This figure is consistent across countries that acknowledge sexual diversity, according to La Trobe University researcher Dr Lynne Hillier. Most young people realise they are gay around puberty but 30 per cent know earlier. When The Age interviewed a group of young people who completed year 12 last year at a range of Melbourne schools, most knew a few people in their year who had come out, and they believed those students were mostly accepted by their peers. But they had also noticed that teachers were slow to clamp down on homophobic comments and, in most cases, sex-education classes did not acknowledge same-sex relationships. Some had witnessed gay students being bullied, sometimes overtly but often in subtle ways such as through exclusion. "The physical education teachers assumed there were no gays in the school when in fact our school had quite a few," says Lars Osland, who finished year 12 at an independent school last year. Dr Hillier was disappointed to find when looking at the results of the Writing Themselves in Again national survey in 2004 that, while young people reported feeling safer at school than in the 1998 survey, the level of abuse had not diminished.

Forty-four per cent of the 1749 young people surveyed reported verbal abuse (which included threats and rumour-mongering) and 16 per cent reported physical assault, ranging from damaged possessions to rape and hospitalisation for injuries. These figures were unchanged since the first survey in 1998. "This is despite a tremendous amount of professional work done in schools, particularly with the Talking Sexual Health resources rolled out in every state, and professional development done with up to 30 teachers at a time," she says. "We thought the violence would have dropped but it hadn't." Dr Hillier is now seeking 2000 same-sex attracted young people to respond to the 2010 survey (go to wti3.org.au). So far 1800 have responded but more are needed by the end of the month. Have schools become safer in the past six years? Dr Hillier can't be sure, but she does know that many teachers still avoid the topic of sexual diversity, despite a requirement under state government policy to tackle it. "There is a lot of discretion and teachers are frightened to deal with the topic," she says.

Dr Hillier and other experts made it clear at a government roundtable in 2005 that nothing would change until teachers knew they were expected to make schools safe and that they would not be fired if a parent complained about the teacher broaching the subject. The teacher resource Safe Schools are Effective Schools subsequently included strategies to counter homophobic bullying. A new policy, Supporting Sexual Diversity in Schools, launched in August 2008, says that to comply with the Victorian Equal Opportunity Act schools must ensure students and staff do not experience homophobia or discrimination. Schools must have continuous, proactive strategies and staff members who turn a blind eye to discrimination, homophobic abuse or sexual harassment may be held liable for authorising or assisting discrimination. DESPITE the potential for legal action, many state schools ignore these requirements. Independent schools, including those in the Catholic system, are not bound by these policies. Dr Hillier puts the delayed response down to homophobia being entrenched, with teachers concerned about a parent or community backlash. But she urges teachers to overcome these concerns, read the policy and work to counter homophobia. "The research so clearly shows that young people who have been abused and/or have poor self-esteem relating to their sexuality are more likely to self harm, including cutting and attempted suicide. Suicide risk is at its greatest in the months before the young person discloses their sexual orientation," she says.

Teachers must receive professional development, says Dr Debbie Ollis, a researcher in sex education at Deakin University. Her doctoral research shows that teachers don't include sexual diversity in their sex education programs unless they have training and support. More young people come out in high school now, but they do so hesitantly. Dr Hillier says they carefully case everyone around them and look for those they think it best to confide in. "The response is so important as this is the one person they thought they could trust," Dr Hillier says. "One young man told a friend on the bus and by the time he got to school everyone was laughing at him." Teachers should treat such disclosure as an honour and a responsibility. Dr Hillier advises letting the young person talk about where they are at, and then suggesting groups and websites. But approval is the most important thing. Health and physical education teachers take sex education in most schools, and teacher trainers know that some male PE teachers are more interested in sport than in teaching sexuality, let alone in tackling topics they are uncomfortable with. In that sense gay people are unofficially invisible in high school.

"I say to these teachers, 'Regardless of what your values are, if they go against the well-being of young people you have got to leave them at the door.' " Through her research Dr Hillier has come to know many young people who are too scared to tell their parents because they fear rejection. "Another difference between homophobic bullying and other bullying is that kids can't tell their parents because then they are outing themselves. So not only are they isolated from the school, the community, the church, they are isolated from their families and that's why the suicide rate is so high with these young people because they are just so often left with no one." Seventy-five per cent of parents who were told were supportive, according to the surveys. "There are even parents who leave their religion because it's homophobic, but there are others who kick their kids out," Dr Hillier says. "These young people are more likely to become homeless." She urges parents to question their values because there is a chance they will have a gay child. "I have seen the damage done to a non-heterosexual child when they hear their parents acting in homophobic ways. They feel it's against them. One kid said his father stormed out of the bank cursing poofters. He watched his parent behaving like this, and he is gay." She knows many parents of gay teenagers who didn't know now feel huge regret that they did not protect their child.

Young people have always faced many pressures to deny their sexuality. Psychiatrists once deemed homosexuality a mental illness, she says, but this is no longer the case. Religion remains a last bastion of resistance, Dr Hillier says, to what is regarded in legal and health terms as a normal part of human sexuality. In the surveys, young people who were Christians, attended Christian schools or belonged to Christian families often wrote of feeling anguish. "In most cases they were forced to choose between their sexuality and their religion. In many cases the rejection of their sexuality and the embracing of their religion resulted in young people hating and harming themselves." Parents also put pressure on their children by saying that they will miss out on grandchildren and the child will have a lonely life and miss out on having children. "But there is no evidence that they will miss out. Another pressure comes from parents often being desperate to think it's not true, and that their child will grow out of it."

Dr Hillier counsels young people to give their parents time to get used to the idea. "The parent also has to wear the gossip. All of a sudden a parent will experience homophobia like their child experiences homophobia and a lot of parents will say to their kid 'don't tell anyone' because they are trying to protect the child and protect themselves." Is this for the best? Dr Hillier doesn't think so. "It's hard for kids to be in the closet. They say, 'No one knows who I am, I am carrying this big secret. They all talk about their stuff and I can't talk about mine.' But it can be hard to be out. It depends on how strong kids are. If they have parental support it makes a huge difference."