Naming the ‘‘outsider within’’: homophobic pejoratives and the verbal abuse of lesbian, gay and bisexual high-school pupils CRISPIN THURLOW Few studies have looked explicitly at the use of homophobic pejoratives among young high-schoolers and—not always an easy group to access, nor a comfortable subject to discuss. In this study, 377 14 and 15 year olds listed the pejoratives they heard at school and identified the ones they considered most taboo. As some of the most vitriolic items reported, homophobic pejoratives accounted for 10 per cent of the 6000 items generated. Significantly, however, homophobic verbal abuse was rated much less seriously than either racist abuse or other taboo slang. Boys reported more homophobic pejoratives than girls, but rated them more seriously. As further evidence of the increasingly well-documented daily assault on the psychological health of young homosexual people, this study confirms the prevalence of homophobic verbal abuse in high schools, its particularly aggressive nature, and the relative disregard with which it is used. As a contribution from Language and Communication Research, directions are offered for both sex(uality) education and language education. # 2001 The Association for Professionals in Services for Adolescents Introduction It is a disturbing fact that homophobic verbal abuse is rife in many parts of the world, and runs largely unchecked in high schools (Epstein, 1994; Unks, 1995; Kitzinger, 1996; Fontaine, 1997). In the U.K., this has recently been borne out again by a series of surveys commissioned by Stonewall 1 which report that as many as 93 per cent of young gay, lesbian and bisexual people who are ‘‘out’’ at school suffer verbal abuse, but that as few as 6 per cent of high schools have any policy to deal specifically with homophobic bullying (Mason and Palmer, 1996; Douglas et al., 1997; Stonewall, 1999). Not surprisingly, writers concerned with young lesbian, gay and bisexual high-schoolers describe them as an ‘‘invisible’’ minority and one of the most significant ‘‘at risk’’ groups of adolescents (Savin-Williams, 1990; Mac an Ghaill, 1994; O’Connor, 1995; Harris, 1997). Watney (1993 in Redman 1994:133) even goes as far as describing their institutional neglect as ‘‘nothing less than State-sanctioned child abuse’’. The effects of homophobic bullying and verbal abuse Concerned with the long-term, detrimental effects of homophobic bullying on mental health and social development, Rivers (1996 in Douglas et al., 1997) has found that name-calling sits at the top of the list of a range of abusive practices reported by lesbians and gay men. Nayak and Kelly (1996) too have found this to be the most common form of homophobic Reprint requests and correspondence should be addressed to Crispin Thurlow, Centre for Language & Communication Research, Cardiff University, P.O. Box 94, Cardiff, CF103XB, Wales, U.K. (E-mail: ThurlowC@ cf.ac.uk). 1 Stonewall describes itself as the ‘‘national civil rights group working for legal equality and social justice for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals’’ in the U.K. 0140-1971/01/010025+14 $35Á00/0 # 2001 The Association for Professionals in Services for Adolescents Journal of Adolescence 2001, 24, 25–38 doi:10.1006/jado.2000.0371, available online at http://www.idealibrary.com on