This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity
Gareth Watkins: Stuart, why did you get into teaching?
Stuart Douce: I wanted a job where I could sort of help young people and have a job that would help make the world a better place.
Gareth: What kind of age were you when you got into Teaching College?
Stuart: I was just finishing university so I must have been early 20s.
Gareth: And were you out at the time?
Stuart: Yeah, I was. Yeah. I was out. I had sort of gone through that whole coming out process and had a bit of a non-serious job. And then I was like, okay, I'm going to kick-start my career now and go to Teacher's College and be secondary school teacher.
Gareth: Going through Teacher's College and being out, did that have any challenges for you?
Stuart: Yeah, it was a bit strange because I was learning how to be a teacher, but then I had kind of this extra layer on top as a gay teacher, as well, and do I want to be a role model or is it going to be worth the personal cost to me of that, or should I just be closeted and just get on and do the job?
Gareth: And how did that pan out?
Stuart: I guess as my confidence increased I decided that I would sort of be out and just be me, and if that meant being a bit of a role model for a few students then so be it. But to me it ended up being gay is just such a normal part of my life that it's difficult for me to close off parts of my life during part of my day, so it was just easier and less complex just to be out.
Gareth: What was that like at Teacher's College? Did you encounter anything because of that?
Stuart: Not really. At one stage I did get put into a school where my associate teacher was gay, as well, and I always wondered if that was just chance or were they trying to help me out? I'm not sure. I always wondered though, because we always had these extra lectures on female teachers in boys' schools and teachers of different ethnic groups in different areas, how they were getting on with teachers in different schools, but there was never a lecture or anything on non-heterosexual teachers and non-heterosexual students. It was all just pretty invisible.
Gareth: So, you left Teacher's College and then you went to a single-sex-secondary boys' school?
Stuart: Yes. Yeah, it was in the city and that was quite good. I was quite intimidated when I first went there, when I got the job there, because I went to a coed school myself, and it was quite a blokey, real man kind of an environment and I wasn't quite sure how I'd cope with that.
But I kind of found my feet after a few years there, and then ended up outing myself just in a classroom environment because of certain words kids were using which I didn't find acceptable. And then it just became another part of who I was.
But I think the biggest thing I found working in a boys' school was working out what it means to be a man, and working out what masculinity is, because I went to a coed school and I don't fit a lot of the stereotypes of, obviously, straight people, but I don't feel I fit some of the stereotypes of gay people either. So, I suppose over the last 10 years I have been working out for myself what does it mean to be a man, and what is masculinity? As I see boys in boys' schools grow up and I see boys in coed schools grow up in these different environments, and with our changing attitudes towards what is it to be a man, it's certainly been a really interesting experience in interesting times to be a man.
Gareth: Just taking you back to when you first kind of outed yourself at the single-sex boys' school, what kind of words were they using in the classroom that you found so offensive?
Stuart: Oh, everything was gay, or everyone's a fag or everyone's a homo. And yeah, it's like a pandemic; it's just all over the place. Every day it's being said and no one is doing anything about it. No one is calling them up on it. Senior management in the schools don't; other teachers don't seem to do anything about it. We've lost the battle and we're just fighting a big war because now it's such a common word.
Gareth: What kind of year are we talking when this was happening?
Stuart: That would have been maybe five or six years ago, but it's still the case today. If you go into any secondary school, within 30 seconds or a minute you'll hear the word gay or fag or homo or something.
Gareth: So, when you heard that, what did you do? How did you feel?
Stuart: One particular day I'd just had enough and thought, no, this is just not good enough, and I pulled the kids up for saying it and I just said, "Look, there's at least one person in the room that finds that personally offensive because it affects them." And it didn't take them long to work out who that one person was.
Gareth: And what were their reactions?
Stuart: Yeah, they were quite apologetic. I think it certainly made them think that they're using these words, and the thing that the kids will always say is, "We don't mean it like that." They don't mean something is gay in the way that we might think it's gay. And I think it just made a lot of them realize that they actually do know gay people; some of their friends might be gay, it's just that they don't actually know that they are. So the message I was trying to give to them was: You could be potentially insulting your best friend or other people around you. If they're not out to you then you could be upsetting some people that are quite close to you without even realizing it by using those kinds of words. That's what I wanted to stop.
