Disparities refer to differences in outcomes between two or more identified demographic groups and can involve money, health, knowledge, power, or some other quality.
For sexual and gender minorities it can refer to differences between the group as a whole and sexual and gender majorities, or it can refer to differences within the group.
This site is a work in progress by the group. If anyone knows of a scholarly article that discusses articles disparities concerning sexual and gender minorities, please send me the citation (littles25@bellsouth.net) and I will post it. The goal is to make this a resource for any one interested in sexual and gender minority issues.
Safe at School: Addressing the School Environment and LGBT Safety through Policy and Legislation
By Stuart Biegel & Sheila James Kuehl
September 2010
The Williams Institute
http://www3.law.ucla.edu/williamsinstitute/pdf/Biegel_LGBT.pdf
This policy brief examines what we know from both litigation and research concerning the challenges faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth in America’s public schools. Relying on the growing body of scholarship in this area as well as the successful efforts of many educators to address these issues, it sets forth a menu of policy recommendations, followed by model statutory code. The authors find that students continue to face widespread harassment and bullying on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, that school site personnel too frequently fail to address this behavior, further exacerbating the situation, and that there are a wide range of steps that educators, policymakers, and legislators can take that will enhance school climate and maximize equal educational opportunity for students of every sexual orientation and every gender identity.
*Brief published in collaboration with the National Education Policy Center and Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.
The Right to Be Out: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in America’s Public Schools
By Stuart Biegel
The Williams Institute
http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/B/biegel_right.html
Despite significant advances for gay and transgender persons in the United States, the public school environment remains daunting, even frightening, as evidenced by numerous high-profile incidents of discrimination, bullying, violence, and suicide. Yet efforts to protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students and educators, or to enhance curricula to better reflect the experience of differing sexual orientations and gender identities, are bitterly opposed in the courtroom, at the ballot box, and especially in the schools themselves. This book examines recent legal and public policy changes that affect LGBT students and educators in the K–12 public school system. [book published by University of Minnesota Press]
*Research for this book was funded, in part, through a series of grants from the Williams Institute and ADAM, a funding collaboration of Ralph, Michael Dively and Weston Milliken.
CDC Study: Gay, Bisexual Teens Do Riskier Things"
Associated Press (06.06.11):: Mike Stobbe
The largest federal survey of sexual orientation and risk behavior in teens shows gay and bisexual youths are more likely to engage in activities that place their health at risk - like alcohol use, sex or drug use - than their heterosexual peers.
The CDC report on results from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (2001-09) included data from large population-based samples of public school students in grades nine through 12; eligible sites were those that asked questions about sexual identity, sex of partner, or both.
The survey results, which vary by site, indicated:
*20 percent to 48 percent of sexual minority youths said they currently smoked cigarettes, compared with 8 percent to 18 percent of heterosexual students.
*21 percent to 32 percent of bisexual students reported an attempted suicide in the previous year, compared with 15 percent to 34 percent of gay and lesbian youths, and 4 percent to 10 percent of heterosexual youths.
“Many risk behaviors are related to how people feel about themselves and the environment they’re in,” noted Laura Kann, of CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health, who presented the findings at the first-ever Department of Education summit for gay, lesbian and bisexual youth in Washington.
The study, “Sexual Identity, Sex of Sexual Contacts, and Health Risk Behaviors Among Students in Grades 9-12 - Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance, Selected Sites, United States, 2001-2009,” was published as an early release in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (2011;60:1-133). To view the document, visit http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss60e0606a1.htm?s_cid=ss60e0606a1_w.