Former Citipointe Christian College student blasts school for entrenched homophobia

An ex Citipointe Christian College student has shared the homophobia he encountered at the school, which forced him to hide his sexuality until age 15.

A former student from the controversial Citipointe Christian College in Brisbane has spoken out about the school’s entrenched culture of homophobia.

Dancer and performer Jared Mifsud, 30, attended the school from Year One to Year 12 and graduated in 2009. Speaking on the podcast, I’ve Got News For You, Mr Misfud said that while he “knew for sure” he was gay from the age of 15, the entrenched homophobia at Citipointe caused him to hide his sexuality.

“There was no option to even consider that with the environment I was in,” he told host, Andrew Bucklow.

“I hid my sexuality, I got a girlfriend. I became almost zealous in my pursuit of religion because that was I just that was the only way I knew to try and hide and fool people from thinking the person that I truly felt deep down.”

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Due to the ideologies Mr Misfud was exposed to during his schooling, he said he wasn’t comfortable with his sexuality until the age of 20. Picture: Instagram.

During his adolescence, students at Citipointe were taught that homosexuality was a “no-go”. Picture: Instagram.

Looking back, he describes it as a “kind of trauma,” which meant he didn’t come out until he was 20 – “so a good five years later”.

“One of my teachers in one of our classes said to me (verbatim): ‘Don’t let them turn you,’” he continued.

“That made me then end up fearing the very community that would have welcomed me with open arms and I had such a fear of other gay people.”

In recent days Citipointe Christian College has come under fire for asking parents to sign an enrolment contract which agreed to terms like homosexuality is a sin, abortion is wrong, and gender identity is a myth. Parents had one week to sign the contract on behalf of their children, which would have also allowed the school to terminate a student’s enrolment over their sexuality, gender identity and sexual activity.

The Brisbane Christian college wanted parents to sign a contract agreeing that homosexuality is a sin, abortion is wrong, and gender identity is a myth. Picture: Supplied.

The amended enrolment contract compared homosexuality to incest and paedophilia.

“We believe that any form of sexual immorality (including but not limiting to adultery, fornication, homosexual acts, bisexual acts, bestiality, incest, paedophilia and pornography) is sinful and offensive to God and is destructive to human relationships and society,” it read.

Since the details of the contract were shared online, parents, teachers and members of the public have expressed outrage over the terms. A Change. Org petition demanding for a recall of the contract has also received more than 108,000 signatories.

When Mr Misfud found out about the contract he said the wording left him in a “state of shock”. He was especially alarmed by the fact the school had so blatantly “penned the words to paper”.

“I’m still in shock about it,” he says.

Moving forwards Mr Misfud said the leadership of the school and church need to “take responsibility for their words and their actions”.

“These words will destroy people’s lives, and they need to realise that and take accountability,” he said.

“They cannot hide behind religion any more.

“At the end of the day, they are a school and then number one priority is the welfare and well being of their students.”

On Monday, an English teacher from Citipointe, Helen Clapham Burns, also announced she had quit her position. Appearing on The Project, Ms Burns said she no longer felt comfortable working at an institution that disregarded their student’s safety.

“I couldn’t agree to be a teacher in a school that had that vocabulary and language around some of the most vulnerable kids that we interact with,” she told the panel.

“The extra element of being a queer kid in a Christian environment is you think you‘re going to hell for eternity. I don’t even know how you walk through the day with that,” she continued.

Reflecting on his experience at Citipointe Christian College, Mr Mifsud still grieves the experiences he missed out on due to the external and internalised homophobia he was battling with.

“I never got to experience what tense like teenagers should when it comes to young love and those butterflies when you’re 16 years old and discovered what love is.

While he’s worked through some of these issues through therapy, he admits “it’s still something I think about”.

“I never got to have that as a teenager, and I will never get that back,” he said.

“I’m 30 years old now and to this day, it’s still something that sits in me. I’ve worked through it but it’s still there.”