Gaybashing in Schools

In the parking lot outside his school, six students surrounded Dylan. Throwing a lasso around his neck, they shouted, "Let's tie the faggot to the back of the truck." Escaping his tormentors, Dylan ran inside the school and found one of the vice-principals. He tried to tell her what had just happened. "I was still hysterical," Dylan says. "I was trying to explain, but I was stumbling over my words. She laughed."

Everyday, thousands of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender teenagers are verbally, sexually and physically harassed in America's public schools. Dominick gets to school as early as possible each morning so that he can avoid the ridicule. Derek switched high schools and wound up dropping out altogether because the harassment got so bad. Anika, a transgender youth, was subject to both physical and verbal abuse before she quit school.

"Hatred in the Hallways: Discrimination and Violence Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Students in U.S. Public Schools," a recently released report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), documents the extreme difficulties gay teens experience everyday; an abuse that is having a disastrous effect on their safety, health and education. In many cases, these teens are facing the hatred and discrimination from their classmates alone, without any support or assistance from teachers, school administrators and security officers. Some teens even say that school officials are more prone to look the other way rather than lend a hand.

The frank testimonies from gay teens that have courageously come forward to tell their stories makes this Human Rights Watch study a compelling document (www.hrw.org/reports/2001/uslgbt).

"The U.S. school system gets a failing grade when it comes to providing a safe place for gay students to get an education," said Michael Bochenek, counsel to the Children's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch and a co-author of the report. "Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender kids face a greater risk of bullying than any other students in American high schools. That has to stop."

Derek Henkle spoke out at the Los Angeles press conference unveiling the report. Henkle, describing an all-too re-occurring scenario, said, "They'd push me up against the lockers and call me a fag. They'd chase me around campus in their cars, screaming and yelling 'fag' out the windows." Reuters news service reports that Henkle, who filed a suit against the Reno, Nevada school district, said "one day he was beaten bloody by classmates and called a 'bitch' while security officers stood by and did nothing." Henkle dropping out is not an unusual solution for many gay teens.

Sixteen-year-old Dominick Halse told ABC News' Claire Shipman that at his school in Castleton on Hudson, NY, "there was boys that said they would like to kill me and drag me behind a car, or take me to an island with all the other gays and shoot me," he says. "You don't need death threats as a child ... it's hard." Halse, an excellent student, plans to graduate a year early primarily because of the constant abuse. He's come up with different ways to protect himself from other students during the school day: "I cannot use the boys' restroom. I go to the bathroom in the nurse's office ... or there's a single restroom in the cafeteria that I go to, because you live in fear."

Anika P. is a seventeen year-old transgender youth who, according to the report, "has lived for the last seven years as a girl." A product of the Texas foster care system, Anika went to small public school in South Texas through her the first three years of high school. During that time she decided to dress as a girl and use the name she chose for herself. Harassed by her peers, she was unable to receive support from teachers or other officials who didn't understand her being transgender. "I had to quit [school] because the teachers were, like, 'You can't wear a dress, you can't wear your hair like that,'" she told Human Rights Watch. She was attacked physically once in gym class. "I'd skip [gym]. I had to use the boys' locker room; I'd have to shower in the boys' shower." Verbal threats were commonplace. "Mainly guys would be coming up to me, saying, 'What's your problem,?'" she said. They'd be, like, 'What are you going to do, faggot? You still a man? Going to kick your ass.'" Before she dropped out, school officials placed her in a special education class, supposedly for "her own safety,"