I am fully aware that in recent months my postings on here have gone off the ‘drama’ train but I feel this is an eduactional blog and my posts are still relevent to educating people.

I have been moved by the press coverage of the number of teenagers taking their own life recently because of bullying due to their sexuality or assumed sexuality. I was to take this time to say something.

When I started secondary school I found my love for Drama, but because of my like for Drama and Dance I found myself an easy target for bullying. I was called ‘gay’, ‘poof’, ‘arse bandit’ everyday of my school life for 5 years. During the height of the bullying my mum took me out of school as the school didn’t do anything, I went back and the bullying continued. At this precise time of my school career I didn’t even know if I was gay or not so this bullying was because the bullies ‘assumed’ I was gay. In S5 my family found me deeply upset and I had done something stupid – this became a turning point in my life. 

I want to tell everyone out there who is suffering any form of bullying at this moment across the world that it does get better, it honestly does.  It may seem at this moment that there is nothing no one can say or do to change anything but I promise you there is a world out there full of acceptance and love. When you leave school you never have to see your bullies again, you can become who you want to me. Know that you are loved by your family and your friends and you are not alone. Before you do anything – talk to someone, there is so much to look forward to, and I look forward to sharing this crazy world with you. Look at me… I have a wonderful family who support me, a niece who makes me thank whoever I am here to see her grow, laugh and tell me about Nursery, I have wonderful friends who make me laugh and cry, a job I love so much and the creative energy to make theatre. It’s all there for you too. Just give it time and talk to someone, anyone.

I promise it get’s so much better.

I was recently very moved by the murder of young gay pupil Jack Frew in a supposedly homophobic attack.

As an openly gay teacher I am fully aware of how young people that I come into contact with on a daily basis use the term ‘gay’ as a synonym for “stupid”/”weird”/”rubbish”, and what makes it worse is that these young people do not understand what is wrong with this.

Teachers need training on how to handle homophbia within the classroom and I was excited to see that ELC were offering a CPD session just on this however I was upset today when I recieved an email saying the session had been cancelled due to ‘lack of interest’. As my kids might say… ‘That’s so gay’. How can we tackle this in schools when staff don’t even want to sign up for a CPD session on this important issue. I am asking the council to make this a compulsary session that all staff must take… will it take another homophobic attack like the one that ended Jack’s life before schools take notice.

A fantastic DVD produced by gay organisation Stonewall called FIT is an excellent resource for both teachers and staff to think about gay issues within school.

I also watched a wonderful documentary that was about Homophobia and looked at recently ‘out’ gay rugby player Gareth Thomas was dealing with being a gay man in a sporting world. You can see it  here

This is an issue that is not going to go away and teachers, no matter of religous background, beliefs etc, will need to tackle this as we all need to secure the safety of our children within schools.

I honestly feel and I hope that councils across Scotland will start to do MORE within schools to make gay pupils feel more at ease before any more homophobic attacks happen and a young man or woman looses their life because people think it is ‘wrong’ to be gay.