Luke Hinkley A former Marlborough Boys' College student has met with the school's principal because he is unhappy with the school leader's response over the negative use of the word gay among youth. Tim Hinkley, now a 31-year-old out gay man, was not impressed with the response of headmaster Wayne Hegarty to a push for the word to be banned from schools, when it is used as a put-down to insinuate something is 'lame'. Hegarty and Queen Charlotte College assistant principal Betty Whyte claimed students who used the term did not associate it with homosexuality. "The only issue with banning the word 'gay' is that you give it more focus," Hegarty told The Marlborough Express. "It is certainly not a word used in our environment and it is not something that has come up in any of our discussions at school. Perhaps it is an issue where this teacher is from, but there are more important things in the world than that." Hinkley says the comments made him realise the school leaders were missing the point. "It's not just about the word gay, there's a bigger issue here," he says. "There were statements like 'it never comes up as an issue in our school' and I thought that is exactly the point - these people are invisible. They're not going to come out out because they're scared so it's not going to come up as a major issue." Hinkley recalls the term gay being used in the negative manner when he was at school in the early 90s, which disputes claims it's just a word that has come into fashion and will fall out just as quickly. "Twenty years is a long time," he points out. The former student says the current headmaster listened to what he had to say and was reasonably empathetic and said he would think about allowing Hinkley to speak to the staff or a school assembly about the issue. "I gave him all the offers of support he might need to ensure something happens and he said 'I'll go away and think about it'." Hinkley says for him the move is about going into bat for young young gay and bisexual men at the school to know that they are safe and they are okay. "I put myself back into their shoes and realised there was nothing in that school that gave me the message I was okay," he says. "And even if I didn't get bullied, I was a popular kid and I was able to hide it and didn't come out until after school, but I didn't have to face the external pain. But internally, as any gay person knows, you're hiding, you're living in shame, you're living in fear. "And I think the thing is that at the school now there are only a few boys who are overtly gay. It's a boys' school of a thousand boys, there's got to be at least 80 to 100 people there who are in the same boat I was in. They don't have the power to get themselves out of that situation. It has to be someone that comes in from the outside and helps them."
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Monday, 15th August 2011 - 11:37am