PEERS provides MLAs recommendations to improve P.E.I. schools for LGBTQ youth

Bullying and harassment over gender and sexuality should not be as tolerated in Island schools as it is today, a legislative committee heard Friday.

PEERS Alliance presented before the committee on education and economic development and provided recommendations on how the situation could be improved for LGBTQ youth in the province's school system.

"Middle school is hard enough … when you have that isolation and that bullying that happens to you in schools, I mean, it's really quite awful," youth program coordinator Vanessa Bradley told CBC News after the presentation.

"We just talked about what youth have felt and noticed as they have been bullied and harassed for gender-based issues and their gender-based identities."

Island youth share experience

In preparation, PEERS spoke to people within its youth group to hear more about their specific experiences.

"I came out two years ago and I had a couple people going around telling everyone that I was faking being transgender," one student wrote.

"I've been bullied my whole life for something I can't control. I get called slurs walking in the halls and it's worse outside where there's no teachers. It's something no one should go through," wrote a second student.

It's really naive and just untrue to say that there's no queer kids in a certain school.— Scott Alan, PEERS Alliance.

Another described an experience where they notified their teacher of their name change and pronouns. The teacher responded that they would not accept the name and pronouns until another adult told them they "have to."

"A lot of these people don't have a place to express themselves in any way, shape or form, and that leads to depression that leads to mental health issues, that leads to trauma," said Scott Alan, PEERS' other youth coordinator.

"To prevent a lot of that would be really important."

Recommendations to stomp out harassment, bullying

The group had several recommendations for the committee: 

1. Name and address this specific type of bullying in policies, which should be more than just guidelines, which may be viewed as optional.

2. Attach an evaluation plan to the Public Schools Branch's (PSB) new gender identity guidelines.

3. Identify and train a visible diversity champion in each school, who serves as a point person and resource for LGBTQ youth and other teachers and staff.

4. Update curriculum to include current information about LGBTQ people across subjects like history and sexual education.

5. Make training on these topics mandatory for teachers and staff, instead of optional as they currently are.

"The big thing is that there is no policy mandating the gender diversity guidelines that the Public Schools Branch rolled out," Bradley said.

"There's nothing really mandating that teachers or schools actually put those guidelines into practice, and additionally, I found that youth feel like there is no justice for them when it comes to bullying and harassment. Basically when they're bullied, there is no action."

Severity not differentiated in discipline

Bradley described to the committee how PSB policies do not currently recognize the difference between vulgar or improper terms, like curse words, and the use of a targeted slur when it comes to disciplining bullies.

"There's definitely anger in both, but there is a lot of identity-based hate in slurs," she said.

"[LGBTQ youth] certainly feel isolated, and they don't feel as if the adults in their life can help them or protect them or even care about them, and in a lot of ways, it creates a sense of loneliness."

PEERS said in its experience, this is felt most acutely by youth in more rural parts of the province.

"Your zip code should not create a whole different learning experience than somebody else's," said Bradley.

PEERs also used this as an argument to strengthen the need for supportive spaces and communities within each of the schools, similar to what it offers with its Queer Youth Collective, which meets in Charlottetown and Summerside twice a month.

"It's really naive and just untrue to say that there's no queer kids in a certain school ... there's queer youth in all the schools across P.E.I.," Alan said. 

"Creating those spaces in every school would really, at the end of the day, save lives."

The presenters also addressed the August report about the incidents that occurred at East Wiltshire school in the spring, which results in seven students being suspended for homophobic bullying.

PEERS said the report presents a "chilling" reality: that adults were perpetuating and encouraging homophobic bullying in the school system. 

In taking a question from the committee, PEERS said it has not yet been contacted by the Public Schools Branch as part of the report recommendations.