NEW LGBTQ CURRICULUM

All students

they were in a safe place,” said Danielle Murray, the BPS Safe and Welcoming Schools specialist.

Some 11 percent of Massachusetts high school students identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or questioning their sexual orientation and 2.9 percent indicated they were transgender, according to the 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

Some 41 percent of LGBTQ youth have considered suicide. And LGBTQ kids are more likely to be homeless.

“There has been progress in general in society,” said PrachniakRincon. “Students are feeling more comfortable. Students are coming out much younger than they have. There may be support in school, but also a lot more students are dealing with it and they are dealing with it at a younger age.

“The issue of bullying, bias and discrimination — that is still a huge problem.”

Teachers say tasks from asking all students their gender pronoun while taking attendance at the beginning of the school year to putting up a “safe zone” sticker on the classroom door can make a difference in making students feel comfortable.

Kristin Comment, an English teacher at Belmont High School, said she already tries to include gay, lesbian and bisexual authors and stories, like Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway,” in her lessons just so kids can see themselves reflected. And she tries to normalize being gay, like when she talks about Walt Whitman, a gay poet and journalist.

“I would like to see more discussion of LGBTQ issues in the curriculum,” Comment said. “I don’t think there is enough yet. It is really up to classroom teachers to normalize being LGBTQ in the classroom. It is not only talking about it in the curriculum but being careful in the language they use, respecting the pronouns students use or not making heterosexist assumptions. Teachers can do a lot to help normalize LGBTQ. That would go a long way to make students feel safe.

“Students have come back after they graduated and they’ll tell me how important it was that I was out or that we talked about how Walt Whitman was gay,” Comment added. “It has an impact.”