Homophobia in schools and the need for No Outsiders
Why inclusivity lessons is vital for school children.
School can be a great institution; it can cultivate intellect, help develop social skills, and set students up for their future. Unfortunately, that’s not the experience for everyone. A lot of LGBTQ youth suffer from verbal and physical abuse in school on a daily basis. Many of these students grow up developing mental health problems from their experiences at school.
I was one of those LGBTQ students; I was gay, but like most teenagers, I was unaware of my sexuality and faced the consequence of being different.
Parkfield primary school in Birmingham recently hit the headlines when parents protested weekly against the school’s inclusivity lessons. The lessons taught about tolerance of diverse groups, including those of different races, genders and sexual orientation. Some pupils were removed from the school by their parents. Parkfield announced on Thursday 14th March that it has suspended the lessons.
A widely shared video of one of the protests at the school shows a protester perched on top of a makeshift stage, built on the back of a van. Some of the signs read “Our children our choice” and “Stop! No Outsiders” (No Outsiders is the name of the inclusivity programme). The protester preaches to the crowd: “This programme is not just about telling people that other families and other types of lifestyles exist, it’s actually aggressively promoting them, giving it a positive spin and telling people that it is OK for you to be Muslim and to be gay.” He calls out the assistant headteacher Mr Moffatt (who taught the lesson) then chants “shame, shame, shame.”
The camera pans around to show the audience. It is heartbreaking to see children in the vast crowd chanting along. Is this modern day Britain, or a scene from Game of Thrones?
As a gay man, this shocking video reminded me that there is still a long way to go in the fight for equality. We might be able to marry our partners, but children it seems can’t be told that it is OK for you to love someone of the same sex. I could only think of the child who, in a few years, might start to discover their sexuality is not straight, and then remembering the angry mob outside of their school. This ignorant hatred could change the fate of that child’s life.
Inclusivity lessons were not something that I had the chance to receive. As a child, I was educated under the Thatcherite Section 28 legislation of 1988 that banned the “promotion” of homosexuality by local authorities and in Britain’s schools. Before I even realised my sexuality, I was severely bullied and branded as ‘gay’.
“The teacher shouted that I ‘ran like a girl’ to the amusement of the class”
I suffered from a wide range of abuse from my fellow peers during my time in secondary school, ranging from physical to emotional. I remember rocks being thrown at me on my walk home. My best friend from primary school told me that he had only been friends because he felt sorry for me, just loud enough so other people could hear. In fact, he had asked me to go to his house all the time. Through my early years of secondary school (between age 11–14) all my male friends abandoned me. During a school trip to Iceland, a ‘friend’ I had known since infant school refused to share a bedroom with me because he thought I was gay. At that moment in my life, I was not even aware that I was gay, but I suffered because of it.
At no point did any teachers step in, even though they were aware of the bullying. Sometimes they even put oil on the fire. During a PE lesson, the teacher shouted that I “ran like a girl” to the amusement of the class. Out of shame, I kept all of this from my parents. I was harassed, lonely and depressed.
Besides being used as an insult to me, the word “gay” was also derogative for anything undesirable, bad, annoying, out-of-style, or otherwise negative. It was not necessarily used to allude to someone’s sexuality. It was paramount for anything and anyone to avoid being branded as “gay”. The word itself was linked with damnation. How could anyone identifying as gay feel positive about it?
Unfortunately, I still hear children (and sometimes even adults) use the word in this way. LGBT charity Stonewall’s School Report of 2017 supports this: according to their survey, more than half of LGBT pupils hear homophobic slurs frequently, and 45% of LGBT pupils are bullied for being LGBT.
Being classed as an outsider and shunned by my peers for years has a devastating and long-lasting effect. At the age of 28, I still bear the mental scars. I have low self-worth: I am conditioned to think people don’t like me. It is challenging to meet new people, both professionally and personally — especially straight men. I tried to avoid the school environment as much as I could, which resulted in bad grades, a mistrust of formal education, and as a result lower life chances.
It is devastating to realise that, fifteen years since my hardship at school, children still have to endure this. I think that schools have a crucial role in educating children on inclusivity. If all children were taught that being gay was something that had no negative connotations, it would lose its power as an insult. Ironically the protests against No Outsiders clearly show the need for such a programme as homophobia is thriving. These kids will not be taught inclusivity at home. It then falls to schools to do this instead.
A child is not born a racist or homophobe: prejudice and discrimination are learned behaviours. If we want to grow as a society, schools need to do everything they can to combat exclusive ideologies that may be picked up at home.
