Created on: 20 Feb 2024 | Last modified: 12 Mar 2025
Today, Scotland is the first country in the world to commit to a national rollout of LGBT Inclusive Education. But it was only just over 20 years ago that a piece of public sector legislation prohibited the teaching of LGBT lives and relationships in schools.
So many of Scotland’s teachers and students lived through the devastating effects of Section 2A (known as Section 28 in England and Wales). We recently collated members’ written stories as part of a larger project in partnership with the Time for Inclusive Education Campaign (TIE) to develop a Section 28/2A teaching resource, which will be launched soon.
You can read their stories below.
Lessons Not Learned? No Repeat of The Past
Keep the Clause! Keep the Clause!
It’s the winter of 1999 and the billboards are everywhere.
Central Station, George Square, on the sides of buildings. Protect your children! Do you want your child to learn about anal sex? The listening government isn’t listening.
I am flummoxed.
This kind of thing was never mentioned in any of my cultural studies classes. Did I miss something? What was going on here?
At the first LGBT society meeting, a plastic cup of wine in hand (nobody has bothered spending the small budget on cheese, after all ‘eatin’ is cheatin’), I get clued in.
Section 28, I am told, is Thatcher’s lasting legacy. A uniquely insidious muzzle for teachers and youth workers alike, preventing them from telling us about us.
“What will we do?” I ask.
“Paint bomb the blasted things,”
David suggests, always the radical. A more timid voice suggests a vigil.
My head is swimming. I can’t wrap my noggin around this. What is so dangerous about my existence that makes it a legally enforced taboo?
2003. I am sitting in Prof Uwe Hermann’s office on the sixth floor.
The room is stuffy, and littered with books.
Representations of Homosexuality on Stage and Screen in Section 28 Britain. My dissertation proposal is on his desk.
Prof Hermann looks up. A calculating look. I see the question in his eyes.
Is he? P. looks too tame. Sure, Edddy with 3 ds, he clearly is, but P.?
No blusher, no flamboyant feathers dangling from his ear. He can’t be.
When Hermann opens his mouth, I see the strands of saliva between his cracked lips, the nicotine-stained teeth. I know what is coming before his Marlborough tongue forms the words “A bold choice,” he tastes the air like a viper looking for prey, “what‘s the special interest…
2010. “Blaine wants to see you in his office.”
On the second floor of the building, the principal's office looks out onto the school yard. He hands me a letter.
A parent, a lawyer no less, with several children in the school has written in. “Is Mr P. promoting homosexuality in his English classroom?”
Silence. I’m Irked.
He has never shown anything more than a professional interest in this card-carrying homo. To him all I am is an exploitable oddity: a German - teaching English. Until today.
“Are you expecting me to comment on this?” “Well…?”
I close my eyes, take a breath. Pictures of billboards flooding my memory, unbidden and unwelcome.
Planting my feet, I adjust my stance, my neck cracking as I lower my head and step into the ring.
A decade ago we repealed Section 28. I was part of that.
This letter, it’s the same language as a law that was scrapped in the year 2000. Tell them to do their homework.”
"B"
Section 2A: The Legacy
‘The head will be too afraid to back us because of Section 28’. ‘But that was repealed over a decade ago.’ ‘Aye, but…’
This was the first time Section 28/2A had been raised at my work and it was in conversation sparked by a parental complaint about one of my colleagues using the work of a gay poet with her Higher English class. That poet was Edwin Morgan, a man whose work was widely used in Scottish schools and who had not long completed his four-year tenure as the Scots Makar. But he was gay and that was enough for this parent to object to their child being exposed to his work, an experience shared by thousands of young people across the country, thanks to the legacy of long-gone Section 2A.
It was a couple more years before I experienced the impact of this legacy directly. I approached the same headteacher with the idea of some kind of LGBT+ inclusion work, seeking his views on how we might best achieve our aims. It wasn’t a completely new idea; there were some trailblazing colleagues doing great work in other schools which I learned more about thanks to the input of Jordan and Liam of TIE. I did not expect to be met with resistance and caution. The headteacher expressed concern that young people might be bullied for wearing a purple ribbon on Purple Friday (having previously stated the school did not have a homophobia problem), that parents in the ‘very Christian catchment area’ might strongly object to their children learning about LGBT+ people (which included me) and that, in his high-attaining school in an affluent area, his big concern was ‘the current underachievement of white boys.’
