Can an LGBT school really help young victims of homophobia?

A charity in Manchester is considering plans to establish the UK's first ever school for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) young people.

The school would have around 40 full-time places for LGBT young people struggling in mainstream schools and those questioning their sexuality, as well as other pupils who are not LGBT.

LGBT Youth North West, which already trains more than 10,000 pupils and teachers annually to help make mainstream schools safer for young people, is carrying out a feasibility study into the plans.

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The charity's strategic director Amelia Lee says it is about "saving lives" and points to two cases in which young people were driven to suicide because they were struggling with coming out.

"Lots of pupils have a really tough time and we want to do what we can to help those pupils and to give them additional support," she tells Children and Young People Now. "We can either hope every school is going to be inclusive or we can recognise we are not there yet and we need more specialised schools."

But Conservative MP and former education minister Tim Loughton says the move is a step in the wrong direction, amounting to segregation.

"We need to do a lot more to combat homophobic bullying and to create a more tolerant society," he told the Daily Telegraph. "I cannot see how segregating a group of young people identified by their sexuality can aid better engagement and understanding."

The proposal has drawn comparisons to Harvey Milk High, an LGBT-inclusive school in New York. When this was set up more than a decade ago, the New York Times said it could serve as a short-term solution for gay teenagers and others who traumatised by mistreatment at their schools. However, it added that in the long term "history has taught us the best way to fight discrimination is to dismantle it where it occurs".

Jezebel's Kat Callahan, who experienced a "considerable level" of homophobic and transphobic bullying growing up, says Amelia Lee's insistence that mainstream schools are not yet equipped to deal with the unique development of LGBT students is "hard to debate".

She describes Loughton's goal as "admirable", but asks if it should come at the expense of continuing to put LGBT young people in harm's way. "What have we got to lose?" she asks.