Gay girl forced to use boys’ changing rooms

A GIRL who was forced to share a PE changing room with boys because she is gay tells her shocking story in a new video to tackle homophobia.

The seven-minute film commissioned by Oldham National Union of Teachers (NUT) features members of Manchester Lesbian and Gay Youth project.

The young people, including Oldham pupils, talk about their experiences of homophobic bullying in schools, which have not been named to avoid a witch hunt.

One girl says: “When I was in PE, I couldn’t get changed in the girls’ toilets or the locker room so I had to get changed with the lads.

“My PE teacher said, ‘Oh yeah, you are not attracted to lads so you have to get changed there’ which pretty annoyed me, so every time PE was on I did not do it.” She eventually had to change school to escape homophobic bullying.

Another example involved a boy, who said: “I was about 14 when I was outed in school.

“The first day that I knew that people knew was when they all crowded round me and threw things at me. I hit one of them and I got suspended.”

He said racist or sexist bullying was dealt with more seriously by schools than homophobic abuse.

He added: “I really hated school because every day was just constant insults and things. The teachers told you to just get over it.”

Oldham NUT has been campaigning to tackle homophobia in schools and ran one of the first surveys on its prevalence. It has sent the video to all Oldham councillors.

Jeff Evans, the branch’s equality representative, said: “This is one of those rare opportunities to get young persons’ views of what homophobia really means. As adults we know there is an issue because we have got the statistics, we have got teachers saying this happens. But rarely do we get the chance to see what that means for the children concerned.

“The short film in a very effective way, without being sentimental, gets over the message. If it was on racism or sexism, people having to leave schools because the colour of their skin or gender, that would be front- page news.

“The question we have asked constantly is why is sexual discrimination being treated any differently? It is not about sex, it is to do with civil liberties.”

Mr Evans said that the daily homophobic bullying faced by pupils in the majority of schools was compounded — and implicitly endorsed — by the inaction of too many governing bodies.

Challenging them to act, he added: “The examples highlighted by these children can be found in lots of schools including Oldham schools. They are not exceptional.

“There are a lot of resources out there and Oldham NUT is the first organisation in the queue giving help.”

The national Schools Out website features a range of LGBT (lesbian, gay bisexual and trans) resources for schools, including history resources written by Mr Evans. The video is available to view on YouTube at

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASgFOtyK-w0&feature=youtu.be