h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I know I promised happy stories (and I've got a run of them planned for the next few days) but I came across this story in the Guardian and it made me mad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/nov/10/school-hard-place-gay-bullying

It's about how many gay kids (or kids wrongly presumed to be gay) have a rough time in schools and almost universally suffer from bullying. The story itself didn't make me mad because it's not really news - I've worked in schools all over the country since I was 18 and homophobic bullying is absolutely ubiquitous - but instead it was the comments. I should probably know better than pay heed to internet comments (present company excluded of course) but the Guardian isn't normally a nest of trolls and yet a majority of comments were along the lines of "kids are horrible, everyone gets bullied, the gay kids aren't special."

That attitude, that kids are innately bullies and will pick on anything and there's nothing can be done is so depressing. It's also flat out wrong. I'm not going to dispute that kids can be little horrors, I have plenty of experience of that, but to deny that gay kids aren't especially picked on is ludicrous: as the Stonewall report highlights 92% have suffered verbal abuse, nearly half physical threats and nearly a fifth death threats: I've never heard of a ginger kid, or a fat kid, or a geeky kid getting death threats. I've received death threats in my current job (I do love it so) and I'm able to brush it off as just the nonsense kids talk but I wouldn't expect a teenaged kid to be to do that. 1 in 5 getting death threats because of something they have no control over: the more I think about it the angrier I get. There's also the appallingly high rate of suicides amongst gay teens.

It's also nonsense that kids are inherently bigoted: kids don't exist in a vacuum and, unlike homosexuality, homophobia is contagious. We can change these things - in large parts of the country racism is dying out because people have learned how utterly stupid it is. Homophobia can die the same death and there are things people can do. Schools have to have an absolute policy of zero-tolerance and they need to enforce it - for far too many schools it exists only in theory. Get parents involved if you have to and if they start spouting homophobic crap then you get them too. Role models would be useful too and we're starting to get some great ones (Gareth Thomas has become one of my personal heroes over the past few years). Extra support, like Gay-Straight Alliances and mentoring for gay teens to give them the support they need (I'm really proud of the It Gets Better campaign as a response to the gay teen suicides). Pretending the bullying is inevitable and can't be combated cedes the entire field of battle.

One of the things I feel worst about is the fact I can't be out in work and try to be one of the positive role models I talked about but I already get hell and the school has taken precisely no action (like I say, I love my job) and I'd be alone in taking a stand. It shouldn't be that way and it certainly doesn't have to be.

Strange how things can motivate you, but writing this journal has just spurred me into doing something I've been umm-ing and aah-ing about for weeks. When I was getting malicious phone calls I was invited to be a lay member on the local police hate crime panel. Well, decision made - I've just posted my application.

Some really cool things are coming out of this NaJoPoMo.

I've just put myself in the frame to be the Equity and Diversity Officer (that is, anti-harassment officer) at work. As a gay ethnic I've already ticked a couple of the boxes. Now let's see if I get the job or not.

that's great for both of you - every little bit we can do to make a difference is so important.

The comments on that article made me HOPPING FLAILING MAD too. The whole POINT of school is surely teaching kids to be civilised human beings, and that includes NOT bullying people for innate aspects natural to them even if not common among the general population.

Bravo for joining the hate crime panel. I am so sorry (and angry on your behalf) that you can't cheerfully be out and proud at work. I think I am very sheltered, as I work with several openly gay people and it is simply Not An Issue (we're all so cool) in my little HE community and I forget that it is an Issue for so many and reading articles like that one, and then the comments, is like being slapped hard in the face. Is this what people are really like? Really? I'm not sure I want to be human, in that case.

Good for you to join the panel.

Yes, such things make me angry, too. And I haven't a clue where children get it from. I can't recall any of this during my school time.

to a certain extent children are like pack animals (adults are the same though...) and will do what the "alpha" does. That's my observation of them, anyway.

Observing how they ganged up on my daughter at a school party, attended by teachers and parents alike, and how nobody even thought to reprimand any of them until I waded in and shamed them... it's something I've seen often, and it is something I always at least comment on.

Kind of Lord of the Flies, I suppose. It's our job as adults in society (not just parents and teachers) to set the example and to make it known when things get out of hand. But we don't these days, do we?

I wonder if the difference is that children are realizing that they are gay younger and younger and therefore coming out at school. The fact that they have the confidence to do that is a good thing, ut it does give rise to bullying.

That would be part of it. Another part, to my mind, is that the teenage years are all about conformity and then suddenly here's these people who aren't conforming on a level that's deeper than just dress sense and taste in music and so forth.

But I could be talking rubbish.

I know I came out at school, but only in the final year and only to a select few, and by the time they all failed to keep a secret we were into the final exams and nobody had time to care.

teenagers, and this is something I'd forgotten until I woke up one day and suddenly found I had two in the house, are terribly conservative (small c)

The other week I was asked my plans for the week (over lunch: small comoany we all tendvto eat together) said I had a date they asked her name I corrected them "him" they said "oh" and then the Latvian Embryology Stem Cell Technician offered me the loan of her beanbag since my flat was devoid of comfy chairs.

That's how cool my colleagues were with my coming out at work: Super-cool.

When I hear stories like that, it reminds me how much progress we have made. There;'s still a way to go, but the worst of it's out of the way.

that is so cool, Clive. At my place of work it would lead to utterances of shock followed by shunning (and, most likely, a request not to bring your partner to the do...)

I feel a bit guilty actually at having it so easy. I told my family and they were like "we guessed" / "whatever" I tell my friends and they're like "we're cool." I 'fess up at work, and I'm either plied for information or given a total disinterest - this is how it ought to be.

I feel a very lucky somewhat awkward beneficiary of many other people's plight.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/Amelia/trying-to-explain-hate-to_b_1083938.html?ref=tw

Here's great example of someone getting it right: a parent having to explain to her kid why people were protesting at a Gay Pride event and the kid simply couldn't understand it. The little chap couldn't get his head around the idea people could hate others for who they loved.

It's made me feel a lot happier.

While I'm waiting for the HuffPo piece to load () I'll just refer back to post 4 and mention that I have indeed been appointed Equity and Diversity Officer. I hope I'm never needed, but I've a sinking feeling I will be.