LGBT education is here and things are looking up

A lack of LGBT+ education made me less prepared for who I would later become; specifically it's the lack of an inclusive education. Around the school halls of my secondary place of education, I was consistently confronted with the idea that whatever gay was, is somehow against the metaphorical grain. Luckily, I didn’t grow up when Section 28 was enacted; barring the "promotion of homosexuality" to the youth. This reaction of the law didn’t make the education system a place that flourished with diversity. Largely, it was a heteronormative "man have sex with woman and make baby" education - which would be fine. As a cis male in his late teens, I wondered then what exactly would it take for them to teach inclusivity. In reality, as I thought, it wouldn't take too much.

The English education system is largely built on very old ideas. Only recently in 2018 has Scotland started teaching LGBTQ inclusive education - the only country in the world to do so. This was until England followed suit two years later in 2020. All one would need to do is find the funding. As the funding behind education has been cut down significantly over the past few years, there is not enough money to fund these workshops for a more inclusive society.

Having learned this and still being fooled into thinking I was straight; I took the sex-ed I received for granted. It's only when I realised that I was bisexual and trans that this educational gap between the "normal" and the "outcasts" was made most prevalent. Being trans and bisexual never made me particularly a target among the group I was stuck with for a while (though I wouldn't realise the trans side until I was 17). Regardless of my gender identity and sexuality, I had no idea how to navigate sex between people of my own gender I knew how to do it the heterosexual way; but I was bi, with a strong preference to the same gender. This meant that I felt clueless. With the ever looming storm ahead of me that was college, the prospect of growing up into a young adult and also the dysphoria I would soon get, created a storm. In reality, I needed to accept that school and secondary education never cared about those people who were different. The education system is broken in terms of teaching inclusivity. It fails to suggest that there is any possible way of being homosexual and having sex. This means that you are therefore "barred” from experiencing "trueness" if you are not straight. Therefore, this leads to isolation of young people who are part of the LGBT community, only increasing the chances of bullying and harassment within schools over something as uncontrollable as sexuality.

My experiences involve sitting in a GCSE science classroom with a science teacher (an amazing, calm man by the name of Noel) and having to endure the sex ed that we were given. The first task was to label each of the reproductive organs; which gave me a type of pang in my chest, like a stone hitting water and sinking. Every time the idea or mention of genitalia came up; I would instantly be uncomfortable. This feeling of discomfort would be later known as dysphoria. When i went to secondary education, the laws surrounding mandatory LGBT education had not been passed by the government, leading to an overly heterosexual way of teaching.

We should not only teach binary sex education, but gender education too. Society would have you believe that gender is the sex you are assigned as, and that’s that. This isn’t true. Gender is the internal feeling of what you identify as. This does not have to match your biological sex. Sex is the biological component and much more rigid than gender. Whilst gender identity is much more fluid, sex is much more binary, although there are certainly exceptions, such as unisex people. I needed more than just binary sex education, because to teach inclusivity you need to be inclusive yourself. In my experience, every teacher at the school was lovely and inclusive, the issue was the system around them forcing the narrative of heterosexuality down the throats of the youth. There is an issue within society at the moment that as most people are cisgender, and the majority of people are not trans or non-binary, that these perspectives are thrown under the rug and covered up. This, of course, means that it is breeding intolerance. By not teaching these perspectives from trans and non-binary people, you are ensuring that the cis-heteronormative perspectives are being forced down. Some people then, understandability, will go onto believing that cisgender and heterosexual is then the default. Whilst statistically true, this doesn’t mean that as a society we should not bring these experiences to light. If anything, we should include them within education to showcase that there are many different perspectives and ways to be.

Since I left education, specifically secondary education, the turn of the decade has brought to light the devastating impact to me that growing up without a constant source of LGBT inclusive education has made it so much harder for me to accept my own identity. It was only when I went out of my way to research these terms, these identities that I found labels that I thought fit. It was only in 2020 that the British education system allowed from September to teach LGBTQ+ education. This will hopefully mean that if I ever choose to have children, that they will be better educated and not let down. Whilst I do celebrate the education’s system improvements over the years, it still took so much more time. It isn’t just me, but the whole community of people born in the early to mid 2000’s has suffered the same fate: a lack of LGBT education has harmed them. This has caused indubitably so much more internalised homophobia, transphobia and biphobia, both internalised and not. The education system’s benefits that are to the people who are going through the primary or secondary education system will never undo the scars; never undo the internalised biphobia and transphobia that I’ve experienced. It will never undo the pain. What it will do, however, is make sure that no one has to endure the pain I’ve had; that tolerance is threaded through the education system, for a more tolerant society. Despite the advancements of the English education system, we still have so much more to fight for. We still have so many more issues to rally and cry out for change. This is, despite all of the other rampant issues, is a reason for hope. As with everything, whilst the light has gotten brighter, there is still much more fighting to let it not be overwhelmed by the darkness.