RAE’S REFLECTIONS

By Rachel Badham

2010s vs 2020s: A Retrospective on the Decade of my Queer Awakening.

In 2011, I was in my first year of secondary school, and had absolutely no idea how I identified as a person, who I wanted to be, or what my life would look like in 10 years’ time. So for me, the past decade has been characterised by a lot of questioning, coming out several times, and learning about a whole world of queer culture that was unknown to me 10 years ago.

In terms of the rise in mainstream queer representation and visibility, the 2010s-2020s have been perhaps the most eventful years the LGBTQ+ community has seen. On both a private and public level, the decade has been highly eventful, in both the best and the worst of ways. So, how much has really changed in this short yet pivotal space of time?

Seeing as the majority of the past decade has been spent in education, changes in the schooling system and young people’s attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community have been some of the most notable aspects of the past several years to me – particularly the changes to how sex education is taught in schools.

As a young queer person, having access to LGBTQ+ sex ed would have made the world of difference to my confidence and understanding that sex is so much more than penetration. My education experience undoubtedly lacked teaching about sexual health, consent, and

what sex means besides reproduction. We had a couple of sex ed classes, were shown a bizarre cartoon of a man and woman having sex while looking very unsatisfied, and were told that only cisgender men could commit rape. And this was less than 10 years ago.

In 2020, it became law that public schools include LGBTQ+ education within the curriculum, after years of campaigning from Stonewall. Exploring your sexuality and/ or gender identity as a young person can be difficult, no matter what your environment is like, but I think that my personal journey would have been considerably easier had my school been more aware of the impact that queerinclusive education can have on young LGBTQ+ people.

I suppose that only the young LGBTQ+ people who are actually in primary and secondary education can be the judge of whether schools have become more inclusive over the past decade, but it is evident that efforts are being made to transform the system that has failed generations of queer youth.

Seeing as school proved unhelpful at best when it came to understanding my identity, the majority of my knowledge about queer culture in the 2010s came from representation in the media and out LGBTQ+ celebrities who I followed. Growing up in a small and fairly undiverse town, I had little awareness of anything outside the mainstream for most of my teenage years, and so this has been my point of reference when considering developments over the past decade.

The first 'out' LGBTQ+ celebrity I felt an affinity with was definitely Hayley Kiyoko after discovering her in 2015. She was first femmepresenting queer woman I had ever seen in the media who talked so openly about their sexuality and sapphic identity, and it surprises me that this was only six years ago.

"While my personal journey has been mostly positive, working as a writer means that every day I see reports on the increase in hate crimes and the rise in antitrans hostility that has made trans kids in particular into a target for abuse"

I’m sure that part of the reason why I’ve noticed an increase in LGBTQ+ representation over the past five years or so is because I have been immersing myself in queer pop culture more, but there is also evidence to suggest that representation is increasing in general. GLAAD’s 2020 annual Studio Responsibility Index report found an increase in major Hollywood films that featured an LGBTQ+ character, with queer characters also being given more screen time.

On the surface, everything appears to be moving in the right direction, and I undoubtedly feel more comfortable in my queer identity because of the positive changes that the past decade has witnessed. However, that’s only a very small part of the bigger picture. Every few years a new wave of moral panic related to the LGBTQ+ springs up and spirals out of control as false narratives are perpetuated by authority figures and mainstream media.

While my personal journey has been mostly positive, working as a writer means that every day I see reports on the increase in hate crimes and the rise in anti-trans hostility that has made trans kids in particular into a target for abuse. From the blatant homophobia seen during the AIDS epidemic of the late 20th century to today, there continues to be forms of very public hatred towards the LGBTQ+ community.

There’s no denying that improvements in representation and education are a great step forwards, but it is not enough just to see ourselves on screen or hear abstract discussions of queer identity. We all have to been seen and heard in as many ways as possible, and demand to be respected instead of just accepted. It certainly feels like a long way to go.

But, collective activism has gotten us this far and is sure to continue propelling us forward. Hopefully, when we reflect on the past decade in 2031, things will be a lot brighter for every member of the LGBTQ+ community.