LGBT Students in US Face Discrimination: A Need for Support - Essay Sample

Introduction

Many people with Latin originality in the United States experience difficult environments regardless of their gender identities and sexual orientations. However, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth face the highest risks due to a lack of policies that agree to their practices and support such youths. Even the few protections that exist in the country are not fully implemented, making the LGBT students continue facing exclusion, discrimination, and bullying in society.

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Bullying

LGBT students face the highest cases of bullying and discrimination in the United States, making it necessary for the policymakers in the country as well as the school officials to create effective rules and guidelines that respect and protect the LGBT youths’ rights (Katz-Wise, Rosario & Tsappis, 2016). Progress is uneven in most of the states in the United States, with LGBT youths lacking any protection from discrimination. As many transgender students have become increasingly visible in the country, many states ignore the needs of such youths and fail to ensure that they enjoy extracurricular and academic benefits like their transgender peers do. Sexual minority and orientation have caused disparities through the risk behaviors that emerge in health-related sexual orientations.

Stress

Sexual minority youth experience stress that is associated with stigmatization that forms over the years due to the state of their bodies that they cannot change. Research shows that transgender individuals face large amounts of victimization, prejudice, and discrimination and report situations where they experience stigma (Jones, 2018). Patterns of attachment from their childhood are related to the character traits that such people show in their adulthood. Coping with the changes and the stress that increases as they grow older from their young ages creates a stressful experience for the youths as they struggle to deal with their gender variations and identities.

Discrimination begins from the parents of the LGBTQ youths as they are the first people that the youths disclose their sexual orientation to. Research shows that 79% of LGBTQ youths disclose their sexual orientation to at least one parent, with 46% of LGBTQ men and 44% of the women usually disclose their sexual orientation to the people around them, especially their parents (Truman, 2018). Due to global criticisms in almost 76 countries that criminalize relations of the same genders, many of the youths live in fear because they are unsure of the way that the society will treat them when they realize that they are LGBTQs (Truman, 2018). Almost five countries in the world impose death penalties on all individuals that are caught engaging in practices associated with LGBTQs.

Most of the LGBTQ youths are aged between the age of 10-24 years, and they constitute a quarter of the total population of the world. The majority of such youths live in the global south, and even though the recording of statistics of such young people has become harder over the past years, many cases of harassment and violence have been reported as they target them in almost all countries in the world (Wong, 2019). Many countries around the world have created proposed or enacted laws that punish LGBT people regardless of their age. Such discriminations violate the rights of the LGBT youths creating an environment of fear and increased hostility.

The activists and organizers of the LGBT youths find it hard to advocate for different issues that affect such populations of people in society. The activists have created a vibrant LGBT movement globally. However, most of the youths in this group of people are most of the time excluded from the processes of making decisions, placing them at a larger risk of being marginalized, and experiencing more violence.

References

Jones, L. (2018). Why the rainbow is at risk: Understanding why LGBT* youth are at greater risk of developing mental health disorders. YA Hotline, (106). https://ojs.library.dal.ca/YAHS/article/viewFile/7908/6820

Katz-Wise, S. L., Rosario, M., & Tsappis, M. (2016). LGBT youth and family acceptance. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 63(6), 1011. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5127283/pdf/nihms823230.pdf

Truman, J. (2018). Statistician Bureau of Justice Statistics 810 Seventh Street NW, Washington, DC 20531 May 8, 2018. https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.northwestern.edu/dist/3/817/files/2018/05/Mustanski-DOJ-response-letter_May-8-2i5syuu.pdf

Wong, K. (2019). Macy’s and the Trevor project partner in celebration of pride month. Content-az.equisolve.net. Retrieved 8 June 2020, from https://content-az.equisolve.net/_6177da86da56948c58111fd2b95b7d20/macysinc/news/2019-04-18_Macy_s_and_The_Trevor_Project_Partner_in_1556.pdf.