Thanks to Section 28, I’m a lesbian who hates the word lesbian. But now I’m reclaiming it

L. E. S. B. I. A. N. This seven letter word is pretty harmless really.

It’s got a nice mix of vowels and consonants. I mean it wouldn’t necessarily score you high points in scrabble. But not many words can claim to be derived from a Greek island (I’ll let you guess which one) that was home to a 6^th century poet called Sappho. So overall, if you were going to have a word that describes your sexuality then I could think of a lot worse.

Given this then why have I until recently been unable to say that word out loud without cringing inside and sometimes visibly out? “Urgh I hate the word lesbian. Can you say gay please?” I mean what has the word lesbian done to me, right?

Well the light bulb moment came when I was drying my hair and as my mind wandered off somewhere the word lesbian popped up. “Urgh” I thought. “I hate that word.” Then I looked at my scruffy self in the mirror and asked myself why? And then the thunderbolt struck. Of course I hate the word. For the majority of my life growing up the word lesbian was never used in an affectionate way.

“Oh you go to a girls school – you must be a lessssbian?”; “Oh you play hockey – you must be a lesbian?”; “Omg have you seen her short hair she must be a lesbian”; “Can’t believe you didn’t want to kiss that boy – are you a lesbian?” The list goes on.

The odd thing about these statements were that they were partially true. I was a lesbian.

The word in school was never used in an endearing manner. It was used as a word to purposely offend and humiliate girls who didn’t fit in with the norm – those who dared to be a little different or wear something different. So why had this word become a tool to shame?

Then I realised that for my entire school life (from aged five to 18) Section 28 was in place. For those that don’t know, Section 28 forbade schools from “teaching… the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”.

So I repeat, for my entire school life, a place that is meant to shape you, help educate and prepare you for adult life, did me and my fellow pupils a huge injustice.

I am pretty sure I wasn’t the only person in the school who was a lesbian, bisexual or experiencing gender dysphoria who could have really done with a bit of a heads up that in 20 years time it will become apparent that the way you are is just exactly that: THE WAY YOU ARE – which is actually pretty bloody normal. But no, no, let’s just pretend that lesbians don’t exist and hope they realise that penis is best.

I mean we quite literally got the “ins and outs” of the heterosexual world. And to be frank it was at this moment I knew that I definitely did not fancy that!

Remember when I was a teenager there was no internet, no social media and TV had only four channels. In fact the only real place we could gather information was the library and Encarta (a kind of proto-Wikipedia on CD-ROM). Great… if you’re printing out stuff for history projects, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t going to be the place for me to discover the true meaning of “fuzzy warm feeling for my hockey captain”.

My only hope of exploring the world of lesbians was at my new hockey club when I was 15. But even then the younger players would mock the adults they knew were gay. But instead of looking with disgust I would look with envy at these women who had escaped to this forbidden, secret world.

I often wonder if we’d had the education, the information, the nurturing, would it have reduced the number of years I spent lying about my sexuality? Would this have meant I wouldn’t have bunked off school, which then impacted on my schoolwork and my exam results?

We can’t entirely blame Section 28 as we all have a home life but let’s be frank, we barely talk to our parents at all at the age of 13 let alone about that fact you think you might be in love with a sixth former called Lucy.

The “what-ifs” go on but even today we know that bullying towards the LGBT+ community in schools is still there. In 2014 Stonewall reported that in one year alone 75,000 young people had been bullied for being LGBT+, with 21,000 of them attempting suicide.

Stereotyping isn’t helping people. In fact I would say it’s killing people. So isn’t it about time we campaign to change these stereotypes and work with education and sport to embrace the fact that people are different and different is good?

So here’s to the L Word. You gorgeous little seven letter word. You shall no longer be a word I shudder at. I am going to embrace you and say it out loud with pride.

Because if I don’t then someone else will steal it and use it for harm. And I’m pretty sure that’s not what the Greek Goddesses had in mind.