Gareth: So, after you'd said it, what was going through your head?
Stuart: Oops! What have I done? Yeah, because it was certainly unplanned; it was just in the heat of the moment. Maybe I should have just walked out of the room and calmed down and came back in and given them out a detention, or just did what everyone else did which was just ignore it. But I thought, well, I've done it now, there's no going back. And so I just carried on, and of course it didn't take long for it to spread around the school. It wasn't too bad.
Some classes wanted to talk about it for a little bit, but within a couple of days it all just kind of died away. People knew about it, and I was certainly open to them asking about it in future years, because it was kind of a rumor and they wanted to know if it was true or not, and then we just kind of moved on. I think because I didn't make a big deal out of it, and I didn't make a big deal about being open about it, they didn't seem to either. So everyone just knew, but it didn't really need to be talked about because no one made a big deal out of it.
Gareth: Can you recall any instances where you think you were treated differently because of people knowing that?
Stuart: Not really, although I do wonder, because I was at that school for eight or nine years and I never got a promotion, and I wonder to this day if that had anything to do with it or not, you know? I don't know.
Gareth: What makes you say that?
Stuart: Well, I reckon I'm a pretty good teacher. I reckon I had what it takes to go up through the ranks a little bit after eight years. Most teachers, after a few years you'd be getting units of responsibility for something, and nothing ever came my way. So who knows?
Gareth: How did the teaching staff react?
Stuart: It was quite interesting because I'd just assumed that they would have known after the kids had known. But it was just one day with one of the PE teachers, I was just sitting around having lunch with him and they were talking about another single PE teacher, and he was going, "You know, he's quite good looking. He's quite nice. If I was gay I'd go for him. What do you think?" So yeah, no one ever made a big deal out of it to my face, and everyone seemed quite nice to me.
But I think in a lot of schools teachers are kind of reasonably educated, and they've got reasonably good attitudes and are tolerant of diversity. But I think they sort of are because they're caring people because that's the type of people that are attracted to that kind of profession. So no, I don't regret doing it, but I just sometimes wonder about the personal costs versus the benefits. But yeah, what's done is done.
But I think being in a city school helped, too, because the school I'm at now is not in the city and the attitudes are quite different, so I'm sort of quietly in the closet in my current school. Although, I found out there are a couple of lesbian women on the staff and they don't seem to be hassled at all, so maybe one day, but I just like for people to get to know me first, as a person, before finding out those kinds of details which might cloud their judgments about who I am and what I do.
Gareth: It's interesting as a gay male, but actually even just as a male in the education system, I imagine that must be quite hard nowadays.
Stuart: Yeah, people sort of say that it is, but I don't know if I'm a bit naïve or not, but I think as long as you're just careful to get the basics right and you're in a school environment where the senior management trust their staff, I don't think you'd seriously think you'd get into any problems as long as you had some boundaries that were appropriate and you kept to them.
At my last school there were underlying procedures about if you were seeing students one-on-one, if they're in your classroom you just keep the door open, you let another member of staff know what's going on. So as long as nothing is hidden and things are quite open, yeah, I don't think you'd get into any problems as long as you kept your boundaries. And yeah, it's all good.
Gareth: Does it ever worry you that even the accusation can kind of ruin your career? Does that ever play on your mind in terms of just being a male in the school system and how people seem to be so willing to jump on the negative angle?
Stuart: Yeah, not for me. I've got other things I kind of worry about like: I need to plan a lesson for after lunch and I haven't really planned anything. What am I going to do? Yeah, it doesn't really register in my psyche very much, but I know I've got good, decent boundaries. I know that I work in a supportive environment where people have a lot of trust. I'm a trained professional. I know what boundaries are, so I just don't really worry too much about that.
But, I am clear in certain situations; I won't put myself into certain situations exactly for that reason. If I was a PE teacher it could be quite different. You know, I certainly wouldn't be going into any changing rooms or anything like that, whereas the straight male teachers might. And I would think that's fair enough, but for me, I would be a lot more cautious.
Gareth: Do you think it's easier nowadays for either a questioning student or a gay or lesbian student in secondary school?
