The key to success
...is manyfold. The second roundtable of the Up4Diversity Final Conference regarded successful experiences in different educational environments. We heard from teachers, educators, researchers, and students who all had different approaches to creating inclusion, acceptance, and room for diversity. A key factor in all strategies was a focus on creating awareness and on involving both LGBTIQ+ and non-LGBT+ people.
Dialogue is the way to go
In the words of Blanca Febré, who is a secondary teacher, working with violence prevention through a dialogic model, dialogue is the way to go. Creating and offering a language for matters foreign to us creates understanding. And understanding leads to acceptance, which has quite the preventive impact on otherwise violent and discriminatory tendencies.
But it is not only a question of creating dialogue and understanding between directly involved parties. It is a question of involving as many parts of the affected community as possible. This helps create awareness which can heighten each individual's critical capacity while at the same time drawing attention to normalizations of violence, aggression, and discrimination. It is not only words, but what we do with them: together, we can use them in open spaces and, filled with feelings of solidarity, justice and friendship, create safe environments where violence does not stand a chance.
...but it can't stand alone
Dialogue is definitely important, but as Daphne Heijmering and Jamie Groeneveld from the Gender & Sexuality Alliances point out, so is working peer to peer. Creating a cultural and systemic change requires motivating youth to take an active stand. And the best way to do this is by applying an inside-out approach starting with students, and supporting them in creating changes from within their communities, and from there working upward in the educational system.
Whilst cultural and community-based initiatives are important, so are legal actions. As Xavier Florensa of the Department of equality and Feminism in the Catalunyan Government point out, in order to create change on a structural level, appropriate laws and acts must be in effect. This offers, and also ensures, the legal possibility of reporting harrassment, violence, bullying, and discrimination, when it is experienced directly by LGBTIQ+ people or witnessed by bystanders.
Having close allies
Many LGBTIQ+ people face harrassment, discrimination, and bullying on a daily basis. And as Elena Gallardo, PhD-student of the University Rovira i Virgili, has found in her research, this is especially true for transgender and gender diverse youth. They experience almost four times as much bulllying as the general population and almost twice as much as LGB youth. In school settings, they are exposed to negligent and abusive behavior by teachers and to violence by peers. Fortunately, a supportive family context and having alliances with teachers and peers can serve as a buffer and protective factor when faced with bullying and discrimination. However, many transgender and gender diverse students report the at-school networks as not being strong enough in that there are still many spaces throughout schools that are uncomfortable for them. Therefore, it is important to focus not only on the victim, but also on the environment. Bystanders and on-lookers play a very impactful role, and having strong alliances and diverse communities within schools will help create positive experiences and feelings of belonging and being welcome for all students.
Whilst peers are important allies, so are teachers and other educators. As Chrystalla Evangelou, teacher and participant in the National Training Workshop in Cyprus, points out, training teachers and educators in understanding, handling, and preventing violence, discrimination, bullying, and harrassment against LGBTIQ+ students is important. Furthermore, working with LGBTIQ+ related issues with students of all genders and sexualities helps raise awareness of not only the upfront bullying and harrassment, but also the more subtle kinds of structural and cultural discrimination. Much more about the impact of the Up4Diversity training will be shared in future posts.
What now?
Through this roundtable, three important points, when battling violence and discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people, were repeated over and over again:
- Dialogue is our most important tool. The more we talk, the better we understand, and the more keen we are to accept those who are not like us.
- Legal actions are necessary. Whilst dialogue is important, it cannot stand alone. Appropriate laws and actions must be put into place to safeguard the rights of people of all genders and sexualities.
- No one can stand alone. Having close allies and effective support systems is key to ensuring the well-being of all youth.
These are the main take aways from this roundtable. If you want to watch it in full, you can find it on the official Up4Diversity YouTube channel.
