Sir Ian McKellen is touring schools in an attempt to educate teenagers on gay issues and combat prejudice.
Schools, with their social cliques and pressure to fit in, are frequently a bastion of homophobic bullying, so it’s great that a prominent figure like Sir Ian is taking the time to do something kike this. The lovely idea is made even better when anecdotes like this come up:
“Do you know any gay people?” asks Sir Ian McKellen asks. Silence. Heads shake. “Well, you do now. I’m gay.” It’s my turn to speak up. “You know two now. I used to go to this school – and I’m gay,” I offer. “You know three now,” a sixth-former chips in. The other pupils don’t look too surprised, and he seems admirably comfortable in his sexuality. Silence. Then: “Erm. Well. You know four now.” Heads shoot around to see a uniformed boy, leaning close to McKellen. Mouths fall slightly open – including mine – but nobody speaks. Then McKellen says, in that mellifluous voice of his, “Well. How about that? It turns out we all know quite a few more gay people than we thought we did.”
As is usual with online newspaper articles, it’s best to ignore the comments.
15th April 2011 at 1:18 pm
Hi Robert, a great post. I think the fact that some gay people think they have to hide their sexuallity shows just now backward society is. You know when i went to uni i made great friends with two other guys. In the second year one of them dropped me an email about some photography equipment he just brought, the last line of the email he dropped that he was guy.
it was a proud moment for me, not that i’m gay, not for him to come out made me prowd.
incedently the other guy is homophobic and still has no idea. and that is sad.
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