[1] As Wilton and Aggleton state, "Heterosexuality, we would argue, is best understood as a relative identity, predicated upon a collusion with its givenness, which is, in fact, negotiated in continual struggle by negative reference to those who are identifiably `other'." [Wilton & Aggleton, 1991: 154]
[2] This is a summary and re-working of "How homophobia hurts everyone", from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Teachers' Network. This document comprises the theoretical foundation of Blumenfeld's (ed) Homophobia: how we all pay the price.)
[3] As Gary Kinsman writes in Beyond patriarchy, "while we [gay men] share with straight men the economic benefits of being men in a patriarchal society, we do not participate as regularly in the everyday interpersonal subordination of women in the realms of sexuality and violence."
[4] To give you an idea of the prevalence of homophobic harassment of both students and teachers, we can draw on the results of The Schoolwatch Report (Griffin, 1994), a survey of lesbian, gay and bisexual students and teachers in Australian schools. This found that 59 percent reported verbal harassment, 21 percent reported threats of violence, and 18 percent reported physical violence. This last figure included thirty percent of students reporting physical violence. Of the perpetrators of this harassment and violence, half the incidents involved three or more perpetrators, and 71 percent involved male-only perpetrators. 80 percent were students from the survivor's school, with 11 percent being teachers from the same school. [The report also summarises US research, discusses why males experience a higher rate of violence at school (p. 13), and gives a gender comparison from the survey (p. 68). Also see the survey of anti-homosexual violence in Australia, by Mason (1993).]
[5] In a US study and follow-up survey of 10 percent of Minnesota's entire teenage population, headed by Dr Gary Remafedi, about 30 percent of gay adolescent boys said they had tried to kill themselves. Yet they made up only 2 to 5 percent of the population. Remafedi is the editor of Death by denial, a book which examines why homosexual teenagers try to kill themselves. Dr Remafedi believes maltreatment of gay adolescents is a "missing link" in many researchers' attempts to understand why suicide is the highest cause of adolescent death here and the United States and growing. ["Being gay is a big factor in youth suicide", Sydney Morning Herald, 26.2.97]
According to Marcus' Is it a choice? Answers to 300 of the most frequently asked questions about gays and lesbians, "A 1988 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found gay adolescents commit suicide at two to three times the rate of heterosexuals, and some studies say that 40 percent of all homosexuals make attempts on their lives when they're young." [29]
6 The consequences of heterosexism are also evident in gay-hate murders. Puplick writing in 1995 points out that there have been 24 gay-hate murders in NSW since 1990. 19 convictions, and 11 offenders were of school age, while overall 15 school children were involved. There is also the famous gay-hate murder of a teacher from Cleveland Street High School in 1990, and the murder of a gay man by four male students of this same school [Beckett & Denborough, 1995: 110].
[7] This is based on Nickson (1996), p. 161, and Epstein and Johson (1994), p. 224.
8 Some of this discussion is based on Blumenfeld and Lindop, 1996b.
[9] Additionally, gays and lesbians may become violent in response to homophobia, and may become violent to themselves. They may internalise homophobic myths and assumptions, feeling self-hate and adopting such high-risk behaviours as drug abuse or even suicide [Blumenfeld & Lindop, 1996b].
[10] Personal communication, Gerry Orkin, 21 May 1997.
[11] In Mac an Ghaill's study for example, a gay footballer came to see that football was all about proving yourself as a man, and he describes how male teachers and students collude in constructing dominant forms of straight masculinity, which devalue, marginalise and threaten femininities and subordinated masculinities [1994: 163-64].
[12] Some authors refer to this as the `ambivalent misogyny' in straight male culture. For example, in Mac an Ghaill's study the term `slag', part of boys' sexual harassment and constant pressure on and surveillance of young women, "was also a key discursive concept through which male students' ambiguous misogyny operated to position women as sexually despised and at the same time sexually desired" [132].
[13] Mac an Ghaill (1994) also describes among the young men "a picture of complex inner-dramas of individual insecurity and low self-esteem" [102]. Many feel shy, inadequate and unable to cope with demands of initiating and maintaining a relationship, and feel under enormous pressure from their peers. They experience being unable to make (sexual) contact with young women, which fundamentally contradicts dominant masculine prescriptions and their constant banter about `getting girls' [102].
[14] Other things contribute to men's coercive potential in sexual relationships with women. There's our socialised deafness to women. There's our tendency to interpret conversation and touch in more sexual ways than do women. There's often our intense desires for intimacy which we think can only be realised through sex. And there's the fact that all this is taking place in a culture in which there are images that eroticise forced sex.
[15] For example, in Mac an Ghaill's research they rejected the notion of an unambiguous demarcation of heterosexual and homosexual in erotic and emotional attachments [158].
[16] Mac an Ghaill discusses this.
[17] ACT education department policies refer to `Across curriculum perspectives', which are perspectives which encompass educational and societal issues of significance that cross all curriculum boundaries [1]. The curriculum support paper on gender equity describes the third aspect of action for addressing gender equity as to do with "challenging the structures, practices and constructions of gender that are damaging to equality of life for women and men". Here it outlines 6 principles, and they include: "identify and challenge the gendered nature of violence, sexual harassment, homophobia and detrimental constructions of homosexuality in the school and society", and "provide opportunities to challenge detrimental constructions of homosexuality" [17]. These anti-homophobic principles are part of the `across curriculum perspectives', and as the document states, they "should be embedded in all sections of course documents and be included in all classroom practice" [1].
[18] Van de Ven, a researcher from Macquarie University, used a three-part measurement of students' cognitions or attitudes, their feelings, and their behavioural intentions, and surveyed the students before they had gone through this course, immediately after, and several months (?) later.
[19] Van de Ven also tested the effectiveness of the NSW kit with juvenile offenders, finding that this was less effective than a kit designed specifically for them [191]. From this and other research, Van de Ven argues that teaching strategies on homophobia sensitive to the needs of particular groups will be more effective. And that generalist materials could include a range of materials and teaching strategies for teachers to apply in their particular situations [193].
[21] At an institutional level, we also need to overcome the ignorance, complacency and prejudice of educators, including administrators, teachers, support staff and school counsellors, through education and training for educators themselves [Van de Ven, 1996: 194].
Unambiguous anti-discrimination policies and programs should be present in education systems and all schools, policies which treat all forms of discrimination such as racism or heterosexism with equal contempt, which prohibit anti-homosexual harassment, which support victims, and which receive explicit administrative support [Van de Ven, 1996: 195].
Further strategies at an institutional level include school codes of conduct, establishing links with local gay or lesbian groups, including youth support groups, having open discussion with the P&C Association, and establishing a working party of parents, teachers and students.
[22] Curriculum development and resource selection can be guided by two questions, according to Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli: (1) How can students be guided to be critical of representations that normalise homophobic practices?, and (2) How can students be guided to empathise with the experience of and resistance to homophobic discrimination? [Pallotta-Chiarolli, 1995: 70]
The references listed below provide many ideas for inclusive curricula.
[23] As it states, our ability to be inclusive comes from our own frames of reference or what we think of when we use concepts like `society', `community', `family' and `relationships'. Do our pictures of these things include people of many colours, classes, cultures, and differing sexual orientations? [Liggins et.al, 1994: 23].
[24] As Misson says, if we want students to give up heterosexist discourse, we have to answer the question that some may ask, What's in it for me? And we have to develop ways of helping them towards new senses of self [117].