Stuart: I'd like to think things are getting easier and easier all the time for young people, and I kind of hope that it is. I think with the likes of the Internet and people's changing attitudes that young people can be more open about questioning and asking, but I still think the hardest thing for the young people to do is actually find that very first person to talk to and say: Hey, I think I might be.... So, yeah, I think it might be easier in some ways, but in other ways, I guess because everything is more open it might be harder because it can be talked about more often, whereas in the past it was just invisible and no one ever assumed you might be gay, because it was so invisible. But now it's not, so people might wonder about people without girlfriends a bit more than maybe they did in the past.
Gareth: Is there a lot of teasing and bullying that goes on in school?
Stuart: Yeah, I think there is, and I think there's a lot that goes on that we don't see or as teachers we don't know about. I think name calling is pretty chronic. And part of me says yeah, that is wrong, but then part of me says, well it is reality, and if we try and put these kids in a totally safe environment in schools where you're not going to ever experience a bit of bullying they will never build up resilience. So, it's a natural part of growing up is to kind of pick on other people. Without seeming harsh and uncaring, it's reality. It happens, and if it does get quite serious there are certainly avenues that students and teachers and schools can take to stop it. And I think the schools are quite good at stopping it as soon as something is brought to their attention.
Gareth: Has a student ever come to you and ever come out to you, or said that they're being bullied?
Stuart: Yeah. I had one student come out to me at school that year. That was pretty cool. But I haven't had anyone come up to me and say: I'm being bullied.
Gareth: With the student who came out to you, how did you handle that?
Stuart: It just kind of caught me by surprise because it was at the end of the day and I was just packing up and ready to go home, and this boy came up to me and said, "Oh, I've got something I want to tell you." And so he just sat down and we had a bit of a chat, and I just kind of did a lot of listening and just acknowledged what he was saying and how brave he was, and just offered him a lot of support and reassurance. Yeah, a lot of support for being so incredibly brave.
Gareth: At your first single-sex school were there many out students?
Stuart: Oh, no. There was one guy, Josh – he won't mind me mentioning his name. Yeah, he was about 15 or 16, I think, when he came out and that was quite interesting because he was really into rugby, so I think it threw quite a lot of the other boys because to them it was a total shock.
Gareth: How did they cope?
Stuart: Josh was pretty good. You know, he's a pretty strong, resilient young man so he coped with it fine, but it was the senior management at the school that didn't cope with it. They were like, oh, we don't have any gay kids at this school, and so I think they found it quite tricky to deal with.
Gareth: When you say that they said that they didn't have any gay kids at the school, was that said to the students or was that said in the teacher's room?
Stuart: Oh, no, it wasn't said but it was kind of implied that we don't talk about that kind of stuff here. Yeah, it was just an area where the senior management just felt uncomfortable and they just didn't know how to deal with it, or didn't know how to deal with it so they just tried and ignore it and hoped it would go away.
I know in a later year in a school video that the students made that was shown at assembly, it had some incredibly homophobic images on it with the kids. And I think because of the subject matter that it was kind of insinuating, in my opinion they were uncomfortable with dealing with that in the same way they'd dealt with other things, and they just kind of closed the book on it and turned it off and just carried on as if nothing had happened, which I thought was not really good enough.
Gareth: So, do you know how Josh coped in that school environment if he was the only one that was out?
Stuart: I don't know, really, because I never actually talked to him about it one-on-on, so I'm not too sure, to be honest.
Gareth: Were there any support mechanisms in terms of queer-support school groups or things like that that he could have gone to?
Stuart: Not at the school we were at, and if there was I don't think any of the boys would have gone to it, although there's another school in Wellington, a coed school, that does have a support group, and yeah, I think he was quite heavily involved in that for awhile.
And I think it's actually better to have those kinds of support groups in a different school than your own school. I still don't think it's safe for young people to be out in school. Yeah, my personal opinion is it's better if they can just kind of keep it to themselves or to their close friends until they've grown up a bit more.
