PGS Pride: What It Means to Me

by Lucy Smith

I was born in 1986, started school in the year 1991 and left VIth Form for university in 2005. Why is it, then, that these dates are so significant? For most of the time I was at school, a law was in place called Section 28. This legislation existed from 1988- 2003. The law stated that schools, and other local authority institutions such as libraries, were not allowed to ‘promote’ homosexuality to young people. The law meant that schools were unable to support LGBT+ pupils in any sort of meaningful way. The law was difficult to interpret, meaning that schools often erred on the side of caution for fear of breaking the law. The intention of the law, purportedly, was not to stop schools from providing support or counselling to pupils struggling with their sexuality- but schools were often so worried about breaking the law that a lot of the time this support was not provided for fear of falling foul of the legislation.  A school friend of mine was regularly subject to violent homophobic bullying from other pupils on his way home to school; my school did not feel empowered as a result of the legislation to tackle the attacks as homophobic hate crime and so the perpetrators were never challenged. The ‘strategy’ for my friend was to provide a safe space after school in a teacher’s office so he wasn’t leaving at the same time as the bullies.

I believe that growing up LGBT+ will never be easy. As a teenager, you want to fit in with your peer group. Your parents still have control over a lot of your life. You develop mad, all-consuming crushes and hope to experience your first relationship. Being LGBT+ makes all of these things more complicated, but living at a time when the law stated the following about the very structures and institutions in society that were meant to support you made things more complicated still:

I began my teacher training after leaving university in 2008, and took up my first post in 2009 at a school in West Sussex. Although I have always felt (fairly) comfortable with being open about my sexuality with colleagues, I worried about my pupils finding out and sometimes found myself answering questions from them dishonestly in order to try and deflect attention. Shortly before I left my first school, I was ‘outed’ to pupils by a colleague. I was quite upset about this and made a resolve to be more guarded at my next school.

Hangovers from Section 28 meant that many teachers- particularly ones who had been teaching for a while- found it hard to embrace LGBT+ diversity in an educational setting post-repeal. A colleague gave me a copy of the iconic Stonewall poster in this picture to put up in my classroom, but a couple of days later my HOD spoke to me quietly to say that a member of SLT (she refused to say who) wanted it taken down. A similar situation happened in my second job, where a colleague wore a Stonewall t-shirt on a non-uniform day and was instructed by a member of SLT to go home and get changed.

I found it hard hiding a big part of who I am to the pupils I taught. Whereas other colleagues were able to display photos of families and partners at their desks in their classrooms, I felt like this was something I would never be able to do.

Things changed when I met Mrs Morgan, who came to do a training placement with me for six weeks to get some experience of teaching in a state school. In our very first meeting, Mrs Morgan told me about Pride and the ethos at PGS. I knew there was a job being advertised and, on the basis of our conversation that day, I decided to prepare an application- which was successful!

PGS Pride has helped me feel empowered to be myself in my workplace and to be honest with my pupils when they have asked me what I would, previously, have considered difficult or off-limits questions.

Marching at the front of the first Portsmouth Pride parade in 2015 with colleagues and pupils was a particular highlight, and particularly poignant: before setting off that morning, I received the sad news that my cousin David, my gay role model as a young person growing up, had passed away after a cruel illness. He took me to my first ever Pride event, so it felt a fitting day to remember him. Throughout the day I reflected that, even just a year or so before, I had never thought that it would be possible to be a part of such an event with my school.

As you will all be aware, the most important moment since joining PGS was meeting Ms Burden, my wife. The support we have received from both colleagues and pupils has been immense, and it seemed fitting that our wedding ceremony had links to PGS to acknowledge the role of the school community and its importance in our story: our wedding service was held at John Pounds Church, and we had a drinks reception in the Memorial Library.

We were married in the December of 2017; same-sex marriage was only legalised in Great Britain in 2014, the year the two of us met for the first time. It has only just become legal in Northern Ireland.

  

When we got married we had a secret: a scan had shown that Ms Burden was pregnant with one healthy, developing embryo. Imagine our shock when, after just two days following our return from honeymoon, our next scan showed a second baby!

Our twin boys, Jude and Linus, were born on the 11th and 12th June, 2018, respectively. As you can see, we have high and low days- just like any other parent.

When I was a teenager, I never thought that I would one day be married with children but times have changed so much. What was once referred to by law as a “pretended family relationship” is now approved through the legal institution of marriage. The values and culture that PGS Pride has instilled in the school have been amazing, and there can’t be many places where the school Chaplain baptises the twin test tube babies of a same-sex couple in the local Cathedral! I feel privileged to work with such special people- staff and pupils- and only wish that a similar support structure had existed back when I was at school myself.

The text and images here are taken from a talk I gave at PGS Pride at the start of the academic year.