Section 28 - a suicide note for Britain's
non-heterosexual teens
"I realised I wasn't straight a few days before my seventeenth birthday. A few weeks later I fell in love with a teacher at my school, who, rumour had it, was not straight. As it turned out she was straight, and happily married, but by the time I found that out I was already in love. Shortly after that, she banned hugging on school premises, as it "might lead to lesbianism". This statement devastated me, as I never expected such intolerant and bigoted words to come from her mouth. That night, I took 100 paracetamol to bed with me, and made a pact that if I woke up in the night I would take them, and if I didn't, I wouldn't. I didn't wake up, and I didn't take the paracetamol, but at times there seemed little reason not to. Nowadays, I realise that her words probably had the force of Section 28 behind them, rather than any personal antipathy towards gays of her own, but that would have been little comfort at seventeen."
So speaks a non-heterosexual British woman, looking back on the traumatic days of her discovery of her lesbianism/bisexuality. These days she is comfortable with her bisexuality, but it has not always been an easy path to hoe, and many times since she has contemplated the possibility of suicide.
But she is one of the lucky ones, as she is still alive, and survived her schooldays without undergoing homophobic bullying. The suicide rate amongst gay teens is shockingly high -- the rate of suicide attempts amongst young gay people is thought (from recent surveys) to be somewhere between 20 and 55%, and young gay and lesbian people are perceived to be one of the groups most at risk from suicide. Homophobic bullies are often permitted to get away with their actions. Section 28 has left schools in a position where they do not know how to deal with bullies, or even whether they would be behaving lawfully to do so, and are unable to give advice to gay teenagers in trouble. Meanwhile, Section 28 reduces the self-esteem of the gay teenagers by leaving them feeling unprotected and, just maybe, wrong.
So, what does this monstrous Section 28 say ?
28. - 2A (1) A local authority shall not -
(a) intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality;
(b) promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship
(2) Nothing in subsection (1) above shall be taken to prohibit the doing of anything for the purpose of treating or preventing the spread of disease.
Now the big issue which is open to debate is what exactly is meant by that verb "promote". The (relevant part of the) dictionary definition (New Shorter OED) is:
Further the development, progress or establishment of (a thing), encourage, help forward, or support actively (a cause, process etc.); publicize (a product), advertise the merits of (a commodity).
So, does Section 28 mean that LEAs are not permitted to advertise the merits of homosexuality, or does it mean that they are not allowed to encourage and support it ? This may seem a slight difference, and indeed it is, but those in favour of keeping Section 28 would have us believe that it is the former interpretation that they are working from, and that LEAs are just champing at the bit to put forward the merits of homosexuality to innocent and vulnerable children and teenagers. Encouraging and supporting homosexuality could also be seen to mean this, but it could alternatively be seen merely as not being discouraging and unsupportive. Unfortunately, the anti-gay camp seems to have the louder voice, and schools and LEAs are running scared. Rather than be seen to be tolerant of homosexuality, and advising pupils who come to them with worries or problems concerning their sexuality, they ignore these pupils, and hence avoid unintentionally "promoting" homosexuality. The natural line of recourse for these teenagers is thus removed; is it any wonder that so many of them despair ?
Turning now to "Homosexuality as a pretended family relationship": what of those teens where one of their parents has turned out to be gay (possibly years after marrying and conceiving that child) ? Are they to be told that their family is a "pretend" family, rather than a real one ? And for the gay teens themselves, that any relationships they choose to enter into, must necessarily be a "pretend family" rather than a real one ? How insulting, and condescending, to presume to define whether teenagers' present and future families are real or pretend !
(One could try to argue the alternative view – which, sadly, seems to have been largely if not completely ignored by Gay Rights' Organisations – that the wording of the clause is such that it would be perfectly OK to treat homosexuality as as valid a family relationship as a heterosexual one, and the thing being prohibited by the second subsection is treating it as if it isn't. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that this was the intention behind the phrasing, but the poor wording does make something of a mockery of the clause !)
Campaigners in favour of Section 28 would have you believe that its repeal will lead to Gay Rights' Organisations actively recruiting "innocents" to their cause whilst they are still in school. Little is thought of those who know, without any need for recourse to such organisations, that they are not heterosexual whilst they are teenagers. They are expendable, they can be safely ignored, because in the eyes of these campaigners they do not exist. Similar ignoring of evidence (and loss of logical thought) can be seen in some of the arguments against equalising the heterosexual and homosexual ages of consent; it may, indeed, be unpleasant and dangerous for a 16 year old boy to enter into a relationship with a 30 year old gay male predator, but the same arguments and more could be produced against a 16 year old girl entering into a relationship with a 30 year old straight male predator. After all, they could both catch a nasty STD, but the boy can't get pregnant and tied down by a child for the next 18 years. This latter fact appears to be comprehensively ignored by people who campaign against the equalising of the AOC, a view which smacks not only of homophobia, but also of sexism ("our boys are important, our future; who cares what happens to our girls ?").
In short, I believe that Section 28 is harming and hurting gay teenagers even as you read this. It must be repealed, and the fact that this has not yet happened is nothing short of an outrage.
Oh yes. That woman quoted at the beginning of the essay, the one who contemplated suicide because of the lack of understanding of her sexuality as a teenager ? That was me.
Content and design by
Diana Galletly
Last updated January 2005.