Chapter 7: We are Family: The Role of GLBTIQS Activism in Human Rights Education

Dear GLBTIQS Colleagues,

Welcome to teaching! I hope that my words have something to offer you, whether you are a schoolteacher, youth worker, counselor, administrator, staff member, parent, or student. My principles hopefully apply to everyone; our interactions with those around us create the potential for us all to be both educators and students throughout our entire lives. The life experiences and sensitivities of GLBTIQS (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, intersex, queer-identifying or supportive-other) people—so often overlooked in the education sector—can supply potentially valuable insights, motivations, and opportunities.

I learned some lessons the hard way. I began teaching the same year that the first AIDS death hit Australia. My earliest recollection of this terrible epidemic is when some students made a veiled, homophobic AIDS joke. I subsequently found more enlightened attitudes outside of my workplace, within a stigmatized community that battled both illness and discrimination. I saw gay activists whose efforts were assisted by heterosexual volunteers on care teams, by teachers who risked sanction for promoting safe sex or for opposing homophobia, and by mothers and sisters who sewed AIDS quilt panels in memory of their gay sons or brothers. This extended community taught me a valuable life lesson, which I now offer to you: we are all family.