Non-Normative Gender and Sexual Identities in Schools: - Schools Out

utch and manly and everything and its just stupid and like just because you tell, you tell,
they know one thing about ya, it’s it’s they think they know it all…
H: {they just build like personality around sexuality}
T: …Its, it’s what they think about you, not who you actually are.
AM: Did you find that once people found out your sexual identity, that they thought that
was kind of everything about you?
U: Yeah.
H: Who you are.
V: Its like you get like introduced, hi this is Von, she’s the gay one.
T: Yeah but you just get, you just get classed on what you are really, It’s like what they
think about you, its nothing to do with who you actually are.
H: And like people I have trusted just like use all the amo they think they’ve got to like
hate ya and they’re like you can talk you can talk to me if you want to I’ll listen to ya and
then they just use all that amo on me basically just to try and sort of…
T: {Yeah they get close to you and then they use what you’ve told um to, against you and
it’s quite stupid.
AM: Did you want to say something? Go on Von.
V: At school I was told I was going to fail all my exams…
AM: {right}
V: …because of my attendance and stuff, but in a way that made me determined to prove
them wrong um and I basically kicked my ars into gear um I got sent home, they said
well, there’s no point in you staying in school, you’re never here, go home do your own
revision at home which made me, they made me feel worse, they don’t want me there,
they think I’m gonna fail, so I basically just revised and I came out with …1,2,3,4,5,6,
seven C’s, the lowest grade I got was a d…
AM: {that’s really good}
V: …and then the highest was an A* which was in me Arts and they were like, they were
the teachers were like well we’re surprised, but we’re not going to congratulate you [//]
its like…
AM: {Do you think they [//] their negativity kinda made you…
V: {yeah}