GSAs only work if students know they’re safe
No one in a position of power should be outing anyone, Ruby Swanson says.
The point of a gay-straight alliance (GSA) in schools is to provide a safe space for gay and supportive straight students. In 2004, my son started the GSA at Strathcona High School.
In his proposal to the school principal, he said high school students have three groups in their lives — their family, their friends and their school. He knew there were students who couldn’t go to their family for support and didn’t have friends they could turn to for help. These students needed a place at school where they could be with other students who knew what it felt like to be gay. GSAs give students the safe space they need when they feel there are no other options. This space is only safe when students know that being there won’t lead to potential harm.
The passage of Bill 24 prohibits teachers from informing parents that their child is attending a GSA, in other words, outing gay or supportive straight students. The United Conservative Party (UCP) argues there are circumstances where it is necessary to inform parents that their children are participating in a GSA.
I am curious to know the exact circumstances under which the UCP believes this would be appropriate. Schools and teachers are obligated to inform parents when a student’s activity poses a danger or threat to themselves or others. How does attending a lunchtime GSA meeting pose a threat to anyone or affect the student’s ability to learn?
The UCP is saying it’s about parents’ fundamental right to know what their children are doing. If parents want to know what’s going on with their kids, they should talk to their children. If that doesn’t work, parents have to figure out why that’s the case. It’s not the school’s responsibility to do that for them. It’s not a teacher’s job to interpret their impression of each child — in classes of 30 kids that they see three times a week for 80 minutes — and report back to parents.
Are teachers supposed to report whom each student sits with at lunch, what they talked about, who their locker is beside? To do this would leave no time for teaching and is fundamentally creepy. It’s not the role of publicly funded schools to watch and monitor, control and report on, and ultimately censor the human condition.
Teachers have a professional responsibility to not endanger a child. When it come to LGBT issues, teachers actually have no way of knowing what a child’s home circumstances are and how the parents might react. If a student’s home is believed to be safe, why do the parents need to know? No one knows what the reaction is going to be until the information is shared. Anyone can guess, but no one actually knows for sure. And, what happens when the teacher is wrong and suddenly the child is homeless, abandoned or beaten? A gay person, regardless of whether they are 17 or 70, has everything to lose. No one should out anyone — ever. The timing is personal and up to the individual. It’s wrong for people in positions of power or authority to have any influence on timing.
The UCP’s farcical backlash to Bill 24 appears to be a thinly veiled attempt to eliminate GSAs in our province. Kids simply won’t participate in a GSA if they think there is any chance that teachers will out them. If no one attends, there is no need for a GSA. Problem solved.
It’s not the role of publicly funded schools to watch and monitor, control and report on, and ultimately censor the human condition.