“As a gay former athlete, I identify strongly with Megan Rapinoe’s bravery. I admire her for coming out and supporting LGBTQ student athletes through GLSEN’s Changing the Game.  In school athletics, I have experienced an overpowering sense of homophobia from my not only peers, but also teachers. As I was beginning to discover who I was in middle school, this permeating homophobia and transphobia haunted me on my school’s track team and step team, as well as a competitive community swim team and the occasional tennis court.  Not a single practice or meet could pass by without at least one member of the team, a team that was supposed to provide me with a comfortable and accepting community, disavow who I was without realizing it.  Hateful and prejudicial words and phrases were often used by my teammates. Worst of all, my coaches sanctioned these harmful expressions by using them themselves.  

I came to realize that I could never fit in with my teams, just because I am gay.  Ultimately, the homophobic gestures of my peers and adult sponsors who were supposed to provide a fun and fair experience made me so uncomfortable that I chose to abandon sports altogether.  I am now proud to once again start calling myself a gay athlete since players like Megan Rapinoe and Robbie Rogers have courageously come out, stood up and called for an end to the injustice.  No student deserves to cut short their athletic pursuits simply because of homophobia. GLSEN and Megan Rapinoe are taking steps to change that for the future.”

Join us in congratulating Liam by posting your Selfie for Sports and tell us what you are doing to Change The Game!

 “I went through the struggle of dealing with my sexuality throughout my time in High School and I think it’s important that schools like mine are better educated and more accepting  of LGBT students. I’ve played soccer my whole life and it is a huge part of who I am today. Before, and especially after Megan Rapinoe decided to publicly come out she has been my role model. I will be forever grateful for her decision to come out because it has truly helped me along with my coming out process.”

When we hold a contest, we announce the winner via an email announcement, blog posts, Facebook, Twitter and a press release. We knew there would be attention focused on the winners and wanted to ensure that it would be okay to contact their schools and celebrate their win. The student winning the grand prize was concerned about the attention having a negative impact on their life both inside school and on the soccer field. While they appreciated the gesture, they declined the spotlight.

There are many reasons why a young person may not want to disclose their sexual orientation. The National School Climate Survey reports that 63% of LGBT youth do not feel safe at school. It is understandable why a student may second-guess this kind of attention, even when it is in a positive light.

• More than a quarter of LGBT student athletes reported having been harassed or assaulted while playing on a school sports team because of their sexual orientation (27.8%) or gender expression (29.4%).
• More than half of LGBT students who took a P.E. class were bullied or harassed during P.E. because of their sexual orientation (52.8%) or gender expression (50.9%).
• LGBT students commonly avoided athletic spaces at school including locker rooms (39.0%), P.E. classes (32.5%) and school athletic fields and facilities (22.8%) because of feeling unsafe or uncomfortable.
• A vast majority (74.9%) of LGBT students said that they were uncomfortable talking to their P.E. teachers or coaches about LGBT issues.

We would love to announce the grand prizewinner of the Megan Rapinoe for Changing the Game contest… but we can’t. At GLSEN, we value safety and respect for students, which means, allowing students the space to come out at their own pace.

Instead of using this opportunity to feature the grand prize winner, we are going to break the silence around LGBT issues in sports by  featuring blog posts from other student athletes involved in the Megan Rapinoe for Changing the Game contest in honor of National Sports and Physical Education Week (May 1-7^th). We will be bringing you the stories of several student athletes in their own words.

Stay tuned…

The judges loved the way Larchmont creatively connected social justice leaders throughout history to the NNCW mission. Civil Rights heroes featured in the mural faced bullying and were consistently called names, but they responded with nonviolence, setting an example for every student. Larchmont’s “mosaic mural aims to represent visually that each and every student plays a part in achieving a school culture of nonviolence and peace where there is no place for bullying or name calling.” Larchmont has made a clear commitment to ending name-calling and bullying. We will reward this effort with a No Name-Calling Week Prize pack.

For their efforts, Larchmont will receive:

• A No Name-Calling Week plaque
• 27 books from the Simon and Schuster Children’s Library
• T-shirts
• Tip sheets
• Wrist bands
• Buttons
• DVD of “Speak Up” a documentary introduced by Barack Obama
• DVD of Cartoon Network PSA’s
• DVD of Anderson Cooper specials
• Stop Bullying: Speak Up posters
• GLSEN’s Safe Space Kit
• GLSEN’s Ready Set Respect

Once again, congratulations to all of the participating schools. You should be proud of the effort you have made to end name-calling and bullying in your community.

Brock Road Elementary especially made a difference to their students by having a Spirit Week type theme for NNCW. Each day of the week was a theme dress up day reminding students of the impact of name calling and bullying. For example, on Tuesday, students wore two different shoes to remind them what it is like to “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes”. Students learned empathy for others and thought about how someone else feels when they are being disrespected.

