VIEWS & OPINION
LGBT+ History Month highlights the importance of delivering a more representative history in the school curriculum Comment by BEKI MARTIN, Executive Director of Facing History and Ourselves
February was LGBT+ History Month, an important opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate LGBTQ+ experiences and achievements. While this year’s theme, ‘Behind the Lens’, asked us to explore the contribution of the LGBTQ+ community to film and television, the month also prompts us to consider broader questions about representation, inclusivity and equality.
Alongside Pride Month, LGBT+
History Month is now an established event in the school calendar. However, the extent to which LGBTQ+ history is integrated into the curriculum, and LGBTQ+ people’s experiences and accomplishments acknowledged, varies widely.
An independent Facing History survey of 2,000 people aged between 14-17, revealed that only 35% believe they are being taught a representative version of history. Students may know of Alan Turing’s achievements and Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment, even the Stonewall Riots, but not likely the historical oppression of the LGBTQ+ community and the long history of its campaigning for equal rights. Many will be completely unaware of Section 28, and the devastating consequences it had for the LGBTQ+ community. Introduced in May 1988 by Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Section 28 of the Local Government Act stated that a local authority “shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality” or “promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”. Schools are places where young people should feel nurtured, safe and respected as they navigate who they are as an individual and their place in the world around them. Yet Section 28 prevented teachers from speaking about same-sex relationships with their pupils, closed down student support groups, took away safe spaces for adolescents questioning their sexuality and gender identity, and created an environment in which homophobic bullying was not addressed appropriately.
The continued marginalisation of LGBTQ+ history and LGBTQ+ writers within school curriculums is a legacy of Section 28. For fifteen years, young LGBTQ+ people were not able to see themselves represented in the books, plays and films they studied. Even after repeal, the culture of silence around LGBTQ+ histories and experiences remained with a generation of teachers having trained and worked under the law.
Representation matters and whose stories we tell matter. Seeing ourselves in what we read, see and hear fosters our self-acceptance, builds our self-esteem and encourages our acceptance of those who are different to us. Section 28 deprived a generation of young people of that potential, instead fuelling the stigmatisation of difference. We need to support and encourage students to think about whose experiences they are learning about, and whose perspectives have been sidelined or silenced. Questioning and diversifying the curriculum can boost a student’s sense of belonging and inclusion, build empathy and acceptance, and normalise the fact that our sexual and gender identities are complex and diverse. Embedding LGBTQ+ history, and the histories of other persecuted and marginalised minorities, into the curriculum and giving them proportional weight in textbooks and in literature lessons, would be a starting point to
March 2023
undo the damage caused by prejudice and oppression. Giving students the opportunity to explore what life was like under Section 28 for the LGBTQ+ community, shows how harmful stereotypes work to ostracise different communities and the ways these tropes continue to operate and scapegoat new minority groups today.
Section 28 was repealed in 2000 in Scotland, and across the rest of the country in 2003. In 2019, a new PSHE (Personal, Social, Health, Economic) curriculum was introduced in England, requiring that lessons include acknowledgement of LGBTQ+ rights and protect the physical and mental well-being of LGBTQ+ children. While positive, it’s worth noting the PSHE curriculum had not been updated since 2000, before Section 28’s repeal.
The revision to PSHE provision was followed by statutory guidance in 2020 that made Relationships Education compulsory for all primary school pupils, Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) compulsory at secondary school, and Health Education compulsory for pupils in all state-funded schools, in England. The guidance states that pupils should be taught about sex, sexuality, sexual health and gender identity in an inclusive and age-appropriate way. But while young people are better informed and educated about sexual orientation and gender identity, ignorance and prejudice continue. Our March 2021 survey found that 67% of young people had experienced prejudice and discrimination, 26% had experienced it towards themselves, and 22% had personally experienced homophobic abuse. Stonewall’s School Report (2017) found that 45% of LGBTQ+ pupils surveyed had been bullied at school and 52% reported hearing homophobic slurs frequently at school. The latest available hate crimes figures also portray a disturbing trend, with homophobic hate crimes increasing by 41% in the year to March 2022, and transgender identity hate crimes by 56%. Toxic anti-trans discourse circulates freely on social media and transphobia is platformed by some mainstream press, sentiments that can trickle down into the classroom and create a hostile environment for transgender youth. It is critical that we work to counter any polarisation developing in schools. Diversifying the curriculum is one important way of doing so. Another is to support our young people to be able to navigate social media confidently and proficiently, by developing the skills and tools they need to identify misinformation and bias, recognise manipulative language and tropes, and distinguish between appeals to emotion and fact. We also need to equip teachers with the support and training they need to have safe, sensitive conversations around sexuality and gender identity, not just in RSE but throughout the whole school curriculum. In 2021 Scotland became the first country in the world to embed LGBTQ+ inclusive teaching throughout the curriculum. LGBTQ+ history, issues and identities will be included in subjects across all age groups, in order to promote equality, reduce homophobic and transphobic bullying, and improve the experience of young LGBTQ+ people in education. It remains to be seen when - and against what potential opposition - the other nations of the United Kingdom will follow suit.
LGBT+ History Month remains an essential starting point for schools to create opportunities for students to reflect on the prejudice, discrimination and oppression suffered by the LGBTQ+ community, acknowledge LGBTQ+ achievements and contributions, and highlight LGBTQ+ voices and stories. Without this history, our young people are being deprived of a richer, more representative learning experience, one that cultivates empathy and understanding for difference, and true inclusivity.
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