The world is becoming more diverse than ever. So by now, schools and educators should
have made it a culture to accept, tolerate, and understand all kinds of people. One of the
best ways to promote a more open-minded world is through LGBTQ+ essays. LGBTQ+
essays help crystal clear the notion that LGBTQ+ doesn’t mean you’re a stereotype. It’s a
life; a way of living, just like everybody else. For students who need help structuring their
essays, an essay writing service like Academized can be invaluable. Academized helps
students craft well-organized and thoughtful essays, supporting them in sharing their ideas
more effectively.

What are the benefits of LGBTQ+ essays? Why exactly are they beneficial to schools that
are filled with prejudice? How can LGBTQ+ essays change schools? Here’s how.

Encouraging Empathy Through Personal Stories

Personal narratives in LGBTQ+ essays can be especially effective: you’re more likely to ask
a student to read about the life of a LGBTQ+ person than about, say, the life of an urban
black person. And what could be a more effective nudge toward empathy than to read about
someone LGBTQ+ or lesbian – someone, in other words, we might feel inclined to
stereotype – struggling against and overcoming their sexuality? By knowing this person, we
make the label behind the story a real person.

Reading these essays in the classroom, students become cognizant of what it feels like to
have a difference judged by someone else: to be someone else. ‘Walk a mile in someone
else’s shoes,’ the saying goes. Understanding someone else’s perspective and walking in
their shoes, is fundamental to building a school community that’s more tolerant of
differences. This can be further supported by looking into the best essay writing services review, where students can find professional assistance to improve their writing and convey
their messages effectively.

Breaking Down Stereotypes and Misconceptions

Perhaps the greatest enemy of inclusion is ignorance: not knowing LGBTQ-identified people,
buying into stereotypes received from family and friends when they haven’t been presented
by those people with facts and testimonies countering those stereotypes. The LGBTQ essay,
and especially the data-driven essay, is an alert sounding off false information and the death
knell for this ignorance.

Rather, when school curricula introduce LGBTQ+ topics, this provides a space where they
can begin a more dispassionate and objective dialogue about gender and sexual identity on the basis of verifiable and evidence-based facts. In doing this, schools are able to transform
preconceptions into more accurate information, leading to a more tolerant attitude.

Promoting Inclusivity With Factual Data

It is not just a story in essays about LGBTQ+ issues, but statistics and numbers thrown in to
provide a larger context, because numbers don’t spew emotions based on their own
personal beliefs (take that, math’s haters!). They are facts about a reality that many LGBTQ+
people go through on a daily basis.

For example, 42 per cent of LGBTQ+ youth have attempted suicide, while 61 per cent of
LGBTQ+ students report experiencing bullying at school, almost twice the rate for non-
LGBTQ+ students.

These are included in essays as it lets students feel the real picture of discrimination and
helps them understand why we should be accepting.

How LGBTQ+ Acceptance Benefits All Students

To be clear, LGBTQ+ acceptance not only benefits LGBTQ+ students. By being more
inclusive to the LGBTQ+ community, schools create a safer environment for all students to
freely express themselves, improving all students’ mental health, academic performance and
school climate.

When students feel accepted for who they are, they are more likely to thrive among their
peers and in the classroom. By encouraging LGBTQ+ acceptance in essays and
discussions, schools encourage all students to feel valued and supported.

Encouraging Open Dialogue Among Students

LGBTQ+ essays produce a safe, structured dialogue between students about taboo topics.
As many students read and write LGBTQ+ essays, it provides a platform for them to voice
their questions, share their views, and listen to others' opinions.

Classroom discussions can help students overcome their barriers, and also show them how
to have respectful talks about difficult topics. This is an important skill for life – not just
school. Schools doing this work are creating open-minded and open-hearted citizens.

Supporting LGBTQ+ Students’ Mental Health

LGBTQ+ students suffer disproportionately from mental health problems due to bullying,
loneliness and discrimination. LGBTQ+ essays can be a proactive way to lower stigma and
promote understanding. When an individual sees representations of their selfhood in a
space, they feel seen and valued.

While some of the essays deal directly with mental health – for example, the central
message of one essay was why LGBTQ+ mental-health support is important – others are
more indirect. They might orient students to being better allies, which will lead to positive
change in reducing the mental health burden that many LGBTQ+ students currently face.
Even schools that don’t go so far as to embrace the language of positive psychology can
take small steps in this direction by explicitly recognizing the challenges that LGBTQ+
students face, creating a much more welcoming environment.

Teaching Respect for Diversity

However, the last type of essays – LGBTQ+ ones – are really crucial to students’ education
since they help them grasp the importance of plurality. Schools are the mirror of society and
the way they act will influence everything when the students are youngsters in real life. And
tolerance towards the “others” is essential today, especially in the multicultural world.

For these reasons, LGBTQ+ essays can be a more inviting gateway for introducing these
ideas to students. Reading about subjectivities helps them to imagine others’ experiences,
and possibilities, in ways that can broaden their perspective about what it means to be
human. Ideally, it’ll teach them that difference is something to be embraced, not feared.

Conclusion

LGBTQ+ essays have a valuable role to play in schools because they can help to humanize
the LGBTQ+ experience by sharing personal stories that break through stereotypes and
present factual data that can spark wider conversations. They can encourage acceptance by
promoting dialogue in an inclusive environment, thereby creating a safer space for students.

With such essays as part of the school curriculum, schools can take a step towards treating
their students with more empathy and respect. And not only LGBTQ+ students will benefit
from such a community but also the entire student population.