This article contains spoilers for seasons one and two of Heartstopper.
It’s confession time. Despite being well into my fifties, I am a Heartstopper super-fan. For those who don’t know Heartstopper, it is Alice Osman’s Netflix adaptation of their boy-meets-boy graphic novel. Charlie (Joe Locke) and Nick (Kit Connor) and their LGBTQ+ friends come of age and fall in love at school.
I am not the target audience for Heartstopper – the second series of which has recently been released. It is squarely aimed at young people and LGBTQ+ young people in particular. However, I was a secondary school teacher for more than 20 years and Heartstopper to me is a joyous depiction of what teaching and schools could have been, but for me, never was.