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

closely relate to. He described some of the devastating emotional effects of the years of
queerphobic abuse he suffered, but also a desire to overcome this and to help others; an
effect which is relatively common amongst LGBT people who have suffered
discrimination in their youth (see Rooney, 2005). Such positive outcomes however,
cannot be seen in isolation to the long term negative effects experienced. Silver, for
example, like many other LGBT adults who were bullied at school (see Rivers, 2004),
suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of, in his own words, ‘the years of
shit that I had to put up with’ (Silver, Transcript 2: 6) and when he left school at 15 he
was ‘in a really messed up state’ (Silver, Transcript 2: 5), had no qualifications and was
contemplating suicide for the third time.
Through the experiences of bullying, the continual use of LGBT words in a derogatory
way and heteronormative cultures permeating their schools, the young people in my
study, including Silver, were very aware that they were seen as different, and in Daniel’s
case that his LGBT friends were seen as different. They expected to be bullied and had
reconciled themselves to this being part of the process of ‘becoming’ LGBT. They also
seemed aware that the basis for this bullying was often a lack of understanding and felt
more needs to be done in schools to make people aware that, as Daniel states, being gay
is not ‘something not normal’ (Transcript 1: 20).
The development, negotiation and management of identity during your school years is
extremely important for future health and in the ways highlighted, young LGBT people
find themselves disadvantaged to non-LGBT people regarding this development. For
example, as Ushihu says, if you do not conform to the heterosexual and gender norms