It was thanks to colleagues who were strong allies that he was persuaded to support our aims. I still reflect on that day and wonder if he realised how his expression of concern made me feel, how it affected my sense of dignity at work and inspired anxiety over how colleagues might actually perceive me, having previously felt accepted for who I was. Such issues around self-esteem and anxiety have raised their head frequently in my life and I’ve since discovered that is a common experience among LGBT+ people around my age and older. I hope and believe this will be different for young LGBT+ people going through schools where their identities are no longer taboo and who have positive role models in many industries, including entertainment and sports. Such things were unthinkable under Section 2A.
Even though it had a massive impact on me, I had never heard of it until the campaign to repeal it. By that time, I was around 16 and had come to terms with the fact I was gay but only felt able to tell one friend I knew I could trust because it was so shameful. I told her I couldn’t tell my parents and that I would find it easier to tell them I’d been charged with a horrible crime. It wasn’t that we were taught being gay was wrong; I just knew it wasn’t accepted.
All through my Catholic schooling, the only time I remember a teacher even mentioning it was when an RE teacher corrected another pupil, telling him the bible didn’t actually say that being gay was a sin. I realise now that was very brave of him.
The real onslaught of negativity came from the media’s reports on the campaign against the repeal of Section 2A. Not only had a millionaire bankrolled an unofficial referendum and campaign material spreading how disgusting and dangerous gay people were, representatives of the political wing of the church I used to belong to, and which had influence over my school, were platformed on TV, telling the masses how unnatural and what a threat to humanity I was. There’s no question that this campaign had a huge impact on my wellbeing and courage to be myself. Ultimately, it felt worth it as the negative campaign failed miserably and local authorities were no longer forbidden from suggesting that same-sex relationships might be equally valid. But many still felt anxious to raise the topic thanks to the lasting legacy.
That legacy has mostly been displaced in recent years, thanks to the Scottish Government policy on LGBT Inclusive Education. But there are still people in society so disgusted by our existence that they are going to great lengths to prevent children and young people learning to respect us, whether that be targeting individual teachers for harassment or creating professional-looking literature undermining teacher professionalism and expertise of partner organisations. For the most part, they are losing but we must not be complacent. I personally know two excellent teachers, and active trade unionists, the profession has lost as a result of discrimination in the past year.
Now that policy backs us up, it should be easier to follow through in our practice and help to create a more inclusive society. But it still takes courage and willingness to face potential conflict. It takes solidarity from allies who need to actively help us to hold the line more than ever as far-right movements seek to divide us, including attempts to force LGB people to turn their backs on our trans and nonbinary siblings. The 47th US President has attempted to unilaterally impose this division, on a community with which he has no connection and of which he has no understanding, by executive order. He will fail, just as the campaign groups who seek to divide us here, reinvigorated by his actions, will continue to fail. They will fail because we will keep educating our young people to respect differences, celebrate diversity and be their authentic selves. We will not allow their identities to become unspeakable again.
Damien Donnelly
Teaching With Pride
If you choose to come out as a teacher now – embrace the emotion of the moment. This act of courage is history-making. So many of us teachers working today grew up with, or in the long shadow of section 28/ 2A. This act of courage is history making. A lot of us teachers have grown up in the days with, and long shadow of section 28/2A. The law existed from 1988 to 2003 in the UK and 2000 in Scotland, a lot of teachers in classrooms today were in school during that time. No-one confidently challenged homophobia when we were young. Gay as an insult was normalized. Our teachers never got to be their queer authentic selves in work, so we never got the queer role models we so badly needed. Educators coming out now is groundbreaking and life changing. Take pride in teaching.
Ella Van Loock
No More Hiding
I was at school when Section 28 was introduced. At that time, I knew I was gay, but the word ‘lesbian’ was toxic. One girl was called a ‘lesbian’ and as a result nobody spoke to her, and nobody in my high school was ‘out’. So, I hid my sexuality. Then, when I started teaching, Section 28 was still in place and I continued to hide my sexuality. Many years later, after Section 28 had gone, we had a supply teacher in my school who refused to say the word ‘homosexual’. Both my S4 pupils and my headteacher were outraged at this. This was the point at which I realised, if others are standing up for LGBT rights, then the least I can do is to be open about being gay.
Emma Gordon
Reflections on 2A/Section 28
I have lived an ordinary life. I haven’t discovered anything new or made a breakthrough in some scientific endeavour. I’ve not written a Pulitzer Prize-winning article or book, no gold medals either. In fact, because my Brownie Sewing Badge, that I loved, just never arrived… I left and never went back.
