'When a child is bullied for having ginger hair or being black, at least parents or carers can provide support at home, but many young people who suffer homophobic bullying don't have that. What makes this different from other forms of bullying is that many young people do not feel able to tell their parents, he says.
Others dismiss homophobic bullying as banter.'
'I think some teachers – particularly those who were trained a while ago – think, mistakenly, that it is unlawful to teach children about homosexuality. And what is most striking in the latest report is the number of children who have self-harmed as a result.Īlmost one in four of those surveyed said they had tried to take their own life at some point (compared to 7% of all young people) and 56% said they had self-harmed – deliberately cutting or burning themselves, for example.īut Summerskill says many schools are still not taking the issue seriously. While there are encouraging signs – reports of homophobic bullying are down from 65% in the 2007 survey – homophobic comments and language are just as common as five years ago. Stonewall's research, called The School Report, is based on an online survey of more than 1,600 lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGBT) young people between the age of 11 and 18 and is the second in a long-term study commissioned by Stonewall and carried out by the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge.
