Abstract
Australian religious conservatives continue to argue that religiously affiliated schools should be able to discriminate based on the sexuality and/or gender identity of students. We argue that this discussion fails to adequately consider the serious harms that discrimination against LGBTQ+ educators has on LGBTQ+ and questioning students. The article uses data from an Australian qualitative study examining the experience of LGBTQ+ educators in religiously affiliated organisations. We describe how heteronormative/cisnormative discourses and discriminatory practices toward LGBTQ+ educators have a direct negative impact on LGBTQ+ students. Even in relatively inclusive schools, the heteronormative and cisnormative climate of the schools is damaging, not only for educators but also for LGBTQ+ students. These serious harms need to be given greater consideration in evaluating the arguments for discriminatory practices in religiously affiliated schools funded by the government to provide education to the general Australian population.
Introduction and background
Discrimination based on sexuality or gender identity against educators in religiously affiliated schools has serious negative repercussions for LGBTQ+ students, even if schools do not profess to engage in discrimination against students. Educators fulfil many roles, and extensive research indicates that supportive educators (including out LGBTQ+ educators and allies) have a significant positive impact on queer students (Leung et al., 2022). One form of support involves LGBTQ+ and allied educators directly intervening with classroom incidents of homophobia and transphobia expressed by other students (van Leent & Ryan, 2016). LGBTQ+ and allied educators also provide support for students who are struggling with their feelings for a student who is same-sex, and they can provide these students comfort by engaging in confidential, safe conversation (van Leent, 2017). Sex educators also support queer students by noting in their lessons that not all people will necessarily have heterosexual relationships (van Leent, 2017). Second, research demonstrates that educators act as positive role models for young people (Kendall & Sidebotham, 2004). For instance, where they feel safe to do so, teachers have disclosed their sexuality diversity in professional development settings to be a role model for other teachers (Jones et al., 2014). Both for LGBTQ+ students and for non-LGBTQ+ students in religiously affiliated schools this can be lacking, particularly where visible LGBTQ+ identities among educators are discouraged and sometimes demonised.
Among 18 to 24-year-old Australians in 2020, approximately 64% had attended schools that are government controlled, 19% had attended Catholic-affiliated schools, and 15% had attended schools affiliated with other Christian and other religious traditions (Ezzy et al., 2022). The number of non-government schools has recently significantly expanded, with 76% of Australians over 50 years old having attended a government school. Religiously affiliated non-government schools receive federal funding per student similar to that of the funding received by government schools. In addition, non-government schools charge fees of varying amounts that results in better staff to student ratios and other benefits at these schools. Most parents send their students to non-government schools for the perceived higher quality education they offer, with religious considerations being relatively insignificant (Maddox, 2014). Students at the majority of religiously affiliated schools are only marginally more religious than those at government schools (Ezzy, 2023). However, there is a small group of highly religious schools where the majority of staff, parents, and students are members of the religion (Evans & Gaze, 2010).
Australia has recently been through an extended public debate about religious freedom and LGBTQ+ discrimination in the context of religiously affiliated education, social welfare, and health care. In 2019, the then conservative federal government introduced the first Religious Discrimination Bill (Australian Government, 2019), with two subsequent versions. The legislation was finally abandoned in 2022 (Ezzy, 2023). Much of the public debate focused on conservative Christian desires to legally discriminate against LGBTQ+ teachers and other employees in religiously affiliated schools. There was also some discussion of discrimination toward students based on sexuality and gender identities in religiously affiliated schools. However, there was little discussion about how discrimination against LGBTQ+ educators in these same schools might have secondary impacts on LGBTQ+ and other students.
Presently, there are varying levels of protection for LGBTQ+ educators in religiously affiliated institutions. States such as Tasmania and Victoria have relatively strong protections for workers based on sexuality and gender in all workplaces, whereas some states have broad exemptions for faith-based organisations, such as NSW and Western Australia (Evans & Ujvari, 2009). Strong anti-discrimination legislation can improve the work security for LGBTQ+ workers in faith-based educational workplaces (see Ezzy et al., 2022). However, even when protections are in place there are often other forms of regulation of, and constraints on, diverse sexualities and gender identities, even in the most inclusive workplace (Ferfolja, 2005; Ferfolja & Ullman, 2020). Constraints and regulations like these typically emerge out of discourses of heternormativity and cisnormativity. Heteronormativity refers to ‘a hegemonic system of norms, discourses, and practices that constructs heterosexuality as natural and superior to all other expressions of sexuality’ (Robinson, 2016, p. 1). Cisnormativity refers to ‘the normalised assumption that everyone identifies with the gender assigned to them at birth; and that sexed anatomy/gender identity congruence is immutable and fixed at birth’ (McBride & Neary, 2021, p. 1090). Heteronormative and cisnormative ideas and expectations filter into and shape the fabric of daily interactions in schooling environments. Most importantly, heteronormative and cisnormative discourses silence and make LGBTQ+ identities invisible in schools in multifarious ways. This means the LGBTQ+ educators experience heightened insecurity and vigilance, and workers may not feel able to be ‘their authentic selves’ at work.
