Gay Aussie Author Shares Shocking Story About Catholic School Appearance

Gay Aussie Author Shares Shocking Story About Catholic School Appearance
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Award winning gay Australian author Will Kostakis has shared shocking details of an encounter he had whilst making an appearance at a Catholic school last year.

In a video posted to Instagram he described how he was almost prevented from speaking because the school was scared of a parent who runs an “alt-right Facebook meme account.”

But the shocking details didn’t end there.

Will Kostakis recalls shocking details of appearance at catholic school

Gay author Will Kostakis is no stranger to the nuances of being a gay author and presenting in schools.

Whilst Kostakis, who recently won recently won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, is a full time author he also spends equal amounts of time touring schools presenting, speaking and conducting workshops.

Over the years he has had several encounters with schools who have taken issue with his sexuality and the content of his books.

One school asked that he skip the ‘gay parts’ of his book whilst another school told him his book was ‘not appropriate’ for schools just days after he came out.

However his latest encounter is even more baffling than the others.

In an Instagram post over the weekend he detailed the very strange experience that took place during a recent appearance at a Catholic school he was set to present at.

“Early last year I was invited to a Catholic school to do a five-day gig, inspiring everyone to get into story writing, but they wanted me to kick it off with an assembly address where I gave a diversity speech that they’d heard me give before” he began.

“It was great, but I knew Catholic schools, I’ll dial down the gay a lot, and I won’t focus on that. I will focus on dead mate in high school and talk about how writing helped me through that and helped me through my uneasiness around my sexuality.”

It all seemed well enough and the opening speech seemed to go well or so he thought.

“It was subtle and I think it hit all the notes it needed to. Afterwards, the principal comes up to me and he’s like, ‘Will, we need to put a pin on your author visit just for a little bit’.”

“And I’m like, ‘wait, what have I done? I gave the speech you told me to give. In fact, I walked it back a lot.’ So they locked me in the staff room for most of what would have been my first period teaching.”

School staff soon came to advise him of the situation, which was not quite what he had expected.

“Eventually, I am invited to the principal’s office. I sit down ready to be like, hey, cool, you can either pay me and I will leave, or you let me go and do my job.”

“Turns out there was a mother at the school that ran an alt-right Facebook meme account, and they were all really scared of her.”

However the principal ended up supporting Will and directed him to head off to the classroom, where Will soon discovered the kids had already been advised of the delay. He asked the teacher what reason she had given for his absence, which perhaps ended up being more shocking than the original appearance.

She advised she had spoken to the students about separating the art from the artist.

“What do you mean separating the art from the artist? Like, if you’ve read any of my art, there is no delineation between the art and the artist. It is just, there’s Will, and he’s written it down” he says.

In response the teacher went on with an even more baffling explanation.

“She’s like, yeah. Look, I told them that, you know, I still listen to Chris Brown’s music’ he says in shock.

“Me being gay isn’t the same as what Chris Brown did in 2009.”

“Separating the art from the artist, look, it’s mostly bull. It’s like when journalists are like, oh, objectivity. No, there are biases. Your history informs what you write, all that sort of stuff.”

“We use it to defend really horrible people we still want to give money to” he says before ending the video with a screenshot of a tweet by JK Rowling.

When speaking to the Star Observer Will Kostakis highlighted that this story is not unique and raises broader issues around the treatment of queer content in schools.

“We’ve made some significant progress over the past few years when it comes to schools embracing queer texts and their authors. Unfortunately, last year saw the pendulum swing back in some disheartening ways – schools asking authors not to be openly queer when they visit, libraries removing LGBTQIA+ books from book fairs… A lot of it comes from fearing a backlash from a vocal minority of parents, and letting their queer students down in the process” he said.
However he remains optimistic by the schools that do support him and other queer authors in providing authentic stories to young people.
“That all said, when queer authors are allowed to be themselves, students recognise that authenticity and respond in kind. And I’m buoyed by the many schools, teachers and teacher-librarians doing so much to promote queer writing and authors, and protect their queer students.”

Watch the full video of Will describing his experience below.

 

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A post shared by Will Kostakis (@willkostakis)

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