Safe Schools

I went to high school in the ‘80s.  Had you asked me then I would have said there were no gay kids at my eastern suburbs state school.  I wouldn’t have understood if you’d asked about trans or intersex kids.  But I could have told you about kids who were strange.  Kids who didn’t ‘fit in’. And kids who seemed different from the rest of us.

There were the sweet, sensitive boys who were friends with all the clever girls.  Looking back you might describe these boys as a little camp.  At the time they were described as sissies or pansies and derided by the other boys and even some of the girls.  At some point people started to call them gay.  Ironically this didn’t necessarily denote same-sex attraction, it just meant weird, broken and wrong.  Years later I heard that at least one of these boys had come out at Uni.  I was not at all surprised.

There was this one odd kid who grew his hair long and kept to himself, hardly ever saying anything.  He did not have a good time at high school and withdrew further into himself as the years went by.  He was diagnosed with some kind of condition, maybe aspergers.  Anyway it meant he never worked.  Years later I learned this boy is now living as a woman.  I met her.  She’s amazing and a different person altogether from the strange, sad boy I had known.

Then there were the tomboys, the butch girls.  They were not pretty or girly as was expected of young girls.  They liked to keep their hair short and wear boys clothes, for these were much better suited to the rough and tumble games they liked to play.  Some got into boys sports, up until the point when there was no longer an active place for them in the world of AFL or rugby.  Then I don’t know what they did.  I didn’t hang with them.  They seemed threatening and I wasn’t really sure what to make of them.  But now one of them works with me.  She’s a lesbian, married with two kids.  Ho hum.

As kids, any time we would talk about these classmates we’d be talking about what they should do to avoid the negative attention their difference was attracting.  The focus was never on what the bullies should do to avoid being arseholes.

Since then there has been something of a renaissance in the more enlightened parts of our society.  Homosexuality, gender dysphoria, gender theory have come from the shadows into the light and people are starting to be seen for who they really are and embraced in all their wonderful difference.  Harrowing stories of anxiety, depression, self-loathing, despair and suicide caused by bullying, intimidation and discrimination are emerging.  Teachers and youth workers, who regularly confront the bleeding edge of misery caused by bullying and isolation have been among the first to understand the ignorance and fear that drives these behaviours.  And they have united to do something about it by forming the Safe Schools Coalition and offering an evidence based, educative program, funded by government, to schools across the nation.

And I have been through my own renaissance.  I’m proud to say I was never a bully.  I’m less proud that I did wonder if perhaps there was something the bullied could have done to improve their situation, or whether things would be better if we were all more ‘tolerant’.  What I’ve come to realise is that the target for action ought to be the bully, and that people don’t want to be ‘tolerated’.  They want to be affirmed, loved, encouraged and embraced.  In short they want the same things as I want and do not become less deserving because they are different from me.

Tragically, the people who pass themselves off as political leaders in Australia currently are not among the enlightened.  As the events of recent weeks have shown, the Turnbulls, Bernardis and Abetzes of the world are still driven by the ignorance and fear that propels all bullies.  Ironically the behaviour of these people provides perhaps the most public demonstration of the need for the Safe Schools program.  If men and women of this age are unable to move past the idea that there is something wrong with being homosexual or transgender then it is even more important that this teaching starts with kids.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that we’re not born bigoted, we learn bigotry as we grow.  I think we learn to be whatever we become.  If we are to learn compassion, empathy and inclusiveness we need to be deliberate about teaching and encouraging these traits, which is exactly what Safe Schools aims to do.