It is well documented that heteronormative and cisnormative discourses also heavily influence the lives of LGBTQ+ students, and this is most experienced in the form of homophobia and transphobia in schools. Research from the US, western Europe and Australia indicates that LGBTQ+ students experience harassment and bullying at a higher rate than non-LGBTQ+ students (in the US see Ginicola et al., 2016; Leung et al., 2022; in Europe see Tatacs, 2006; Van der Star et al., 2018; in Australia see: Kendall & Sidebotham, 2004; Ullman, 2021; Ullman & Ferfolja, 2015). This leads to poorer health outcomes and higher rates of self-harm and suicide (Edwards & Watson, 2020; Hill et al., 2021). Legislation is in place specifically to protect LGBTQ+ students at various levels in Australian schools. However, schools remain places where expressing a visible LGBTQ+ identity is risky (Hill et al., 2021). Students are socialised to behave in ways that align with heteronorms and cisnorms. Student behaviours are expected to reflect heterosexuality as normal, meaning students can be policed by other students and teachers if their behaviours deviate from this expectation (Robinson, 2016). Students are also expected to be cisgender, meaning students are expected to display gender identity that aligns with their sex assigned at birth, and subsequently student behaviours that fall outside this are policed as deviant (McBride & Neary, 2021).
Ferfolja and Ullman (2020, p. ix) coined the phrase ‘culture of limitation’ to examine the acceptance of gender and sexuality diversity in Australian education. This refers to ‘an opportunistic and relentless surveillance and punishment … silencing and in/visibilising metered out through hyperbole, aggressive pursuit and political interventions’ (Ferfolja & Ullman, 2020, p. 3). This culture of limitation results in ‘undermining equitable curriculum development, thwarting potential progressive pedagogies, policies and practices, and constructing impediments for student learning and teachers’ employment experiences’ (Ferfolja & Ullman, 2020, p. 4). Formby (2015) also questions responses to bullying that focus on individual problems, concluding that rather than focusing on LGBTQ+ young people as possibly problematic or as victims, the emphasis should be on addressing the broader culture of the school and attitudes to LGBTQ+ young people.
The added element of religious doctrine means that religiously affiliated schools are often even more challenging for LGBTQ+ educators and students (Callaghan, 2016; Ferfolja, 2005; Ginicola et al., 2016). Fahie (2016), in his work in Irish schools, highlights the influence of the Catholic Church’s ‘denominational mores’ in the education system. Similarly, Callaghan (2016, p. 270), in her study of LGBTQ+ students in Canadian Catholic schools, points out that the underlying and irreconcilable concept to ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ causes much anguish for LGBT youth in schools. In Australia, the recent Sydney Anglican statement that same-sex desire is an ‘inclination toward evil’ (Koziol, 2023) illustrates the theologically conservative backdrop of some religiously affiliated schools. LGBTQ+ educators and students are caught at the intersection of this ideological chasm.
This article focuses on how openly homophobic and transphobic attitudes, as well as heteronormative and cisnormative discourses in religiously affiliated schools, often aimed at educators, have serious knock-on effects on students. If LGBTQ+ educators are discriminated against in legislation, as in some cases, or, in other cases, are constrained by heteronormative and cisnormative discursive boundaries, there is a resultant negative effect on students. This is the case even when school policy mandates inclusion and diversity. Our interviews with LGBTQ+ educators in religiously affiliated schools suggest that LGBTQ+ students are affected in two ways: first, through direct experiences of homophobia and transphobia, in particular when educators cannot be visible and offer support; and, second, through indirect and implicit heteronormative and cisnormative discourses. In both these cases the underlying culture denies the legitimacy of LGBTQ+ identities, causing various harms. The silencing and invisibility of educators is an important contributor to these harms.
