Equality in schools, and personal issues education

Tell me; as a child, how many of you remember ever sitting in PSHE lesson or Citizenship lesson where LGBT issues were brought up? Did you ever tackle eating disorders, or self harm? How about disability awareness? There is a shocking lack of education when it comes to these issues in schools. Children and young people are taught how to put a condom on, or how to help old people across the road… but never what to do if they question their sexuality, how to practise safe non hetero sex or what to do if they feel like harming themselves.

At the age of 18, I have experienced life in 2 different secondary schools, 2 academies (one aged 11-19 and the other appprenticeship based) and 3 colleges. Four of these places, I worked at.  If we disregard these for now, and just focus on my experiences as a student, I’ll tell you now, they were not all good. Generally, I didn’t experience much homophobic/anti-queer behaviour within these places, which is great… but I also received little to none support regarding any of the above issues. They were never addressed.  Ignorance is ripe within secondary schools; there is racism, there is sexism, there is homophobia. That list is not exhaustive. The irony of it is, it’s not always students… teachers can be just as bad. What’s sad is that  half of the perpetrators don’t even realise that they’re being discriminatory. PSHE and teacher training both cater primarily to the need of heterosexual, gender normative young people that the government seem to expect, and people are left to assume that stereotypes and rumours that they hear are true.

All disabled people are stupid. All dyslexic people can’t read. All gay people like glitter. All people with eating disorders are greedy. All people that self harm are attention seekers. All trans people are paedophiles. None of these people are normal. If people are left to believe what they hear in playgrounds and on facebook, things will never get easier for vulnerable young people at schools.  Schools are supposed to educate. What use are 11 GCSEs or 5 fantastic A levels if you do not know how to function in the real world? If you do not understand the differences that make up the population, and the importance of acceptance (or at the least, tolerance). Why is it that Religious Education is compulsory to a certain age, but it is not compulsory to cover other protected characteristics under the 2010 Equality Act?

Following a conversation with a fellow member of an LGBTQ+ group that I attend, and some crazily misinformed peers of his, I realise that this is getting no better. How can queer people, disabled people, people outside that little box of ‘normal teenager’ expect to achieve their potential in education with schools allowing students to be so ignorant as to think that awareness is not even necessary? Something needs to be done about the quality of PSHE in schools. Something needs to be done about the ignorance that some students not directly affected by these matters show. Something needs to be done to show people that they are not alone; that somebody cares, and is willing to help them if they need it. Young people need to feel accepted at school. Not only by their peers, but also by their schools.  I am making it my mission to make a change. No matter how little, it shall be huge.  It’s time to step off the treadmill and stop moving on the spot, never going forward. It’s time to make a difference.

Keep tuned for details of my endeavors. Mark my word, schools will not know what’s hit them.

Blogger Bernie

England; when the weather gets hot, the clothes come off…

So, does anyone else find it anywhere near as ridiculous as me that, when temperatures reach above 20 degrees C, the whole nation shed their clothes? Just yesterday I was passed in the street by a group of middle aged, balding men in what looked like speedos and sandals. Had it been winter, this would be indecent exposure… There are some things that people just don’t want to see. However, it is ‘summer’… So it is, of course, perfectly acceptable.

Why is it that during summer, suddenly all this crazy stuff is socially acceptable? Wearing a bikini top is fine, by all extents, but going out in your bra is wrong. I have no idea how that works. Surely, it is the same thing, bar the fact that swimwear is usually more skimpy and shows more flesh. Men are allowed to walk around shirtless, but women aren’t. This is, apparently, because female chests are seen as sexual, where as male chests are not. Please, someone explain this to me. It is of course that sexist stereotype that men are sex hungry and infernally not satisfied. Ever. So they would of course lust after topless women. Let’s not mention the women then yeah? Because they do not experience this lust, no?

I find this whole notion utterly peculiar, especially when you extend it to other situations. For example, young children are allowed to run around in public topless, regardless of sex… Until the females start developing breasts, then it’s no longer okay. This begs the question; should it then be socially acceptable for small chested women to go topless in public? And where does a transman stand in this situation? His chest is, by his definition, male. But would this be accepted? Most likely not. Now, I’m not saying the majority of trans masculine people would want to bear their chest in public. But it should be their right, from an equality point of view.

The world is a weird place, no?

Blogger Bernie

An introductory blog; who is Blogger Bernie?

Hey there and welcome to my first blog entry for Q:a. This is exciting stuff. I guess I should start off with the basics; who is ‘Blogger Bernie’? It’s a good question, and one that I’ll try my hardest to answer, because truth be told, it’s still something that I’m trying to figure out. In very simple terms, I’m just your average teenager- not entirely sure of what I want to do with my life, even less sure of how to do it, and completely reliant on my close knit network of friends to get me through the craziness. On a deeper, more detailed level, I’m an individual with quite complex gender views and identity. I struggle to decide on whether or not I identify as something non-binary- something outside of just ‘female’ and ‘male’- or whether I just hate the idea of gender stereotypes. But then, should I have to justify my gender? I don’t think so.

Anyway, I’ll get in to all of that some other day. Seeing as this is my first entry, I figured, why not tell you all the story of me coming out to my family? (Sexuality wise, that is.) Let me tell you now, it was not intentional. Let me take you back three, nearly four years. I was 15, and very much comfortable with the fact that I was attracted to girls… although not the term ‘lesbian’- I realised later that this was due to a gender identity issue. I’d been dating a girl that I’d met through a friend for a good while… maybe eight months? Seeing as she lived all the way in Brighton, my dad and stepmother had never met her. I hadn’t really felt the need to tell them and have an awkward conversation regarding my sexuality and ‘staying safe’. Unfortunately, life had other ideas. I suppose it was my fault, updating my Facebook status to ‘in a relationship’ and forgetting that I had family on my account…

At that time, I was staying with a good friend of mine, at their house and although we both went to different schools, my dad had picked us up one morning and was dropping us off to our schools respectively. Just as the aforementioned friend ambled out of the car, my dad uttered the words: “So, Bernie… I see it says that you’re in a relationship on Facebook”. I could have died. Had this occured at home, I could have fled. Instead, I was stuck in a moving vehicle with the most awkward silence. I wasn’t ready to come out to my parents, if I had been then I would have just TOLD them already. The conversation that ensued literally made me cringe in my seat, and I practically sprang from the car and ran to class- a first, I must admit. I was bombarded with all the usual questions; where are they from, how old are they, what’s their name? He also offered to put me on the pill if it was a guy. I wasn’t remotely sexually active at the time, and I had to tell him that it was infact a girl… turns out he already knew.

I’m not sure what the moral of the story is. Luckily for me, my dad was relatively accepting (albeit in denial- he keeps telling me not to get pregnant like my sisters) but I’d really rather him not have found out like that. I guess, be careful what you’re putting on the internet. You never know who might be reading.

Blogger Bernie