Dear John –

Today our team at the GLSEN Research Institute is proud to release Erasure and Resilience: The Experiences of LGBTQ Students of Color, a new series of four reports, each publication focusing on a different group of LGBTQ students, their experiences at school, and the factors that make the biggest difference for them.

The reports in this series examine the school experiences of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI), Black, Latinx, and Native and Indigenous LGBTQ youth. The series includes findings from over 7,500 K-12 student respondents from schools across the country and shows the compounding damage to LGBTQ students of color when racism intersects with transphobia and homophobia.

We’re so grateful for the partnership of several terrific organizations that joined us in conducting and releasing the research: the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA), the National Black Justice Coalition, UnidosUS and the Hispanic Federation, and the Center for Native American Youth.

Please click here to read Erasure and Resilience: The Experiences of LGBTQ Students of Color.

These reports arrive as the United States wrestles with two fundamental challenges to our commitment to provide a K-12 education to every child – the depth of the systemic racism undermining true educational equity in our K-12 school systems; and the rising tide of racist, anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant, and White Christian nationalist sentiment being expressed in the mainstream of U.S. society.

It’s alarming that across all four reports, the topline finding is that 2 in 5 youth experienced both racist and anti-LGBTQ victimization at school. That’s unacceptable, and we must do everything we can to address this racist and anti-LGBTQ harassment.

The students whose lives are illuminated in these reports bear the brunt of these dire challenges. Their resilience calls on each of us to join the fight.

The first step? Getting the facts – with GLSEN Research Institute’s new report series on the experiences of LGBTQ students of color. Click here to explore the reports.

Thank you,
Eliza Byard
Executive Director, GLSEN