The silencing and invisibility of LGBTQ+ educators have direct consequences on young people in schools, both in terms of harms and academic success. In the US, Wright and Smith (2013) report that LGBTQ youth experience more bullying in schools, have poorer academic achievement, experience greater isolation, and have few role models in school. Ginicola et al. (2016) point out that creating a safe school climate is often actively resisted within conservative religious communities and schools. Canadian researchers Boulay et al. (2014) conclude that LGBT role models in schools, either in content or as teachers, are necessary to combat a general climate of normalised heterosexuality and homophobic discourse. Other studies also indicate that personal contact with a role model can be the most effective means to protect youth from negative health outcomes (Bird et al., 2012).
Our data suggests that in a minority of schools where the school climate is overtly homophobic, students are bullied, sometimes openly, by both educators and students. In these schools there is little protection for these students as educators are unable to intervene: their hands are tied. However, even where strong anti-discrimination legislation protects LGBTQ+ educators from dismissal, students are still impacted negatively by a culture that renders a LGBTQ+ identities invisible. The religiously affiliated school culture is typically heteronormatively and cisnormatively constructed. The unintended and often overlooked consequence is that despite many schools welcoming diversity in the student population, LGBTQ+ students are denied safe spaces and positive role models and remain ‘othered’.
Methods
We conducted 25 interviews with LGBTQ+ teachers and teachers’ aides who worked in religiously affiliated educational workplaces. The first set of interviews was conducted between late 2018 and mid 2019 in the build-up to the marriage equality postal survey. The second set of interviews was conducted between early 2021 and early 2023 during a second public debate on whether religiously affiliated organisations should be allowed to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people. Media coverage in both periods created an environment of angst and intense emotion among both the LGBTQ+ and the conservative religious communities. The interviews began by inviting participants to describe their biography and workplace. We then asked about the impact of the religious affiliation of the workplace, including the significance of religion. Third, we turned to their experience as LGBTQ+ people in their workplace. We included a question about their interactions with students and any impact they may have had as LGBTQ+ educators. We concluded with some general questions about the impact of public debates about LGBTQ+ and religious freedom.
Recruitment to participate in the study was facilitated through online surveys, social media advertisements, and word of mouth. The LGBTQ+ educators taught students up to the age of 18 years old in religiously affiliated primary and secondary schools and colleges in Tasmania (9 participants); New South Wales (7); Queensland (3); Victoria (4); Western Australia (1) and ACT (1). The majority of the LGBTQ+ educators worked in Catholic education (15 participants) with the remainder associated with a variety of Protestant denominations. Of the 25 interviews, 14 (56%) identify as cis-women, 7 (28%) as cis-men, 2 as non-binary (8%) and 2 (8%) as trans-women. In regard to their sexuality, 10 (40%) identify as lesbian, 7 (28%) as gay men, 3 queer, 2 bisexual, one as ‘not straight’ and 2 as ‘no label’. With respect to age, 3 (12%) were 20–29, 4 (16%) 30–39, 10 (40%) 40–49, 6 (24%) 50–59, and 2 (8%) were 60 or older. All three of the authors come to this topic as advocates for social inclusion and equality in relation to both LGBTQ+ and religious diversity. We are all deeply aware of the impacts of identity-based and religious discrimination and consider it unacceptable.
The data is not statistically representative of all religiously affiliated schools. However, it reveals some of the experiences of the LGBTQ+ educators and the social processes that occur in these settings. The stories are the subjective experiences based on the teachers’ recollections, and there is no data from students’ direct experiences. Quotations from the interviews may have been edited for clarity and have been generalised to protect the anonymity of respondents. Pseudonyms have been used throughout. The research was approved by the University of Tasmania Human Research Ethics Unit.
The qualitative data was analysed through thematic analysis that involved iterative reading of the interviews and identification of themes. Our approach to thematic analysis was deliberately inductive, developing the coding framework from the themes that emerged from the data, rather than restricting our analysis to pre-existing codes (Ezzy, 2013). The analytic theme of this article was primarily identified by Bronwyn Fielder, and then discussed and developed by all three authors. The issue of the impact on students of discrimination experienced by LGBTQ+ educators arose out of our analysis of the interviews and survey responses from LGBTQ+ educators working in religiously affiliated schools and was not part of the original research aims.
