Every day, while it may or may not be seen a child goes to school in fear. Fear of people who don't understand. Fear of those who decide to channel their harsh feelings into threats, abuse both verbal and physical. Fear of everyone around them. Our public school systems should have a tougher policy about the hate these children recieve every day they attend school.
A statistic taken from http://www.algbtical.org/2A%20STATISTICS.htm says:
"49% report having been the target of anti-gay hate acts at school. National studies show that a very high percentage of gay teens attempt suicide and that suicides by gay teens make up 30% to 40% of all teen suicides."
Another statistic from bullyingstatistics.org states:
"According to recent gay bullying statistics, gay and lesbian teens are two to three times as more likely to commit teen suicide than other youths. About 30 percent of all completed suicides have been related to sexual identity crisis. Students who also fall into the gay, bisexual, lesbian or transgendered identity groups report being five times as more likely to miss school because they feel unsafe after being bullied due to their sexual orientation. About 28 percent out of those groups feel forced to drop out of school altogether."
The good news is that according to a GSLEN survey from 2011 that over a period of ten years the numbers have decreased. However the highest percentage was titled as verbal harassment that just in 2011 has decreased to 30%. This number along with the other percentages are still too high. We must take action in order for these children to feel safe.