I have never liked confrontation IF it’s about me or something I want. I’ve always looked for the smoothest path to try and get where I wanted. I was always academic. I loved school. I loved learning, and still do. Looking back, I am pretty certain that I had a crush on my P7 teacher for whom I leapt with abandon into the recycling bins squishing everything down to the bottom only to realise that I was then so low I couldn’t, get out again. Fortunately, I was rescued by the Heidie whose window the giant metal bins were below. Probably for just such an occurrence. I heart Miss Christie.
I so loved these women that I thought being a teacher was the best thing ever and that’s what I wanted to be. I am what they call a plodder back in the day, I never excelled, and failure was an unknown word to me… at Primary.
Secondary, however, was a different matter. I still loved it and learning. I even tried shot putt and field hockey both of which I was better at than running. I did love watching others run especially Rhona. She was like a chain-smoking gazelle! We enjoyed the same music, the same magazines and she loved running - any running 100m, cross country and garden races! I think leaping over all those fences was what made her awesome at hurdles. Anyway, Rhona moved on - her dad was in the army or something.
You might think that I digress but it’s not so. You see up until then I really hadn’t noticed boys or girls. I did everything the same as everybody else. I went out to ‘The Golf’ on a Friday night, danced round my handbag, drank Black Russians and dutifully spoke to God on the big white telephone before heading to bed. I read the Jackie and Mad but when Rhona left, I suddenly realised just how different I was. I couldn’t ignore the whispered name-calling of lezzer, lemon, dyke or the fact that I liked comfortable shoes by pretending any longer. I just said, ‘I don’t like boys or girls’. As the politics and the TV mined its way into my subconscious, I slowly disconnected from that side of my personality. I focussed on passing exams and becoming a teacher.
That’s when it all went pear-shaped. The real hate speech came out describing us, me, as paedophiles, and degenerates, and that teachers were leading children astray and teaching them unnatural things. I doubt very much that any teacher was doing any teaching of sex at all as my lesson involved an outline of a limp penis that needed to be labelled and a bee pollinating a daffodil which we then proceeded to dissect, the daffodil, NOT the bee!
So still trying to figure out how section 28 affected me? I decided that there was no way I was going to become a teacher. That if I couldn’t be a teacher then there was no point in putting my family through the expense of university and I’d just get a job doing something else. Section 28 cost me many things, some personal. I didn’t come out to anyone, and I used the excuse of being too busy to be involved with anyone. In Fife, there was no one to talk to, never mind being the only gay in the village I felt like the only gay in Scotland. Of course, logically I knew it wasn’t true, but feelings and logic are uneasy companions at the best of times never mind when your right to live is being demonised every break on the TV. There were no smartphones and no internet, not for a teenager from rural Fife anyway. I gleaned what I could by watching the protesters on the BBC news wondering if they were like me or maybe I was like them? Newspaper headlines were no help at all. French cinema was a godsend - shame everyone died at the end.
Practically what did it cost me? Well unlike the Brownies I did go back as a mature student. It cost me ten years of my life before I became a teacher. All those years working for exam results were useless. I had to do an Access to Education course. I had to prove that I could do maths, arithmetic and English all over again. It cost me going to teacher training college with my peers, instead, I was older and too young for the straight-from-school group but not old enough for the married with kids group. If you are still wondering what it cost me and you don’t think lack of self-esteem, internalised homophobia, being out of step with everyone else, ten years of experience where I could have helped children learn, then how about this?
Ten years in my pension pot. Ten years of contributions that might mean that I could retire at 60 or 65 does mean I will just keep teaching until 67 or older like some of my colleagues who were mature students. A simple thing like section 28 /2A left me and my contemporaries ill-informed, fearful and less active citizens due to the ignorance and fear spread by the contempt of others.
Section 28 changed my life but in the end, it didn’t change me. I’m a teacher and while I don’t like confrontations, I don’t mind them at all. Bring it on!
J Chrystal
Repeal and Resist: Fighting Section 28
I was involved in the Stop the Clause Campaign back then. It’s such a long time ago now - we were young and brave. It took guts, collective action, leadership and the tenacity of heroes like Tim Hopkins to Stop the Clause and fight for legal equality.
I remember there was a key meeting that took place downstairs in what was then the original 1969 Lesbian and Gay Centre on Broughton Street. The room was packed. The dreadful Souter-sponsored posters with red and black borders had been placed around the city with statements such as “I don’t want my grandchild learning about homosexuality”. This led to a heightened sense by us that something needed to be done immediately.
