Teachers didn't need Clause 28 to be silenced!
1988
During this period in the late eighties Mary, a teacher, was still paranoid about being found out by pupils, and said “You didn’t need Clause 28 to be silenced!” However she was spotted coming out of the Jester by some kids and it all blew up. The deputy head teacher dealt with them but she still had to deal with graffiti in the toilets and mutterings in the corridor. During the late nineties, working in a school where staff were much more supportive of her sexuality, she felt much more able to support gay and lesbian pupils than she had when she bumped into a gay pupil in the Matador in the eighties and reacted with terror that she would be “exposed”. Currently working in a university context, Mary is completely “out”.
Contributed by: Mary Dunne, 52