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

Guest Blog: “Just Get Over It”

(This Blog Post discusses issues relating to mental heath)

That old chestnut is thrown around rather a lot and for lots of different reasons, however the one I have had the most issues with personally is when referring to someone with a mental health issue.

To those who don’t have or never have had a mental health issue, the whole spectrum of poor mental health can be mind boggling, confusing and even a tad, dare I say it, offensive. To those without the experience or knowledge of what poor mental health actually is, it can seem unfathomable that people are simply not happy or unable to function like others in society.

For someone with mental health issues (no matter how severe or minor) to be told to “get over it” is a slap in the face. Having issues with mental health is not a choice and not one that anyone would want to choose. Telling someone to get over it is implying they have some choice, that they can simply choose to stop suffering from depression or bipolar, or schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder or any number of mental health disorders.

Poor mental health can exacerbate symptoms such as loss of appetite/increase in appetite, change in sleep patterns, loss of energy, loss of motivation/interests, feeling hopeless, feeling persistently low, self harm and suicide.

So next time you want to tell someone to “get over it” think about it. Do you think that if it were that easy, that wouldn’t they have done it by now?

Guest Blogger Karl

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

Homophobia in Sport?

As those of you who know me are already aware, aside from loving my friends and family, there is another thing in my life that I love, that perhaps some would say borders on obsession: hockey.

I have played the sport since I was ten years old, for my school, local club, university and county. It is responsible not only for introducing me to the wonder that is Strongbow Black, but has introduced me to a number of fantastic individuals that I am proud to call my friends and team mates.

When I moved back to MK nearly two years ago, I felt quite unsettled in the city that I had grown up in and lived in for nineteen years. I had been away for five years, which meant that I still had the close friends I’d stayed in contact with, but it also meant that the previously socially infused lifestyle I’d had at university was missing. However, I decided to turn to the place that had always provided me with a sense of community and an amazing group of friends: the local hockey club.

Milton Keynes Hockey Club didn’t let me down and was the same welcoming and diverse place that I had found at previous clubs. Within two weeks I had told some of my team I was gay and within a month most people in the senior club knew. As I had previously experienced, no one batted an eyelid. Being a lesbian in a hockey club really isn’t a big deal and homophobia simply wouldn’t be tolerated, not only by the committee of the club but by the members too.

With all the recent campaigns to tackle homophobia in sport (all who are doing great work) I wanted to describe my experience of being a lesbian hockey player. Now I am aware of the stereotypes involved with women’s sport and homosexuality, but I can assure you that at all the hockey clubs I’ve played for we are definitely in the minority. We probably make up about ten percent of the club, which reflects the general statistics for the percentage of LGB people in the UK.

So this is just my experience of local clubs, but I get this impression this positive attitude to lesbians in the hockey world extends beyond the local. A few weeks ago a friend and I attended the London Prepares Visa Invitational Hockey Tournament at the Riverbank Arena in the new London 2012 Olympic Park, and got to see Great Britain win the final against the world champions Argentina. During the game a group of spectators were sitting beside us and a lesbian couple were sat separately, one in our row and the other in the row in front. One member of the couple stood up, leaned over the back of her seat and kissed her partner on the lips in plain view. This took place practically on the lap on my straight friend that I was seeing the game with and she didn’t even flinch; in fact no body around us made any kind of reaction at all.

On leaving the game I noticed a number of female same-sex couples holding hands as we were leaving the stadium and it gave me the inspiration to write this blog post. I decided to put the idea of writing about it by the friend I was with and I mentioned the lesbian couple that had kissed earlier at the game and she looked at me slightly confused because she hadn’t even noticed. For me this sums up just how accepting women’s hockey players and supporters are – they have become so used to their lesbian team mates and seeing them being openly affectionate with their partners, without fear of homophobia, that they no longer even notice it happening.

I am so grateful for my hockey friends and proud to be part of a sport where, in my personal experience, this is the case. And I really hope that in the future this will be the case for most sports in the UK and indeed in wider society as well.

Blogger Ellie

(To find out more about MK Hockey Club visit www.mkhockey.co.uk)

 

Guest Blogger: Karl

So I am the most recent addition of this fabulous blogging team and will start off with an introduction of who I am and what makes me tick.

I am Karl, I am 21 and I live in the town of Northampton which currently offers no LGBT support, youth or adult. So I attend the group HQMK and meet with the lovely people there every week and would strongly recommend the group to any young person looking for support and friendship.

