the students would be more educated about how to stay protected, and the heterosexual people would be more familiarized with LGBT+ people; therefore causing less discrimination against LGBT+ people in schools and on the streets. If people were familiarized with the LGBT+ community, then there would be less of a suicide rate among them. “Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among young people ages 10-24.” “LGB youth are 4 times more likely, and questioning youth are 3 times more likely to attempt suicide as their straight peers.” These facts seem scary.
It’s because these facts are scary. They are scary and true. Can you believe that “nearly half of young transgender people have seriously thought about taking their lives, and one quarter report having made a suicide attempt?” People should not have to resort to killing themselves, no matter what race, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity. When people resort to killing themselves because of how somebody else treats them, it leaves a lasting negative impact on the friends, family, and school. If students were taught to be kind and respectful to LGBT+ people, the LGBT+ people wouldn’t have as much anxiety and depression as they already do.
“Each episode of LGBT victimization, such as physical or verbal harassment or abuse, increases the likelihood of self-harming behavior by 2.5 times on average.” When people treat LGBT+ people like they are not normal people or like they shouldn’t be alive it makes them believe that their family may think that who they are is wrong, so they try to end their own life to make other people happy. People should not have to want to end their own life to please other people. With the depression sets in people, it can result in self-harm, self-hatred, and or suicide. Respect of the LGBT+ community is important because more and more people are coming out as part of the LGBT+ community, and soon people will start to see lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people working in the same building as them.
It is important also because people have children, brothers, sisters, significant others, parents, etc. that they care about,and if a hate crime was performed to them, it could easily ruin their whole family. All of this ties back to why schools should make students educated on LGBT+ people. With the familiarization of these people to schoolchildren, people could easily drop all of these rates drastically. Would you like it if your child were one of these people in the statistics listed above?
