“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits … the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently… You can … disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them… because they change things… they push the human race forward…” – Steve Jobs.

The scene is England 1954, when one of UK’s greatest heroes committed suicide because he was not allowed to be himself. On June 7th, Alan Turing, the person who was able to decipher the Nazi’s code- leading to an allied victory, ate a poisoned apple. In his eyes, suicide was a better option than chemical castration, which he had been sentenced to. Sadly, the UK continued to have a rough history with LGBTQ+ inclusion. Until 2003, there was a clause called “section 28” which banned local authorities of “promoting homosexuality.” This meant that schools where prohibited from talking about homosexual relationships and had no basis from which to reprimand homophobic slurs. The result was an oppressed community who had no other choice than to hide who they were to avoid the harsh bullying they would otherwise face. However, after an extensive research conducted by Stonewall, an LGBTQ+ rights charity in the UK, decided they needed an efficient plan to tackle the situation. Therefore, they implemented  the new regulations for teaching relationships and sex education (RSE) which states that all schools need to teach their pupils about sexual orientation.  

Colombia has not had a clear position regarding the LGTBQ+ community. For the most part, the government avoids talking about it, similar to the directives of The Columbus School. However, this December, the school finally took the first step towards sexual orientation inclusion. During one of the Wednesday after school all-staff meetings, FAUDS, (Familiares y Amigos Unidos por la Diversidad Sexual y de Género), presented to all of the teachers. Emily Butterworth, English teacher, considered that the presentation was a solid step in right direction, but not the most student friendly and the school needed to manage the topic correctly due to its importance. In the presentation there was a lot of dense information, while at the same time, some over simplification. For example, there was a slide which defined transgender and cisgender based on the clothing choices made, and Butterwoth considered it was completely accurate. She felt that sometimes the oversimplification of topics might make it easy to digest, but not necessarily accurate. Thus, she along with Alysa Perreras, Equity and Justice Coach, and counselors Andres Rendon, and Ana Garcia, with the support of the administration, made some changes in order to help plan a more comprehensive conference.

So what made the school finally take action after years of ignoring the problem? A brave young boy named Samuel finally opened their eyes. Due to his female to male transition, the school decided it was time for an overhaul. The official reasons as to why the conference was held, according to Rendon, are “that a very specific situation presented [itself] with a high school student… [and] that we feel that we had been in debt as an institution to make this approach to all the educative community…” Establishing a mentality of acceptance takes time and consistency, and so the school should have made alterations before. As the saying goes, better late than never. 

Although the conference had a positive impact on the TCS community, homophobic mentalities were evident among a vocal minority. One particularly radical student claimed that if people could identify as a pansexual he could identify as a helicopter. This kind of response was to be expected on some level, since even the high school psychologist, Rendon, felt that “the environment at school is not the safest or the most inclusive… and that it is not coherent with our institutional principles.” 

As for the future, the school needs to continue organizing these conferences to normalize and eliminate the taboo of the LGTBQ+ community. The school needs to start with the younger kids to fully achieve this goal. If they included people with different identity traits in these conferences, it would be even better. Finally, TCS woke up and accepted its responsibility towards students; however, this event was only the first chapter of an immense book.