The American School Counselor Association does not knowingly engage in or support activities which discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, affectional or sexual orientation, disability, or age. The members of the American School Counselor Association are committed to facilitating and promoting the fullest possible development of each individual by reducing the barriers of misinformation, myth, ignorance, hatred, and discrimination which prevent sexual orientation minorities from achieving individual potential, healthy esteem, and equal status. School counselors are in a field committed to human development and need to be sensitive to the use of inclusive language and positive modeling of sexual orientation minority equity. ASCA is committed to equal opportunity regardless of sexual orientation.
Identity is determined by a complex mix of nature and nurture.
Developmentally, the literature clearly states that sexual orientation is firmly established by age five and much research indicates such establishment occurs even earlier. Many internal and external, as well as interpersonal obstacles exist in school and society that inhibit students from accurately understanding and positively accepting their sexual orientation. Harm is perpetrated against sexual minorities through language, stereotypes, myths, misinformation, threat of expulsion from social and institutional structures and other entities, and from beliefs contrary to the reality of their identity. Such identification is not indicative of sexual activity. Counselors must become vigilant to the pervasive negative effects of stereotyping and rubricizing individuals into rigid expressions of gender roles and sexual identities.