While questions of religious freedom for Christian schools have generated campaigns and activity, due to a series of legislative initiatives, conversion bills and a specific bill introduced by Allegra Spender, another side of the debate has been ignored in discussion among evangelical Christians. The negative lived experiences of LGBTQIA students in low-fee Christian schools remain a continuing issue.
For example, here is a recent post by Joel Hollier, a social worker whose PhD was in experiences of trauma amongst LGBTQA+ people in conservative religious settings, and The Other Cheek suspects that his time at Wycliffe School and the Sydney Missionary and Bible College may have determined his field of research.
Here is a quote from a recent gentle post by Hollier on Facebook. “I very rarely speak on social media about my time growing up gay in a Christian school. Partly because many of my friends here were my teachers and peers. Partly because it is still exceedingly painful to recall. I vividly remember the fierce bullying that took place beneath teachers’ noses, which was summarily dismissed and, on occasions, encouraged. I recall diabolically inappropriate sex-ed lessons in which I was made to feel filthy, possessed, and impure. With no choice but to recoil in on myself, I took the bravest course of action I could: I hid with all my might, lest word of my proclivities be leaked. I also took the cowardly course, and in an effort to deflect attention from myself, I followed the lead of my good Christian teachers and cast disdain on the few kids who had their heads above the parapet.
“Make no mistake, Wycliffe was a school that prided itself on its pastoral care. For me, that meant a decade of agony until I’d run far enough away from those people that their stones couldn’t hit me. I know dozens of others whose lives have followed the same worn path.
“To the better teachers I had at Wycliffe, please know that the shrapnel of your silence is still there. I am also open to apologies, because my faith leads me to a posture of grace in the opportunity for reconciliation.”
In a submission to the Australian Law Reform Commission, a former staff member of another low-fee Christian school detailed the bullying she witnessed. (The Other Cheek has received permission to quote from the confidential submission. The school was not named in the submission)
“Student 1: This student was in Year 5, and had attended the school since kindergarten. He was a popular student with a close and supportive friendship network, who expressed a strong Christian faith, frequently took on peer leadership roles, including volunteering to lead class prayers and devotions, and had a history of being chosen by staff to mentor new students as he was known to be consistently kind, caring and thoughtful.
“Over the course of 2017, Student 1 had started to think about, and write in his school English journal about, his romantic attraction to other boys. When one of the other staff saw a writing piece which described a boy falling in love with another boy, she said to him that it would be best to tear out that page, and to make sure he didn’t express anything like that again. She showed the page to me and then told other staff about it, and beginning from this discussion in the staffroom, at which I was present, I noticed a developing pattern among the staff of this student being treated differently and labelled as a ‘problem’.
“Not long after this incident, the marriage equality campaign period began. At this point the peer bullying in Stage 3, targeting students singled out as ‘gay’, became steadily worse, and Student 1 became a target. My observations suggested that this uptick in peer bullying coincided with campaign initiatives by the school executive…”
“One day at the height of the campaign period, the class was crossing the road for a specialist lesson in a public space opposite the school, and one of the Year 6 students said to Student 1 that he should stay on the road and get run over and die, because he was gay and God hated him. The student froze in the middle of the road and had to be pulled off the road by one of his friends, who then stayed with him to ensure his safety…”
“The next serious incident happened around a week later, this time inside the Stage 3 classroom. At a time when I was out of the classroom, the same group of Year 6 boys had told Student 1 that he was “going to hell” and was “demon possessed”, and in response the student made anotherserious attempt to harm himself, in the classroom.”
“Student 2: This student was in year 6 and had also been at the school since kindergarten. He had a very outgoing, exuberant personality and was a talented singer and actor, who had been encouraged to develop his singing gifts as part of the student ‘worship team’ who would lead singing at special assemblies. Over the course of 2017, and increasingly during the marriage equality campaign period, I observed that Student 2 was getting more and more minor negative attention from both classroom teachers and senior staff over issues like his ‘attitude’ and ’emotionality’. Student 2 expressed that he felt he was being given the message that he somehow wasn’t acting “like a boy” enough. My observation also was that this was the messaging the staff were conveying – that Student 2 was somehow under suspicion and considered a ‘problem’, because his personality didn’t fit neatly into the school culture’s gender stereotypes, and he presented in a way they associated with ‘being gay’. Student 2 himself didn’t make any statements at school about his sexuality or gender identity, to my knowledge.
“Student 2 was the target of a limited amount of verbal homophobic bullying from other students (being called ‘gay’, which was only ever used as a slur in that environment). But he had a large group of close and supportive friends, a popular profile among the students for his performance talents, and his family was influential in the community; and my observation was that these factors gave him some protection from peer bullying.
“One day in Term 4, I found Student 2 hiding behind the door in the small room where I held my individual student learning support sessions. He was curled up on the floor sobbing and shaking.
“He told me that a very senior member of the school executive leadership team [not the same person referred to in the account of Student 1] had called him over in the playground and told him that he didn’t like the way he talked (not the content of what he was saying, but his natural intonation, gestures and mannerisms). This senior staff member had said to Student 2, ‘You disgust me’. Student 2 was too upset to articulate clearly any more of what this senior staff member had said, but it was clear that those words had affected him the most.”
Elise christian, a former staff member at a low-fee Christian school, recounted her experience of seeking to protect LGBTQIA students in a Sydney Morning Herald Article. “The incidents I witnessed included homophobic slurs, graphic drawings depicting physical violence towards LGBTIQA+ people, and religiously worded accusations and threats – for example, that the student being targeted was “demon possessed” and “going to hell because God hated them”. The incidents seriously affected the wellbeing of this student, and I felt that I had no choice but to adopt extra supervision measures to prioritise their safety.
“Even though I documented each of these incidents and passed on my reports to the appropriate staff members, the students who were leading the bullying were allowed to continue for some weeks with no meaningful intervention. When they were finally interviewed by the school executive, they defended themselves by saying, ‘but I was just telling them what the Bible says.’
These stories show a gap in care for gay students, alongside Christian schools promoting their non-affirming stance and ethos. These examples happen to come from low-fee schools but the Other cheek is not saying these problems only occur there. Unrestrained comments by staff and bullying by students may be regarded by supporters of laws like Allegra Spender’s bill, which places limits on religious freedom activity in schools, as unavoidable harm.
One common tactic by Christian schools to persuade parents to withdraw gay students is to tell them that “this school may not be the one for your child.” At least some of the time this is well-meant, and it may in fact (sometimes even often) be in a student’s best interests – but it also absolves the school of coming to terms with the harder task of working out how to treat LGBTQIA students with respect and dignity. It has the other benefit in terms of politics of avoiding formal expulsion of LGBTQIA students.
The challenge for these schools is teaching the Bible – and at the same time being kind to those who find some of what it teaches incredibly difficult. LGBTQIA students may leave school still disagreeing with what the school taught ablout Christianity – but do they feel they were loved?
Some schools – particularly some Church schools with an evangelical ethos – do try to do both.
To maintain the freedom to teach a Christian worldview, while in receipt of government funding, avoiding the type of stories outlined above is arguably essential for maintaining a social license.
Image credit: creazilla.com