I should have spent school preparing for the future. Instead I spent it fighting to be included

While washing up coffee cups at work when I was 17, a colleague told me that school years are the best years of your life. I smiled and nodded. I hoped he was wrong. On the bus to school each morning, I sat with sweaty palms and a lump in my throat. My school practised exclusion, preached hostility, and stigmatised LGBTQ+ people. I went to a Catholic school, but it was one of many schools up and down the country, faith and non-faith, that don’t teach about LGBTQ+ identities in a positive light.

In 2020, my school updated its relationships and sex education (RSE) policy in line with government guidance. In a draft policy they included a clause that stated: “LGBT+ young people should feel included and recognised at school so that they are able to build safer, more informed relationships, and will have more access to support. We are also committed to an RSE that makes every pupil feel valued and included and is relevant to them. This means we are committed to an LGBT+ inclusive curriculum.”

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After consulting parents, this clause was removed – the only change to the entire policy. I was told by the headteacher that the school was not allowed to “promote” LGBTQ+ identities. A long string of incidents reflected this approach. The student pantomime was edited after rumours of “lesbian themes”, the publication of an article I wrote about the history of the Pride flag for the student paper was blocked, and a display about LGBTQ+ scientists was taken down due to “inappropriate content”. 

Until year 11, I only learned about LGBTQ+ people in RE lessons, when we were taught about homosexuality alongside adultery, and gay rights were framed as a debate. I thought that coming out would be my most challenging queer experience, but existing in a hostile school environment was much harder. 

I was always academic, setting my sights on going to Oxbridge at the ripe age of 11. When sixth form rolled around, I was focused and determined. But the active exclusion of people like me at my school became a distraction. 

It was difficult to focus on my education in an environment where I felt so unhappy and so unwelcome. I missed lessons for meetings with members of the senior leadership team, spent countless hours preparing material to back up my arguments for inclusion, and wasted my precious last years at school fighting leadership for the right to be included. 

On a couple of occasions, I was permitted to give an assembly for LGBTQ+ History Month, though the headteacher told me shortly afterwards that they were followed by complaints from parents. My teachers told me to stop trying, to just focus on my future and leave the issue alone. There were many moments where I felt entirely alone, like no one was listening and no one understood. Many people were sympathetic, but few really understood why I wouldn’t give it up. 

I became burnt out and depressed. I spent hours in the school library, staring out the windows at the trees, imagining I was somewhere else entirely. I sat through lessons that would have previously captivated me with my mind elsewhere. I yearned for safety, security, and community.

Now I’m at university and have space from that time. Learning is much easier in an environment where my identity isn’t under fire. I have met so many interesting queer people and have found and created many joyous queer spaces. But the shame instilled in me by my school lingers. That time marked me as a person, and I still feel anger over the hostility and discrimination I faced. Mostly, I feel sadness that my precious school years were contaminated by exclusion and stigma.

I became a Just Like Us ambassador at the beginning of 2024 and have since delivered almost 20 talks to school students about my experiences growing up. I find healing in the knowledge that the students I talk to are getting the representation and information I never had. But I fear for the students in schools like mine, where LGBT+ people continue to be marginalised. I still feel that lump in my throat as I write about it now. 

Many of my peers look back on school with fond nostalgia. I look back with sadness and relief that that period of my life is over. My school years were not the best years of my life. And although that probably never would have been true, my school choosing inclusion would have given them a fighting chance.

Just Like Us needs your help to ensure no young person grows up wishing they had been supported at school – donate now. Olive Watt is an ambassador for Just Like Us.

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