Now onto my identity, I identify as both bisexual and transgender. I would hope that everyone would understand what bisexual is (even with the negative connotations) so I will write a little bit about my trans identity and how I see myself. In clinical and medical terms I am a female to male transsexual, born with a female body but identify as male. Despite what I was born as and how I developed I see myself entirely as male, so I would consider any relationship I have with a guy as a gay relationship and any relationship I have with a girl as a straight relationship.

I have been involved with online LGBT communities for almost four years now, since I first came out. In that time I have learnt a lot and grown as a person, I have also become very passionate about LGBT issues and the rights of my community. I will be very vocal about an injustice and will fight strongly for my community and will get involved with what I can to be part of the movement.

Having said that, my blogs will likely have a political slant to them when discussing LGBT rights, where I challenge views held by others and have people consider the use of certain language. But I will also use this as a space to talk about my experiences, who I am as a person and sometimes the unfortunate incidences that occur when being me!

Keep watching, excitement and hilarity is coming up!

Guest Blogger Karl

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

Coming Out is Simply an “Enter” Key Away

First Blog, so I thought I would keep it light. In fact, stuff that, I’ll write about is something that matters to me. Schools. Specifically, Schools and LGBT.

With the rise of importance of Social Media, coming out is simply an “Enter” key away. Not as hard as going round telling people face to face, but a difficult “Enter” key nevertheless. However, the response I got was incredibly supportive. So I began to express it, didn’t hide that I was into guys anymore. I was accused of Advertising. “We all know you are Gay, Stuart, you don’t need to Advertise it” was the phrase most coined. My response? “Well, why should I hide if I’m out of the closet?” And I didn’t. Just as girls express their feelings to Men, I also did, telling them they are good looking, complimenting them.

This did not go down well.

Men began to feel awkward around me. I got in numerous Facebook Arguments, with guys telling me not to say that they are good looking. I began to lose most male friends, my friends list on Facebook slowly depleated. I had a theory for this. They are not used to change. Simple. All their life, they have been expecting compliments from Women, all of a sudden, their mindset has changed. Something new? Do we accept it? No, let’s discard it. They assumed that I would have the cheek to flirt with them, even though they are straight.

Now, readers, I do assure you, I have ethics! If I wanted to flirt, I’d head to Pinks. Not ICT. So, I left them, and began to make friends with the girls in our school, men were simply something to admire from a distance. They really changed me. They are a lot more sociable, a lot more accepting, and you can talk to guys with them! Before, I was quite a rough guy. I went around, playing pranks with my mates, messing around in classes. Some people say that Coming Out doesn’t change who you are at all, that “you are still you”. In my case, it changed who I was completely.

Before I came out, I was quite a loner, I didn’t have anywhere to fit in, I never felt quite at home in All Male Social Groups, I could never discuss guys with anyone apart from my hidden boyfriend. All the girls didn’t speak to me because I was with the guys. Coming out almost advertised me to people that I had never spoken to before; People started saying “Hang on, we’ve never really paid attention to this Stuart kid, maybe we should now, he had more to him than what he seemed?”

Now, I have a brilliant and diverse support network of friends, both inside and outside of school, from Male to Female, or people who don’t identify as either! From Young to Old, from the campest people you could possibly imagine, to the most masculine guys could you could dream of, from the most devoted Christians, to Pagans! And I love it. I don’t think many people could have such a diverse range of friends, and it’s brilliant.

I feel right at home in the LGBT community of Milton Keynes, it’s vibrant, and there are so many saints, people willing to do whatever it takes to enhance the community! The moral of the story: Many people say that Coming Out doesn’t affect your friendship groups, they reassure you that all of your friends will stay the same, that declaring your sexuality changes nothing. It changes a lot. But you have to go through that transition stage of losing your fake friends and earning your real friends, to make yourself a better person. If you are coming out, expect to lose some friends, but expect to gain some much better ones, and find a loving place in the LGBT community of Milton Keynes!

 Blogger Stu

The Gay Debate: The Bible and Homosexuality

During my time as a GLBT youth worker in Milton Keynes, I encountered a number of young people who were struggling to reconcile their Christian upbringing and their sexual orientation.  This can make the coming out process far more difficult for people who have been brought up by parents who believe that simply being gay is sinful.

While I don’t count myself among the faithful anymore, I was raised Catholic and can definitely understand the heartache this causes, parents sometimes sadly reject their GLBT children and the toll that all of this can take on a young person’s confidence and self esteem can be devastating.

About a month ago, a 21 year old student named Matthew Vines from the rather conservative state of Kansas in the US posted a video on Youtube that he researched for two years. In the video, Matthew looks very carefully at the biblical arguments made by conservative Christians related to this issue and very gently and brilliantly puts together a persuasive case that they’ve got it all wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezQjNJUSraY&feature=player_embedded

Blogger Bart