Scotland's progress on LGBT+ education cannot be taken for granted

The National

2 days ago

Ten years ago, Jordan Daly, a 19-year-old university student, and Liam Stevenson, a 36-year-old petrol tanker driver, launched one of the most successful grassroots campaigns this country has ever seen. A movement that would change Scotland's education system forever and cement Scotland as a pioneer in equality legislation on the world stage.
The campaign was born in 2015 with the simple but revolutionary demand that LGBT identities, histories and issues be taught in Scottish schools, a normalised and visible part of every child's learning. A way of tackling prejudice at a formative age by preventing it from developing.
Tie argued that when it comes to prejudice, prevention is better than cure and education has the unique power to transform attitudes early on. Tie knew exactly what it wanted and how to get it.
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They didn't have a political machine behind them, or institutional weight of any kind – nor the financial means to underpin their vision – just the audacity to believe that things could be different. The grassroots talent and determination to build something better for the young people of Scotland. Powered by hope, Tie came to be.
In 2015, I was on the board of the Young Scots for Independence when our convener at the time, Rhiannon, met Jordan. She immediately presented the policy idea to our youth conference where it was passed and adopted as one of our official policy positions.
We campaigned hard and with the help of Liam and Jordan, Tie started to become a talking point within the SNP. In the spring of 2016, we presented the campaign to national conference. My first-ever conference speech was on my unwavering belief in Tie. An attempt to convince the wider SNP membership of why it should be a priority. It worked – conference passed the resolution and we got back to work, bringing a second and more refined policy to party conference the following year.
By this time, Tie was no longer just a few grassroots activists making a noise, it was a movement, and it was gaining ground with every passing week. After much lobbying, Tie was announced as a policy objective in Nicola Sturgeon's Programme for Government. Fast forward a decade and in 2025, Scotland stands as the first country in the world to embed LGBT-inclusive education across the national curriculum. It quite literally put Scotland on the map.
It's emotional to look back and see how far Tie has come since those early days when we were parading around conference with multi-coloured ties printed on our T-shirts. To reflect on how far Jordan and Liam have come – two men whose optimism and devotion to a better world have been a beacon to me for the past 10 years – and all of the lives they have changed simply because they dared to.
But anniversaries are also moments for reflection, and there's pain to acknowledge among all the achievement. The world around us has changed since 2015 and in many ways, not for the better. When Tie launched, discourse around LGBT inclusion was in a much better place.
It wasn't without its opposition of course, otherwise Tie would never have been a necessary campaign, but LGBT equality was almost an inevitable element of social progression back then. In the years since, driven primarily by a transphobic moral panic, an ugly resurgence of anti-LGBT rhetoric has gained traction.
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Rhetoric that is rearing its head not only on the fringes of opposition but in our parliaments, classrooms, social media feeds, justice system, healthcare settings. The same tired tropes of Section 28 are being dusted off and repackaged; concerns of protecting children, outcries about parental rights and indoctrination.
It's a tale we have been told before and the fact that it has been so able to seep back into public acceptance is all of our shame.
It's not just a Scottish problem. The widespread rollback of LGBT rights is under way across the globe. In Hungary, laws have been passed to ban the promotion of LGBT topics in schools. In parts of the US, teachers now face penalties for acknowledging the existence of queer people and LGBT books are being removed from libraries, banned from being read.
It would be naive to think that we are protected from similar rollbacks here. With the threat of Nigel Farage looming, and a more hostile environment for LGBT people – particularly the trans community – than has been seen in decades, things are incredibly fragile here too. This is the hostile environment in which the legacy of Tie now lives and has to move through.
I can speak from personal experience; I have been abused online for supporting Tie and I know of the abuse others involved have had to endure as well. I'm not talking about a strongly worded comment here or there. I'm talking about being labelled a danger to children, doxxed, families harassed.
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This space has become frightening, but it makes Tie's success all the more extraordinary, and its mission all the more of a necessity.
Young LGBT people in Scotland still face disproportionate levels of bullying, mental health difficulties and isolation. For trans and non-binary youth in particular, the atmosphere has become dangerous. Public discourse about their lives is increasingly dominated by misinformation and cruelty – and the need for Tie is more apparent than it has ever been.
Inclusive education is not about being 'woke' or meeting diversity targets or indoctrinating children. It's about making sure that the next generation grows up knowing that being LGBT isn't shameful or controversial, it's a human experience like any other.
There's a despair that comes with realising the battles you thought you were winning are still being fought. But there's also power in knowing that we have done this before – and won. The Tie campaign itself is living proof that even in the face of extreme resistance and ignorance, grassroots activism works and changes lives.
Tie was never just about the ins and outs of education policy. It was about rewriting the rules of who gets to belong. Who gets to be seen, heard, validated. It was about making space in the curriculum for stories that had been systemically erased so that those stories could lend a hand to Scotland's younger generations.
So that they could build a Scotland free from the ugly prejudices of the past, setting an example for the rest of the world as they went. And it was about doing all of that from the bottom up, powered by ordinary people who dared to dream of a better future.
That grit and commitment to justice is what made Tie not just another campaign for social change, but a blueprint for how to make change happen, and that's what we need to hold on to as Tie embarks on its next 10 years.
Because if the past decade has shown us anything, it's that rights can be won – but they can also be lost. Progress isn't permanent or inevitable, and there will always be people ready and willing to come for it, given half a chance. No social progress in history has been won easily, we have to keep going.
With people like Liam and Jordan heading the fight, I think we will be just fine.