Decreasing Stigma Through Educational Workshops

The purpose of this study is to investigate if stigma toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community that exist within a student population can be lessened as a function of participation in a social justice project developed by LGBTQ students. This project emerged out of a previous project that highlighted strengths and challenges of being an LGBTQ-identified in a school setting. One of the issues identified in this previous study was that non-LGBTQ students are often poorly informed or misinformed about the LGBTQ community. We hypothesized that participation in an activity designed to raise awareness would result in more LGBTQ support and would also decrease LGBTQ stigma. Our population consisted of students not affiliated with the LGBTQ community. Participants were administered pre and post-test surveys assessing attitudes about the LGBTQ community before and after the educational session. The survey assessed attitudes toward the LGBT community, how informed participants believed themselves to be, and stigma participants might have towards the community. It was found that students’ attitudes and beliefs shifted after having completed the educational session. There was also a change in how well-informed participants felt. This project suggests that change can occur in the stance of non-LGBTQ individuals with regard to the LGBTQ community as a function of participation in an LGBTQ awareness event. Future research should consider whether multiple workshops might increase this impact by permitting individual sessions focusing on the specific identities that comprise the LGBTQ community as a whole.