Sexual Orientation Bullying, a guide released today by NoBullying
London, UK (PRWEB) July 29, 2014 -- Is there such a thing as Sexual Orientation Bullying? NoBullying investigates the trend of sexual orientation bullying in a guide released today.
Sexual orientation is a person’s sexual identity as it relates to the gender to which they are attracted. Sexual identity terms have been abbreviated and are now commonly referred to as LGBTQ or the LGBTQ community.
When a child or teen is being bullied because of gender associations or preferences of any type it is referred to as sexual orientation bullying. Bullying can be physical, emotional, verbal, or written as a text message or email. Foul or explicit language, hitting, tripping, ignoring, staring, pushing, name calling, stalking, are all examples of bullying tactics.
LGBTQ bullying begins at a very young age. When children who bully others perceive gender-related differences in another child, bullies will aggressively target that child (or children) with the intention of hurting or overpowering him or her.
At a very early age, children are influenced by parents and teachers to recognize commonly accepted differences between boys and girls.
However, when a child or teen behaves in a way that deviates from the established gender norms h/she is often labeled by other children who are uncomfortable with or uneducated about the differences. The vulnerable child becomes a magnet for bully activity.
A bully doesn’t need much of a reason to harass another child and one with obvious differences is a standing target. Bullying of all types can happen anywhere there’s a group of kids. It happens at school, church, youth groups, after-school activities, sports teams, in the community; bullying can take place anywhere and has no boundaries. Sexual orientation bullying happens most often in school.
Numerous surveys have been conducted with students, teachers and parents about bullying and harassment of LGBTQ students and the results are alarming. About one fourth of all students from elementary age through high school are the victims of bullying and harassment while on school property because of their race, ethnicity, gender, disability, religion or sexual orientation.
The results of one report suggested that 26 percent of male 12th graders who were the target of LGBTQ bullying had experienced thoughts of suicide within the previous year.
It’s important for children to be accepted regardless of their sexual orientation. They have a right to be who they were meant to be and the right to feel safe no matter who or what that is. As adults, we can all help stop bullying now.
Macartan Mulligan, Co-Founder of NoBullying.com, said “It is an alarming and heartbreaking fact that LGBT youth are still bullied for being gay in school. Sexual orientation bullying needs to be stopped now.”
He added that parents and teachers should make a point to educate the younger generations about the sad outcome of bullying online and offline. According to Mulligan, it is quite imperative to press for more firm laws condemning all acts of bullying and harassment.
NoBullying.com features many pages dedicated to parents, teens, teachers, health professionals as well as posts related to cyber safety and the latest news about law making concerning curbing Bullying worldwide as well as inspirational Bullying Poems and famous Bullying Quotes.
The website regularly updates its bullying statistics and cyber bullying statistics as it is essential to understand how widespread the bullying epidemic is. It also regularly runs cyber bullying surveys and questionnaires to get recent updated statistics on everything related to cyberbullying.
He also added that anyone suffering from bullying in any form or way can always find advice and help on the NoBullying website – but if anyone is suffering from severe bullying or cyber bullying, the best thing is to talk to someone locally – a parent, teacher or local organization that has been set up to help with specialized councilors to deal with this topic.
Ciaran Connolly, Treze Ltd, http://www.treze.co.uk, 0044-289-581-0610, [email protected]
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