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

H: Well, it’s like smashing it up…
AM: {Oh, right}
H: …and things like that.
V: You used to smash your art therapy room up?
H: No, no that was the condition of it, I didn’t smash it up.
T: I feel dead awkward, or I used to feel dead awkward cos I used to have anger
management and depression and stuff like that, and they’d all be like so you’re gay and
I’d be like yeah and then they were like you know your problem, you might be angry
because you’re gay and I were like that’s not why I’m angry they were like but you are
angry, no I’m not angry and…
AM: {that’s a good point}
T: …she kept, well she kept on saying it and I were like, I had to get my lessons
cancelled because [//] I assaulted her because she said I was queer.
AM: Do, does anyone else have experiences where they’ve got a problem and it might be
nothing to do with their sexuality but it’s assumed that that problem is [//] the problem is
your sexuality?
V: My Mother.
AM: What she’s your problem?
V: No, she like, Mum I need to talk to ya, it’s like what’s happened is it girls, I was like
no, then what’s the matter. Its just like, everything is just [//] even the like fact that, like I
was gonna have some friends over um and after we’d been out she left a flipping message
under the bed have fun with your special friend because I automatically sleep with all my
female friends [//] in fact who was it [//] it was you and drew (gesturing to Sarah), but she
was like, have fun with your special friend, cos me Mum knows that Shiv’s a girl and she
knows Shiv’s gay, so automatically every friend who you bring home is gay and its
like…
T: {No, in fact every friend that I bring home is gay!}
V: …no, even in fact with Lauren, my friend Lauren who’s like my only friend where I
actually live cos I’m a bit of a social reject and all my friends are from like here basically
and I said Mum can Lauran sleep. She goes why would Lauren sleep, Lauren’s not a
lesbian and it’s like, but she’s my friend and me Mum, my Mum’s apparently bi-sexual
herself, its like why the hell don’t you understand these things.
T: Yeah my Mum and my sister used to walk me through town right when they first
found out and they were like, do you fancy her, no, do you fancy her.