When I tell teachers in my LGBT+ inclusive staff training that during the 1990s I was genuinely scared of losing my job if I talked about anything related to LGBT+ most of them are shocked and amazed. But it is the truth.
I started teaching in 1995, when Section 28 was firmly embedded in schools. Section 28 was a UK law introduced in 1988 by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government. Mrs Thatcher was concerned that: “Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.”
Although the wording of the law stated that we could not “intentionally promote homosexuality” or “promote the teaching … of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”, the end result was that in practice most of us were too worried to talk about anything related to LGBT+.
This was only 35 years ago, but it was a time when the annual British Social Attitudes Survey revealed that around 75% of British people felt that being gay was “wrong”. British newspapers often featured homophobic stories and two men kissing in Eastenders (in 1987) was an excuse for extreme homophobia and moral outrage.
As a new teacher in my 20s, I felt scared and unconfident about facing up to any of this.
I remember with deep sadness an event from my first year of teaching. I was teaching sex education to my year 6 class. I was keen to help these young minds develop positive relationships and promised them that I would try and answer all their questions honestly.
When two boys quietly took me aside to ask me a question about what it meant to be gay, I froze. I really wanted to give them some positive, helpful information that would make them feel good, but I was terrified.
“I’m sorry I’m not allowed to talk about that,” I mumbled – and watched them walk quietly away.
To this day I feel terrible about this moment – that I passed on that shame and fear to those two young boys; that I didn’t answer their question.
Why am I talking about this today? It has been more than 21 years since Section 28 ceased to be law. It has been 15 years since David Cameron issued a public apology.
Being LGBT+ is legal in the UK. The Gender Recognition Act 2004 legally recognised trans people and same-sex marriage was introduced in 2013. So surely the discrimination of the Section 28 era is over.
I wish it was…
The legacy of Section 28 is still with us today – both for the damaged generation of people who went to school under its shadow and for young people, teachers, and parents now.
For those who went to school during this time (born between 1972 and 1995) and who grew up to be LGBT+ the most common word I hear is “shame” – the shame of feeling that a key part of who you are is so “wrong” that it cannot be talked about by school staff.
This also coincided with the peak of the AIDS crisis, meaning that a generation of young people missed out on potentially life-saving information.
But it isn’t just people born before 1995 who are affected. My son, James (born in the late 1990s) didn’t come out as gay until he was 18, years after he realised this about himself.
One of his biggest reasons was that he just didn’t see or hear anything positive about being gay at school. With no positive representation and only hearing the word “gay” as a slur, he absorbed the shame and believed that he would never be happy being gay. He chose to tell no-one for years.
Of course, it isn’t just LGBT+ people who grew up for decades with no positive messaging about LGBT+ lives, it was any child in school.
At the very least, children missed out on hearing about LGBT+ lives as part of our shared history and culture and the myriad achievements of LGBT+ people. Every child absorbed the silence and the shame.
And where are those children now? They’ve grown up and many of them are now parents and teachers themselves. Parents who first learned through their own experiences in school that talking about LGBT+ issues was somehow “wrong”. Teachers who saw no positive teaching about LGBT+ lives when they were at school and so often feel nervous about what they should teach, the language to use, and how to help students who are exploring who they are.
I meet many teachers who want to talk about LGBT+ lives but are still nervous to do so. Even now 48% of pupils see little to no positive messaging about being LGBT+ (Just Like Us, 2021).
About 10 years ago I decided I wanted to make changes in my own class. I was teaching year 6 and decided I’d just see what happened if I started to drop-in references to LGBT+ lives. I tested this in a lesson on apostrophes. I wrote examples on the board for the children to discuss where to put the apostrophe:
- The girls cloakroom
- The childrens playground
- Davids boyfriend
I’ll admit, I was nervous. I stood back and waited for the sniggers – but nothing happened. Everyone just got on with it.
This seemingly small act gave me the confidence to introduce more LGBT+ inclusive work, talking about what LGBT+ means and how some families have two mums and others two dads.
What became immediately apparent is that lots of children had LGBT+ relatives and family friends. One child talked about attending her uncle’s wedding to another man; another told me about YouTubers they knew who talk about coming out; another had a gay sister.
It was a part of their lives and experience and by giving them permission to talk about it, everyone could see it was “just another way to be a human”.
In further lessons we talked about language and how “gay” is used as a slur and how that made people feel. When a new child joined the class and used the term as an insult, it was the children who explained that it wasn’t okay.
The work in my class spread to other classes and other teachers started talking to their classes about LGBT+ lives. It was less about big events or special days and more about just dropping it in.
Today I run LGBT+ inclusive staff training and student sessions across Dorset and also help to produce LGBT+ inclusive resources for teachers.
I am constantly astounded by the impact of this work on all children.
When we talk about LGBT+ lives as just another way to be a human, we open up the world for young people and help all children see that it’s okay to be who they are.
The Positive Futures report (Just Like Us, 2023) found that LGBT+ supportive messaging and education in school improves the mental health of all young people with “a significant increase in non-LGBT+ students feeling more optimistic about their futures”.
Sometimes I am asked why we need to be so visible about LGBT+ lives. Well, the only way to ensure that all children know that being LGBT+ is simply another way to be a human is to actively talk about LGBT+ people; to actively counter the silence of decades, the deep-rooted shame, and the damage inflicted on a generation.
We as educators are a key part of this. Every time you drop in a reference to LGBT+ lives you are helping to ensure that all children feel good about their identity, the identity of their friends and loved ones, and the identity of the inclusive and diverse country we live in.
When we don’t know about people, it is easy to demonise them. When we actively talk about LGBT+ diversity as “just another way to be a human” we create understanding, inclusion, community, and better mental health for all our young people.
- Mel Lane was a primary school teacher and teacher trainer for more than 20 years. She is now head of education at Pop’n’Olly, a provider of LGBT+ inclusive education resources for primary-age children. Mel also works with Dorset-based LGBT+ charity, Space Youth Project, leading staff training and student sessions alongside a team of LGBT+ young volunteers. Visit www.popnolly.com and www.spaceyouthproject.co.uk
Further information & resources
- Just Like Us: Positive Futures Report, 2023: justlikeus.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Positive-Futures-report-by-Just-Like-Us-compressed-for-mobile.pdf
- Just Like Us: Growing up LGBT+, 2021: justlikeus.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Just-Like-Us-2021-report-Growing-Up-LGBT.pdf