Contemporary Issues Paper - Classical Theory of Sociology

chawna crawford
Dr. Marguerite Marín
Sociology 311 – Classical Social Theory
Monday, December 14, 2015
Gender Inequality
LGBT+ Youth
Issues they face, data and what the classical theorists might say about it
Abstract
Definitions:
In order to understand some of the concepts in this paper, I want to start by defining some key terms that may either be unfamiliar or used in a different way that usual:
LGBT+ = Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender; The '+' serves to include all other communities associated with the LGBT community ("LGBT Resources")
Youth = For a majority of the studies the term youth is considered a minor between the ages of 13 and 21. If this differs in any of the data, it will be stated.
Suicide = the act or an instance of taking one's own life voluntarily and intentionally especially by a person of years of discretion and of sound mind ("Merriam-Webster")
Homelessness = In this instance I am choosing to define as not only having no home or permanent residence, but also living in something that is not typically used for the purposes of habitation, such as the underneath of a bridge, a vehicle, an abandoned property, etc.
School safety = this term refers to and includes the critical and necessary environment in which effective teaching and learning can take place ("School Safety Definition")
Other words and terms will be defined throughout as needed
Impact note:
Families and familial dynamics have a direct impact on LGBT+ youth and are not a direct cause of the youth identifying as LGBT+. In fact, the families are often times the cause of homelessness and suicide and can also be attributed to one of the reasons that LGBT+ youth are bullied in school.


Importance:
When we first started talking about this project in class and what the topics might look like, the very first topic I thought of was LGBT+ issues. At first, I was not quite sure what form that was going to take, but I knew that I wanted to talk about LGBT+ issues with some lens. We first met in small groups to brainstorm some ideas and when I said I wanted to research the topic, a couple of my classmates suggested that youth could be a good lens to view LGBT+ issues because they are often not considered like other populations of LGBT+ people and there are sometimes not people to speak for them.
I have to admit that I had some reservations when it came to this topic, but only because it is very close to me. The LGBT+ youth I am researching are my friends. They are me. The things that happened to the youth in these statistics happened to my friends and to me. I have been out for half of my life and I remember some moments from my youth as though they were last week or last year. More than anything, I want to bring an awareness of this largely unaddressed epidemic that I am incredibly and personally passionate about.
Questions:
When I was looking through the text book and various sources there were two questions that I was keeping in mind:
What issues are most affecting LGBT+ youth in the United States? In Washington State?
What can people as stewards of the world do to minimize or eliminate these issues?


