Safe School program gays lesbians transgenders bullied

here in oz we have a program called safe school designed to protect gay and lesbina and transgender studnets from bullying. youd think this a good thing as suicide is alot among these people but no the government wants to stop safe schools to meet the desires of some right wing zelots who cant handle the fact that finaly maybe glbt people can have some equality

More than 17,000 people have signed a petition urging the New South Wales government to scrap the controversial Safe Schools program that targets bullying. Liberal MP Damien Tudehope was due to lodge the petition in parliament on Tuesday on behalf of the Australian-Chinese community, paving the way for MPs to debate whether the taxpayer-funded program should be dumped.

The Safe Schools program was set up to stop the bullying of gay and transgender students. The federal government announced changes to the program earlier this year after an independent review found a number of lessons and content were inappropriate for children. NSW Greens MP Mehreen Faruqi said the campaign to dump the program was unwarranted. She denied it was divisive and polarising, saying it was created by educators who understood the challenges faced by gender diverse children.

so instead of trying to stop suicide it seems this government want to encourage it. imagine if christians were discriminated aginast imagine the uprooar

“One thing that our migrant communities have in common is that they won’t allow anyone interfering with their parental rights, and programs like Safe Schools represent an attack on the rights of all parents,” he said.

Lol!

It's amazing to me that people still use hyperbole like this.

a reply to: lortl

Its an extra program, wasting money. Get rid of it! Why aren't existing anti bullying programs good enough? Gays and Trans absolutely have to have segregated programs for everything? Bullying is bullying, PERIOD. Whether its because your being picked on for fat, short, goofy, glasses, gay, trans, black, white, skinny, tall, its still hostile and harassing behavior inappropriately projected at a usually innocent party. The why should not be relevant to add costs to the taxpayer for a separately funded program that addresses the same issues. It is a redundancy.

But there always has to be a separate group to address the same issues in order to be equal makes no sense.

a reply to: lortl

It seems the trend around my area is that all the homosexuals went through school in the closet and waited until they left before coming out. Seems like the best idea to be honest. Not saying it's right or fair but kids will be kids and testosterone will be testosterone - anything different about anyone is focused on, gay or not.

You wear glasses? Four-eyed freak! You're fat? Disgusting! You have spots? Hideous. You have no boobs? Ironing board. You have big teeth? You're now beaver kid. Bulging eyes? Okay Popeye. Ginger hair? No soul. Lanky? How's the weather up there? Midget? You'd make a good table. Had more than one boyfriend this year? Whore! Had no girlfriend this year? Virgin.

You get the idea. Of course they are bullied, they are different. There will always be new kids, and some of them will always be gay - by the time you've managed to impart your PC crap on to them they'll have grown out of their edgy phase anyways. Laughing about gays might be humerous for a lot of kids, but most grow out of it and such opinions are rare by the time you mature and reach college anyways. This just seems like wasted resources.

a reply to: BelowLowAnnouncement

Yes when I grew up everyone had something you could tease them about,what happened to the old days when we had to deal with diversity,now the government is trying to enable these people,it has to be part of some grand scheme happens too often

Adults yet again forgetting what's best for z child so they can enforce there own prejudices on people. I was bullied through high school and if it happens to my kids the school won't know what hit them I send my kids to school to get educated, not have them victims of assault. You cant teach your kids to be decent human beings then don't stop the school from trying.

a reply to: lortl

I am sure that is a good reason for keeping Gays lesbians and transgender people safe, but legislation will do better than using old fashion segregation to do that.

Segregation is never a good thing for society, it creates an environment of prejudice and favoritism.

a reply to: lortl

There is nothing of substance in the OP nor in the article that the OP links to.

What is the program? What are the rules (for lack of a better term)? How is it enforced?

Again... there is nothing of substance presented thus far so really nothing to discuss/debate.

originally posted by: BelowLowAnnouncement
a reply to: lortl

It seems the trend around my area is that all the homosexuals went through school in the closet and waited until they left before coming out. Seems like the best idea to be honest. Not saying it's right or fair but kids will be kids and testosterone will be testosterone - anything different about anyone is focused on, gay or not.

