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

AM: …and why it is inappropriate to use it in such a…
CG: {definitely and even those teachers who aren’t, you know feel uncomfortable about
[//] going into the complexities of when it is appropriate to use it, at least to point out that
it is inappropriate to use it you know and you don’t you know when little Sam fall’s over
on the playground you don’t call him a gay boy.
AM: Yep.
CG: Cos we don’t speak to other people in our school like that.
AM: that’s great. Um linking these things together, if you’ve got a young person who’s,
whether they [//] if they haven’t realised their own sexual or gender identity yet, but they
are being given these signs from other people, they are being subject to this kind of
bullying, these kinds of words, because for some reason they have been singled out.
CG: Yep.
AM: Do you think that this can effect how the young person then starts to perceive
themselves? Do you think they start to question their sexual identity because they are
getting all this external…
CG: {definitely, they’ll be certainly questioning their sexual identity and they’ll be some
who accept their sexual identity and start to feel ashamed of it. When all you hear is the
word gay banded around as a derogatory term you come to think of gay in general and
when I say gay I’m talking about LGB and often T as well as being just negative in itself.
So that sends a lot of young people further back into the closet and it makes them feel
ashamed of being gay. But when that is removed from the school environment, so when
gay, you know those terms cant be banded around in a derogatory way [//] then young
people you know start to feel more positive about the associations they make with being
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.
AM: So positive association you think is really…
CG: {definitely}
AM: …OK, sticking with the experiences of young people. What do you feel are the
short and long term effects on LGBT young people of this kind of bullying and the
general culture, the heteronormative culture in schools?
CG: Well we know that young people who experience homophobic bullying are more
likely to skip school, um they they you know they self esteem, much like any forms of
bullying, their self esteem and their self confidence suffer. Ur and in the long term of
course that’s going to affect their productivity, their future life opportunities. Um we had
a lot of young people attend our gay youth event on Saturday who are what we refer to as
NEET, so they are not in employment, education or training.
AM: that’s a good term.