This weekend marks 20 years since the repeal of Section 28 in England and Wales – a devastating law introduced in 1988 by the then Conservative government that barred local authority workers from ‘promoting homosexuality’ and its ‘acceptability’.
In practice, the legislation – named for the fact it appeared in clause 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 – meant schools could not teach students about gay relationships, or even suggest it was OK to be queer, while councils were prevented from funding books, films and materials with LGBT content.
The impacts were “of course devastating”, one queer elder told openDemocracy this week. Section 28, repealed in Scotland in 2000, helped legitimise “really harmful views” about queer people. Two decades on, these views continue to inform UK health and education policy, he explained, impacting queer and trans people’s safety in their communities, experiences at work and school, and access to healthcare.
Another advocate told openDemocracy that more recent governments had not done enough to “undo decades of hurt and damage”, and that the Conservatives today risk “failing another generation through inaction”.
“It’s not enough to repeal a law, put your hands up and say: ‘That’s a great, progressive move, well done us!’” said Johanna, a 25-year-old trans woman living in Glasgow. “It’s not enough to go from actively harming us, to just not doing anything. We need to start actively reducing the harm that’s been caused.”
LGBT education
Johanna started primary school in 2003, two months before Section 28 was repealed. “Although the law was gone, it had a very strong, lasting impact on me, as the first generation to go through school without it,” she said. “It had a massive impact on how we were taught about queerness, and whether we were taught about queerness at all.”
One of Johanna’s teachers told her outright years later that some members of staff still wouldn’t cover LGBT topics because of Section 28: “They still felt they couldn’t do it, and that was in 2013 – a decade after it had been repealed… That’s a couple of generations that are going to lose out on a proper education on this stuff, based on which class they happened to be in.”
Towards the end of Johanna’s time at school, things were “going in the right direction,” she said. “But it’s clear a lot more needs to be done to make sure teachers are confident and comfortable enough to talk about this stuff. It’s all well and good to say, it’s allowed – we also need to get clearer guidance to people who have been told, for 20 years, that it’s against the law.”
Sean, a 19-year-old trans man from South Wales, said things are changing at a slower rate in more rural areas. “It’s only through chance that I knew what being trans was. It wasn’t spoken about at my school, and I wasn’t taught about things like homophobia either.”
Homophobic bullying went largely unchallenged by his teachers, he said, even though he started school years after section 28 was repealed. “I was speaking to someone the other day and they said their teacher would challenge that sort of thing, and I was like: ‘Teachers did that?!’ It hadn’t even occurred to me that a teacher would challenge homophobic behaviour, because it was so normal at my school.”
Sean suspects his teachers “didn’t feel equipped” to confront his bullies, or feared complaints from parents if they intervened. “That’s a hangover from Section 28,” he explained. “You needed to be careful then, how you supported students. Some teachers still don’t know what’s allowed and what’s not.
“Today though, there’s really no reason you can’t say to a class of 14-year-olds: ‘I don’t want you using that language because it’s homophobic and homophobia is wrong.’ What complaint could a parent make? Like, OK, you think homophobia is right? That’s a problem for you, then.’”
Not everyone has people around who will support themSean
Sean started to medically transition in his final year of school. “I had a lot of support,” he said. “But the reason I had so much support was because my parents and teachers were good people. It wasn’t because the right systems were in place. My school itself did the bare minimum. If those teachers hadn’t have been there, I’d have been fucked… Not everyone has people around who will support them that way. It shouldn’t be down to luck.”
Nick, a cisgender gay man from the north-east of England, started school in 1987 and says he had an “awful” time as a result of Section 28. “Growing up in a small, working-class town in the north-east, I stood out like a sore thumb,” he said. “I was bullied relentlessly. It was constant, every day. The school was aware of it and it was never challenged… They had that silence put on them by Section 28, but I still can’t put my head around it. They had a duty of care to somebody, whether it was about them being gay or not.”
When he joined the Scouts, and faced more homophobic bullying, he was asked to withdraw. “My mum was called in by the leader… He was so powerless and didn’t know what to do. It was just easier to remove the queer person as a ‘problem’. I think that speaks volumes about what Section 28 did. People didn’t know what to do with us.”
Britain has come a long way since then, particularly when it comes to sexuality, Nick explained. Five years ago, he and his husband adopted a daughter, now six. They are involved in a local group called Curious Acts that runs queer events for families and young people around Newcastle. “They’re brilliant,” said Nick. “But it’s still a bit of a controversy online. Often, there’s somebody picketing events… Sure, it’s fine to go to one of the big pride parades in Manchester, but it would just be nice to have that in my small town, without it being controversial.”