It just seems, from my experience, that the boys that I have seen who have come out in 3rd or 4th or 5th form, it just tends to be their whole life, and they tend to kind of turn gay and start dressing differently and just becoming these stereotypes, I guess as they're working out their identity and who they are. You know, they are who they are, and I think they're not that gay. They're still who they are, they just happen to like other guys. But they just seem to go down this road of just becoming this whole incredibly stereotypical gay person and kind of alienating themselves from their parents and from their school and from their peers because these guys have just suddenly turned really weird. I just didn't like seeing it. Maybe it's a phase and they'll kind of grow out of it and they'll become less extreme as they get a bit older and realize that actually, no, they're still who they are, this is just an extra part of them; that they've kind of grown up and it's kind of woken them up.
Gareth: I wonder if they are just mirroring what they see in terms of what they perceive as gay culture. What do you think kids would see of gay culture now when they're looking at the TV or on the Internet and stuff. How would you think a teenager would define themselves now if they were gay?
Stuart: I think unfortunately the media still keeps portraying these stereotypes, so we keep seeing like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Gok, so we're not seeing gay characters in Shortland Street or Coronation Street or whatever, where they're rubbish collectors or they're rugby players or they're doctors or dentists or upstanding members of their community. We're still seeing these stereotype people that are into... and not that there's anything wrong with it, but it's just a narrow view of the gay world. So that's something I would certainly like to see changed, is to be able to show young people that there are gay and lesbian people of all walks of life doing all kinds of different things, and not just the narrow image that's portrayed by the media, which still seems to be the case.
Gareth: Do you think you being out at that single-sex school helped other students and teachers?
Stuart: I sort of hope so, and I guess part of the reason why I kept it sort of low key and never made a big deal out of it is that hopefully, the thing that I wanted to pass on to the boys at that school was the fact that yes, I'm gay, but I'm actually pretty much the same as everyone else and there's only one area of my life which is slightly different. You know, I'll go and watch the rugby games with everyone else. So that went for the other staff and for the students, is that being gay is just one small part of who you are and it's just one small aspect of your life, and it doesn't need to define exactly, totally, 100%, who you are or what you can do. It's just people accepting whole different ways and a whole different form of different people, and this is my little point of difference for the world, but other people have other little points of difference. You know, I could have been Samoan, but I'm not.
So I just think the more young people get experience to different kinds of people the more tolerant they will be of different groups when they grow up, because I'm hoping that the boys from my school, when they go into the world and meet other gay people, they won't be homophobic and they won't be scared of them, because they already know someone who's gay and so they realize it's actually no big deal and they've got nothing to fear and nothing to worry about. And if any of the boys at that school are gay, I hope that I helped them in some way.
Gareth: Do you think it would have been different if you had been a bit more out there in your personality?
Stuart: Yeah, I guess so, but that's just not me. I'm actually kind of quite shy, and to me being gay is actually quite a personal thing to me because the first thing I think of when I hear the word gay is sex, so that's kind of a personal thing and I don't necessarily want to share that with a whole lot of people that I don't really know. I'd be more comfortable introducing my partner and saying "he," because that's got a whole different focus on it; this is a loving relationship with a partner rather than this person happens to be gay.
So yeah, maybe it would be different if I was more out there, I guess more flamboyant, but I'm not, and if I was then I probably wouldn't have gotten this job in this particular school. I wonder that if they had known that I was gay before they employed me, if I would have got the job.
Gareth: So, do you think that you were discriminated against?
Stuart: I just wonder, just because senior management did seem to be uncomfortable when it was disclosed in the classroom, and I was encouraged just to kind of keep it quiet. So yeah, I do wonder if it did have any bearing on my employment there, but who knows? I certainly don't want to be a victim and say, ohh, I never got promoted because I'm gay, and go down that line, but I guess I'll never know.
Gareth: When you did disclose in class were there any meetings between you and senior staff?
Stuart: Yeah, pretty much straightaway one of the DPs hauled me into the Headmaster's office and I had to confirm that yes, I was a homosexual. And it happened quite quickly, and if it ever happened again I would actually be quite outraged. I wasn't angry about it until afterwards, and if it ever happened again I would certainly question the need for a meeting. So yeah, it was quite strange, but because it was all so rushed it was like they kind of panicked, and maybe they were thinking something was going to spread around the school – maybe some disease was going to spread and they needed to contain the disease or something. But yeah, I was quite angry afterwards.