Laurel Springs School in Ojai, CA showed their support for No Name-Calling Week by hosting a variety of activities including a book club discussion centered around The Misfits by James Howe. Laurel Springs also hosted a live interactive webinar for their 6th through 12th grade students about bullying prevention.

The 10th No Name-Calling Week is nearing an end today, but that doesn’t mean that we should forget the messages of respect and inclusivity for all young people. Continue building a safe school climate throughout the year with GLSEN’s resources and don’t forget to let us know how you participated!

Through initiatives like No Name Calling Week, we can connect local leaders to the resources they need to get active and prevent bullying in their community. Whether you work in the classroom or the clinic, everyone plays a role in bullying prevention and HRSA has developed free training resources that go beyond the school environment to help you organize a community event or town hall, including:

• Base Training Module with Speaker Notes: a presentation with suggested talking points, including the latest research to help participants create an action plan for a community event
• Community Action Toolkit: a supplemental guide, including tip sheets, a template event agenda, action planning matrix and feedback forms

No Name Calling Week is about more than simply building awareness — it’s about taking action to prevent bullying in your neighborhood and community. Whether you’ve been active for years or just started yesterday, take action by learning about and organizing bullying prevention and response efforts in your community. Download the Training Modules at: http://www.stopbullying.gov/communityguide 

Megan Rapinoe is a game changer and you can be one too by showing your support for Changing the Game! All you have to do is complete and submit the form on this page, telling us why you want to join Megan in this effort to support GLSEN. We will be featuring many of these stories on our website and if we select your story, you’ll be eligible to win one of the many items Megan has provided us including signed soccer balls or t-shirts or a $500 NIKE Gift Certificate.

Tell us why you want to change the game!

In collaboration with our partners, GLSEN has developed a planning guide, lesson plans, promotional materials such as stickers and posters, and a website at www.nonamecallingweek.org.  The No Name-Calling Week listserv now has over 17,500 registrants, who run the gamut from teachers to students, guidance counselors to school administrators, librarians to youth workers.  Register this year to help us to keep an accurate count of how many participants there are each year. As we go through the week, we would love to hear your stories of success, drop us a note and tell us how No Name-Calling Week is going in your community.

Only 3 days until No Name Calling Week!

Check out Let’s Get Real, a short film produced by GLSEN’s long-time organizational partner, GroundSpark. Let’s Get Real doesn’t sugarcoat the truth or feature adults lecturing kids about what to do when kids pick on them. Instead, it examines a variety of issues that lead to taunting and bullying, including racial differences, perceived sexual orientation, learning disabilities, religious differences, sexual harassment and others. The film not only gives a voice to targeted kids, but also to kids who do the bullying to find out why they lash out at their peers and how it makes them feel. The most heartening part of Let’s Get Real includes stories of youth who have mustered the courage to stand up for themselves or a classmate.

At GLSEN, we recommend this excellent short film to use with your students in grades 5 – 9. Let’s Get Real is widely hailed as one of the best tools for opening up meaningful, life-changing dialogue in schools today.

As a special offer for No Name Calling Week, GroundSpark is providing free streaming of Let’s Get Real the entire week. To order your copy of the DVD and guide and to take advantage of the 50% No Name Calling Week promotional discount, please visit our distributor, New Day Films and use promotional discount code XDVF5M.

1. Conduct a school wide Name-Calling survey.
2. Review the No Name-Calling Week Planning Guide
3. Use Twitter and Facebook to spread the word #wordscanhurt
4. Conduct NNCW lessons
5. Read excerpts from “The Misfits” by James Howe and hold a group discussion.
6. Develop a classroom no name-calling policy
7. Create a school wide display and enter it into our Creative Expressions Contest.
8. Show GLSEN’s Think B4 You Speak PSA and hold a discussion about the phrase “That’s So Gay”
9. Discuss sportsmanship in physical education classes with the Changing the Game resources.
10. Wear a No Name-Calling Week Sticker.
11. Hold an school wide assembly on name-calling and bullying
12. Dedicate a class to an art themed anti-bullying lesson plan
13. Hold an essay contest “How Name Calling Makes Me Feel.”
14. Display No Name-Calling Week Posters in all classrooms and around building.
15. Send home our Tip Sheet for Parents.

We would love to hear what you have planned; click here to let us know what you are doing to celebrate No Name-Calling Week.

Creative Expression is an opportunity for you to show us how your school is celebrating No Name-Calling Week and creating a culture of no name-calling. We want to see your school wide displays featuring the message of No Name-Calling Week.

This year’s deadline is Friday, March 1, 2013.

Any kind of display can be created and a picture or video of the display will be submitted for judging. Show us your assemblies, the posters you created at school, lessons being conducted in classrooms, or anything that can show us what you are doing in your community.

The winning school will receive a No Name-Calling Week Prize pack including a Simon and Schuster Children’s Library, and a Stop Bullying Speak Up prize kit from the Cartoon Network. For more information about Creative Expressions or to enter your submission click here

Have a great No Name-Calling Week!