Protectors of youth: GLSEN, the leading national group focused on protecting LGBT youths in schools, just turned 10. As its influence grows, so do its growing pains

In April 2004 at Poway High School in conservative San Diego County, a 16-year-old student walked into the building wearing a T-shirt with the message HOMOSEXUALITY IS SHAMEFUL. The attire was bad enough, but Tyler Chase Harper chose to wear it on the Day of Silence, an event during which students across the country show support for their gay and lesbian peers.

Harper--who was suspended and later sued the school district--held a religious rally in 2005, which was sponsored by the conservative Christian group the Alliance Defense Fund.

Yet the zealots were outnumbered. About 220 Poway students participated in the Day of Silence in 2005, roughly four times the number who took part the year before. "They wanted to show they don't agree with Mr. Harper," gay junior Norm Waters said at the event.

Poway High School officials were next to face the fire. Two gay students came forward with claims that they repeatedly complained about the harassment they faced and that the school did nothing about it. Both were verbally threatened. Joseph Ramelli was spit on, punched, kicked, and had his car vandalized. He and Megan Donovan, both now 19, left the school following their junior year and enrolled in an independent study program before graduating. They also filed a lawsuit against the school district for failing to protect them.

In June a jury found the district negligent and awarded Ramelli $175,000 and Donovan $125,000.

Such triumphs for gay and lesbian students would have been unthinkable even a decade ago, says Kevin Jennings, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, which was instrumental in the San Diego County victories.

"This was an issue that was on nobody's agenda in 1994," he says. "LGBT groups didn't talk about schools. People at schools didn't talk about LGBT people. There was a real void. But there were a lot of people, gay and straight, who either had suffered the effects of homophobia in schools or were seeing the effects and wanted to do something about it."

More than any group, GLSEN is credited for bringing a message to schools that gay and lesbian students need to be not only protected but accepted. The organization founded some of the earliest gay-straight alliances. It also trains teachers how to stop harassment, provides classroom materials, and releases valuable data on harassment and school districts. The group also documents the experiences of LGBT youths in coordination with other groups, including the National School Boards Association.

Research such as the biannual National School Climate Survey provides hard numbers that help persuade school boards, superintendents, and principals to address the harassment of gay youths and provide sensitivity training to teachers. "Our public school systems are much more willing to change if there's data supporting the need for change," observes Tracy Phariss, cochair of GLSEN Colorado and a gay high school teacher.

New York-based GLSEN has grown steadily during the past decade. It boasts 52 chapters in 27 states and the District of Columbia--plus at least 3,000 gay-straight alliances now registered with them in schools across the United States, compared with just 150 in 1997.

Jennings never anticipated that he'd be leading such a group. In 1990 he was an openly gay high school history teacher in Massachusetts when the straight daughter of a lesbian parent walked into his classroom. She asked for help in forming a gay-straight alliance. Soon after Jennings helped form the GSA, the Republican governor asked him to serve as chairman of the state's education committee on gay and lesbian youths. Strangers across the United States began calling for advice. So in 1995, Jennings formed the nonprofit Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Teachers Network, which in 1997 dropped "Teachers" from its name and replaced it with "Education" to reflect the involvement of students.

Mainstream media took little note of the organization until 1997. Then, almost overnight, GLSEN zoomed onto the national radar. In March of that year GLSEN held its first national conference, in Salt Lake City, where a school district had banned all non-curricular clubs in hopes of preventing a gay-straight alliance from forming. And that summer President Clinton invited 12 people, including Jennings, to talk about gay issues at the White House. Suddenly, national media as diverse as Fox News and Time magazine were quoting GLSEN leaders.

"It was an amazing moment when I realized, Wow, I literally have the ear of the president," says Jennings. "It made me realize we weren't this tiny little group anymore."

GLSEN's number 1 goal: Stop anti-LGBT bullying and harassment. "There is still a social acceptability to anti-LGBT language and bullying in schools," Jennings says. "And to us, that is unacceptable." GLSEN has launched its "20 by 10" program in hopes of getting 20 states to adopt antibullying policies that include sexual orientation by 2010. Only eight states have such laws today. And as part of the Teach Respect campaign, the group is placing public-service announcements on radio, on TV, and in print about the harmful effects of bullying and harassment.