Is a school LGBT club a good idea?

Jun 20, 2022 by

from Transgender Trend:

Guest post from a teacher who now questions his decision to set up an LGBT club at his school.

I am choosing to remain anonymous because I am still a teacher and don’t have the strength or energy to withstand the inevitable criticism that will be made about this article. I also do not want the school I worked in or the children I looked after to be identified for obvious reasons. I have decided to write this because I feel it incumbent on me to describe my own experiences as a teacher of gender dysphoric teenagers. I also fear that well-meaning LGBT teachers who don’t subscribe to gender identity theory will be affected by the inevitable backlash against the teachers who do. I refer to myself as same-sex attracted, rather than gay, in order to be specific about what this particular aspect of my identity means.

Before I reflect on my experiences creating and running an LGBT club at school, I want first of all to say that most teachers are out of their depth in this area specifically, and mental health generally. The main concern for teachers is (and should be) teaching kids a particular subject, be it history, art or physics. Their job is not (and should not be) counselling them through mental health crises. However any good teacher will unavoidably find themselves dealing with a teenager who is struggling with their mental health. Given we became and remain teachers because on some level we like kids, this can be a challenge. We have no proper training, and yet we are confronted with unstable, hormonal teenagers, who often have no hope of seeing trained professionals for months, if not years. This is the context teachers and schools are currently in, and this is the context in which an LGBT club should be considered.

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