You wear glasses? Four-eyed freak! You're fat? Disgusting! You have spots? Hideous. You have no boobs? Ironing board. You have big teeth? You're now beaver kid. Bulging eyes? Okay Popeye. Ginger hair? No soul. Lanky? How's the weather up there? Midget? You'd make a good table. Had more than one boyfriend this year? Whore! Had no girlfriend this year? Virgin.

You get the idea. Of course they are bullied, they are different. There will always be new kids, and some of them will always be gay - by the time you've managed to impart your PC crap on to them they'll have grown out of their edgy phase anyways. Laughing about gays might be humerous for a lot of kids, but most grow out of it and such opinions are rare by the time you mature and reach college anyways. This just seems like wasted resources.

I know.

I was flat, lanky, AND a nerd who didn't bother to hide it. I was also poor.

I got all kinds of bullied, but I guess it doesn't matter because I wasn't gay and as we all know today they're the only ones who ever faced bullying in school.

“Here in NSW we need to stand strong as a community and continue to support our vibrant lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex communities.”

I'm getting tire of the overuse of the term 'community' these days. We are individuals, not communities.

Without much more information to glean from such a pathetic article, I will assume that the parents of the 98.4% normal children are tired of dealing with the confusion from their kids and the insane homework questions they have to deal with.

I would also like to know how a petition to drop special lessons is directly bullying which seems to be the claim being made.

I would also like to know what the lessons are that the parents behind the petition claim are inappropriate for children. Given that we are talking about Australian and Chinese parents, the odds are that this is not solely religious objection. So what kinds of lessons are we adding to the curriculum? If the Chinese object, knowing tiger moms, I would hazard a guess these are distracting from important things like reading, writing, and arithmetic in favor of social engineering.

a reply to: lortl

By the sound of "Safe Schools" you'd think it's an anti-bullying program but no it specifically furthers the pro-gay agenda.

I'm all for LGBTI rights but this program is extreme; some of the preliminary guidelines show lessons where boys are to wear dresses and imagine they're transgender.

If a child approaches a teacher and says they might be transgender the teacher is allowed to help the kid to transition and organise medical and psychological appointments without the knowledge or permission of the parents.

I think that it is natural for children to question their sexuality/gender roles and experiment in their teens but the majority find themselves as they reach early adulthood. Most are straight, some are homosexual and a smaller percentage are intersex or trans and it's all okay - who am I to say what/how someone should feel.

That being said about 30% of people who transition to the other gender, have further surgery to transition back to their birth gender. This is a high percentage who got it wrong and I can see how a child might easily get confused or want the attention from a teacher and start on this process which isn't right for them and could lead to surgery regret or suicide.

a reply to: lortl

Christians were discriminated against for a long time, and now they're one of the top three religions. I don't think that you're making your desired point.

Bullying has been around ever since--if you're religious (and I'm not)--Cain "slew" Able way back in Genesis (well, maybe even with the way that God bullied Adam and Eve with threats and banishment, if we want to get really technical). What else has always been around is the fact that people were taught how to stand up to or outsmart or otherwise deal with bullying. Well, that is, until recent years, when suddenly there has been this call out for government to protect everyone from everything.

We're encouraging the raising of children who will have zero necessary life skills when they reach adulthood and get out in the "real world." Claiming that people who are opposed to this are "right wing zealots" is an unfair comparison, and you might do yourself well to dive a little deeper into the long-term effects of what such coddling of our youth will be. You think that the protective umbrella of government and school policies is a good thing, but I think that you're missing the big picture.

The other part of the problem is that nobody teaches their children HOW to stand up to bullies, or even that it's okay to do so (even if they will be punished by the school). You better believe that my son knows how to handle a bully, and if it ever came down to the reality that he didn't, he'd learn quickly. But you better believe that the answer to the problem wouldn't be to go tell someone because the federal government says it's not okay. That's as ridiculous as bullying, IMO.

