Internet Filters Block “Gay” and “Lesbian”

January 24, 2005 - Internet filters in public schools and libraries block access to LGBTQ information and resources because the terms “gay” and “lesbian” are considered objectionable.

By Jeff Sapp | Curriculum Specialist/Writer, Tolerance.org

    High school students Darrel and Estella, gay and lesbian teenagers in suburban Southern California, feel the sting of abuse almost every day.

    “This one day, I was spit on four times in the hallway,” Darrel said.  “That’s my limit.  I grabbed Stell and said, ‘Let’s get out of here.’”

    So, like many gay and lesbian teenagers, they just skip school.  Kind of.

    Darrel and Estella find refuge in Bill’s classroom.  Bill, one of a few out gay teachers in his district, has had his own share of tough days, like the time he found “fag” spray-painted across his classroom door.

    Wanting to help Darrel and Estella on one of their visits last school year, Bill sat at his classroom computer and typed in “gay and lesbian youth resources.”

    “Access denied,” the screen said.  “Objectionable material.”

    More students are going to face denied access if some Virginia legislators have their way.

    This month, lawmakers in Richmond, Va., introduced two bills that would require public libraries receiving state funding to install filtering software on their computers.  This software could result in a ban on sites that provide gay community news and information, sites such as the Gay Straight Alliance Network and the Human Rights Campaign.

    Opponents say filters amount to legislated censorship because they block such topics as breast cancer, abortion and gay rights.

    In Alabama, meanwhile, state Rep. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, is pushing a bill that would deny the use of public funds for “the purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle.”

    Such moves make it all the more difficult for students like Darrel and Estella to find the support and information they need in public schools and libraries.

“Protection” Or Division?

    As a result of the Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000, filtering devices limit how much of the Internet a user can access in schools and libraries.  These filters block access to sites by screening out keywords that are considered “objectionable.”  It is meant to filter out pornographic sites.  Unfortunately, the words “gay” and “lesbian” are among the terns considered “objectionable.”

    “I couldn’t believe it,” Bill said.  “Here I was trying to help students in dire need, and all I was able to offer them was that the terms they used to name themselves were ‘objectionable.’”

    In this way, some say Internet filters are an example of institutional homophobia - an institutional mandate that silences and marginalizes gay and lesbian people.

    The California Teachers Association/National Education Association’s High Risk Program Committee has published a handbook titled Gay & Lesbian Youth:  Breaking the Silence.  In it they define institutional homophobia as “the ways in which government, business, educational, religious, and professional organizations systematically discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or identity.”

    

    The American Library Association has opposed the federal law.

    ALA President Carol Brey-Casiano says, “Because millions of Americans depend on America’s public libraries as their sole access to the Internet, we must remain vigilant that we do not further deepen the divide between those who have Internet access at home, work or school and those who do not have this opportunity.

    The U. S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration also has identified this divide.

    A white household, according to NTIA, is twice as likely as a Black or Latino household to have Internet access - and the divide is growing rather than diminishing.  Rural and low-income households of any race or ethnicity also have lower Internet access than a white urban household.

    Schools and libraries, then, become the only resources for Internet usage for these communities.  But with Internet filters, will people be able to find what they need?

    Darrel and Estella didn’t.

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