‘That’s so gay’ haunted me at school – why is it still so common now?

The bell rings on an icy winter’s morning. I step through the school gates, dressed in my crisp white shirt, pleated skirt and school blazer. To my right, a group of boys are laughing and mocking each other: “That’s so gay, mate!”

What they don’t know is that I’m a young, closeted lesbian. What they don’t realise is that their appropriation of the label “gay” as a derogatory term, under the guise of “banter”, will later come to haunt me, damaging my mental health as I come to terms with my own sexuality.

It took me years to figure it out, but today I proudly identify as a lesbian. I know now that being a lesbian is a beautiful and wonderful thing. However, I didn’t always feel this way. 

As I navigated the already turbulent rollercoaster of adolescence, I was also struggling to manage compulsory heterosexuality and internalised homophobia. This self-hatred and the feelings of discomfort and shame that were directed inwards prevented me from accepting my identity for a long time. In fact, it took me until the age of 20 to finish unpicking the ruthless knots of comp-het that had been tangled up inside of me after years and years of hearing the terms ‘gay’, ‘lesbian’ and ‘queer’ used in a mocking or downright derogatory, hateful way.

I know I’m not alone. So many LGBT+ people of my generation will remember hearing queerness be falsely associated with embarrassment and humiliation, at the expense of juvenile laughter and mockery, and can likely relate to the harm it did to my mental health and the emotionally painful and prolonged journey of becoming comfortable with my identity. 

But what I didn’t know was that school pupils today are experiencing the same things we did. New research from Just Like Us has shown that a shocking 78% of primary school pupils aged 9 to 11 say they’ve heard homophobic language, and 80% of secondary school pupils said the same.  

Now, young people aren’t just hearing this language in the playground or outside the school gates, they’re also hearing it on social media. Pupils involved in the research cited TikTok trends, and parents have noticed their children playing “games” involving homophobic language that they’ve picked up online. 

“Hearing ‘gay as an insult also stifles straight and cisgender young people’s ability to feel free to be themselves”

Not only is this incredibly damaging for LGBT+ pupils struggling with intense shame around their identities, like I did, it’s shaping how all young people view the world. Hearing gay as an insult also stifles straight and cisgender young people’s ability to feel free to be themselves too. For example, the same research found that a primary school age boy was labelled “gay” because his hair was long.

Using LGBT+ identities as insults feeds into societal prejudice against queer people. Dismissing the flippant use of “gay” or “queer” as “just a joke” insinuates that these identities are not deserving of respect and dignity.

All pupils should have the chance to learn about the diversity of our world, and that difference is something to be celebrated. If schools don’t tackle the issue of homophobic language, they are failing non-LGBT+ young people too. 

Nowadays, I am a Just Like Us ambassador, which means I go into secondary schools to give talks to students on what it’s like growing up LGBT+. I have spoken to pupils about my experience growing up as a femme lesbian in a household in which LGBT+ topics weren’t openly discussed, as well as my experience moving away from home to university and feeling the freedom to fall in love with another girl for the very first time.

One of the many reasons that Just Like Us ambassadors give school talks like these is to normalise LGBT+ experiences. I endeavour to contribute to the destigmatisation of terms such as “lesbian”, “gay” and “queer”, letting pupils know that these words should only be used in a kind and respectful way. 

These messages of respect, thoughtfulness and tolerance that my fellow ambassadors and I are conveying through our school talks are the messages that my peers at school needed to hear on that icy winter’s morning when the school bell rang.

After all, in a world where we are constantly expected to define ourselves through descriptors and labels, it would be cruel and unfair to mock that teenage girl, in her white shirt and pleated skirt and blazer, stepping through the school gates.

Mia is an ambassador for Just Like Us, the LGBT+ young people’s charity. Just Like Us needs LGBT+ ambassadors aged 18-25 to speak in schools – sign up now.