It’s almost impossible to know what life is like elsewhere unless we experience it ourselves, or at least hear about it on the news. Take a story in the Bangor Daily News, for example. Unlike urban and suburban communities where support for the LGBTQ youth is strong enough to sometimes even be taken for granted, it’s a different story in rural Maine, where communities are working to build more support for their LGBTQ youth.
Reports the Daily News, the Maine Integrated Youth Survey, through a questionnaire in more than 300 schools, asked students a series of questions concerning their sexuality. The results were disappointing: “LGBTQ students are significantly more likely to be bullied and twice as likely to feel unsafe at school—and they are four times more likely to consider suicide.”
Lin Gould, a science teacher at Mount Desert Island High School (MDIHS) and serves as the school’s GSA advisor, BDN reported, summarized their experience from a different perspective: “If they’re not worried about their safety and nervous about whether or not they’ll be made fun of, they can concentrate on their classwork.”
With the changes happening at Mount Desert Island High School, the first high school in Maine to establish a Gay-Straight Alliance, in 1997, LGBTQ students have been feeling safer than before. Because of the GSA, “all students were less likely to experience discrimination, and students were less likely to have suicidal thoughts or attempt suicide,” reported BDN of the study results.
MDIHS is moving in the right direction by trying to help their LGBTQ students living in rural areas feel just as safe and important as those living in an urban or suburban environment.
Equality Maine’s Gia Drew, a program director at Equality Maine, said it best: “I think a lot of folks have that stereotype or bias in their heads of ‘rural Mainers aren’t going to be supportive of people who are different or are LGBTQ. But what I’ve learned doing this job nearly five years, and connecting with thousands of students and teachers, it really does depend on the community. For the most part, people and many folks just don’t know the right questions to ask. Most educators really want to learn. You know, the majority want to do best by their students.”
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