Aotearoa in 20: Mikayley Bennett struggled through school life with little support as 'the only known lesbian' there
Wednesday, 2 September 2020
Growing up in Tauranga Mikayley Bennett was shunned, slurred and stigmatised, but now she’s shining. She shares her story for Aotearoa in 20, a Stuff special project.
I have always been a tomboy. In fact, when I came out, Mum thought I was going to tell her I was transgender.
It was around Year 8 or 9. It was weird. A thought hit me: “you’re gay”. At 13-years-old, it started taking over my life – I didn’t want to be gay. I didn’t grow up with any gay people around me or a support system. I was living in small-minded suburbia in Tauranga and I was the first openly gay person to come out at my school. I was in Year 11 and I had come to the realisation that “hey, I’m gay, I can’t change this”.
I lost quite a few friends when I came out, so I had to not only struggle with finding myself, but losing other people because of it. I did have the support from my parents. My Mum was like, “I thought you were going to come out as transgender” - because I was quite a tomboy. I told my dad, and he was like “we both like girls, ha-ha sort of thing”. My brother didn't take it well. He would call me slurs in public and stuff when he was with his friends, which was quite hard.
Coming out at school was isolating and at times cruel, but I feel proud of myself for pushing past everyone who bullied me.
**READ MORE:
* Aotearoa in 20: Overcoming a rare illness gave one Māori entrepreneur the drive to succeed
* Aotearoa in 20: Living in an abandoned gentlemen’s club and really enjoying life
* Aotearoa in 20: Maurice Flynn has had over 100 operations, but is making life his own
**
I had people come up and tell me to get changed in the showers when we were in the changing room for PE. They thought I was going to look at them. Some friends thought I had a crush on them and felt weird. I was like, ‘’no, it’s not how it works’’. I am proud of myself for still going through school and dealing with all of that stuff.
As I got older, younger students started coming to me for support and advice.
I can still remember lots of people coming up and saying, “I think I’m gay … don’t tell anyone’’, ‘’how do I tell my friends” or “how did you know you were gay?’’ A lot of people wanted help coming out to their parents. I just had to talk a lot of people through it because it was like I was the only known lesbian. It made me feel happy that I was trusted and seen as someone they could come to for advice and help and stuff. I didn't see it as a big thing in high school but looking back on it, I kind of feel like I started something …I’m really proud of myself that I pushed through that.
Schools need to be more proactive normalising the LGBTQ community, and come down harder on bullying. My best friend came out as gay after me, and he got massively bullied for that. I don't think the school was really great with that.
I think they need to teach the history of LGBTQ just to normalise it and really give everyone an open mind. Gay people aren’t different. We are still the same, we just have different preferences. When I told them, the school told me to ignore them, rather than actually punishing bullies.
High school was a struggle. Not only was coming to terms with being gay, but I didn’t realise I had ADHD. I found school really hard. Sitting in class for an hour was becoming hard and I didn’t know why I wasn’t able to learn. It would just go in one ear and out the other and a lot of my teachers didn’t really help me. I thought it was normal until a friend suggested I should get tested for ADHD and I got diagnosed.
A lot of teachers found me disruptive and just dismissed what I was doing and put it down to me being a bad kid. A lot were like, ‘’you are going to end up working at McDonald's for the rest of your life’’, instead of actually trying to help. They used to say I didn’t put in effort. To me, I was putting in all my effort. I think it did affect me a lot and I had no idea about it until someone pointed it out and I thought it made sense.
A lot of people don’t understand that learning isn’t for everyone, and they need to figure out a way for different people to learn.
Once I hit NCEA, I really got bored and started ditching school. I just sort of didn’t really care and at the end of Year 11, I decided to move to Toronto, Canada with my best friend. I was 16-years-old.
Canada was eye-opening. I remember thinking, if I had a girlfriend I could walk down the street here holding her hand.
I returned to New Zealand from Canada after four months and finished Year 13 before moving to Christchurch with my parents. I spent the summer hanging out with friends, they were heading to uni and I didn’t really know what I was going to do.
It was then it hit me – education was important.
You need education to get good jobs and stuff like that because I was never a believer of that in high school. I was like, you can do what you want sort of thing. That realisation took me to Dunedin to study.
For me, it was like my parents didn’t study, and they are doing fine, they have good jobs, I can do that. But then when I tried to find a job the only job I could get was working at Warehouse Stationery and I didn’t want to continue working there for the rest of my life. Then it sort of clicked, I should go on to study and my girlfriend at the time encouraged me. I ended up choosing mechanical engineering then I changed to quantity surveying and I love it.
Student life in Dunedin is different to what I have known. There are a lot more support systems. They are so welcoming of gay students. They have the gay pride flag out the front, they have a support system for everyone.
I am getting involved in advocacy. I’m really passionate about the Black Lives Matter movement, women’s rights and LGBTQ stuff. I’m a minority and I know how it feels to not have many rights and to be hated for something you can’t change. It’s just about protecting other people’s rights and wanting the world to be a better place.
As told to Jo McKenzie-McLean for ‘Aotearoa in 20’, a Stuff project.