Karen
Franklin, Ph.D.
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A
pattern of abuse 
Nearly one-quarter of community college students who took part in a
survey
admitted to harassing people they thought were gay, a new study says.
The survey of nearly 500 students, said to be the first of its kind,
was
presented last week at the American Psychological Association
convention
in San Francisco. Previous studies had mostly focused on the victims of
such crimes.
The study by Dr. Karen Franklin ... found that ... 
Full story
Homophobia often found in schools, data show
Abuse
of gay students brings increase in lawsuits 
By
Bettina
Boxall and Duane Noriyuki
MORGAN
HILL, Calif.--In the halls of the local high school, the words "faggot"
and "dyke" were routinely uttered, about as often, Alana Flores
remembers,
as "hello" and "goodbye." ...
Flores is 20 now, the high school harassment behind her but hardly
forgotten.
Together with five other former students of Live Oak High School in
this
half country, half suburban town south of San Jose, she is suing the
Morgan
Hill Unified School District, claiming that teachers and administrators
ignored pervasive anti-gay abuse....
In an anonymous 1995 survey of Bay Area community college students
conducted
by a psychologist studying hate crimes, half the young men questioned
admitted
that they had engaged in anti-gay name calling, threats or physical
violence....
Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) is sponsoring a bill ...
that
would specifically ban discrimination against gay students....
Beyond
Matthew Shepard case
By E. J.
Graff
...
Why are gay men and transsexuals -- who are assaulted more frequently
than
lesbians -- seen as acceptable targets for Saturday night torture
games?
Part of the answer lies in the casual demonization of homosexuals, a
kind
of hatred our society no longer tolerates against race or religion.
Part
lies in the narrow straitjacket of American masculinity, a tightly
bound
insecurity that makes some men explode, proving their manhood on the
bodies
of less "manly" men. Undoing both will be harder than passing bias
crime
laws....
A recent study by Karen Franklin, a University of Washington forensic
psychology
fellow, found that nearly 1 in 5 young men said they had attacked or
physically
threatened someone for being gay. An additional half said they had
eithe
rhurled jeers or witnessed assaults. Franklin reports that as she
passed
out her survey, the young people "often advocated or defended such
behaviors
out loud in the classrooms," saying they would attack again if they
could....
Hate
crimes: They do happen here 
By Carol
Ness
It's
so easy to feel smug watching Laramie, Jasper, and Sylacauga squirm in
the hot light of a nation's fury over hate violence. Here in the Bay
Area,
we know better.
Right?
... Gay bashers feel especially justified, that they're merely
enforcing
the attitudes they've learned at home, in school, at church, in society.
In her study of 500 community college students in the Bay Area,
psychologist
Karen Franklin found that 50 percent of the young men admitted hitting,
threatening or harassing someone for being gay--and many would do it
again.
"They didn't see anything wrong with their behavior," said Franklin....
That no one had taught them differently amounts to the kind of license
that society no longer accords racially motivated crimes.
But still, Franklin believes hate is too simple a concept to explain
brutal
acts like Shepard's murder.
"People who do such extreme things usually have extreme things in their
lives," she said. "It's not exactly hate. It's more having grown up in
a violent milieu in the first place." ...
Negative stereotypes feed anti-gay violence
NEW
YORK--The absence of positive images of homosexuality in schools allows
negative stereotypes to "flourish," according to research presented at
the annual convention of the American Psychological Association.
"There stereotypes, in turn, foster both violence within the schools
and
hate crimes in the community at large," said study author Dr. Karen
Franklin,
a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington....
Study
finds extensive anti-gay behavior
By Carol
Smith
Half of the men surveyed in San Francisco-area community colleges said
they had engaged in anti-gay abuse, according to a new study by a
University
of Washington researcher.
The findings, released Sunday, spurred gay rights advocates and others
in Seattle this week to call for more education about bias and hate
crimes,
and better teacher training for dealing with anti-gay abuse in the
schools....
The findings indicate a need for more anti-bias education in the
schools,
[Dr. Franklin] said. "And teachers need to know how to intervene
whenverbal
assaults are taking place." ...
Survey
finds alarming trend in college students
By Deb
Price
WASHINGTON--Gay
bashers. The term conjures up images of the lunatic fringe--twisted
loners,
rage-filled neo-Nazis and the worst sorts of antisocial delinquents.
Frightening?
Without a doubt. Yet those images lull us into comfortably assuming
that
everyday young people striving to make something of themselves just
aren't
gay bashers. The shocking, sickening truth is far different:
Eighteen percent of male community college students admit physically
assaulint
or physically threatening someone presumed gay, a landmark survey of
484
San Francisco Bay area students found....
Why does someone assault a gay person? That's the question that drove
Karen
Franklin to conduct the disturbing community college survey in the
first
place. Throughout her career--as a newspaper reporter, a criminal
investigator
and now as a forensic psychologist--Franklin has worked to decipher the
motives behind criminal behavior. She surveyed community college
students
because she suspected anti-gay hate crimes are common even among a
fairly
law-abiding population of young people.
Franklin ... concludes that "the majority of young people who harass,
bully
and assault sexual minorities do not fit the stereotype of the
hate-filled
extremist. Rather, they are average young people who often do not see
anything
wrong with their behavior. And the reason they do not see anything
wrong
is siimple: No one is telling them it is wrong." ...
American
Psychological Association summary of Dr. Franklin's research on hate
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