![]() ![]() It’s true that we’re pretty well organised (except for cleaning out the fridge) and we have one ultimate goal in mind – supporting and loving our LGBTI children. We have a special name, our office-bearers meet around a long table (just like a Bond film), and we even have a creed. I have to disclose here that the rumours are true: the network exists. There’s a group of conservative organisations and politicians that has mobilized against the program, which they characterise as being part of the “gay agenda” – the alleged campaign by a global Spectre-like network to fundamentally change our society. The nature of the “debate” about the program also shows a spectacular failure of empathy, that most important and civilizing of human characteristics. The fact that it’s being presented as a PC threat to the wellbeing of “normal” kids shows how immature many people remain about issues of sexuality. Judging by the take-up, many educators find it a useful resource. Schools choose to opt in, and teachers maintain control over how the free resources are used. To make things worse, they live in a society in which their very identity and aspirations for a happy life are increasingly presented as troublesome, political, even sinister.Ī national program funded by the Federal Government – Safe Schools – is trying to address this problem, encouraging children to consider the perspectives and feelings of kids who have different gender or sexual identities. There’s a reason why gay, lesbian and transgendered young people harm themselves at a much higher rate than the wider community – and that’s because they are still the subject of hatred, bullying and other forms of cruelty. I can assure you that it’s a depth of pain that makes my own blows to the jaw seem positively trivial. Just as many people who pontificate about the state of Aboriginal Australia have never met an indigenous Australian, nor visited an Aboriginal community, I wonder how many of those anti-gay politicians, pundits and lobbyists have ever looked into the eyes of an isolated and bullied gay child, dried their eyes, or attempted in vain to explain why the world can be so brutal and ugly. ![]() The new conservative position on sexuality suggests that it is the rights of heterosexuals that are somehow being impinged by efforts to increase understanding and provide legal equality. This dynamic is the equivalent of the familiar “reverse racism” argument so commonly used by Australian racists. Of course, it’s a fallacy – logically, historically and culturally. Gay, lesbian and transgender kids are still hiding their identities to avoid violence and social ostracisation.Īnd yet, you would think from recent public debate that it’s the heterosexual kids who are under threat from hordes of gay “activists” (they’re always “activists”) bullying them into … I don’t know what… Tolerance against their will? Gay kids, or those presumed gay, are still being bashed. It’s a sad truth that in many schools it’s still not safe – emotionally, physically or both – to come out as gay or lesbian, let alone as transgendered. The old hatred and fear is still common, particularly in schools where kids at different levels of maturity and insecurity struggle to find their place in the social structure. Sadly, “gay”, adopted by the homosexual community, has now been re-claimed by the homophobes to mean “stupid” or “lame” (even being used in such colloquial fashion in a recent newspaper headline). Over the ensuing decades we’ve come some way down the road to tolerance, with the old school “poofter” being replaced by a more benign twist in the nomenclature. It was abhorrent, dangerous, repulsive, and, for reasons I could not fathom, an affront to the honour and identity of every male. The accepted culture was that to be a “poofter” was the worst thing a boy could be. Certainly none of my friends, several of whom were gay, I later discovered, made it known during their high school years. However, as anyone who has been assaulted knows, there is a lingering feeling of anger and humiliation.įew school children came out as gay back then, in the 1980s. In the long run, there was little physical damage. Thankfully, his flailing technique was rather inefficient, otherwise my jaw might have been broken. My face swelled up after the bully’s punching flurry, as I’d had surgery on my jaw just a few weeks previously. I was already on the radar of the school’s gaggle of egregious homophobes, not because I was actually gay, but because I was a member of the school choir – a prima facie crime against Australian masculinity. My crime, the bully later told the Principal, was that I had said hello to him in a way which implied that he was a “poofter”. ![]() Call for action to keep Coorong flush with fresh water Search All categories
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