He added: “A lot of the attitudes we see stem from Section 28. There are places I wouldn’t feel comfortable going to in my town, even now. A lot of that is from all those ill teachings.”
He said his daughter’s school is “absolutely clueless – still”. “They do talk about inclusive families… but that tends to be around single parents, having a mum and a step-mum, and being looked after by your grandparents. As a queer family, we are very much an anomaly here.”
Healthcare
Mandatory LGBT education must be a priority, but the damage caused by Section 28 goes further than schooling, Johanna explained.
Most GPs lack even “a basic understanding” of trans healthcare, Johanna told openDemocracy. “Whenever I go to my GP with a problem, there’s an element of: ‘Well, it could be related to your hormones, so who knows!’ And I’m like, ‘You’re my doctor, please find out!’”
“They keep saying: ‘We don’t know about this stuff,’ and they tell me to see the private provider who prescribed my hormones.”
She added: “They’re essentially [gatekeeping] my access to healthcare and answers about my body and how I’m feeling because they’re not willing to engage with these things. If you’re not getting taught that at medical school, you need to be asking why. You need to start speaking up at your university and saying: ‘Why aren’t we learning about this?’ when they do their course feedback forms.”
When Sean needed blood tests to monitor his hormone levels while starting HRT, his GP wasn’t sure what tests he needed. “In healthcare, people just don’t know what they’re doing,” he said. “Every GP I go to, for any healthcare thing, it seems like I’m the first trans person they’ve treated… How am I supposed to know what blood tests I need? They’re the ones with all the training.”
It’s not enough to go from actively harming us to not doing anything. We need to start actively reducing harm. That’s something my teacher did… just by being supportiveJohanna
The progress made since the law was repealed in 2003 continues to come under threat, with escalating Tory attacks on queer and trans communities, including campaigns to limit trans kids’ access to hormone blockers, and the failure to deliver on a five-year promise to ban harmful anti-LGBT conversion practices. Earlier this year, LGBT campaigners warned against the government’s proposed ‘trans schools guidance’, which would see teachers forced to ‘out’ trans kids to their parents, among other measures – calling it “the new Section 28”.
“It’s scary. That would have affected me massively,” Johanna told me. “If that was brought in, and people were required to out trans kids to their parents, I would not have been safe to play with my gender expression at school, and I would not have been safe to speak to any teachers about it.
“I do think it’s all talk though, and that it’s going to be voted out next year. But the fact that it’s talk at all – that this kind of talk is deemed acceptable as a political statement – is disquieting… Stuff like that has an aggressive effect on things. It’s in the media and teachers are taking that on board and they’re thinking: ‘Right, I’m just going to steer clear of that.”
But there are ways for allies and advocates to push back, she believes, like speaking directly to people involved in medical councils and teaching training, or urging university students to talk to their lecturers and make use of module feedback forms.
Reducing harm
Making LGBT education mandatory at schools is another priority, Johanna said. “It’s a part of life that kids are going to encounter – whether they’re gay or not. It’s important to give them a grounding so that bigoted ideas don’t spread.”
Addressing teachers, she added: “There will be students in your class who are not straight and cis. The way you teach this stuff will impact them… We need to be more willing to say: ‘Trans people live happy lives and that’s OK.’ It doesn’t need to be a famous musician or an actor or whatever, it can just be: ‘Look, trans people go off and live their lives and it’s chill!’
“It’s not just an anti-bullying thing. What about telling kids to go easy on themselves? [To say that] it’s OK if you’re figuring it out or feeling scared.”
Johanna had a drama teacher who was “really supportive”. “I wanted to write about LGBT theatre. She told me she was gay and we started talking about identity… I told her I didn’t think I was cis.
“I want to go back and tell her I’m really happy now and that she played a role in that. And that’s the thing: that kind of support – even minor, gentle support, saying ‘you can come to me with this’ – makes a huge difference.”
LGBT education doesn’t just benefit gay and trans people, Sean added. “It’s like the argument that sexism harms everyone – it’s the same thing here: You’re not creating people who are respectful… If they’re cishet, that’s fine, sure, but they’re still going to have issues later on. They’re going to be homophobic and transphobic and they’ll have to grow out of that.”
