Sinéad Baker | Editor-at-Large
This morning volunteers from ShoutOut were informed that the anti-homophobia workshops they were about to run for seventy secondary school students had been cancelled. They were reportedly called off due to concerns of the school board that both sides of had to be represented. The question that immediately came to mind mind was: “Both sides of what?”. Maybe one might guess that they were referring to both sides of the debate on the upcoming marriage equality referendum, or perhaps the two sides of the argument that LGBT people be fully accepted in society, however neither of these debates can be relevant here: ShoutOut is not a political organisation, it does not advocate on political issues such as the upcoming referendum.
Hence, the only ‘sides’ that could be referred to are the two sides of a debate on bullying: those who believe it’s okay for students to be bullied due to their sexual orientation or gender, and those who don’t. Because that’s what ShoutOut does: it preaches tolerance and acceptance. It discusses the effects that bullying due to sex, gender, or sexual orientation could have on a fellow student, a peer, and endorses a position of non-discrimination. It’s difficult to see how anyone could object to this, especially anyone involved in a school-environment: a parent, a teacher, a board member. When we consider that bullying is typically treated with the upmost severity by schools, and that one of a parent’s greatest hopes when sending their child to school is that they will be happy and accepted, for a school to refuse to take a step that would minimise incidents of bullying is unacceptable.
Reports are emerging that the workshops were cancelled due to the complaints of two parents, although no official verification of this has emerged yet. The fact that the workshops were cancelled the morning they were due to take place, and that said workshops had taken place in the school in 2012 and 2013, suggest that the decision to cancel them came from external pressure rather than the concerns of the school itself. Yet there seems to be questionable motives from those who moved to have the workshops cancelled. There needs to be a realisation that to endorse the position that no child should be bullied for any reason does not necessarily entail that you fully endorse that reason. One might object to someone being bullied for being obese for example, and this doesn’t entail that they publically endorse obesity. For a parent or a school to not take every step to ensure that children and their classmates were accepted and allowed to thrive at school is simply unacceptable.
The cancellation of the workshops only reinforces the idea that to be LGBT is objectionable, and hence for others to discriminate against you is tolerable. This position is a prevalent one: a ShoutOut survey found that 83% of students think homophobic bullying is more tolerated by students than other kinds of bullying. One can only imagine what it might be like to be an LGBT student who is bullied for being such, and to see that workshop be cancelled – to be a student who was about to see the rest of their classmates learn about their identity and be encouraged to accept and not to discriminate, and to see others actively work to have that opportunity taken away. This situation is likely to have happened: according to ShoutOut statistics 67% of all students have witnessed homophobic or sexuality-based bullying in school, and 49% of LGBTQ students have experienced homophobic bullying in school.
These figures are shocking, and for a school to not attempt to address the problem out of the fear of offending a small few is disgraceful. If you were to ask any school for their stance of bullying, they would respond that they treat it as unacceptable. Hence, to cancel a workshop whose purpose is to address and minimise a certain type of bullying is simply hypocritical.
Even aside from these concerns, the fact that the students were not given the workshop is even more of a worry than it seems. While it reflects a homophobic attitude and a lack of consideration for children’s wellbeing, it also reveals a system that doesn’t prioritise the needs of its students or the desire of the majority. That the dissent of a small few managed to get the workshop cancelled for everyone is a disgraceful, and also reflects a bizarre contradiction in terms of school policy. Irish health and education guidelines mean that parents do not need to be informed as to external groups speaking to their children, which has proved controversial in cases such as external speakers that are anti-abortion dismissing other views in talks with students. It is important for parents to be able to critically engage with what their children are being taught, however it appears that in this case a small few – parents, board members or otherwise – were given the right to dictate what all of the children were taught. If it is the case that two parents that complained, the views of the other 68 sets of parents should not have been dismissed.
This is just one more failing of a school system that refuses to address LGBT issues. Sexual education programmes rarely address anything outside of hetrosexual relationships and ignore trans* issues entirely. School guidance counsellors remain under trained in terms of dealing with LGBT health both physically and mentally. Schools must address these issues quickly and adequately, and rejecting a free workshop from qualified individuals is indicative of an attitude that is unwilling to do that.
Coláiste Eoin’s own anti-bullying policy states a commitment to implementing education and prevention strategies that “build empathy, respect and resilience in students” and “explicitly address the issues of cyber-bullying: including in particular, homophobic and transphobic bullying”. The fact remains that the school, like all schools, has a responsibility in terms of teaching its students to be good and safe citizens, of making schools safe spaces that don’t tolerate discrimination or bullying, and of ensuring that students are aware of social issues. In cancelling a non-political workshop, for reasons that are presumably political, that aimed to make sure all of its students were treated equally, the school has failed to do that.
Photo courtesy of The Independent
