The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) is an American organization comprising lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and allied individuals who wish to put an end to discrimination, harassment, and bullying based on sexual orientation and gender identity/expression in K-12 schools. As of 2009 there are nearly forty chapters of the organization around.
The organization supports Gay-Straight Alliances along with sponsoring the annual National Day of Silence and No Name-Calling Week and providing resources for teachers on how to support LGBT students, such as "Safe Schools" training.[1] It also sponsors and participates in a host of other "Days of Action," including TransAction!, Ally Week and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Organizing Weekend.
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Mission
The organization's mission statement reads,
| “ | The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network strives to assure that each member of every school community is valued and respected regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression. We believe that such an atmosphere engenders a positive sense of self, which is the basis of educational achievement and personal growth. Since homophobia and heterosexism undermine a healthy school climate, we work to educate teachers, students and the public at large about the damaging effects these forces have on youth and adults alike. We recognize that forces such as racism and sexism have similarly adverse impacts on communities and we support schools in seeking to redress all such inequities. GLSEN seeks to develop school climates where difference is valued for the positive contribution it makes in creating a more vibrant and diverse community. We welcome as members any and all individuals, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity/expression or occupation, who are committed to seeing this philosophy realized in K-12 schools.[2] | ” |
History
Founded as the Gay and Lesbian Independent School Teachers Network (GLSTN) in 1990, the organization began as a local volunteer group of 70 gay and lesbian educators. At that time, there were two Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) in the nation, only one state with policy in place to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students, and a general lack of awareness of the needs of LGBT students. LGBT youth did not have a voice in the education community or in the LGBT movement. There were few, if any, resources available for teachers to discuss LGBT issues. However, groups of concerned individuals began to establish chapters across the country, advocating locally and regionally for safe schools for students who were, or were perceived to be, LGBT.
In 1995 GLSTN became a national organization and hired its first full time staff person, GLSEN’s founder and Executive Director Kevin Jennings (who is now Assistant Deputy heading the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools at the U.S. Department of Education). In 1997, GLSTN staged its first national conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, in response to the legislature’s effort to prevent the formation of GSAs in the state by banning all student groups. It is also this year that GLSTN changed its name to the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) in order to attract new members to the struggle for safe schools for all students, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity/expression.
In April 2000, Massachusetts' Board of Education adopted a gay and lesbian civil rights protection "safety measure" approved by Governor William Weld in 1993 requiring schools to extend civil rights and "assist in the formation of Gay/Straight Alliance student groups."[3] A month prior "Teachout 2000", the annual GLSEN state conference, was held at Tufts University where the leader of a conservative group illegally taped one of the fifty workshops where students aged fourteen to twenty-one graphically discussed sex in a workshop "billed as a safe place for youths to get their questions about their sexuality answered" in the session's Q&A section.[3][4] Although the conference was privately funded, the workshop itself facilitated by Department of Education staffers rather than GLSEN, and no evidence that GLSEN encouraged frank discussion beyond age-appropriate information; the conservative group held a public rally conflating GLSEN's involvement and calling for ending all state funding for "homosexual programs" and disbanding the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth.[5] The group also broadcast parts of the secretly and illegally taped workshop on a local talk-radio program and offered to sell copies of it for which a restraining order to desist was issued.[3][4][6] It is illegal in Massachusetts to "record someone without their permission," the order barred the critics from releasing tape or any transcript but they did so anyway.[3][4][6] GLSEN later stated they needed to make "expectations and guidelines to outside facilitators much more clear".[6] The chairman of the Massachusetts Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, which provided state funding for Safe Schools program defended GLSEN's work in the state's schools, stating "A tiny minority of opponents of the program are grasping at straws to discredit the program."
More than 3,600 GSAs have registered with GLSEN, which has approximately forty full time staff, a governing board of twenty members and two advisory committees at the national level. In addition, nearly forty Chapters are affiliated with GLSEN on local levels. At this point, GLSEN has hosted more than 8 national conferences to bring together student leaders, educators, chapter leaders and activists. GLSEN also sponsors the National Day of Silence, in which hundreds of thousands of students participate each year. Students from more than 5,000 middle and high schools registered with GLSEN as 2007 Day of Silence participants. When conservative religious groups responded with their Day of Truth campaign, GLSEN published a guide to reduce conflicts in public schools between those with differing views on gay rights.[7]
Think Before You Speak Campaign
On October 8, 2008, GLSEN and Ad Council released The Think Before You Speak Campaign, designed to end homophobic vocabulary among youth, through the use of television, radio, print, and outdoor ads.[8][9]
See also
References
- ^ Safe Schools Training Series
- ^ "Media Guide: About GLSEN". GLSEN. June 9, 2005. http://www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/all/news/record/1807.html. Retrieved 2007-03-05.
- ^ a b c d Graphic gay sex workshop under fire Ed Hayward, May 17, 2000, Boston Herald, Associated Press contributed to this report. Accessdate= 2009-10-03
- ^ a b c "Critics contend safe-sex forum far too graphic." archived copy Union-News (Springfield MA), May 17, 2000, page A8; from staff and wire reports.
- ^ "Parent Group To Rally Against `homosexual Agenda' In Schools" By: Doreen Iudica Vigue, Boston Globe, May 18, 2000. archived copy.
- ^ a b c "Gay group: Workshop sex talk went too far" (archived copy), Ed Hayward; Boston Herald, May 18, 2000.
- ^ Public Schools and Sexual Orientation: A First Amendment framework for finding common ground
- ^ "The Campaign". 2008-10-08. http://thinkb4youspeak.com/TheCampaign/. Retrieved 2008-10-09.
- ^ "Think Before You Speak". 2008-10-09. http://pinkisthenewblog.com/home/2008/10/think-before-you-speak/. Retrieved 2008-10-10.
External links
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