Poppy’s Story

Content warning: homophobia, religious discrimination

A year ago, my relationship ended due to a member of staff at my school. I go to a religious private girls school in Sydney and had been dating a girl in my year for over 6 months. She’s religious and was having trouble reconciling with her faith the fact that she was dating both a girl and an atheist, so she decided to speak to a school chaplain about it. She told me very little about what was going on, but started to become distant and cagey. Eventually, she told me that the chaplain had implied her disapproval at our relationship and that she was afraid the chaplain would advise her to break up with me. Even though we’d been together for 7 months, she said she respected and trusted the chaplain too much to ignore her if she told her to do that. We ended up breaking up because of that, but it was only months later that I found out the chaplain hadn’t just been implicit with her views, she’d done things like give my ex-girlfriend a book about a woman who was queer but then ‘found God and the error of her ways’.

What that chaplain did should never have been allowed in the first place. She not only made my ex-girlfriend feel her relationship and sexuality were wrong and sinful, but made me feel like it was wrong to love who I do. I felt alone and powerless, and like my school had violated my autonomy and private life. And it’s not like I could report it to any adult at school for fear that no one would help and due to the fact I’m on a scholarship. I’ve tried to talk to the school about LGBTQ+ inclusion before and was instantly shut down, so I didn’t like my chances.

The bottom line is that no school or teacher should be allowed to make these comments to students. We’re vulnerable and still trying to figure everything out, and ultimately it’s an abuse of power. Every student should have the right to a safe, accepting learning environment, and the only way to do that is to end LGBTQ+ discrimination exemptions for private schools. Because religious freedom should never mean freedom to discriminate.