What's it like to come out as an LGBT teacher? - YouTube

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?'