This has been an amazing discussion! Two issues regarding diversity that have been slightly touched upon, but not really discussed are sexual orientation and gender orientation. I think that these are very important issues that get very little attention, especially in the adult literacy classroom.

One area where there is lack of attention is in the area of books. When adult literacy providers purchase high interest/low vocabulary books for their library, they often take great care to make sure that the books reflect diversity-they try to make sure that the characters of the various books include diverse groups such as African Americans, Christian, Chinese, elderly, Muslim, White, etc. However, even if they wanted to make sure that they had a few books written at low enough levels that highlighted characters with nonstraight, and/or nongender conforming characters-they would have difficulty finding such books. This is a shame, because the more people read, the better they become at reading. In order to increase people's motivation to read, the characters of books have to at least sometimes reflect people they can relate to. 

One day, I would love to conduct research to figure out what is the percentage of nonstraight and nongender conforming learners in adult literacy classrooms. On the one hand, the percentage may be lower than expected, because they may not feel welcome in the classroom setting (for example, a teacher asks people to write about their weekend and a lesbian student does not feel comfortable writing the truth about her experience house hunting with her partner). On the other hand, perhaps the percentage may be higher than expected, because of the large numbers of gay students who drop out of high school due to bullying in school. For example, here are some statistics related to children:
- 78% of youth report that gay and lesbian youth are teased or bullied in their schools and communities. 93% of youth hear other youth at school or in their neighborhood use words like "fag," "homo," "dyke," "queer," or "gay" at least once in a while, with 51% hearing them every day (National Mental Health Association).
It's bullying in schools, along with other forms of discrimination and lack of acceptance, that lead to:
- LGBT youth being twice as likely as heterosexual youth to abuse alcohol, and eight times more likely to use cocaine/crack (The American Association of Pediatrics).
- 48% of LGBT youth having seriously considered suicide, 29% of LGBT youth having seriously attempted suicide, and 30% of all completed adolescent suicides in the U.S. having been committed by LGBT youth (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services).

I think that this is an issue which deserves attention in the adult literacy field.

Daphne