Teaching the teachers: the ongoing struggle to get LGBTQ+ classes in Catalan schools

"We are resilient people," says Katy Pallàs. 

The former English teacher turned sexual diversity teacher trainer is telling Catalan News about the struggle to get the subject into Catalan classrooms. Sexual diversity that is, not English. 

"Long ago, when we started, it was like a blank page. We really didn't know where to start. But we started looking at other countries where some things had been done, like the United States and the United Kingdom," says Katy, who for a decade was president of the FLG, Catalonia's Association of LGTBI Families. 

Based on an initiative in England, Catalan LGBTQ+ educational activists developed the Rainbow Schools Educational Program, known as PEER in Catalan. 

"Some things now that I look back on from those years, I think were a little bit naive. But still, it worked. We were able to implement it in two different schools. And that gave us a lot of knowledge on what was useful and what was not," Katy explains.   

But when they presented it to the authorities for wider implementation around a decade ago, they were rejected.

That's where the resilience comes in. 

"We kept on trying to get this done. We kept on developing materials, teaching materials on our website, in books, videos, and we kept on training teachers, those teachers that wanted to be trained," Katy says.    

"Students also started saying: 'we want to learn about sexual education, we think it's going to be good for us, we need to have that information.' And so the government started thinking, OK, maybe we should do something."   

Tears of joy 

That something was a new Spanish education law passed in 2020, which was expanded on by a Catalan government decree in 2022. 

"That decree, for the first time, has got LGBTIQ+ in black and white," Katy says.

"That made me cry, I have to admit. To have those letters in an educational document that was going to be compulsorily followed by all teachers and all schools all over Catalonia. That is something big."

Act without fear 

The new legislation, Katy says, gives teachers "the power to act and implement without fear" that parents, families or other groups could take them to court over teaching sexual and gender diversity topics to children. 

"You can bring books to school which talk about diversity and nobody can stop you, she says. In fact, "that is compulsory for you because the law tells you that you have to do that." 

Challenges 

Katy lauds the "big step" achieved by activists in bringing about these legal guarantees but warns there are still "many challenges to face." 

Teaching materials are crucial – "especially for primary education and kindergarten," with differences presented in a "positive way" – as is teacher training.  

"If teachers are not trained well enough, they will not have the courage to bring that subject to schools," she says.

"There is a lot to do because there are more than 20,000 teachers in Catalonia," Katy points out, saying the onus is on both politicians and wider society. 

"We need a government plan. And this topic has to be on the agenda," she says. 

"But we also need society as a whole to start looking at this as something important," not just "LGBT people or feminists that are upset with the world." 

"People need to understand that what we're trying to do is to make life easier for everybody and happier for everybody."   

'A pending subject' 

This year's theme at Pride Barcelona is 'Education in sexual and gender diversity: a pending subject'. 

Katy laughs when asked about it. Rather than "pending," she says it's "a non-started subject."

"Even though we've been working on that for more than 10 years now, it's still difficult to bring that perspective into schools," Katy says. 

One thing is for certain, it's not for want of trying.