Twins Bradley and James Elliot-Watson were model students in high school: good grades, extracurricular activities, popular among their peers. But while Bradley recalls his teenage years at their religious private school as some of the best of his life, James, who is gay, cannot say the same.
“There was a big doom and gloom conversation about AIDS, the consequences of accepting a gay lifestyle, how this wasn’t the will of God. They also said they’d call my parents in and talk to them. The experience culminated in James coming out to his classroom in year 11. He was sent back to the school office and immediately suspended, and told he had to arrive at and leave campus later than his peers and do his classwork in isolation.Ten years on, it still makes him furious. “It became: ‘James put your head down, don’t say anything, we just need to get you through the HSC’. In that final year of school, I did a complete 180 , got a girlfriend, went to Bible college.
But many families still have to navigate potential discrimination, especially in NSW, Western Australia and South Australia, where there aren’t strong state-based protections for gay or transgender students.
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