Meet Harry

When half the school turns up to protest a homophobic teacher…

“My school was quite religious. At one point one of the teachers put up posters all around the school with two guys holding hands and a big cross through it.”

There would often be an audible gasp amongst cinema audiences watching Love in Full Colour when we got to this anecdote, shared by Harry 10 years ago.

Often the experiences the teens described at school were of homophobia and transphobia that existed in a fairly insidious way. It would be the things the teachers didn't teach. The books that weren't in the libraries. The histories that weren't in the curriculum. The bullying policies that weren't acted on.

And then of course, there are experiences like Harry's. He followed this story up with a brilliant part 2:

"The headmistress was showing parents around the school and those posters were all around the place and the parents said, 'Oh - don't you support gay kids here?' and the headmistress didn't know that the teacher had put all these posters around and the teacher got into big trouble for it and was forced to make up ten apology letters to the ten people who had complained. And a session was held at lunchtime between the teacher and these people [who complained] but instead of those 10 people turning up, HALF THE SCHOOL turned up! To make a stance against what this teacher had done. It was completely overwhelming for me, just to know how many people were so supportive and just didn't accept this perspective the teacher was forcing on people."