Thirteen of the fifteen respondents were happy to share some personal information with young people as discussed above (7.3.1). However, two respondents, Gaby and Fern, were clear that they did not want to, or felt it unnecessary, to share much personal information about their lives with young people.
Fern seemed content that the LGBT young people she worked with did not know that she identified as bisexual and was married to a woman. Whilst her colleagues at the LGBT organisation where she worked half time, were clear about her bisexuality she stated that she was ‘not
concerned about being out as a bisexual woman’ around the LGBT young people within this
organisation. Fern was clear that she would ensure that young people knew that there were other options regarding sexual identity rather than just straight or gay/lesbian but ‘without saying this
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is personal experience of mine’. Fern did point out that many of the young people were ‘identifying beyond the LGBT ... acronyms. ... Young people might identify as gender fluid ... identifying as pansexual or omnisexual’ so maybe she felt that being open about her bisexuality was not
important for these young people. Explaining Fern’s thinking using a longer quote from her seems useful here.
My work with young people is very boundaried ... working in an LGBT space: people make assumptions of you, but I don’t share a lot of myself. ... [I might] talk [with
young people] about ... a TV programme ... we’ll talk about that ..., but I won’t share
experience, you know, about family or friends or partner or whatever. ... I feel that that’s oversharing from a professional boundary position. ... Other people might think it’s ... important to share ... that you’re married to another woman and stuff like that. ... I’m not closeted ... I don’t hide my feminism.... But I don’t share things that I think aren’t appropriate to share. ... For me young people don’t need to know ... much about my life ... it’s more about them, and you can relate with young people without having to confide ... personal details. You need to find some commonality but it doesn’t mean that you need to tell them your whole life.
Fern remembered learning through her youth work degree ‘that there are other ways to have
conversations without putting yourself in it’. Fern did, however, point out that she might talk to
young people about her body piercings: especially if the young person is thinking about having piercings.
Gaby’s discomfort with sharing personal information came from a different position to that of Fern. Gaby was nervous about young people finding out about her LGBQ sexuality as she believed this would undermine her role at the PRU where she had been a student on placement. It was possible that this was due to the fact that Gaby had relatively recently come out to her parents and family about her sexuality. This is supported by the discussion within the literature that said that being open or coming out is a lifelong process (Casey, 2002) and not something that happened quickly as ‘coming out never stops’ (Devlin, 2015, p176). Maybe Gaby had not arrived at a place where she had sufficient confidence to question the homophobia and biphobia of the young people who she was working with in this challenging setting. Gaby was a BAME woman who could pass as straight and so maybe had not the same pressures on her as other workers, as discussed below (8.3.1). For Gaby her boundaries and the fact that she could pass as straight
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allowed her, as the worker, a safe space (as discussed in Batsleer, 2008). As Gaby said: ‘I never
came out to the kids [at the PRU] … no point as ... [none of the other workers] challenged homophobia or sexism: I wouldn’t dare’. Gaby went on to say: ‘I hated being [in the sex education
class] ... I felt on edge all the time’ so she asked not to be in that class. She pointed out that the young people she worked with said that same-sex marriage was ‘disgusting and appalling. So I
never spoke to them about it’. Young people would share their relationship problems with Gaby
but ‘I just told them I was not going to discuss’ my personal life with them. This might have been a powerful opportunity missed by Gaby, but maybe it was not appropriate for her to be out as gay given the very challenging setting in which she worked where other members of staff were not questioning homophobia, biphobia or sexism amongst the young people. Only Gaby was able to make this judgement.
The fact that Fern and Gaby seemed to share less about their selves than other respondents suggests that deciding how much of one’s own life to share and when to share it is a personal matter. This is supported by the literature which suggests that ‘sharing information about [her own life was] … an individual matter … [as she believed that] being honest and open does not require disclosure about personal histories or circumstances’ (Sapin, 2013, p68) as noted above (7.3.1). Other respondents were, however, more likely to be ‘very open about their experience and use their interpretations of their lives as a regular method of practice’ (Sapin, 2013, p68) than Fern and Gaby.