Schools Out...

I was at work last week when the local sixth formers finished school, forever, and it reminded me of when I left school one sunny June afternoon back in 1998. The only difference was they all looked sad and upset which I wasn't, in fact I was downright ecstatic!

I hated school from the moment I walked in at the tender age of eleven until that glorious day seven years later when I finally felt free!

Kids love something/someone different, something that's not their accepted version of normal, something or someone they can abuse just to make themselves feel better and to make their own insecurities easier to deal with.

I was not your average adolescent male. I hated football, rugby and cricket, I had nothing in common with most of the other boys at school, I never spent my time talking about girls, sport or cars and I never had any male friends.

The few friends I had were all girls and I'd spend my lunchtimes either by myself walking around wishing it was half three or with a few girls hiding behind the gym eating Billy Bear sandwiches.

Gay-Bray

Gay-Cotton

puff

faggot

queer

bender

Were some of the imaginative names I was called, I think I was even branded a lesbian at some point, stupid children!

So yeah, I'm gay and I've been out for ten years, I'm happy and comfortable with who I am but when I was 11, 12, 13 I wasn't, I didn't even know what gay meant let alone what it entailed, but to be called it practically everyday with the negative connotations it carried was soul destroying.

I don't doubt for a second that the name calling affected my education. There were classes where all I'd hear for a full hour was abuse, of course I couldn't concentrate and so my grades in these classes dropped, the worse part was, the teachers turned a blind eye, they heard, I know they did but I guess it was easier to ignore it than deal with it. Some teachers they were!

I remember spending hours and hours sitting in my bedroom feeling tortured and crying to myself and praying to anyone that may be listening to make me not gay because gay was wrong and bad and terrible and I'd be crucified and beaten all my life, or so I was made to believe.

What right did these people have to make me feel this way? Some may say 'they were only kids, they don't know better' well thats bollocks, I knew at 13 that bullying was wrong and so should they have.

I could go on for pages and pages reliving the tales of my tortured school life but I won't because there is no real point, it was all many years ago and as I said, I'm happy with my sexuality now and frankly don't give a shit what people think about it.

It's a narrow minded world and there will always be ignorant idiots who don't believe we are all different, I'd like to think things have changed thanks to the likes of Paul O'Grady, Will Young and Graham Norton who have made being gay alot easier. I would also like to think that maybe kids in school who are gay have it a little easier now, but on the basis that quite a few of the people who called me names are now teachers themselves I shan't hold my breath, I can only hope they have grown up a little bit themselves!

I'm incredibly grateful that I had a great mom and dad who loved me no matter what and that I was incredibly thick skinned and resourceful, for those that aren't the story may not have so happy an ending...