The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) is an organization focused on making sure students are safe in their school environments. In January they released a report called “Shared Differences” that discusses the specific issues of LGBT youth of color in schools. The report explains how LGBT youth of color experience unique and diverse challenges; and that they too are the victims of gay bashing, slurs, and abuse in addition to various forms of racism.

We definitely need more awareness about issues concerning LGBTQ youth. You can read the full report HERE and/or check out the key points below:

• Across all groups, sexual orientation and gender expression were the most common reasons LGBT students of color reported feeling unsafe in school. More than 4 out of 5 students, within each racial/ethnic group, reported verbal harassment in school because of sexual orientation and about two-thirds because of gender expression. At least a third of each group reported physical violence in school because of sexual orientation.

• About a quarter of African American/Black and Asian/Pacific Islander students had missed class or days of school in the past month because they felt unsafe. Latino/a, Native American, and multiracial students were even more likely to be absent for for safety reasons - about a third or more skipped class at least once or missed at least one day of school in the past month for safety reasons.

• Native American students experienced particularly high levels of victimization because of their religion, with more than half reporting the highest levels of verbal harassment (54%), and a quarter experiencing physical violence (26%).

• Less than half of students of color who had been harassed or assaulted in school in the past year said that they ever reported the incident to school staff. Furthermore, for those students who did report incidents to school staff, less than half believed that staff’s resulting response was effective.

• Native American (57%) and multiracial (50%) students were more likely than other students of color in our survey to report incidents to a family member.

• Performance at school also suffered when students experienced high levels of victimization. Students’ overall GPA dropped when they reported high severities of harassment based on sexual orientation and/or race/ethnicity. Students experiencing high severities of harassment also reported missing school more often.

• The report also looks at differing experiences based on the racial/ethnic make-up of students’ schools. For all groups, LGBT students of color who were minorities in their school were much more likely to feel unsafe and experience harassment because of their race or ethnicity than those who were in the racial/ethnic majority.