With Wear It Purple Day coming up tomorrow, it was super tempting to write a cathartic personal essay on the struggles of being bullied in school for your sexuality and the importance of being nurtured in those vital years of emotional/physical/psychological development.
It was tempting to write about the time I was pinned to the ground by a group of so-called friends at one of my first ever sleep-overs – it was tempting to write about how one 12-year-old grabbed my dick from beneath my trousers, laughed, and called me a fag as his mother went about cooking dinner in the next room.
It was tempting to write about the vivid memories of schoolboys circling me, hawk-like, cackling and calling me names as I wept for my family. It was tempting to write about the profound cost – emotional, physical, financial – the bullying had on my parents and their marriage. It was tempting to write about the myriad defence mechanisms and social anxieties that still trip me up as a result – today, some 15 years later.
Listen to Meshel Laurie discussing the people who try to ‘pray the gay away’. (Post continues after audio.)
But this week it was spectacularly revealed that a petition signed by 17,000 well-meaning, misinformed and scared parents has been lodged against the Safe Schools program – and yeah, I’m angry about it.
So instead, I want to write about how initiatives like Wear It Purple Day and Safe Schools are about so much more than sexuality and fostering a culture of tolerance in the schoolyard. I want to write about how they’re about beckoning in a new generation of young adults – adults who inevitably grow into middle-aged men and women of varying manner, religion, disposition, ethics and fulfilment. How they’re about ensuring these middle-aged men and women understand, at a basic level, the difference between right and wrong – ensuring they know how to treat other people with respect.
Top Comments
My children will not be participating in this program.
I have no issue with people choosing to be gay, trans or otherwise. I teach my kids that bullying anybody for any reason is wrong. I dont need this program to teach them that. Not that I think for one minute that this program strictly deals with bullying issues. I do not want my children being sexualised by this program. I'm their mother, I know them better than the creator of this program, and I know that they are not ready for it.
If I show you respect and tolerate your values, whatever they may be - I think my family deserves the same. I dont think there is a problem with kids that choose to participate in this program, as long as mine aren't forced to. Same applies to scripture classes. If it's about a value system, the parents know best and should be able to make a choice as to what their kids are capable of being exposed to.
Leave it to parents to teach about values, I would much rather them spend their time improving on maths and literacy!!
Great post.
My children will not be wearing purple and it's offensive to suggest that any parents who don't encourage this are grown up bullies.
This program is not about bullying it's about indoctrination.
If religion is no longer allowed to be taught in schools then neither should this.
Children are bullied for MANY different reasons and quite frankly LGBTI would rate well below those other reasons.
Where are the programs for overweight kids, kids who are bullied due to being from poorer homes, kids who just don't fit in? Singling out a minority doesn't make any sense to me at all except if the agenda has nothing to do with bullying in the first place as is the case with Safe Schools.
Okay but one thing, people don't 'choose' to be LGBTI