Don’t Be So Gay! Queers, Bullying, and Making Schools Safe (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013).
“Once viewed as an inevitable if unpleasant part of growing up, bullying is now recognized as a real threat to students’ physical and psychological well-being – particularly in light of recent teen suicides linked with homophobia in schools. Despite a shift in public attitudes and legislative responses to the problem, bullying remains a constant reality for many queer youth in Canadian schools.
In “Don’t Be So Gay!” Queers, Bullying, and Making Schools Safe, Donn Short considers the effectiveness of anti-harassment policies and safe-school legislation to address the problem of homophobic bullying. After spending several months in ten Toronto-area high schools interviewing queer youth and their allies, Short concludes that current legislation and its approach to school safety and homophobia is generally more responsive than proactive and transformative. “Don’t Be So Gay!” suggests that while effective legislation is vital to establishing a safe space for queer students, other influences – including religion, family beliefs, and peer pressure – may be more powerful. Drawing on students’ own experiences and thoughts on how safety is pursued in their schools and how their understandings and definitions of safety might be translated into law and policy reform, this book offers a fresh perspective on a hotly debated issue.
While aimed at policy makers and scholars in the fields of gender and sexuality studies, education, and human rights, this book will find a wider audience among teachers, parents, and GLBTQ advocates.” – Publisher’s description.
The Every Teacher Project on LGBTQ-Inclusive Education in Canada’s K-12 Schools with Catherine Taylor & Tracey Peter & Elizabeth Meyer. (Winnipeg: Manitoba Teachers’ Society, 2015).
“This report presents the results of the online survey phase of the “Every Teacher Project” on Canadian K-12 educators’ perceptions and experiences of “LGBTQ-inclusive” education, including curriculum, policies, and practices that include positive and accurate information about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, Two Spirit, and queer people as well as issues related to gender and sexual diversity (also known as GSD-inclusive education). This type of education is inclusive of students who would otherwise be marginalized by school climates that are typically hostile to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, Two Spirit, or queer students, or students questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity (LGBTQ); to students who have LGBTQ parents, friends or other loved ones; and to cisgender heterosexual (CH) students who can also be directly or indirectly affected by homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia. The project surveyed thousands of educators in the school year ending June 2013. We will report on the focus group phase of the Every Teacher Project in 2016.” –Publisher’s description.
Am I Safe Here? LGBTQ Teens and Bullying in Schools UBC Press, On Point Press (October, 2017)
“Am I safe here?” LGBTQ students ask this question every day within the school system. This book shines a light on the marginalization and bullying faced by LGBTQ youth, offering a new conceptualization of school safety.
Donn Short treats students as the experts on what happens in their schools, giving them a chance to speak for themselves. They identify what it would take to make a school truly safe – insightfully explaining that safety doesn’t come merely from security cameras, ID tags, and dress codes, but from a culture that values equity and social justice. Revealing the reality of going to school in an environment that implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) endorses homophobia, heterosexism, and heteronormativity, the students share their ideas about how to change school culture. They envision a future in which LGBTQ youth are an expected, respected, and celebrated part of school life.
Am I Safe Here? explores what needs to be done to create equitable and inclusive schools – but it is not strictly about formal professional development plans. Rather, it draws from the informal, spontaneous, timely, and relevant words of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students to show that nothing less than a total culture change is needed.
This book is written for teachers, administrators, pre-service teachers, guidance counsellors, social workers, trustees, parents, and other LGBTQ allies who want to promote student safety and school improvement by creating a safe and inclusive school for LGBTQ students.