Data
The data has been separated into the three issues that came up most frequently when talking about LGBT+ youth: school safety, suicide, and homelessness. It has further been separated into the United States and more specifically, Washington State in order to answer the questions above.
United States
School Safety
Biannually, GLSEN ("Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network") conducts a survey of youth from all over the country, including the District of Columbia. Their aim is to survey students, especially those who identify as LGBT+ about how they feel regarding various aspects of their school experiences including biased language, harassment, assault, staff's responses, resources and support, and aspirations for their futures. They modify some of the questions to update it for the current culture and climate, making it relevant for the students taking it in the particular year it is administered.
The incredibly remarkable data that came out of the 2013 survey was the hostile school climate data. The total sample amount for the 2013 survey was 7,898 students.
"Schools nationwide are hostile environments for a distressing number of LGBT students, the overwhelming majority of whom routinely hear anti-LGBT language and experience victimization and discrimination at school. As a result, many LGBT students avoid school activities or miss school entirely ("Kosciw, Ph.D. et al. 2014")."
Of the total students surveyed over 50% of the students who identified as LGBT+ felt unsafe because of their sexual orientation and over one-third felt unsafe because of their gender expression. Gender expression is a term that describes the way someone manifests their masculinity or femininity. To take this further, one third of the LGBT+ youth surveyed missed at least one day of school in the month prior to taking the survey because they felt unsafe and one tenth of those students admitted to missing four or more days due to safety fears. In addition to these statistics, the survey found that
"Over a third avoided gender-segregated spaces in school because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable (bathrooms: 35.4%, locker rooms: 35.3%) … most reported avoiding school functions and extracurricular activities (68.1% and 61.2%, respectively) because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable ("Kosciw, Ph.D. et al. 2014")."
The GLSEN National School Climate Survey is the most comprehensive survey of its kind in the United States. It encompasses many aspects of school life that can and do affect a student's ability to be successful in the classroom and impact their ability to learn. One notable thing about this survey is that it is largely unknown by the majority of the population.
Suicide
Numerous factors contribute to attempted and completion of suicide among LGBT+ youth. Some of these factors include rejection and intolerance of family members, especially mothers and fathers, bullying in school, homelessness, lack of support systems and resources, and untreated mental illness. The Trevor Project website reports that suicide is the second leading cause of death among all young people between the ages of 10 and 24 as of 2010, but appears to have dropped to third in recent years according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ("Suicide Prevention"). The CDC mentions a "nationally representative study of adolescents in grades 7–12 found that lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth were more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide as their heterosexual peers("LGBT Youth")". Another study that the CDC talks about involved 55 transgendered youth. 25% of those youth reported in the study that they had attempted suicide at least once. The CDC also reports that LGB youth are 4 times more likely and questioning youth are 3 times more likely to attempt suicide compared to their straight peers. These statistics are staggering when compared to suicide statistics of straight youth. Of this the CDC says
"A nationwide survey of youth in grades 9–12 in public and private schools in the United States (U.S.) found that 16% of students reported seriously considering suicide, 13% reported creating a plan, and 8% reporting trying to take their own life in the 12 months preceding the survey ("Suicide Prevention").
Homelessness
One of the most disparaging set of statistics among the LGBT+ youth populations comes in the lens of homelessness. Two major reports that go into the most depth regarding LGBT+ youth and homelessness are On the Streets: The Federal Response to Gay and Transgender Homeless Youth (abbreviated as On the Streets for this paper) and Serving Our Youth 2015: The Needs and Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning Youth Experiencing Homelessness (abbreviated as Serving Our Youth 2015 for this paper). The reports give dire statistics about the state of homeless LGBT+ youth. The focus of the On the Streets report is to show some of the possible reasons that the percentage of LGBT+ youth who are homeless is roughly 8 times higher than that of their heterosexual peers.
"The usual coming out age is in the midteen years, when youth still depend on their families to meet their material needs and are particularly vulnerable if their family outright rejects them. For gay and transgender youth in these situations, family rejection can lead to a chain reaction of events that sends them cascading through social safety nets that are not equipped to support them ("Quintana, Nico Sifra et al. 2010")."
This report also indicates that not only rejection by their families, but also the violence they face and the institutional discrimination, not to mention feelings of not being safe at school are some of the leading factors in why there is such an over-representation of LGBT+ youth who are homeless ("Quintana, Nico Sifra et al. 2010").
When looking at the percentages of LGBT+ youth who are among the homeless population, the report entitled Serving Our Youth: Findings from a National Survey of Services Providers Working with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth Who Are Homeless or At Risk of Becoming Homeless that was released in 2012 was the foundation for the Serving Our Youth 2015 report. The 2012 report indicates that among the agencies surveyed, 381 responses were at least completed in part. Of the 354 agencies represented by these surveys, they said 40% of their homeless clientele identify as LGBT and has been steadily increasing since 2002 ("Durso, Laura E. and Gary J. Gates. 2012). The updated Serving Our Youth 2015 surveyed 138 youth in 2014 similarly to the survey from 2012, but included some updated questions based on the previous survey and a better understanding of the LGBT+ homelessness situation. The finding from Serving Our Youth 2015 are somewhat staggering when looking at the social climate and recent legalization of Marriage Equality. The report still shows a high homeless rate and the top reason for homelessness is rejection by family and the youth running away or being kicked out of the home. On a graph entitled Primary Reason for Homelessness for LGBQ and Transgender Youth as Reported by Providers 55.3% of LGBQ and 67.1% of Transgender youth reported their primary reason for being homeless as being "forced out by parents/ran away because of SOGIE (sexual orientation or gender identity/expression) ("Choi, Soon Kyu et al. 2015")."


