I had always been a bit scared about being out as a teacher. But then when I became
really ill, and this was something, a very very serious illness, and it was
something which I needed a transplant for, it was a big moment for me I suppose
in life. And so recovering from that, one of the things that really changed my
view was someone lending me the film Milk. And that was about the famous US
politician who was over in San Francisco and he was the first openly gay
politician. And he had this phrase which was that to 'come out come out be
yourself because when they know one of us we won't be the strangers anymore'.
And that really struck me and I remember thinking I've sort of been given a
second chance at life here really. And it's an extraordinary generous thing
someone does to donate their organs, a liver in my case. And I just
thought 'I need to make a difference'. So I went back to the school and the
headteacher, Martin Post, was brilliant. And I sat down and said 'look I want to do this'
and he said 'well you've got my complete backing, sort of take it in stages' I said 'great'.
So the first thing was just having a conversation in class and fortunately it
sort of happened fairly organically. I just got engaged and I was fiddling
around with my wedding ring and absent-mindedly nearly dropped it. And a
student at the front said 'Oh Si,r she'll be really cross if you drop it!' and I
said 'Oh it's he actually' Just a split moment decision - that's the time.
A you could see sort of little 'huh?'. If they weren't paying attention before
they were at that point. And what was really interesting they said 'oh did you
say he?' 'Yeah that's right and yeah my you know my partner's a man we're gonna get
civilly partnered.' And a sort of slight shock in the room. But actually after that
lesson we quite rapidly got back to what was a great physics lesson actually.
And that was it really and I kind of thought 'Oh someone's gonna say something' but nobody
really did. And so feeling a bit emboldened I went back to Martin Post
and said 'Right I'd like to do some assemblies.' So I did assemblies for all the
year groups and I said I wanted to talk about the language, LGBT language and the laws
and the science behind it and what does it mean in terms of the way we work with
each other. And it was scary because I had been at that school as a student as well. But it
also felt like a really amazing thing to do. And people said thank you
afterwards. A few people had questions and even a few years later I had people
sending me messages saying 'that was amazing, thank you.' And so then you know I
was then someone who was just openly being me being being gay in school. And
even if they never asked me a question they just knew 'Yeah, I know someone now.'
And I thought that made a big difference.
I wondered if colleagues might react
negatively and I thought there are some people who are quite devout and
religious and maybe that's an issue. Nobody said anything and some people
said you know 'well done for doing that and it's prompted these conversations.'
I wondered about parents as well actually. That was almost my biggest fear that the
school would get a whole load of complaints. It never did. I know there
are other teachers who have similar circumstances where they have been
parental complaints. But with the right support and the right thinking actually
you can deal with that.
If you can be someone who makes it known without making a big deal of it then
that's a very powerful thing. And the advice really is keep it going. And if I
have one regret is that I kind of did it once and then it's a small follow up
later but I really wish I'd sort of followed through and helped the school
through these transformation programs. They weren't really there so much in
2010 and or they weren't so well known and they are now. And I think you can be
do a really powerful thing by actually just helping senior leaders and
governors and there may be people at other schools. So I think number one, do
your research. Make sure you've read how other people have done this and ideally
make sure you have the support of senior leaders. Unfortunately there will be
senior leaders who say 'oh no no, don't, actually shouldn't do that.' But you
should speak to your union, you should speak to colleagues. It's something which
is done best where the whole school takes an approach at the same time.
And there are amazing programs from Stonewall and Educate and Celebrate and diversity
role models and all sorts of amazing programs out there. There's books out
there now which schools can read. You need to think a little bit because
suddenly you might be someone where children come and confide more things to
you because of who you have now become, this symbol, so you need to think about
safeguarding issues. But don't feel scared of that – it's the fact that you
are there means people will be more open with you potentially than they would
have done before. Preparation is really important. But also think of the
difference you'll make – you can be that teacher you can't you needed when you were
at school and be that role model and that can make an enormous difference.
And interestingly just a couple of months ago I was back in the school and
a student who's in the sixth form said 'actually I chose this school over
another school because I saw the article you'd written about it' and I'd written a
little piece in The Guardian, sort of a year after. 'And I saw that and
thought well if it's a school where a teacher can do that this is a school for
me.' I thought 'well it's still making a difference' so actually that feels
important and that feels like I'm, you know, I'm still proud of doing that even
though I wrote about it and hundreds of other teachers do the same and maybe
never write about it. But for every single one that does it's a very
powerful thing. There was a bit of media buzz at the time and I used that
opportunity to set up something called Out Teacher, a website. But more
recently these two fantastic teachers have now turned that into
something called LGBT Ed – so that's a network for any LGBT educator, teacher,
teaching assistant, anyone who works in education – a network where they can
come together and they can really think about 'how do we become this sort of
community of LGBT educators?'