Findings and discussion
Overt discrimination
A minority of schools (n = 8) represented in our interviews discriminated overtly against LGBTQ+ educators, and a small number (n = 4) also explicitly discriminated against LGBTQ+ students. These discriminatory practices had devastating personal consequences for LGBTQ+ educators and students. We begin with these less common cases because they represent the extremes of discriminatory practice that religious conservatives are attempting to make more widespread in religious-affiliated schools.
The first case highlights the damaging effects of homophobic prejudice and practices. It took place in the period prior to the marriage equality vote. Janelle, a teacher in a Christian school, was directed to uphold the ‘no’ vote and furthermore, to impart this view to the students. As she explains, a staff email stated that, ‘all staff had to promote a No vote and not express any other opinion … not even neutral’. She explains further, ‘I’d already had conversations with kids about it, and I’d just fobbed them off and said, you know, “I’d like to think about what Jesus would do.”’ Janelle went on to explain the detrimental effect of the homophobic rhetoric had on some students in the school: when the campaign around marriage equality started, that's when it got really quite difficult at the school … two kids in the classroom started to be targeted with homophobic bullying by the other kids. The kids in the classroom were hearing a lot more anti-gay stuff from their families … and sermons at church and school. Then they just [started] acting out and passing on the stuff. … Like the school was sending home newsletter articles from the principal about the threat to Christianity from the Satanic gay agenda. … It was pretty awful. [The students] were saying really nasty things to the two boys in my room … [one of the boys had students] telling him that God hated him; telling him he was going to hell. And they’re getting all this encouragement from the rest of their world, and from the school … to behave like this. And to de-humanise gay people, and to treat these kids like that. Telling him he should just kill himself right now. And he did – he made two suicide attempts at school. Anyway, the deputy principal just constantly put him [the gay student] down. I had a little room where I did my one-on-one work and one time I went in there and I found him [the student] curled up in a ball behind the desk, crying because the deputy had said to him, ‘You disgust me’ [Janelle began crying as she described this]. It was that bad. I just had this sort of awful traumatic stuff that I couldn’t talk about. And so now I’m finishing up, I’ve become an advocate. I can talk. It makes me so angry. And this is the thing – this is what all of us – the other teachers and ex-teachers I’ve talked to, have found. We’ve all been silenced. And we’re all so frustrated because schools and churches and school associations are saying their narrative about what caring, wonderful places they are. And we all know different, but we can’t speak up because the kids are at risk; or because we, ourselves, are still too fragile.
A second interviewee, Rebecca, a long-time and highly respected teacher in a Christian school, relates a similar situation, this time during the debate relating to the Religious Discrimination Bill in 2021. Just this week I had an ex-student telling me about being taken into the assistant principal's office to ‘pray the gay away’. Yes! At a Christian school in [a large city]! This stuff happens, and kids are told in class that homosexuality is evil and demonic and all that kind of stuff. almost every week someone gets in contact and ends up coming out to me. Even yesterday it was a parent who has got kids at a Christian school, and then two girls in the high school have come out as lesbians and are freaking out about telling their parents. One of the parents is a pastor, and they are terrified. Add to that, you’ve got kids like this in schools who are terrified about how they’re going to be treated. And they’re trying to maintain a situation where that terror continues and kids feel like they’ve got no one that they can go to, and there's no one safe for them? That is horrifying. So, there are a number of queer students that end up self-harming. They’ll get into a lot of trouble at school. Often the pattern is anecdotally, from someone who's been teaching for 25 years, the gay guys tend to have trouble hiding it and they’ll get really bullied and then they’ll react to that. And then they will get punished for their reaction. And so then they are disciplined or they expelled from the school, although they tend not to use the language of expulsion, they ask people to pursue excellence elsewhere – one of my favourite phrases. … So, what happens is when they are expelled, effectively, ‘oh, it's not because of your sexuality, it's your behaviour’. But their behaviour is directly linked to the way that they’ve been treated. … And you end up with kids with significant mental health problems, self-harm, broken relationships, like all that stuff. … And I had students come to me just in tears. They were just, ‘they’re telling me that I’m evil’. I had nothing to say but weep with them.