Washington State
School Safety
RCW 9A.36.080
Malicious harassment—Definition and criminal penalty.
(1) A person is guilty of malicious harassment if he or she maliciously and intentionally commits one of the following acts because of his or her perception of the victim's race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or mental, physical, or sensory handicap:
(a) Causes physical injury to the victim or another person;
(b) Causes physical damage to or destruction of the property of the victim or another person; or
(c) Threatens a specific person or group of persons and places that person, or members of the specific group of persons, in reasonable fear of harm to person or property. The fear must be a fear that a reasonable person would have under all the circumstances. For purposes of this section, a "reasonable person" is a reasonable person who is a member of the victim's race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, or sexual orientation, or who has the same mental, physical, or sensory handicap as the victim. Words alone do not constitute malicious harassment unless the context or circumstances surrounding the words indicate the words are a threat. Threatening words do not constitute malicious harassment if it is apparent to the victim that the person does not have the ability to carry out the threat ("RCW 9A.36.080: Malicious Harassment-Definition and Criminal Penalty")."
In addition to the National School Climate Survey, GLSEN take the survey information and for 29 states, including Washington State they provide a State Snapshot "to examine the school experiences of LGBT middle and high school students, including hearing biased language, experiences of victimization, and access to resources and supports at school ("State-by-State Research")." This is helpful in determining how some states compare to the national statistics. The focus of this portion of research is how Washington State LGBT+ youth feel about their safety in school. The survey sample from Washington State was 281 out of the 7,898 total participants.
From the 2013 State Snapshot, the findings for Washington State are not positive. LGBT+ students reported that overall they do not feel safe in school, and despite having anti-bullying and harassment laws, they were not being protected. 80% of students reported that they heard other students in their schools make negative remarks about other's gender expression. This is a drastic increase from the national percentage of 30+%. Over 8 in 10 and 7 in 10 reported hearing the word "gay" in a derogatory way and hearing homophobic remarks respectfully. The most concerning statistics from this snapshot however, comes not from students reporting about other students, but students reporting about staff. "Students also heard anti-LGBT language from school staff. 21% regularly heard school staff make negative remarks about someone's gender expression and 10% regularly heard staff make homophobic remarks ("State-by-State Research")."
Suicide
The difficulty with talking about LGBT+ youth under the lens of suicide in Washington State is that there is not much data about it. The Youth Suicide Prevention Program (YSPP) and other websites indicate that Washington State does not specifically track suicide statistics for LGBT+ populations. The data about Washington State is based on national statistics. According to Youth Suicide Prevention Program "more than 30% of LGBT youth report at least one suicide attempt within the last year ("Statistics About Youth Suicide")." The YSPP also reports that "more than 50% of transgender youth will have had at least one suicide attempt by their 20th birthday ("Statistics About Youth Suicide")." If the GLSEN National School Climate Survey is any indication, it could be expected that these number might be higher for Washington State, as the numbers of students who feel unsafe and were being harassed in school are higher than the national percentages.
Homelessness
Similar to the lens of suicide in Washington State, homelessness is difficult to pinpoint statistics on. From the national data above, it can be inferred that the rate of homelessness in Washington State is rather similar the rest of the country. Many of the surveys and reports indicate that they is not much difference in the rate of homelessness in LGBT+ youth between regions in the country, they just note that they rates are very high. They one very important thing to note is that Washington State governor Jay Inslee signed legislation into law on April 24, 2015 to help prevent and reduce youth homelessness.
"The [Homeless Youth Prevention and Protection Act] HYPP Act will establish the Office of Homeless Youth Prevention and Protection Programs at the state level to help provide young people with stable housing, family reconciliation, permanent connections with adults, education and employment opportunities, and social and emotional well-being ("Seip, Nicholas 2015").".
Summary of Findings
The two most important questions that the data posed are:
What does the data mean?
This data indicates that we have a tremendous problem with issues that affect LGBT+ youth. We have high rates of homelessness; 40% of all homeless youth identify as LGBT+. We have youth who miss school because they do not feel safe, students who are being harassed for their sexual orientation and gender expression, and students who regularly hear from their peers as well as school staff derogatory and homophobic terms and comments. This should not be happening, but it is and for the most part, a lot of the population does not even know about it.


