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Abstract
This article highlights factors that either facilitated or hampered the work of a local Safe Schools Coalition in advocating adoption and implementation of their school district’s policies that include sexual orientation. Non‐discrimination policies that include sexual orientation and gender identity are needed to help stop anti‐gay peer abuse directed at gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and queer/questioning students. However, community opposition to the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity in school policies frequently arises from morally conservative parents. Findings of this case are compared with a model of gay rights policy adoption that illustrates strategies the local Safe Schools Coalition used to effectively communicate their message, garner support and effect change, as well as factors in the political and cultural climates of the community that either facilitated or impeded the adoption and implementation of the policies. A group of morally conservative parents opposed the policies and saw them as the school’s promotion and legitimization of homosexuality. Advocates for the policies argued they were simply intended to ‘enhance safety.’ Opponents’ claims are analyzed within a democratic and social justice framework.
Notes
Correspondence to Ian K. Macgillivray, PhD, 2523 54th Ave., Greeley, CO 80634, USA. Email: [email protected]
All names have been changed to protect the privacy of the community, school district and individuals.
Statistical data retrieved from the State Department of Education’s website.
Gender variance is defined as ‘a persistent sense that one’s gender identity is incongruent with one’s biological sex.’
For related discussions of tensions between people of color and GLBTQ people see Boykin (Citation1996), Anzaldúa (Citation1999) and Kumashiro (Citation2001).
The school board voted to retain the language ‘value diversity’ in its Diversity Goal, despite the requests of opponents to change it to ‘respect diversity.’