This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity
Voice 1: I often feel sort of left out of things, simply because I don't get the chance to express myself properly. I don't feel, when I'm in class, that I can be myself. I'm constantly thinking or constantly checking myself to make sure I don't spill the beans.
Voice 2: Being a queer educator is like walking a tightrope all the time because you have to manage other people's insecurities about sexuality, and it might be insecurity about their own sexuality or their insecurities about their interrelationships and interactions with you as a queer educator, and so you are always running a sort of metacognitive type discourse in your head to manage every situation.
And that sort of thing came out very strongly with the young men that I interviewed in my thesis, is that from the time they were 13 or 14, even younger for some of them - between 10 and 12 - they realized that there sexuality was transgressing some idea of normal, and that they were on the wrong side of that idea of normal. And they developed these ways of managing through talking it through in their own heads, and that was all their private knowledge. They kept all of that to themselves, and keeping that sort of knowledge private and splitting it to a public persona that isn't connected to it is emotionally devastating, I guess.
Voice 3: When I was 13 I tried to kill myself. Like, I've known from when I was about 11 or 12 years old. One day I just cried and cried and cried for hours, I was just so upset. I guess it was because there was this guy that I liked and I had a crush on, and I just was so upset I couldn't tell anyone or anything, which was really bad. Then when I was 13 I actually knew that I was gay, and was really depressed and tried to kill myself.
Voice 4: I'd like to think that I'll identify myself as a teacher who happens to be gay, just like a teacher who happens to be married or a teacher who happens to be heterosexual and single. So yeah, I definitely would like to think that I'll be a good role model for gay people because I certainly wish that I'd had one, a gay teacher when I was at school that was out and that I could relate to. That would have been really beneficial to me. So I will definitely make every opportunity to sort of be out in a positive way in the school, definitely, because it's just so important that people are out, particularly when you're dealing with young people so they've got some decent role models to look up to.
Voice 2: I trained as a secondary school teacher at Christchurch in 1984, and I was about 21 at the time, and then started at Heretaunga College in 1985, which was the beginnings of the heated debate in the law reform [laughs]. And I didn't come out to my students at first. I ended up being on the front cover of Pink Triangle for a massage centerfold.
The Pink Triangle magazine itself happened to be exhibited at the Wellington Trade Fair, and it was one of those trade fairs where everybody who visited it had to go past every single stall.
And the second point was, at that trade fair there was a huge argument because the gay community had gotten a stand there that they had misrepresented themselves to get, and not told the organizers that they were a gay stand, and when it arrived and they set it up, there was a huge outcry to try and get it taken down.
And I remember turning around in the May school holidays and looking at Today Tonight and the debate was being interviewed on there, and my face on the magazine flashed up on national TV - or regional TV, I guess it was at that stage. I can remember dropping the dinner plate [laughs], and thinking, oh God, this is going to have major implications for me when I go back to school. And of course, it did.
What now I can look back quite fondly on, at the time was really rather traumatic, and the students reacted in very different ways. The students which I taught didn't really seem to have a problem. My 6th form did; they didn't talk to me for three weeks, which made teaching them very difficult, but they eventually sort of came around and we got on. The younger forms just used it as a way of being able to abuse me and challenge the discipline in the classroom and around the grounds.
I could manage some form of control in my classroom, but I had to sort of put up with daily abuse from students which I didn't teach, from around the grounds, calling out faggot, homo, don't bend over now; here comes Mr. Town, type stuff. And that was very difficult because you feel very isolated in your school as a gay teacher, and you often don't feel that you can utilize the channels of discipline that might operate within a school because nobody in a leadership position has ever stood up and said this sort of behavior is not okay; it's not okay to abuse somebody because of their sexuality. And so you tended to try - or I did - to deal with it on my own, and that probably wasn't the best way of managing that, you know? I pretended that everything was fine in my classroom and around the grounds and so forth.
And it sort of raised another issue. I also thought that by coming out in the school that suddenly there'd be lots of young gay male students who'd come running up to me for support and help, and I could do the positive gay role model thing. And from a distance maybe I achieved that, but I don't know who those gay students were. It was never safe enough for them to approach me, and if they were seen with me it was guilt by association and then they were at risk in the school environment themselves.
Voice 1: The most difficult thing about being at school is hiding it. It can just be really tough sometimes, and you also encounter a lot of homophobia and people using the word faggot or queer or gay and not really thinking about using the term. And you can't say don't say that, it's not PC to say that sort of thing, because you'll out yourself and people will mock you, and it's not nice being mocked.
Voice 4: I think the biggest issues that gay people face in education is having a voice and being included in everyday discussion and activities. So, when teachers are teaching subjects, particularly in, say, the health area where they're talking about relationships and marriage and sex, do they include gay people as well instead of it being a boy/girl thing the whole time? Like, in history lessons if they mention famous people in history that were gay, just as they mention famous people in history that were straight, which comes about when they were married or whatever. So, I think including the valuable and interesting history we have on gay people and just making the curriculum far more inclusive of gay people, as they are making it inclusive for people of other cultural backgrounds.
