A few days ago, pinknews.co.uk posted this story, which was was subsequently picked up by the Huffington Post . The story originated from a video produced by LGBT Youth North West in England. In the video, a young lesbian talks about how she was forced to use the boys changing rooms by her P.E teacher, who told her

You’re not attracted to lads so you have to get changed there.

I cannot even imagine how hard this situation was for that girl. She was left with no alternatives by this teacher, as she also says

When I was in P.E., I couldn’t get changed in the girls’ toilets or the locker room or anything, so I had to get changed with the lads.

This is obviously completely unacceptable behaviour from anyone, but it’s worse coming from a teacher, as they are the people supposed to protect you from bullying and victimisation while you’re in school. When I first read this story, and watched that video, I was in total disbelief. Seriously….what the actual fuck was that teacher thinking??

Looking back, I was subconsciously aware of my sexuality at around 13. However, I pushed it to the back of my mind and refused to deal with it, finally admitting to my out gay best friend in TY that maybe I might be bisexual. He kept that to himself thankfully, and I again pushed it to the back of my mind, not to be dealt with again till I kissed a girl for the first time in 6^th year.

We managed to keep that very quiet, and I didn’t come out until college. I sometimes wonder if I should have come out sooner, but on the whole I’m glad I didn’t, I don’t think it would have gone down well in my convent school in a small town. I’m lucky that I got to avoid situations like the ones described by the young people in that video, because I was given the space by the people who knew about my sexual orientation to come out in my own time, unlike many of these young people who trusted someone who then spread it around the school.

I think a lot of the problem comes down to lack of education surrounding LGBTQ issues on behalf of both the pupils and teachers. I know there’s the SPHE programme now for secondary school students, but that wasn’t there when I was in school…When I was there, the only time sex and sexuality was discussed was in religion class, and even at that it was skimmed over so quickly the pages blurred! And that wasn’t that long ago either, I did my leaving cert on ’06!

Perhaps if LGBTQ issues were more openly talked about in schools, and a safer environment to come out in was created, situations like the ones experienced by those young people wouldn’t happen as often. We need to get young people in schools talking about the coming out process, and why you should never out someone. The message needs to be put out there in schools that just because someone is gay, does not mean that they are automatically attracted to everyone of the same gender.

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