I am so angry right now, and sorry for then rant to follow! I was sitting in class today when I heard a student being to talk about another student that is gay, and how they can't be gay as their religion does not allow it. This then led to the student asking what the groups views on 'gays' were. What they answered really shocked me, being a school in London that is relatively open minded. There were responses like 'oh I don't hate GAY people, I just hate that people ARE gay' and 'I mean I'm fine with it, but if two girls come up to me and start kissing each other I would break that shit up!' I can't believe that people that I classed as friends would say things so mean, based solely on orientation, especially seeing as there are many openly gay/bi student at our school. All this time, nobody said anything against what they were saying. It took someone saying that 'gay people are aliens' before the teacher stepped in to in force school policy (no racist or homophobic words/actions) and even then only told them that if they said anything else that they would have to report it, when the rules clearly state that the student should be removed and placed in internal exclusion. I understand that everyone has a right to say what they want, but that shouldn't mean they can spew hatred and judgement based on sexual orientation. Before today I had never really seen homophobia in my school and coming from the people around me, and had just assumed it was not an issue here. That maybe 15/16 year olds in the 21st century were a little more open minded. But I was obviously wrong there. #homophobia #school #hate