Voice 1: There are plenty of support groups in Wellington. There are heaps, and I'm the only student at Wellington College who goes to any of these support groups - the only student in a school of 1,250 students. You can't tell me that one out of every 1,250 people is gay. There are more than that to my school.
But they don't put up any posters, they don't offer any support, they don't talk about it, and the classes that they came to - we have a health in 4th form - and homosexuality was not mentioned once by any teacher in that entire year, or what was a third of a year. The rest of the year we did craft work. But in that entire time the teachers didn't mention being gay at all, and it's 4th form and people at this age are drinking, they're having sex and they're struggling with their sexuality, and gay students need to be able to reach out and be normal, because if you're different you do shy away from things, and if you can't get acceptance and you don't have other people who are like you around you, it's very difficult. And it makes you more abnormal, I think.
Some people must go through college and will go through secondary school and they will struggle with their identity because they don't know anyone else who is like them, and the only images they see are on television, and some of them, quite frankly, are not very accurate. Not all gay men prance around in dresses like they do in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Not all gay men are like that.
Voice 3: Well, I saw myself at school, and also now, as a stereotype breaker, whereas a lot of people think that gay guys are all feminine, carry handbags, dress up in girl's clothing, and so on, and I just didn't want to be a part of that. And people would see that, look, he's gay but he's not feminine, and that just meant a lot to me because I knew I wasn't feminine and I didn't want people thinking that I was.
Voice 2: In lots of ways I think it's more difficult. [laughs] How ironic! We've got everybody telling us we've got all that you ever asked for. You've got the Homosexual Law Reform; you've got equal rights under the Human Rights Legislation; and here I am saying, well, actually I think it's more difficult.
One is because you're talking about young males who are seeing lots of images of gay and lesbian people and transsexuals on TV, as mayors: The Hero Parade, The Sydney Mardi Gras, something like 57 American sitcoms that have all got gay characters in them, so they are able to see who they are at a much younger age than I could in Masterton when I was growing up. And they also can see all of those possibilities, but at the same time there's this lovely acceptance out there on the media screen, and et cetera, everybody's using the word faggot in their school ground; everybody's beating up on everybody else because they're a poofter.
Nobody is sitting them down and talking to them about homosexuality in terms of its social, its political implications, its context, its identity issues, and so they are still carrying it with them, but there's this enormous pressure that they need to identify who they are. And so you've got young gay males knowing at 10 and 11 and 12 that they're gay, which is the difference, I think, from when I was going through school; you could delay it really easily until you were 18 or 19, or more easily, perhaps.
It's false to probably compare the experiences, but it's very different coming out in the '90s, and whereas people might think it's easier, there's more support, if I was still growing up in Masterton in the '90s there's no change; it's no different from when I was there. And that's represented in the fact that schools do not, still, broach these issues.
When homosexuality is talked about in schools it's so often talked about within the sexual health curriculum and within HIV AIDS education or STDs, and, oh yeah, here's homosexuality. You know? In the interviews with young men that I did, they spoke very strongly about the fact that they left school thinking that they were going to die of AIDS, that was the only future that they had, and they expressed that very strongly. And so we need sexuality within the curriculum to come out of that context. It needs to be dealt with there, too, because there are issues about safe sex, but issues of sexual identity are not about sexual behavior, you know? And we need to start talking about those sorts of things.
Voice 1: We don't talk about it much, really, in classwork. It's not talked about at all. The only subject that it is talked about in is Classical Studies, and that's simply because Romans and Greeks were very often bisexuals. They slept with whoever they wanted to, and they did have a culture of sleeping with people of the same sex. And they were just liberated. They didn't have any of this....
We're taught that they don't have any of the Christian pretense, the whole thing that sex is a sacred act and must be for procreation, and that sex is sinful. And when it's discussed in class it was a non-issue for them, and I sort of agree. I think it's become too much of an issue in Western society. I mean, there are gay people and there are heterosexual people and there are bisexual people and there are transgender people and there are all sorts of people, so get over it! They're just people who are no different to you, they just have different feelings and emotions.
Voice 4: Being gay and being at Teacher's College I think is a real advantage because I've had so much experience of being an unrecognized, hated minority group, and having to deal with that. So I guess I'm quite a human rights activist now in terms of just being aware of what other people are facing and being totally inclusive for everybody, not making assumptions about anybody's background, identity, beliefs, values, or experiences, and trying to treat everybody as equal and trying to help with building self-esteem from everybody from all walks of life and making them realize that their experiences, whatever they are, are just as valid as anybody else's. So, being gay definitely gives me a big insight into seeing all those things, which I think if you're not gay or not from another cultural background having to fit into some other sort of lifestyle or way of life, then you'd never get to face that. So, it gives you an interesting outlook.