Give our youth a way to assert some self respect and to demand respect from bullies and you will see these suicide rates plummet. Suicide is generally a last resort to a troubled mind, and bullying alone usually is not the cause, but a piece of the puzzle. But in any event, giving someone the ability to control that piece of the puzzle will go a long way, and generally extend into other areas of their life positively as well.

Being bullied at school doesn't teach life skills, it distracts kids from getting the education they need.

originally posted by: WilsonWilson
Being bullied at school doesn't teach life skills, it distracts kids from getting the education they need.

What education do they 'need'?

Personally, being bullied and learning how to overcome it was one of the best life lessons I ever had. Life is harsh. People can be dicks. When you grow up you aren't going to have a social worker hovering around you trying to make you get in touch with your feelings.

An adult knows how to deal with jerks. A child needs to learn how to deal with jerks. We can't stop it, we can only prepare them.

This stuff is hilarious. It reminds me of a program we had ... it was experimental and lasted for a whopping two years. I got in on the first year. It was called "school inside a school". It was for those who tested through the roof, but didn't bother much with homework, or care all too much for the class. I was half inside the school inside a school, half not because of the honors programs.

Anyways, they thought to get the most passionate and talented teachers to pitch in with the "troubled teens". We had access to a guidance counselor whenever we wanted. All that happened was that most of my friends who were "freaks" got into the same class, drove the teachers bonkers, and abused whatever privilege they gave us. One of us committed suicide in the school bathroom it's second year on. I dropped out about 5 weeks afterwards.

Most of the ideas these people are coming out are well intended, but naive. Teachers are usually not all too gifted intuitively, and they can't truly grasp that they are either part of the problem, or incapable of solving the problem that's much larger than their sphere of influence. Sometimes there's not really a problem, just a perception from some authorities. Of my group, some have slid far down, and some have soared to great heights. What didn't happen was any of them following a standard course. That was inevitable.

I don't know if you can relate this to the errs here, but I can. If not, maybe not worth the efforts spelling it all out.

originally posted by: ketsuko

I got all kinds of bullied, but I guess it doesn't matter because I wasn't gay and as we all know today they're the only ones who ever faced bullying in school.

Did teachers, administrators, and parents also bully you?

That is a real problem with LGBT youth.

Those of authority who are supposed to protect, are often the ones doing or turning a blind eye.

Its really not the same.

originally posted by: WilsonWilson
Being bullied at school doesn't teach life skills, it distracts kids from getting the education they need.

Yes, it does.

And it doesn't do the bully any good either.

originally posted by: Kalixi
a reply to: lortl

By the sound of "Safe Schools" you'd think it's an anti-bullying program but no it specifically furthers the pro-gay agenda.

Oh Gawd, not the Pro-gay agenda.

That being said about 30% of people who transition to the other gender, have further surgery to transition back to their birth gender. This is a high percentage who got it wrong and I can see how a child might easily get confused or want the attention from a teacher and start on this process which isn't right for them and could lead to surgery regret or suicide.

This is incorrect and false info.

Any dramatic social engineering could be a bad thing. The LGBT(Z?) population is something like 6% of the total. (This includes all homosexuals, bisexuals and transgenders.) Most people think it's 15 or 20%. Admittedly, I used to think that. But anyway are we willing to tinker with the social framework when considering 94% of the kids might be harmed by it?

I know we can't sit back and do nothing. I was bullied. I know there's damage done to both the bully and the person doing the bullying--the bullied usually suffer more. We need to make changes which segregate the least and yet also engineer the least, while reducing the bullying.

I don't envy the people who have ot make these programs. They'll be picked apart and blamed, esp. by the conservative right.

I guess we need to be shown that LGTBZ are just another gender. For example if I'm a boy I have to leanr girls are girls and I have to respect them. Similarly, I have to learn to respect LGTB(Z?).

Bullying is a thing which doesn't just target LGBTZ though. It targets everything which is vulnerable to it. This is mcuh bigger probelm than LGTBZ.