‘Being a Slut Really Means You Are Untouchable’: On Shame, Power and the Reclamation of Words
Rishi Sunak’s War on Trans Children and Seeing the Return of Thatcher’s Britain to Schools as a Teacher
One day after my first ever article was published on Heroica – in which I claimed that this Pride we should celebrate our progress since the elimination of Section 28 – Rishi Sunak has decided to wage war on trans youth. The leaked guidance, whether it ends up being codified or not, is harrowing…
‘We Have a Lot to Celebrate. We Have a Lot to Fight’: My Experience of Being LGBTQ+ and a Teacher
As an English teacher, I often consider myself a storyteller that is limited to retelling the stories of dead white men. I wrote to Heroica to tell my story; hopefully I'll be able to do that with their help. I am going to focus on the everyday life of gender-queer or questioning people in schools. To do so, I want to focus on a recent exchange…
‘Toilet Cubicles are a Strange Hybrid’: Graffiti as a Medium of Political Action
Toilet cubicles are a strange hybrid. They aren’t the main event, yet most people in a venue will visit them at some point. In other words, it’s guaranteed that a lot of people are going to see what you write in the cubicle. What makes this more interesting is that no one can prove it was you who wrote anything – it’s anonymous. This adds a level of honesty that isn’t always present in public debates and discussions…
Queer Kids and Culture Wars: The Tories and the Return of Section 28
Local authorities were banned from ‘promoting homosexuality’, and schools could not teach ‘the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’. I went to school between 1982 and 1996. In other words, Section 28 cast its shadow over most of my formative years. There were no known prosecutions resulting from Section 28, but this did not limit the damage it caused…