Does it help answer the questions?
One of the greatest takeaways from this data is that aside from the bad news the statistics hold, there is light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. The commonality between all of the resources and data is that there are things that can be done to help LGBT+ youth with these issues is more support, education and resources. Gay Straight Alliances (GSAs) in schools, LGBT+ friendly outreach centers, LGBT-centric therapists, doctors, and other clinicians are among the services and agencies that a majority of reports and survey communicated that LGBT+ youth are searching for. Professionals are also commenting on the desperate need for these things in order to bring down the percentages of harassment in schools, suicide, and homelessness.
Theoretical Analysis
Conflict Theory – Why does inequality exist?
Karl Marx: Marx did not consider minorities of any kind when he was doing his writings. In his works, he did not see skin color, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc. as a concern. He was more concerned with how the bourgeoisie treated the proletariat and the stratification that resulted from this. If Marx were alive today, I really think he would see LGBT+ youth as no different as any other group of people. I do not see him as the type to discriminate. I conjecture that he would see them as victims of capitalism and their issues (school safety, suicide, and homelessness) would be directly related to oppression of the family and the stratification of the proletariat. I think if there was a bright side to the gloom and doom thinking that often shadowed Marx's writings, it would be that he would probably praise and applaud the LGBT+ youth populations because they are our contemporary societies fight for liberation. They are the proletariat fighting for their liberation from the oppression of the bourgeoisie in the 21st century.
Functionalism – How does it contribute to the whole of society?
Émile Durkheim: Durkheim, for the most part would agree with Marx's idea of how the LGBT+ youth are treated and why. He would, however add a couple caveats to those ideas. First, I think he would argue that the lack of social bonds within the family are harming the LGBT+ youth. This is very evident and can be seen by the high rates of suicide and homelessness today. I think Durkheim would also argue that the fact that we even have the words homophobia and transphobia are because of societal norms and values that have been placed over time on the gender binary that say people are either male or female and there is no in between. He would also say that it is engrained in society to value that which is seen as easy and normal and if that is straight and male, then anything else is wrong. I also think that the biggest part of these issues that would speak to Durkheim would be the suicide aspect. Studies have shown that in some ways, each type of suicide outlined by Durkheim, altruistic, egoistic, anomic, and fatalistic, can be used to describe the different reasons that LGBT+ youth attempt or complete suicide.
Symbolic Interactionism – How do we experience and define our social reality?
Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Gilman was made for speaking about gender inequality! One of her biggest contributions to sociology that would apply to this comes from her being known as a feminist utopian. As such, she believed that groups of men and women could live together in "peaceful permanent expression of personal life (from Feminist Theory)." I think that if she were alive today, she would include LGBT+ youth in that description because she believed that when people acknowledged all humans as equal (even though she did kind of think that women were a bit superior) we could all live harmoniously and be able to express ourselves in whatever way we wanted.
Jane Addams: As a social worker and activist, Addams was incredibly impassioned by injustices that she saw around her. One cause that was near to her heart was children. She was the first person to champion for children and say that they should not be in factories and should not be working for wages. She felt that they should be outside play and in the schoolhouse getting an education. I think what is going on with the LGBT+ youth today would not only upset her, but would make her incredibly angry. Addams would probably lobby and protest and revolt against the people and government entities responsible for the violence against these youth. I feel like she would also be the theorist who would pioneer a better support system for the youth so that they can be happy and health; so that they can feel safe in school; so that they can be kids and grow up successfully.


Bibliography
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Durso, Laura E. and Gary J. Gates. 2012. "Serving Our Youth: Findings From a National Survey of Service Providers Working with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth Who Are Homeless or At Risk of Becoming Homeless." The Williams Institute. Retrieved 2015 (http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/research/safe-schools-and-youth/serving-our-youth-july-2012/).

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Quintana, Nico Sifra, Josh Rosenthal, and Jeff Krehely. 2010. "On The Streets: The Federal Response to Gay and Transgender Homeless Youth." Center for American Progress. Retrieved 2015 (https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbt/report/2010/06/21/7983/on-the-streets/).

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