Gareth: But ultimately you did spend eight years at this secondary school, so there must have been parts of the culture of that school that kind of held you there.
Stuart: Oh, look, I loved that school. Even though I'm gay I really like and appreciate the environment that is a single boys' school. It's got high levels of discipline, it's got amazing amounts of tradition, the staff are well looked after and well supported by senior management, the parents really support the school, the students – the boys – love being at school, they just don't always have the discipline to do what they know they should be doing. It's such a great, positive, happy environment to be in. We teachers can really feel that we're making a real difference to these young men, and we're holistically bringing these boys up together and helping turn them into men. And it's a fantastic school.
And after working in that kind of an all-boys environment, I think any parents that have young boys I would definitely, definitely get them to consider sending them to a boys' school because it really turns them into young men. It's a really supportive environment for them to work out what it means to be a man. And especially in this age where roles of men and women and masculinity and all that stuff is being redefined, it's a really good environment for these young boys to grow up with some pretty strong boundaries, but also with the freedom to explore and find out who they are. So I certainly loved being in that environment.
And even though I'm gay, so I don't sort of fit the kind of teacher you'd expect to find in those kinds of environments, I certainly wouldn't want to go to another school that was kind of new-agey and maybe on the surface more accepting of difference and all that kind of stuff, because that's not the environment I like as much as a traditional school.
Gareth: Were they supportive in terms of things like, say, sport and arts, thinking of like music or dance? Was that on an equal level?
Stuart: Yeah. One of the things that I was really surprised at with this boys' school was that it didn't matter what the boys did as long as they tried really hard and were successful at it; that was all that mattered. And so, while obviously rugby plays a big part, and rowing, equally so does drama and the arts and cultural activities, which had just as much emphasis on them as the sports. And that's one of the reasons why I was so proud to work there at the school, because even though they had this tradition of rugby as everything, actually giving things a go and being successful at anything was just as important. So the boys that did drama or debating or croquet, because we had a croquet club, or music or were in the school choirs, were considered just as manly as the boys that were in rowing and rugby and hockey.
Gareth: Looking at the syllabus, and we're talking from about 2005 to 2010, was there any gay or lesbian or transgender information in the syllabus at all?
Stuart: Not really from what I could see, although in the New Zealand curriculum there are certain things that need to be taught, but for a lot of the concepts the actual individual schools and teachers can choose the context. And so like in the health curriculum, for example, there's whole categories on sexuality and discrimination and diversity, so if a teacher wanted to have units of lessons on homosexuality and heterosexuality they could. But I would suspect that a lot wouldn't.
One of my friends who's also a teacher who happens to be gay is an English teacher, so he did a gay-themed novel last year for one of his classes, and he said it just caused so much hassle that he's just not going to do it again. Yeah, just one parent complained and that was enough just to make it too hard.
Gareth: In terms of sex education at the single-sex school that you were at, what kind of stuff was being taught?
Stuart: Well, I ran a health education class for one year, but it was only one period a week, and it was pretty loose in the content so I put a bit more emphasis into sexuality than probably the other teachers did, because we had the freedom to do that. But I think generally it's sort of just glossed over quite quickly. I think the only time it really comes up is when they're looking at STIs, and they'll talk about HIV and that might come up then, but otherwise I think, yeah, it's glossed over pretty quickly, I suspect.
Gareth: When you say glossed over, is that because the teachers are embarrassed or the school is embarrassed or the students are embarrassed?
Stuart: Yeah, I think possibly a combination of all three. The thing I found hardest with teaching the health class was, especially when we did the drug and alcohol unit, too, was teaching content on that kind of subject matter without having any values, because I thought my role was just to present information and let the students make up their mind. But actually, in reality, I found it very difficult to present information without putting my own spin on it because obviously there are some things I think these boys should and shouldn't do. So I found it very tricky to teach, because even just by talking in the classroom about things like homosexuality you're kind of giving the impression it's okay, which I think is a good thing. But for a teacher that wasn't totally comfortable with that, I guess that would be quite tricky, and because a lot of it is up to the individual teacher and what the teacher is happy and comfortable doing, it may or may not be discussed.