Overt homophobic messages were relayed to students in more indirect ways. Ethan is a former teacher in an independent religious school. He reported that there were continual overt homophobic messages expressed at the school. He recalls one sermon for the students where the principal said, ‘“gay people are dirty … they bring about disease.” And I’m like, you can’t tell this, say this and you’re telling this to children.’ Similar to other LGBTQ+ educators, he felt unable to address incidents where students were bullied in class. He explains: I did feel for a couple of students and actually I felt for one of my students because, he was very much gay, very flamboyant and, you know, very stereotypical if that makes sense. And, you know, I really felt for him because, he was bullied … and I can’t say it's OK [to be gay]. I felt really powerless for him. They’re actually – they’re very scared that gay Christian kids will find out it's possible to be gay and Christian. Because they don’t want that message to get through. They really need the kids to [think that] the sort of self-loathing is the only acceptable option, in their view. And so, they make sure that no message ever gets through. And they make sure that they – the opposite message gets to them: You can’t be gay and Christian.
Covert discrimination, and heteronormative and cisnormative expectations
Overt homophobic/transphobic discrimination is not expressed towards students in the majority of schools in our study. In states where LGBTQ+ educators are protected through strong anti-discrimination legislation such as Tasmania, and in schools where teachers are respected and accepted by management and most of the staff, the effect on LGBTQ+ and questioning students is more subtle. Even in these less discriminatory contexts, in many cases the heteronormative and cisnormative expectations that educators are subjected to creates a culture where to be LGBTQ+ is made shameful and invisible (Ferfolja, 2005).
Many LGBTQ+ educators adhered to the overall expectation that they not disclose their sexuality or gender identity to students. Some accepted these restrictions in their schools. Others were frustrated there was little freedom to be visible in the workplace and to mention their personal lives to students. Rather than a binarised choice between disclosure and staying closeted, LGBTQ+ educators are at the centre of complex negotiation of identity with expectations that they should be both ‘authentic’ and ‘professional’, a finding identified by other studies (Khayatt & Iskander, 2020; Llewellyn & Reynolds, 2021). Some teachers describe their sexual or gender identity as not directly relevant to their role as an educator, and argue that professionalism supports this non-disclosure. Tony, a teacher at a Catholic school, for example, explains, ‘Whether the principal knew or not, I really didn’t care. Because I’m not the type to be overtly talking about my sexuality. Because, like I say, my sexuality has got nothing to do with my work.’ However, other LGBTQ+ educators are frustrated with their inability to be open about their LGBTQ+ identity.
A few point out the inconsistency of the messages the schools relay in regard to diverse sexualities and gender expression, particularly in relation to the effect on students. Fran, for example, who was forced out of teaching at a Christian school after transitioning says: I mean it left a bitter taste in my mouth in the sense that they like to rave on about how they support the trans-kids, and yet the one teacher that would have understood them, they … got rid of. Well, one of the sad things is that just before I left, I had not said a word to any of the students I’d taught about my own sexuality, I had 14-year-olds coming out to me. That they were gay. Or they thought they were – whatever. … And all I did was accept them. … And now I’m gone. And I wouldn’t have cajoled them. They’re kids. Next month they might change their minds. But they need the freedom … that they won’t be persecuted – that they’ll be accepted. And then they might eventually think: ‘Hmmm, now that I’ve been allowed to, without pressure, explore this, I think I’m actually something a bit different.’ But if you create an environment where they are scared to talk, then they’re going through a huge development stage, they need to be able to just put it out there and say, ‘Hmm, is that me? I’m not sure. Actually no, it is. It really is. I think that really is me.’ We don’t know. But if they don’t have that freedom … who knows, they could be locked into something, and then realise, years later, it's not them.
Peter was a long-time and respected teacher in a Christian school. During the marriage equality campaign he was confronted about his sexuality, and he admitted to his principal he was gay. His contract was not renewed on this basis. He explained that his school professed tolerance towards LGBTQ+ students, denying discriminatory attitudes, but at the same time sent clear messages that LGBTQ+ educators were not welcome. He explains the irony: Schools kind of tread this strange and slightly hypocritical line where they’ll embrace young people [LGBTQ+ students] for their creative or academic giftings, but say, along the way, ‘But don’t ever apply for a job here.’ Because it's very backhanded. A school will almost try and burnish their reputation by saying, ‘See how tolerant we are? We have LGBT students and they profess to have a positive experience in their time with us.’ And largely that's true. I’ve never seen LGBT discrimination perpetrated on one student by another student. I always felt that the thing that made life difficult for LGBT staff and student, was the overarching culture of the school. If you made that comment [about being in a same-sex relationship], you could very easily get a parent come back at you and say, you are making and impressing your values, or you are forcing my child to identify as being gay because you talked about your personal life. So, I don’t know if that's good practice with kids of a 7 to 10 age group. In an 11/12 [age group], yeah, things might be a little bit different.
