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Safe Schools
Mar. 22nd, 2016 10:37 amto: office@piccoli.minister.nsw.gov.au
cc: Malcolm.Turnbull.MP@aph.gov.au
Dear Minister,
I'm writing to you to ask you to follow the lead of Victoria and the ACT in fully funding the Safe Schools program in New South Wales.
In my last two years of high school, a gang of girls decided that I was a lesbian. They constantly pursued, threatened, and harassed me. Their incessant bullying made those critical years of my education a nightmare. I have no doubt that it contributed to my lifelong problems of anxiety and depression, especially social anxiety, which are typical of bullying targets.
I can only imagine what it would have been like if I actually had been a lesbian, struggling to maintain some self-esteem in a society that still in many ways reflects those girls' attitude and behaviour.
I can only imagine what it might have been like if anti-bullying programs had existed in schools in the late eighties - if those girls had been taught not just that bullying itself is wrong, but that lesbians are normal, healthy, and broadly accepted by Australian society - including being asked to imagine themselves in the place of a lesbian.
Please support Safe Schools and vulnerable Australian children and adolescents.
Yours,
Kate Orman
cc: Malcolm.Turnbull.MP@aph.gov.au
Dear Minister,
I'm writing to you to ask you to follow the lead of Victoria and the ACT in fully funding the Safe Schools program in New South Wales.
In my last two years of high school, a gang of girls decided that I was a lesbian. They constantly pursued, threatened, and harassed me. Their incessant bullying made those critical years of my education a nightmare. I have no doubt that it contributed to my lifelong problems of anxiety and depression, especially social anxiety, which are typical of bullying targets.
I can only imagine what it would have been like if I actually had been a lesbian, struggling to maintain some self-esteem in a society that still in many ways reflects those girls' attitude and behaviour.
I can only imagine what it might have been like if anti-bullying programs had existed in schools in the late eighties - if those girls had been taught not just that bullying itself is wrong, but that lesbians are normal, healthy, and broadly accepted by Australian society - including being asked to imagine themselves in the place of a lesbian.
Please support Safe Schools and vulnerable Australian children and adolescents.
Yours,
Kate Orman
