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

AM: Yeah.
SS: You know there’s a lot of live stuff out there which is complex and difficult and they
need some time to think it through.
AM: {definitely}
SS: And who’s giving them that space, they are suddenly just suppose to cope.
AM: Yeah definitely. And it’s yourself and other similar organisations that are going out
there and kind of in isolation and giving the training and obviously you’re one person,
you’re on organisation, you cant possible get and there and and train everybody…
SS: {no}
AM: …every teacher, so it needs to be, it needs to be at PGCSE level really…
SS: {yeah}
AM: …a lot of my friends who have sort of recently qualified in the last couple of years
and I’ve spoken to them about this and they’ve said no, no we had no training in our, in
our PGCE course about these issues. So, um luckily most of my friends are, well, all of
them, are pretty liberal so you know they are wanting to push the issues forward. But, but
not always, like you say, if they feel its too risky then they wont.
SS: {No}
AM: This is gay teachers and straight teachers. But obviously we both know about some
very successful examples, which we talked about before with schools that are really
challenging the homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying and also actually
successfully challenging the whole ethos’ of their schools. Like Stoke Newington is
obviously a big example…
SS: {yeah, yeah}
AM: …um…
SS: {and I think that’s a very good example and it wasn’t as totally smooth ride.
AM: No, of course I mean she had to deal with some quite homophobic stuff.
AM: Yeah.
SS: You know a couple of members of staff had to be disciplined and discussed and
things. So you know it was all easy peasy.