The initiative organised by the National Education Union and and LGBTQ+ education company, will provide books to every primary school, in the hopes of tackling discrimination.
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00:00 These bears may look like ordinary stuffed toys, but next week Shay Coffey will be bringing them
00:05 to the funeral of a 14-year-old trans teenager. For Coffey, a trans activist and mother to a
00:11 child who is also trans, this will not be the first funeral she will have attended for a trans child
00:17 this year. She says she has seen the rising cost of hate against LGBTQ+ people first hand.
00:23 Yeah, I was bullied at school for being different and obviously I don't want other kids to go
00:30 through that. I don't want to be attending funerals of teenagers next year. We are seeing within the
00:37 media, within politics, really frightening rhetoric. My child has been on the bus and
00:43 has had things parroted back that politicians have said, almost word for word. So while we don't
00:50 think young people pay attention, they do. And we need to educate this generation. We can't afford
00:58 to have them stumble into essentially bigotry. The LGBTQ+ Young People's Charity, Just Like Us,
01:06 estimates just over 40% of LGBTQ+ pupils experience bullying. This is what Poppinolli
01:13 and the National Education Union want to challenge. As part of the Pride in Primary project,
01:19 all 546 primary schools in Kent will be receiving a copy of 'What Does LGBT+ Mean?'
01:26 to help improve understanding to combat hate. Ollie Pike, the co-founder of Poppinolli and the
01:31 author of the book, says he wishes this initiative was there when he was at school.
01:36 Some people might grow up to be LGBT+, some people will not. There's so many different ways to be a
01:42 boy, there's so many different ways to be a girl, there's so many different ways to be a human.
01:46 And if I'd have known that when I was at school, it just would have been life-changing and would
01:52 have made my adolescence and my adulthood a lot easier to navigate with my LGBT+ identity.
02:02 These aren't the only things taking place, however. Here at the Medway Council building,
02:07 the trans flag will be hoisted up next week as part of Trans Remembrance Day. And down the road
02:12 in Rochester, the cathedral will also be lit up. If you have been impacted by any of the content
02:18 in this piece, you can call Porch Light at 0227 123 456.