ABSTRACT
In this chapter we set out the views and experiences of four 15-to 16-yearold teenagers (one female, three male) with same-sex sexuality on two related matters of critical importance to them: how they became sidelined and harassed at school to the extent that their studies were disrupted, and their experiences of attending a unique study club for young lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people as a response. [...]
With the assistance of the Young Lesbian Gay and Bisexual Peer Support Project (PSP) in central Manchester, launched two years before (1996), we were able to begin our inquiry with a teenage LGB population concerned about their education, the trained teachers who volunteer to tutor them at the project, and the project’s paid youth workers and professional advisers. Young people training and volunteering as peer supporters (some of whom had a role in initiating the project, giving it its peer-led hallmark) also took part in the investigation. [...]
[...] Coyle (1998) concludes that, although many young lesbian and gay people succeed in resourcefully creating a workable and satisfying sexual
identity, nevertheless the formation and negotiation of a lesbian or gay identity poses considerable diffi culties for young people in the face of generally negative social attitudes. It seems to us then, that the numerous LGB youth groups in today’s Britain provide useful opportunities for young people wanting to ‘be themselves’ among equals. They provide an experience that contrasts with their typical experience of lack of acknowledgement of their sexual orientation by the school system, combined with negative attitudes and even harassment from their heterosexual peers and society in general.
