As the members of Trans Kids Deserve Better occupied the Department of Education, their impending return to school, where many of them experience bullying, isolation and erasure, must have crossed their minds.
At the protest – which was aimed at government policies that could prevent schools from respecting trans+ pupils gender identities – members of the group told QueerAF about other ways they feel erased at school, including the lack of trans people in the curriculum.
Debs, one of the activists, lamented the way GCSE Biology teaches about biological sex as if it was binary, fuelling the common gender-critical talking point the binary of XX and XY chromosomes is literally GCSE science. In a sense, they are correct. Science is simplified across the GCSE curriculum, but the heavy politicisation of this subject led Debs to conclude it warrants more nuanced discussion.
It isn’t just science where members of Trans Kids Deserve Better feel unrepresented. “We get very little representation, with the exception of PSHE,” activist Chalky told QueerAF.
Currently, schools have to teach about trans people in Relationships, Sex and Health Education. However, if new guidance drafted by the last government is implemented, they will be discussed as a “contested ideology” rather than a normal part of human diversity.
Chalky noted the absence of trans figures in English Literature and History courses in particular.
One GCSE History unit touches on the Stonewall riots and their fallout, but ignores the contributions of trans people. Meanwhile, a unit on the rise Nazi Germany contains no mention of the Nazi's destruction of the Institute of Sexology, which performed some of the world’s first gender confirmation surgeries. Though schoolchildren are often shown the famous pictures of the Institute’s library collection being burned, they are rarely taught about the contents of the fire.
The exam board OCR introduced English Literature set texts by nonbinary American poet Fatimah Asghar in 2022 at both GCSE and A Level, but many schools will inevitably continue to teach their previously chosen texts, an issue that has long undermined exam boards’ efforts to diversify English classes.
Members of Trans Kids Deserve Better described having the most problems in PE, which is gender segregated in most schools.
While pointing out that cis children are often much less concerned about sharing changing rooms with trans and nonbinary kids than public discourse might suggest, they highlight the effects of anti-trans media rhetoric:
“If a group of people are told that they are a victim of something and that a group they’ve never really encountered and don’t know much about is dangerous, of course they’re going to believe it,” said an activist called Paint.
“It also passes from person to person,” said Sidney, another Trans Kids Deserve Better member. “If someone is saying in the changing room ‘this person is dangerous and we don’t like them’, people are going to get scared and pass it on.” He added that this still happens to cisgender queer kids, as well as trans kids.
Paint is now open about being trans but was living in stealth until a year ago, which new guidance banning trans pupils from changing with cis pupils of the same gender would make impossible. “In that time, if people had figured out I was trans it could have been physically not safe,” they said.
Even when schools provide third spaces – which only some trans kids want – there can be pitfalls. Chalky says they were given a gender-neutral space to change but it was never cleaned and didn’t lock, so they often ended up changing with the girls. One time they were put in a boys’ class, against their wishes. “It looked really weird and from that point on a lot of rumours [were spread] about me,” they said.
“There were some people, mostly girls, who came up and asked me if they were true, out of fear for their own safety, and I completely respect that. But it shows how much people who are transphobic are hijacking anti-sexual harassment and sexual assault campaigns.”
Trans Kids Deserve Better members have also been disappointed by the ways some of their schools respond to bullying of trans kids. Several activists told QueerAF that their schools tolerate pupils being misgendered, deadnamed, outed or called transphobic slurs. One activist said their headteacher saw “no point” in a trans inclusion policy.
An activist called Ivy sums up the conundrum many trans kids are facing: “Things are tied to healthcare we can’t get access to, which then mean we can’t be ourselves in education,” she said. “As a trans youth, if you cannot be yourself in school and you cannot be yourself at home, where can you be yourself?”
It doesn’t take much for schools to make life easier for trans kids. Simply taking anti-trans bullying seriously, modelling respect for trans kids’ names and pronouns, and ensuring they can use facilities in which they feel safe would go a long way. It is time for schools to realise that trans kids deserve better than mere tolerance.
Leading with the truth
Today is World News Day, a campaign that hundreds of media companies - including us - mark as we try to hold ourselves, as an industry, accountable for what news is supposed to be about.
This year's theme is 'Choose Truth' which, frankly, should be the default position of news organisations. But in a 'post truth era' where misinformation spreads like wildfire - it's timely. Though we'd go one further and say - lead with the truth. But that's not enough, to fix the industry we need a fundamental change.
We joke a lot about our not-so-secret queer militant agenda at QueerAF - our plan to pack the newsroom full of us, to change the news industry so it works for us, not against us.
This week's QueerAF newsletter was written by two Trans+ journalists, alongside me.
What do you think about that? Trans+ journalists being invested in to build media careers - and talk about the issues they know (and can report on) best?
It's different, we know. But imagine if it wasn't?
We're a small independent media outlet. We're proud to punch above our weight. We're proud to be making this the new normal.
And as the only queer publication to be both press regulated and be registered as a community interest company that has locked its profits and assets into the community - we do all of our work on a shoestring budget.
Imagine what we could do with a budget like the mainstream media has?
As well as investing in more reporting, we could also deliver more queer media professionals into the industry - so they can create better representation right across the board.
We're modelling the change at QueerAF to show it's possible. If you want to see us help more:
- People understand the LGBTQIA+ news
- Editors and media organisations develop better representation of our community
- Queer creatives build media careers so they can change the industry for all of us
Then please consider becoming a paid member of our newsletter.
As well as perks, you'll help keep this newsletter free for everyone, while funding our not-for-profit work to make the rest of the media, Queer As F**k too.