Matt, a teacher from Queensland explains: You can’t help but evaluate if someone will be friendly or accepting or open. It's just part of, I think, your toolkit of survival that you build over time. I believe that there is a decent knowledge amongst the student body, but it's not something I would ever speak openly about. And I believe as a gay teacher, I would avoid speaking openly to students about sexuality. I believe that no matter what I say, it would come with a perceived agenda. And while you could say the argument, well, probably could be quite powerful for young LGBT teenagers to hear from you, I believe that blurs too many lines between professionalism and personal life. And so, I’m very, very strict on keeping that that separate. … I think, as LGBT educators, we have to be extra cautious about that, because part of the argument against having gay educators in schools is that they’re going to somehow recruit or convince or spread advocacy, as ludicrous as that sounds. I worry about that working with children. … I didn’t come out to anyone for like a year, and even then, only to a select few people. … I worry about what the parents would think. Or, because there is this sort of belief some people have that children being around gay people is dangerous, or that they’re going to brainwash them, or they’re going to hurt them.
Luke, a long-time teacher in an accepting Christian school, was the one interviewee who confronted the school he worked in requesting to be open about his sexuality: when I was, let's say four years into my teaching [at my previous school] it kind of occurred to me that my workplace was the only place in my life where I couldn’t be completely open about who I was in front of the students. And so I actually did a little bit of research and inquiry into it and I spoke to my principal and I had meetings with [a professional expert in religious doctrine] … to see if there were any loopholes that would sort of allow me to be open to students and not have my employment threatened, but he's basically said, ‘no you can’t do it’. And the principal said to me, ‘no’, her hands were tied. ‘There is nothing you can do.’ So, I then went on continuing to just be silent about who I was in front of the students. Sometimes you know when you feel like people aren’t calling you names or they’re not demanding certain things in terms of your employment, that that's enough, that support is enough. But I don’t actually think it is. Like, ask no questions, whatever, I don’t think it's enough. I know that on a personal level all the staff here support me, but I also know that people would find it uncomfortable if on gay pride day I wore a rainbow T-shirt or if, you know, if my expression were more overt in the wider community. One of the big ways I suffered was actually as a student in [a Christian] school, because I went to a [Christian] school my whole school life and especially as a teenager I struggled with my sexuality and I don’t know if it was in the context of any school but definitely in the [specific denomination] institution I was in there was no role modeling, no avenue through which I could sort of explore or express my sexuality. And I often think, if somebody, if anybody had said to me, ‘it's okay to be gay’, or ‘I’m gay and my life is happy’, or whatever then maybe I might not have made those decisions which caused me a lot of pain. … You know, my adolescence was completely stolen.
Role models are important for young people in general, but for LGBTQ+ young people they are of particular importance during the stages of self-development that Luke and Fran allude to. Some educators were able to challenge and resist the restrictive climate around supporting LGBTQ+ students. Janelle, for example, expressed the need to comfort and support students, particularly in the face of bullying and discrimination: [I said] ‘You’re okay. God loves you. You’re fine the way you are, the way God made you. You don’t need to be a different person.’ But I had to make sure that the other staff, the other kids, even – didn’t overhear me.
Others supported LGBTQ students by offering a safe space without being openly visible. Atara, for example, explained, ‘some of them said, “for whatever reason, your classroom is a place that I felt safe”’. While Atara had not been open with students about her sexuality, she was open and supportive, and the students were able to respond to this. This was the case for several teachers, yet others expressed frustration at not being able to be authentic. Deb, for example, a teacher who had taught in a conservative Christian school explains: What made it more tragic really was that the girls were so cool. These young girls were fantastic. They cared about social justice. They cared about issues. I’m sure there's pretty strongly religious families, but on the whole, I could see right in front of me that these girls were awesome. That made me more sad that I couldn’t connect with them in an authentic way. Awesome. I feel more confident in who I am. It's allowed me to be happier, it's allowed me to help kids. I realise by the very nature of being there and being gay, just to be present in that reality is seemingly beneficial to some young queer kids. Yes. So, it's been it's been amazing to be authentic.
