Tom Capon

Donald Zarda is one of three LGBTI people whose employment discrimination case will be heard by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) this year. The Supreme Court will decide whether LGBTI people are granted civil protections under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Zarda’s team are arguing the provision protecting people from sex-based discrimination must also apply to sexual orientation, as the two are inextricably linked. If the Supreme Court rules in favor, this could mean LGBTI people cannot be fired from a job based on their sexuality under federal law. If ruled against, LGBTI people would […]

Using data from the 2015–2017 Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the Trevor Project released a new report about the health of bisexual youth in the United States. On the whole, they found bisexual youth reported higher rates of suicide ideation, bullying, and other negative experiences. In the CDC’s data, as re-stated in the report, 7% of youth identified as bisexual, compared to 2% as gay or lesbian and 4% as not sure. Between their fellow peers in the LGBTI community, and heterosexual peers, there exists a disparity. Researchers found this both in mental health and victimization. What they experience Overall, bisexual youth reported […]

A school suspended two teachers after they mocked a 14-year-old boy by implying he is gay. The child’s mother, Jean Mott, claims the teachers, from Shiloh Middle School in Snellville, Georgia, made inappropriate comments about the student’s sexuality in front of his entire class. Speaking to WSB-TV, Mott says her son came home in tears in December 2018 because his teachers made comments that made him appear to be gay. His classmates have teased him ever since. One teacher implied another child was the boy’s ‘boyfriend’ and made fun of him after he was absent from school for a few days. […]

LGBTI and straight students feel safer when a school has a gay-straight alliance club, according to research. Conducted by the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada, the research found that with every additional year the school operated the gay-straight alliance, the teenagers felt safer. Elizabeth Saewyc, professor of nursing at UBC and senior author of the study, told Phys.Org: ‘We found that students’ feelings of safety at school kept increasing over at least 14 years, the longest time a GSA has been in a B.C. school so far. ‘Schools that never had a GSA did not show the same patterns of […]

An 11-year-old student needs to be escorted to her classes after a violent attack and a series of threats. Savannah Tirre, a sixth-grader at Zia Middle School in Las Cruces, New Mexico, has been threatened on social media by her peers. She has now returned to school. The tween is being escorted to lessons by a Mesilla town marshal, according to Las Cruces Sun News. Her mother told the news site she has been the target of bullying since October after Tirre came out as gay. The bullying began at her former school Picacho Middle School, forcing her to transfer to […]