Gareth: In terms of support for yourself as a teacher who is gay, do you have any kind of network of fellow teachers?
Stuart: Because teaching's a job where an adult... It's unusual in the way that we're an adult, but we don't spend much of our work time with other adults, and so we tend to get a lot of support from our colleagues, perhaps more in this job than other jobs, after school or at lunchtime or at interval. So yeah, as a generalization, teachers have a close supportive network anyway, and I certainly did as most teachers do.
My close friends who were teachers and colleagues that I would talk to when I was having problems with certain kids or had other issues that were going on, we would just sit down and have a chat about it. And you realize that it's quite normal for these things to happen, and here are some good strategies to deal with it.
In the PPTA there's a gay teacher's network, but once again, because we're such a small minority group, I went to one nationwide meeting and there were maybe 10 people there and I was the only guy. So I think if there are many male gay teachers out there they're sort of quite closeted, is my impression, or aren't out there seeking to meet others for support.
Gareth: How do you find that?
Stuart: Yeah, it's quite strange because it would be nice to just be able to network with other gay teachers to talk about some of the issues that we face, but I guess it's just part and parcel of being a minority group. There's just not that many of us around.
Gareth: To you, what would be some of the key things that you face?
Stuart: I think some of the key things that I'd face as a gay teacher would be my personal safety, name calling or bullying that's directed at me that maybe senior management doesn't want to deal with, and just being acknowledged that I'm okay, I guess, and just not being discriminated against when going for jobs in different schools, because teaching is kind of a small network, especially in the subject that I teach, so everyone kind of knows everybody. So, people at my new school knew I was gay; I haven't told them, yet they know, so people obviously talk.
My biggest fear is that I would be discriminated against and judged by my sexuality rather than the quality of my teaching. Yeah, that's my biggest fear. I think that's the biggest thing that gay people are faced with.
Gareth: Have you ever been bullied?
Stuart: I had fag or faggot scratched into my classroom door one day. I had sent a kid out for doing something and he obviously got quite annoyed so he must have had a knife or something on him, so he scratched faggot into the door. So the next morning when I saw it I went to see the DP to try and organize getting that taken off quite quickly, as you can appreciate, and his response to me was, "Is it true?" which I was kind of taken aback by. I just wanted it taken off the door [laughs]. Yeah, that's quite shocking.
Gareth: And so what did you say to that?
Stuart: I can't honestly remember. Yeah, I can't remember. I think I was in a rush and I was just so focused on: I don't want my period-one class to see that today, even though they knew I was gay. I just wanted the maintenance guy to come and to fix the door up.
In the end the maintenance guy ended up being quite a good friend of mine, and he was being really good because quite often at lunchtime I'd go and sit in their work shed with all their other workmen and people that they'd have coming in, and we'd be chatting away at stuff, and every now and then a joke would come up. But it was one of those jokes where they knew and I knew, and they were saying it's okay, and I was letting them know it was okay, so it was a good environment to be in. Yeah, the staff, right down to the maintenance guys, judged people for who we were and what we did, not certain things about our character and personality that we couldn't change. So yeah, they were great mates.
Gareth: If you had one wish for bettering the education system for gays and lesbians, both as students and as teachers, what would that be?
Stuart: My wish would be that principals and headmasters willingly accept that there are gay people and lesbian people in their schools, and they are okay with helping make this minority group less invisible in whatever way, shape or form that meant, in the same way that they are highly supportive of other minority groups being less invisible. In the same way they help these other groups from celebrating who they are, I just wish they would do it for people like me as well.
I think the thing that I appreciate the most and the value I've had back from being a teacher so often is I've probably spent the last 10 years wondering to myself: Am I a decent bloke? Am I a real man? What is masculinity? And by having the opportunity and privilege to work in a boys' school, it's really helped me figure those questions out for myself, which is: Yes, I am a man, I am masculine and I am okay.
So there's certainly been a lot of personal payback for me for taking, I guess, the harder road of being gay in a boys' school when I could have gone to like a new-agey school where tolerance and diversity was just kind of up there. Yeah, I've definitely had a lot of personal reward from that amazing experience of being part of the community that is a boys' school. It was a great 10 years.
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