I thought I was a virgin. I wasn’t. This is why we need Safe Schools.

By Matilda Douglas-Henry

I’m lucky enough to operate within a social bubble where ‘queer’ is the term that binds us. Naturally, this means that over the past few weeks our conversations have been dominated by the tragic plight of the Safe Schools program.

Nothing but a hellish pit of ire and wrath is awoken within me when I think about how fucking obscene this whole situation is. The likening of the program to paedophile grooming, the cowardice of Malcolm Turnbull, the conservatives’ inherent fear that gender may in fact be a social construct – of course it makes me angry. The weight of my emotional investment is strengthened as I live with the program’s co-author. I’ve watched him over the past few years endeavour to make Safe Schools the most relatable and insightful resource possible. Now, I’m watching him endure slimy liberals on national television as they proudly declare that the program has been gutted.

It’s a genuine tragedy.

Yet the profound affect this outcome had on me still felt surprising. It seemed to extend beyond my general disgust for the Liberal party and how I can’t stand to see my friends get hurt. It made me realise how much I needed Safe Schools throughout my teens.

This was unexpected because I am a gayby baby. Having two gay mums is everything you would expect it to be. I was raised on Indigo Girls cassette tapes on road trips, and I thought K.D. Lang was a dear family friend. Singing the National Anthem at the opening ceremony of the Gay Games (in all-rainbow garb, with a troupe of fellow gayby babies, having been introduced by Kath & Kim) was not the stuff of daydreams. It was a Friday night.

I was lucky enough to be encased in a warm, delicious, totally supportive queer network from the day I was born. It allowed me to learn, very early on in my life, that relationships were always shifting. Long-term partnerships would fade. Men would leave their wives for other men, and women would do this too, but it was no big deal. It was life.

I started dating girls when I was thirteen, and I came out when I was twenty. I’ve never had sex with a boy, but it was only on my ‘coming out day’ that I finally realised never having a boyfriend wasn’t something to be ashamed of. And the catalyst for my heteronormative thinking prior to this certainly wasn’t because of my gay parents. It was because of the sexual education program I was subject to throughout school.

I went to one of the most progressive schools in Sydney. Visual art and music were the most valued subjects. Sexual ambiguity was not just tolerated, it was embraced. I had a girlfriend in year eight and the school never treated us as alien (although some of the other students did). It wasn’t until our PDHPE classes that I felt blatantly othered. Our teacher described sex as an act that was dictated by a penis – a tool that I had always found funny, not sexy. We were given the standard props – a tennis racket, a condom. The class was divided into boys and girls, and it was presumed that everyone in the room would be attracted to the opposite gender.

Here, I realised that I hadn’t been having sex – or maybe I had, but my virginity would not be lost until a penis and something called a hymen were involved. When my sexually fluid friends chose to have sex with men too, I knew there was something wrong with me.

That’s why the loss of Safe Schools on a national level is so upsetting. Its purpose is not only to educate the bigoted, or to console the closeted.

It is a profound help to everyone – even the openly queer thirteen year-old with the two mums who thinks she has it all.