During the discussion, there was a debate. I recall that a few LGBT folk were worried about getting into trouble with the police. Myself and a few others challenged this with words to the effect of “We have the moral superiority here. The law is discriminatory.”
The posters need to come down and something needs to be put up in its place. We had to have courage. This led to the setting up of a few groups around the city. I was in the Leith group.
We met at a friend’s flat. We all brought wallpaper, paint, etc. We made our own massive poster - Blue Peter Style. I think it said ‘Educate not Hate’.
We planned to get up early the next morning and met at 4 a.m. A local social worker - a straight ally - drove us in her mini to Haymarket. We had two lookouts on the street and myself and another friend climbed the wall to get to the revolving Billboard. It was pretty nerve-wracking stuff!
We jammed a door stop into the billboard to stop it from moving. Then we somehow attached our seriously cool but homemade poster over the horrible professionally made one.
We glanced back at our poster, gloriously up for all to see that we had dealt with the viciously homophobic poster. But only for a minute - the lookout thought she had seen a police car. So, we ran down the slope and I fell, slipping in the mud all the way down.
I had to go home and get cleaned up before going into work to teach. After this, we noticed other Billboards were also being covered up by LGBT positive ones. It was an exciting time.
Following this, I recall Lothian and Borders Police asked Lothian Lesbian & Gay Switchboard if we would play in a football tournament, I think it was part of Edinburgh’s Mainstreaming policy. Some of us played for LLGS - I still have my football shirt. It was truly a great day - even though a bunch of gay amateur footballers got beat 2:0 by the polis! After this the police treated us to a huge buffet.
J Roger
The Power of LGBT+ Visibility
I started secondary school in August 1987, at the peak of the moral panic over AIDS and a few weeks before Thatcher’s notorious ‘inalienable right to be gay’ speech. My primary 7 teacher had been a brave, enlightened and (I’m fairly sure) gay man who emigrated to Australia that same year, but who impressed on us the seriousness of HIV/AIDS after a few lads made unfunny playground jokes. This was in a pre-internet age when periods were barely mentioned in school, far less actual sex, and while I have forgotten the exact words he used, I can still feel the emotion all these decades later.
That talk didn’t specifically reference the LGBT+ community – in our small mining town we were already well aware that Edinburgh was the “AIDS capital of Europe” – but it was the closest we came to LGBT+ inclusive education in my entire school career. In fact, I don’t recall any mention of LGBT+ issues at all, in any subject, for the entirety of secondary school. Our limited knowledge was gleaned from peers and from the pages of magazines (the problem page of course, as Jackie’s love interest was firmly cis, male and hunk), queerphobia a constant, daily presence.
Section 28/2A affected my life as a teenager and to a large extent, has shaped my career. I knew back in primary 7 that I liked girls, but there was no language to articulate this, no role models and nowhere to go – I wasn’t even sure that gay women existed. Around the age of 15, with the encouragement of my trusty problem pages, I thought about calling a helpline – but chickened out and stayed firmly in the closet as I studied for Highers. After coming out at university, I toyed with the idea of teaching – but with the Scottish Parliament not yet in session, I fell into Further Education. It took 20 years and an OU maths degree before I finally made the transition to secondary teaching in 2019. Thinking of LGBT+ peers of my age, very few are teachers and I’ve long felt that we are a ‘lost generation’ in the profession – people like me, who had no desire to revisit a hostile, unsafe environment – in turn removing potential role models from the classroom.
What strikes me now as a teacher looking back is that LGBT+ teachers did exist both before and during Section 2A/28, in my school and in schools up and down the country. We knew that they existed, and they were role models, even in those dark, dark times and even when they couldn’t be out or acknowledge our community’s existence. There are lessons to be learned there in 2025 as the language of section 2A/28 swirls around us again – particularly in the press and social media response around trans rights. Being a queer, gender non-conforming teacher in 2025 is a political statement simply by turning up to work in the morning - we should never underestimate the power of LGBT+ visibility.
We have fought for more than this of course – we need to defend and implement LGBT+ inclusive education and we cannot do this without the support of allies. Inclusive education doesn’t need to mean rewriting your entire plan of work overnight – start with small things, including two ‘female’ names or two ‘male’ names in a maths question, a sticker on your door, a poster on your wall. Above all, inclusive education can only happen in inclusive schools – we need our allies to speak up, to create and support safe spaces for LGBT+ young people and to stand with us against the backlash.
Pam Currie