There's No Playbook for This: Michigan School Social Work with Transgender and Gender-Diverse K-12 Students

Introduction: Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) children and adolescents have unique needs in school to promote academic success, including privacy protection, right to self-determination, and discrimination prevention and intervention.. School social workers play an important role in ensuring equitable access to education for TGD students in K-12 schools. This study investigated the practices employed by school social workers to support and protect TGD students in elementary, middle, and high schools across the state of Michigan.

Method: Researchers used snowball sampling via professional social work networks and social media sites to recruit 20 school social workers in Michigan K-12 schools to participate in semi-structured interviews. School social workers were recruited from both secondary and elementary school settings and asked to complete policy checklists and demographic forms. The interviews explored social worker experiences with school policies, facilities, and services specific to transgender students. Interview data was analyzed thematically by two coders following steps outlined by Braun and Clarke (2024).

Results: Michigan school social workers reported that they were frequently the sole advocates for TGD students in their schools. They also reported that their schools generally lacked policies and guidance to inform structured supports for TGD students, such as name change procedures and nondiscrimination policies that explicitly cover gender identity. Social workers reported that even small but vocal community opposition to TGD student rights created internal pressures within schools, leading to a failure to provide necessary social and mental health supports to TGD students.

Discussion: School social workers adapt care for TGD students according to the presence and absence of school policies, as well as contextual community norms and pressures. Current barriers to protecting TGD educational access may be alleviated by state adoption of TGD protective education policies, inclusion of TGD topics in school social work training programs (BSW and MSW), and provision of ongoing continuing education in TGD students’ educational needs and services.