Fighting Homophobia in Schools

By Evguenia Klementieva and Mikkel Schmidt-Hansen, project managers.

The end of 2012 brought with it the conclusion of the project “It takes all kinds” (ITAK) - a project which aims to provide materials for addressing and tackling homophobia in schools. It was conducted by the Danish Institute for Human Rights in cooperation with leading LGBT organizations in nine countries throughout Europe.

The main outcome of the project is three websites, each localized to the languages of the participating countries: one for teachers, one for students and one for LGBT organizations.

The teacher website provides inspiration materials and guides for teachers and school management who wish to take up the fight against discrimination and homophobia in their schools. The student website focusses on the same issues, but has a more interactive and playful approach to the matter, and also provides students with tools to take action against discrimination. Finally, the site for LGBT organizations provides a restricted access forum, in which members of the organizations can communicate and share their experiences with each other.

A human rights approach to LGBT issues

Throughout the project, we saw that the brand of the Institute and the use of human rights as an entry point opened doors for discussions of human rights for LGBT persons, in contexts where such discussions would usually be difficult. In many of the participating Eastern and Central European countries, local authorities were usually less willing to engage directly with LGBT organizations, but were eager to engage in a dialogue on human rights once a National Human Rights Institution from Denmark got involved.

For instance in Poland, the project personnel met with the vice minister of education. According to our Polish partner, a meeting of such caliber would not have been possible had the LGBT organization approached the Ministry on its own. This meeting was not only used to engage the Ministryin support of our joint project, but also allowed for our Polish partners to address other urgent local matters regarding human rights for LGBT persons.

Addressing sexual and gender diversity in schools from a broader human rights perspective can be useful in Western European countries as well. In a school in Ireland, the students expressed a degree of weariness at the prospect of talking about gay rights yet again: “Yes, yes – we’ve got the message!”

Once the teachers and students started testing the materials developed under this project, which puts gender and sexual diversity into a broader perspective of non-discrimination and human rights, the issue once again caught the interest of the students, as they were reminded why these issues are still important.

Progressing in east and west

When it comes to human rights for LGBT persons, there is a significant difference between Northern and Western European on one hand and Eastern and Southern European countries on the other. Where the former have generally come relatively far in recognizing LGBT rights, the latter will often have strong political and institutional obstacles which must be overcome in order to secure basic protection against discrimination towards LGBT persons.

This can at times be an impediment to cooperation between LGBT organizations in different countries, as each organization faces different challenges than their neighbor organizations.

One central component to the project, which clearly illustrates this point, is the inclusion of the concept of ’heteronormativity’ (the idea that all people are divided into two sexes, male and female, who are naturally attracted to each other) into both teaching methods, tools and materials.
While it is considered a central concept in the debate within Northern European countries, “heteronormativity” is generally unknown in Central and Southern European countries. Our Central and Southern European partners were keener on using concepts such as “tolerance” – a term which is often considered abusive and discriminating in Northern Europe.

Mutual benefits

Each country has its own national context and own frame of reference. At the same time, sharing experience and knowledge across borders will help all the participants in their fight against discrimination. The fact that nine European LGBT NGOs had an opportunity to come together and work on a common project in spite of their national differences, is valuable in terms of mutual learning alone. We sincerely hope that all our partners have got new and inspiring tools and ideas on how to move the human rights agenda forward in their respective countries.

Visit the project websites at http://www.ittakesallkinds.eu