Experiences of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Youth in High School

Background and Purpose:

Studies consistently show that transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) youth experience bullying, harassment, discrimination and physical violence at rates much higher than their cisgender peers, but they often do not feel that they can report such incidents to school officials. Rather than being seen as advocates, some school administrators and teachers are regarded as contributing to the hostile environment of schools. Concerns about personal safety lead to nearly half of transgender youth to report regularly skipping school. TGNC young adults who were bullied and victimized in high school show elevated rates of depression, suicidal ideation, and risk for STDs and HIV. For TGNC students of color, these experiences are often compounded with harsher discipline, biased application of school policies, and higher rates of “victim blaming” by school administration. The clear links between health, safety, and educational outcomes have led researchers to call for more research on the experience of LGBTQ youth in schools. Who better to do this than LGBTQ youth, themselves?

Methods:

We employed critical participatory action research (CPAR) with a team of TGNC-identified youth of color and staff from The Attic, Philadelphia’s LGBTQ Youth Center, and LGBTQ-identified social work scholars and graduate students to qualitatively investigate the experience of transgender and GNC youth in Philadelphia public high schools. Trained youth conducted interviews with 20 current or recently-enrolled high school students ages 16 to 20 using a structured interview guide, with support from a social work faculty member or graduate student. Questions addressed changes over time in gender identity and gender expression, relationships with peers and teachers, use of bathrooms and locker rooms, classroom activities relating to gender identity and sexuality, and perceptions of protective school policies. Youth, staff, faculty, and graduate students developed a codebook together and two team members coded the interviews using Dedoose software.

Results:

Results indicate a sizable population of high school students identifying as gender fluid, challenging conventional notions – particularly those institutionalized in bathroom policies – that assume gender identity is binary and fixed in time or space. Additional highlights include that TGNC students frequently take the role of educator in their schools, inviting their peers, teachers, and administrators to dialogue about gender identity and intervening during times of conflict or misunderstanding. Finally, TGNC students experience high levels of agency, creating supportive communities, advocating on their own behalf, and negotiating tricky relationships with family while exploring their gender and sexual identities.

Conclusions and Implications:

The experiences of transgender and GNC youth suggest that policies that reinforce gender binaries will not provide sufficient room and safety for students to develop and express their full gender identity. Queer theory helps us understand that schools and school policies relating to gender identity need “queering,” a process of disrupting heteronormative and cis-normative conventions and fostering an appreciation for the fluid and individualized understanding of gender. Such work involves extensive training of teachers and administrators as well as changes to K-12 health curriculum that adopt more expansive views of gender and