Quote from: Lisbeth on April 10, 2008, 10:26:14 AMWhat you are missing is that often school authorities have made efforts to stop bullying, but turned their backs on it when the victim is a GLBT person.
It's a bit more complicated than that. I mean, yes, this is a TG forum, and GLBTers (particularly TGers) clearly face much of the worst of it, but authorities (school officials, and still to a degree parents and relatives) still turn their backs on bullying in general. "Kids will be kids" they say. My sister and I suffered alike, and under different circumstances. In addition to GLBTers, bullying still also happens with respect to economic class, race, sex, expression (not just gender identifies with with respect to TG, but how someone expresses their gender and identity), personal beliefs (morality, religion, and otherwise), personal interests, and even ability in relevant and irrelevant fields (either not being good enough or being too good). Of course, the matter of degree varies.
Perhaps this matter can more appropriately be handled if we take that bullying arises when there is a lack of respect, protection, and acceptance for a personal characteristic. Part of the problem for GLBTs is a (general) lack of explicit legal protection, but the *major* part of the problem is deep (organized) antagomism and ignorance (from bullies and administrators alike). This pairing is what makes GLBT bullying particularly notorious. Personal interests and ability have essentially no legal protection at all (except in relation to race, age, sex, and religion), but targets related to this *typically* at worst face threats that are either decentralized or are at least not deep-seated. Race, age, sex, and religion (including non-religion) are targets of vicious discrimination, but those characteristics are (ostensibly) protected by law. GLBTs often face the worst of both worlds, and that's perhaps why this particular case was being dealt with.
GLBT bullying is a cascade of them not having their human dignity respected, and that people who do not have their human dignity respected are bullied. It may be more beneficial to address these two matters separately so as to get closer to the root of the problems, rather than fixating a special case, which only resolves a specific situation (being bullied -- it does not fix discrimination or offer much broader acceptance) for a specific group of people (GLBTs)... and even that success can be limited in that some of the GLBTs will be bullied for other reasons. Admittedly, discussing this group in a more general sense is more likely to generate community reactions, but it opens the potential for a lot more gains. Making an additional push on the anti-bullying front (which again can include GLBTs as a few examples) won't help GLBTs in general, but it does provide a second front for confronting GLBT bullying.
Does this sort of perspective do justice to the original intent? It's a bit more complicated, but I feel it is much more efficient to deal with the problems of GLBT discimination and bullying (two "diseases" that have GLBT bullying a shared symptom) in a more general way.
