Gay clubs in school

Should parents be told if their children are members of gay-straight alliances - student-run peer support groups for LGBT students and allies in their school? In one Canadian province, that question has sparked fierce debate. The student-run clubs are meant to be a place where LGBT and other students can socialise and offer peer support.

Research on GSAs suggests they create a "safe space" for students at a greater risk of mental health issues and discrimination, and can reduce bullying and harassment in schools where they're established. Some 30 years after the first one was founded by a history teacher and a student at Concord Academy in Massachusetts inthousands of GSAs exist in middle and high schools across North America.

Despite their proliferation, these peer support groups have also faced resistance. One protracted battle over GSAs has been school out in the Canadian province of Alberta - an issue gay in the provincial legislature, in the courts, and in the media. The latest flare up began during the recent provincial election in the province.

At issue was a policy proposed by United Conservative Party UCP leader Jason Kenney to undo some legal protections for the school clubs, notably one that bars school officials from telling parents if their child has joined such a group. Critics of Gay plan say school staff could "out" LGBT students to parents who might not be supportive of, or might even be discriminatory of, their sexuality or gender identity - with potentially damaging consequence.

Kenney - whose UCP swept the election and who club soon be premier - argues his proposal is a compromise between supporting GSAs and respecting parental authority. In his election night victory speech, he said that "parents know better than politicians what is best for their kids". In the United States, where the federal Equal Access Act guarantees that public school students have a right to form GSAs, the American Civil Liberties Union says the groups have prevailed in at least 17 federal lawsuits under the act between and Most of the US lawsuits were over obstacles put in place by school officials opposed to the clubs, like making last minute changes to school rules to prevent a GSA from being established.

Concerns about the activities in GSAs has also cropped up in the USwith one California student battling his school telling the BBC in "This whole thing has stopped being about my club. It's become this debate about sex". Albertan Dylan Chevalier, executive director of Sexual and Gender Acceptance Edmonton, says GSAs are about "having a place where you can be safe, relax, and take your walls down for half an hour".

Chevalier was the president of a GSA at his school high school, and he said the club hosted discussions and pizza parties, held bake sales to fund LGBT awareness campaigns and once organised a "drag and dance show". Local skirmishes over the clubs have also been seen in the UK and in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba, which also protect a student's right to start a GSA.

University of Calgary's Darren Lund, who teaches social justice education, says that the issue has always had "the potential to be polarising". He says there's been a rapid cultural shift towards a greater acceptance of LGBT issues in the last 15 years or so - one that makes some people feel "discomfort".

What's the controversy in Alberta? Inlegislation was first proposed to require all the province's public schools to establish a GSA on the request of a student. The right-leaning provincial government at the time eventually passed a law - Bill 10 - establishing that protection.

Gay-Straight Alliances in Rural High Schools Important But Still Controversial

It received support from all the provincial political parties. Advocates argued the law didn't do enough to protect LGBT students. Others called it an infringement on freedom of religion and parental rights. It passed Bill 24, which required schools, both public and private, to have a policy in place to allow for it to comply "immediately" with a student's GSA request.