Voice 3: Back when I was in 6th form I was the youngest in my form by quite a few months, and I was getting hassles in class, not about being gay, but just hassles in general. So I went to the guidance counselor really depressed and had a talk to the guidance counselor about how I'd been depressed all through the summer. All through the school holidays I just slept until about 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon every day. Yeah, just depressed, in general, right through the holidays, then at school I was just really depressed I was getting hassled.
So I went to the guidance counselor and it took me a while to tell him, but I ended up telling him that I wasn't completely straight. I told him that I thought I liked girls but I also liked guys, at first, because it was easier to say that than to just say I'm gay. And he got in contact with the Gay Switchboard and I ended up going to Icebreakers. It all happened really quickly, actually. It was like Thursday, and then Friday I was at Icebreakers. I was a bit young for that but they made an exception, which was really good. I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't.
When I told my friend about me being gay, I sort of hinted to him about it before I told him completely. I actually told him in English class one day, and he was okay with it and then we had long talks about it and that, which was cool. And then my other friends I told about it so that they wouldn't hear about it through rumors. I found it was better for me to tell them directly than for them to hear a rumor and then come and ask me. And all my friends took it well. There was no problems there.
But when I told my mum that I was gay, I sort of went into her room and sat down and we had a talk and I said, "Mum, I've got something to tell you," and I told her that I was gay and she just didn't say anything, which I found really scary. And then I actually started crying because, like, she just had no reaction or anything and didn't say anything. And I was so annoyed with my mum that I just left home for the day and came back later in the night and she sat down with me and said that they're all old and lonely and full of diseases and that I don't want to live like that, and all that sort of rubbish. And I just thought: thanks mum; this is me you're talking about. And since then she's had four years to get used to it now, which was pretty cool.
I actually went up to the Hero Parade last weekend and she actually said to me, the day before I went up, "Have a good time up there," which I thought was really cool. It's very unusual for my mum to say something like that.
Voice 4: I have no idea how I'm going to handle gay students when I go into schools. I'll probably be very nervous and it will just be quite scary to begin with because I'm quite aware if I'm sort of out there as a gay role model then it's quite likely that I'll have students come up to me and say: I'm gay and I don't know what to do, or, I'm gay and whatever, whatever. So, I realize I'll have to be very careful about what you do do; like, we've been given instructions that we're never even allowed to be in a classroom alone with one other student. As teachers we have to be very, very careful about personal dealings with students, so it will be a quite tricky balancing act, but no doubt I'll learn as I go and hopefully it will work good.
Voice 2: I think there's an advantage to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students to see out gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered teachers. And it took me awhile to realize that even though gay male students didn't approach me while I was teaching while I was out, they knew I was there; and knowing somebody is there and knowing somebody is bouncing around being relatively cheerful and happy and being - I hate using the word normal, but that has a really positive effect. It shows that you can live into adulthood, and one of the big issues in New Zealand is youth suicide. And for many young gay men, they can't see that they can live into adulthood and be happy. So, for kids to see that in school is really powerful and positive.
It also sort of raises issues, I guess, about the idea of normalization. What so many gay and lesbian teachers do is appear to be as normal as possible, and I have a problem with that in some ways because I think the idea of normal, and the lack of our schools' ability to manage difference of any sort, is crucial here. And so, I could get away being a gay teacher because I wore trousers [laughs]. I dyed my hair occasionally, and I had my ears pierced, but I wasn't overtly camp or effeminate. And so there is still, with the gay stuff that's coming out now, a total problem with overt or with the stuff that confounds gender.
I've been corresponding with a young boy from the South Island who had real transgender issues, and he was basically almost killed by his peer group. He was physically pushed out in front of traffic and down stairs because he wants to transgender. He was 14 when he was first having those feelings. Now, he ended up being home schooled for the rest of his secondary schooling. And those transgender feelings are still with him.
My question is: Why are our schools not able to make themselves safe for students like that? Why can those differences not be tolerated?
Voice 4: I definitely think I will end up going out of my way to actively promote gay issues. It's almost an addiction I have, I guess. I just can't help myself. Every time I see some anti-gay letter in the Letters to the Editor, I'll be writing in a reply. I think it'll be a wonderful opportunity to promote inclusiveness and a better understanding of gay people, because we're still fighting a battle, and the more people that fight the battle the more we can achieve.
And I think education and young people is a good place to start, particularly from my experience working with gay people through Icebreakers, as it's those people that need the help the most and they're not actually getting it, because they're the ones that face the suicidal thoughts and the depression and all those other issues when they're already going through a million-and-one changes through adolescence. So, to me they're the most critical people to educate, particularly the young people who have same-sex feelings, because they are the people in need, as I see it.
Transcript by cyberscrivener.com