Chapter 3: School's out.

This chapter reprints the article School's Out, which originally appeared in the book Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories, edited by Diana Fuss. This article considers briefly the immediate legal and ideological circumstances that frame the subject of homosexuality in British schools as of 1991. Specifically, it examines Section 28 of the Local Government (Amendment) Act came into force in Great Britain on May 24, 1988. The Act states that, among others, a local authority shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intent of promoting homosexuality. Sadly, there has never been any question of English law turning its archaic attention to the rising tide of anti-gay prejudice and discrimination and actual violence in contemporary Great Britain. This is largely a result of the absence of any effective discourse of civil rights within Parliamentary politics in the country. On the contrary, the workings of the Wolfenden Strategy have consistently, if unconvincingly, attempted to define acceptable human sexuality in strict relation to reproductive sex between married couples, and to contain all forms of non-reproductive sex, from homosexuality to prostitution, in a legally defined private sphere where they are permitted to exist, but not to be culturally validated in any way.