Many LGBTQ+ teachers still live with the damaging effects of a piece of legislation that was lifted 20 years ago, a university professor and former Suffolk school teacher has said.
Section 28 was introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1988.
It decreed: “A local authority shall not promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.”
Professor Catherine Lee MBE is Professor of Inclusive Education and Leadership at Anglia Ruskin University. She qualified as a teacher in 1988, and worked in schools for the entire 15 years that Section 28 was enshrined in law.
“The fact it was worded in such a vague way meant that nobody knew how to stay on the right side of the law,” explained Professor Lee, who now lives in Acton, near Lavenham.
“It created this culture of fear. With hindsight, not one teacher was prosecuted under this law, and looking at its wording, it was completely unenforceable – but we didn’t know that at the time.”
Professor Lee moved to Suffolk in the mid-90s, and worked in secondary schools in west Suffolk and the coastal region until 2010.
“The abiding emotion I felt as a teacher was guilt.” she said. “I saw young people struggling with their own sexual identities and being homophobically bullied.
“But, because of that law and my own sexuality, I didn’t feel I could do anything to support them.
“I pretended not to hear the homophobic language in the corridors.”
She explained that she would always challenge any other kind of bullying, but that she was afraid that by tackling homophobia, others would realise that she was gay herself.
Professor Lee’s first teaching post was at a convent school in Liverpool.
It was during this time that she was out at a gay bar on a Saturday night – and came face to face with one of the girls on her netball team.
Professor Lee spent the weekend in a state of terror that she would be sacked on Monday morning.
Thankfully, this did not happen. However, the student did approach her, hoping to share her anxieties about her sexuality. Professor Lee regrets having to turn the student away.
“If she had told me she was pregnant, or that she was concerned about her academic work, I would have moved heaven and earth to help her,” said Professor Lee.
“But because of Section 28, I put my own fear above my responsibility to her, as a young person who needed some help.”
Professor Lee left teaching in 2010 to work in higher education. Her research shows that gay and lesbian teachers who began their careers while Section 28 was in effect are still living with its legacy.
A 2019 survey she conducted of LGBTQ+ teachers across the UK who had begun teaching prior to 2003 showed that many were still closeted at work.
They also tended to live farther away from their schools, and were more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression than those who began teaching after Section 28 had been revoked.
“You can’t live under a law for 15 years, one which says that your relationship is pretend and not legitimate, and not internalise that shame,” said Professor Lee.
She is thankful that the next generation of LGBTQ+ youth are now able to access support and celebrate Pride in schools.
Next week, a film will be released, based on journals kept by Professor Lee during her teaching career.
Blue Jean, starring Rosy McEwan, has been nominated for a BAFTA and will land in cinemas on Friday, February 10.
To buy Professor Lee’s book, Pretended: Schools and Section 28: Historical, Cultural and Personal Perspectives, visit: www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=pretended&crid=3GWJXR8RHCWP0&sprefix=pretended%2Caps%2C85&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
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