After He Came Out, A Catholic School Told Will Kostakis His New Book Was “Inappropriate”

A staff member at De La Salle College in Revesby Heights told Kostakis she was concerned about promoting The Sidekicks after reading over his blog, where Kostakis had recently posted about coming out as gay.

“I think it might not be appropriate, and parents might not be happy,” the staff member said in the email, provided to BuzzFeed News.

Kostakis said he had long feared coming out publicly because speaking at schools is such a big part of being an Australian young adult author.

“There was always this fear, because 80% of my income comes from speaking at schools,” he said. “That is how I meet my audience.”
It was in light of the recent debate over the Safe Schools Coalition, an anti-bullying program aimed at helping LGBTI kids, that Kostakis decided to come out.
“It was after that really rough first week of the debate,” he said. “I thought, this is harrowing, my whole book is about the danger of closets, but I’m still sort of leaving it.”
“I just need to stand up and go, look, actually, I am a positively contributing member of society. I like to inspire kids to creatively write. I am not a danger to anyone.”
Kostakis said the attitudes he experienced in dealing with De La Salle were something he has seen “throughout Catholic schools”.
“I’ve seen these sorts of attitudes around, and one school could have been another school.”

Read the full article here.
You can read the full email exchange on Kostakis’s blog.