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

do to get rid of me, um cos I’ve I’ve like spent (sigh) ten years since that day going from
hardship to hardship, nothing can crack me, you know [//] …
AM: {the day you left school, was it you know the sort of day that everybody left school
or was it you know a significant event that meant you had to leave school?
S: Um, well what happened is um I had some other physical illness and basically (sigh)
everybody bullied me really bad…
AM: {yeah}
S: … um and I left in a really messed up state I I was contemplating suicide at the time,
um because my previous attempt had had failed um but on the third attempt um I I just
left, but on the second attempt, um the second attempt was interesting because um I tried
to leave school but I picked up the nearest thing that resembled a weapon which was like
a jagged rock and anyone that came near me I just attacked because they was trying,
some people tried to dragged me back into school to sort out the problem but to me it was
never enough cos the more you screamed and shouted about how much your suffering so
much injustice, it just never seemed to be enough justice to even cope with what I was
going through [//]
AM: Yeah.
S: So it was hard [//] you know.
AM: The consequences of their actions were…
S: {yeah}
AM: …no where near [//] the consequences for you were massive but the consequences
for them were minimal?
S: Exactly, to them the punishment for something that was more hurtful to me, was a
good punishment, because they they [//] saw it as good because they were suspended,
that’s all they ever wanted to do [//] …
AM: {right}
S: …you know it was like a holiday to them you know and and and um I I just thought
that was wrong they should have at least had like given a book on like you know human
rights or something as an essay to do. That that was my personal opinion that I thought
they should do, cos you know I got attacked um when I was fifteen I got attacked by um a
gang of youths um and it was a racial assault and it left me very emotionally scarred and
physically and mentally scarred as well and I came back to high school like a week later
after my injuries were healed and I just got attacked more and more because there was a
rumour, that you know one of the people knew that a gang had attacked someone from
my school and it got back to school and more people attacked me ur based on my race,
age, sex, identity, just being me and um that’s when the second incident happened and…