The Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, has spoken out to shame online trolls who bombard her with homophobic abuse through social media.

The openly gay politician highlighted abusive messages she has been sent on Twitter and Facebook to show young people that it was not acceptable to bully lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

Her comments came after a report by charity Stonewall found that almost nine in 10 secondary school teachers in Scotland say their pupils have suffered homophobic bullying, while in primary schools the figure was almost four in 10.

Nine in 10 primary school staff and more than four in five secondary school workers have not received any specific training on how to tackle such abuse.

Davidson published some of the homophobic tweets she has been sent in the Daily Record newspaper. One, from a Mark Dougall, said “Ruth Davidson is a big fat dirty lesbo” while another, from a Kevin Clarke, said: “Sit doon Ruth Davidson ya lesbo.” Paula Stocks tweeted: “Anyone else here feel that Ruth Davidson is a butchy wee lesbo bitch??”

Writing in the Record, Davidson said she felt it was her responsibility to challenge the significant amount of homophobic abuse she was being sent as an openly gay politician.

She wrote: “I don’t want young LGBT people reading my timeline and thinking that sort of language is OK. I don’t want them believing that the only response is to just sit passively and take it. It is important to me that I retweet, highlight or challenge a cross-section of homophobic abuse I receive so young people feel able to do the same. We are allowed to say ’No, this is not acceptable’.

“We can help young people by calling out this abuse when we see it. We’d never let casual racism go unchallenged, so why is casual homophobia given a free pass?”

The YouGov survey for the lesbian, gay and bisexual charity Stonewall also found that almost a third of primary school staff in Scotland and nearly a third of secondary school staff have heard homophobic language or negative remarks about lesbian, gay and bisexual people from other school employees.

Stonewall is calling on the Scottish government to ensure its anti-bullying strategy and guidance explicitly states all schools’ duty to tackle homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying and to include LGBT issues in the curriculum as part of schools’ strategies to prevent bullying. It also wants to see a system for recording and monitoring homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in Scottish schools.

A Scottish government spokesman said: “We want every child and young person in Scotland to grow up free from bullying and we want them to develop mutually respectful, responsible and confident relationships with other children, young people and adults. Every secondary school in Scotland has been sent guidance on dealing with homophobia and homophobic bullying, as well as the filmed adaptation of Stonewall’s highly successful play for schools.

“Our national approach to anti-bullying sets out a common vision and aims to make sure that work across all agencies and communities is jointly focused on tackling bullying.”