Vom Verbot zur Gleichberechtigung - Hirschfeld-Eddy-Stiftung

08 | Promoting the Health of Gay Men
and other Men Who Have Sex with Men
the participants (67.3 %) reported that they had or have to come to terms with greater
stress than other male adolescents of the same age due to their being gay”.
A study by the administrative arm of the Berlin senate 8 documented the alarming result
in 1999 that 18 % of all gay participants had already attempted suicide and that 56 %
reported having thought of suicide in the past. Health promotion for gay and other men
who have sex with men requires that a basis be established in the field of education by
depicting same-sex ways of life as a matter of fact, beginning in kindergarten and elementary
school. Same-sex partnerships must be depicted in schoolbooks and educational
materials as a way of life that is just as valid and matter of course as others. 9 It
must also be made clear in the day-to-day school situation that LGBTI are part of a diverse
society. They are just as valid and entitled to equal rights. The information regarding
same-sex ways of life should not only be presented to children within the context of
biology classes. Information about lesbian and gay ways of life, as well as about discrimination
and the history of emancipation, should also be conveyed within the context
of German, foreign language, politics, social studies, ethics, and history classes. Ideally,
young people should already know, before they come out, that homo- and
bisexuality are equally legitimate expressions of human sexuality.
The promotion and integration of gay and lesbian awareness projects in school education
is important in order, on the one hand, to dispel common clichés, and, on the other
hand, to create positive identification figures. It is also essential that programmes and
projects to prevent discrimination on grounds of the sexual identity of schoolchildren at
school and beyond are developed and supported. Unlimited access to information and
comprehensive information about the transmission of STI must be available to all young
people. Young gay and bisexual men must be granted unencumbered access to the corresponding
informational material, before they become sexually active themselves. In
all pedagogical training and courses of study it must be ensured that professionals are
enabled to communicate with the given age group in their target group in a manner
oriented on the world in which they live and in a respectful manner concerning topics of
gender role models, sexuality in general, and the topic of sexual identity in particular.
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7 Biechele, Ulrich: Schwule Jugendliche – Ergebnisse zur Lebenssituation, sozialen und sexuellen Identität. Berlin, 2001.
Accessible under: http://www.ms.niedersachsen.de/portal/live.php?navigation_id=5013&articleid=13979&_psmand
=17. | 8 SNSJS (Senatsverwaltung für Schule, Jugend und Sport): Sie liebt sie. Er liebt ihn. Eine Studie zur psychosozialen
Situation junger Lesben, Schwuler und Bisexueller in Berlin. Berlin, 1999. P. 66ff. | 9 Cf. results of the conference
“Sexuelle Identität und Gender. (K)Ein Thema in Schulbüchern?”. Accessible under: http:/www.lsvdblog. de/?p=2542.
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