Earlier this year, Dazed wrote about Jeremy Corbyn’s desire to introduce fully inclusive LGBTQ sex-education classes in schools across the UK, and now it seems that dream might finally become a reality, with Scotland taking the first big step.
Yesterday, it was announced that schools all over Scotland are to embed LGBTI-inclusive lessons into their future curriculum, which will require schools "to teach pupils about the history of LGBTI equalities and movements, as well as tackling homophobia and transphobia and exploring LGBTI identity", as The Guardian reports.
This decision, which offers a great deal of promise for LGBTI campaigners throughout the UK and beyond, was overseen by the Scottish Time for Inclusive Education (TiE) campaign group. Their co-founder Jordan Daly, when speaking on their success, called the introduction of this new curriculum a “monumental victory for our campaign, and a historic moment for our country”.
This new emphasis on teaching LGBTI-related issues from an early age is sure to have a positive impact on kids who feel marginalised within their own community, unsure of their identity, or even unsafe in their own homes. Daly is confident that finally allowing schools to address such issues openly will not only drastically lower accounts of homophobia in school, but also "send a strong and clear message to LGBTI young people that they are valued here in Scotland."
This comes at a crucial time, when a new Stonewall report confirmed just this week that as many as half of LGBTQ people experience depression. We can only hope that the rest of the UK (and eventually, the world) will soon follow suit repping LGBTQ love on the curriculum.