Discussion and conclusion
Discriminating against LGBTQ+ staff and/or students in religiously affiliated schools causes serious harm to LGBTQ+ students. Our data contains teachers’ accounts of LGBTQ+ students' self-harm, serious mental health issues, suicidal practices, and various other harms. This is consistent with the findings of Norden's (2006) study of same-sex attracted students in Catholic schools. Conservative Christians continue to argue for religious freedom, focusing on a desire to discriminate against LGBTQ+ staff and students in government-funded provision of services to the general public, such as Christian-affiliated schools. These arguments provide little consideration of the serious harms that such practices cause LGBTQ+ students, and the equally harmful outcomes produced in the lives of LGBTQ+ teachers who are forced into silence in these schooling environments.
The vast majority of religiously affiliated schools in Australia have open enrolment policies, drawing students from the general Australian population. The reasons that parents and students choose these schools are typically not related to religion (Maddox, 2014). Most staff and students who attend these schools are strongly affirming of LGBTQ+ sexualities and genders (Ezzy, 2023). In this context it makes little sense to argue that discriminating against LGBTQ+ staff and students is an exercise in protecting the religious freedom of these staff and students. Rather, it looks more like a strategy of conservative religious leaders to impose conservative practices in relation to sexuality and gender on the general population. We do note, however, that there is a small group of religiously affiliated schools in which the situation is very different, typically with closed enrolment policies and student populations that are largely members of the associated religion (Evans & Gaze, 2010).
Few of the staff, students, and parents who are part of religiously affiliated schools are there because they wish to engage in conservative religious moral practices (Ezzy, 2023). This is consistent with Page and Shipley's (2020) argument that conservative religious authorities continue to use their power to seek to constitute conservative sexual subjects. They do this in two ways. First, in more conservative Christian schools, direct homophobia and transphobia silences LGBTQ+ educators, including through dismissal in some cases. Others are forced to remain in the closet, preventing them from offering support to LGBTQ+ students. Second, indirect and implicit heteronormative and cisnormative discourse can also undermine the ability of LGBTQ+ staff to support and affirm LGBTQ+ students. Taylor and Cuthbert (2019, p. 382) similarly identify that the problem in English faith and community schools can be located in ‘heteronormativity and gender binarism that structures the entire educational experience’. Our data involves interviews with educators, so it does not provide a reliable indicator of the extent of homophobia and transphobia experienced by students.
When LGBTQ+ educators feel confident they will not be discriminated against, they can provide safe and affirming contexts for LGBTQ+ students, and provide an educational experience for all students and other educators that affirms human sexualities and genders in all their variations. This can sometimes be achieved by being openly out as LGBTQ+ educators. However, there are many more subtle and varied strategies that LGBTQ+ educators described that did not involve self-disclosure but nonetheless facilitated support for LGBTQ+ students. Similar to Brett (2022), our participants saw confidence in their LGBTQ+ identities as a source of strength that facilitated the development of healthy selves for young people.
The Christian churches have an extremely poor record on the prevention of harm to young people in their care, as is evidenced by the Australian Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse (Wright et al., 2017). Key to the failures of the churches was prioritising institutional power and the protection of privilege, instead of listening to the voices of young people who experienced profound trauma (McPhillips, 2018). The data discussed in this article suggests there are some similarities in the conservative Christian attempt to impose harmful discriminatory practices and attitudes toward LGBTQ+ people in Christian schools. Such practices result in serious harm and trauma for both LGBTQ+ young people and the LGBTQ+ educators who work in these schools. The data in this article suggests how LGBTQ+ teachers in Christian schools, many of whom are themselves Christians, are able to constructively contribute to school climates to create affirming and nurturing environments for LGBTQ+ and other students.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Australian Research Council (grant number DP200100395).
Author biographies
Bronwyn Fielder is a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Tasmania. She focuses on the intersection of religion, gender and sexuality, currently working on the ARC project, “Religious freedom, LGBT+ employees, and the right to discriminate,” and is author of LGBT Christians: Authentic Selves (with Douglas Ezzy).
Angela Dwyer is an associate professor in Policing and Emergency Management at the University of Tasmania. Angela conducts research on the intersection between sexuality, gender diversity and criminal justice and is lead editor of Queering Criminologies (Palgrave 2016), edited with Matthew Ball and Thomas Crofts.
Douglas Ezzy is professor of Sociology at the University of Tasmania, Australia. He is lead investigator of the ARC (Australian Research Council) project ‘Religious Freedom, LGBT+ Employees, and the Right to Discriminate’. His books include LGBT Christians (with Bronwyn Fielder), and Teenage Witches (with Helen Berger).