Erasure and agency in sexuality and relationships education and knowledge among trans young people in Australia

ABSTRACT

Sexuality and relationship education (SRE) for trans young people is fraught with ongoing institutional and informational erasure, even as trans young people display considerable agency in navigating their SRE needs. This paper reports on a survey of 112 Australian trans young people, who shared their experiences of SRE (in terms of delivery and content), and their views on three story completion tasks where they were asked to respond to prompts about three fictional stories focused on trans young people (and for some their cisgender partners) and intimacy. Participants reported that SRE was delivered in class and focused on puberty and anatomy, although many participants accessed SRE information informally. Participants overwhelmingly reported the erasure of trans-specific SRE content and suggested that SRE content should include a trans focus. Responses to the story completion task emphasised the agency of the fictional trans young people in asserting their boundaries, deserving respect, being knowledgeable about their bodies and ensuring their safety. Fictional cisgender young people in the story completion tasks were expected to be respectful, and to be guided by trans people (but also to educate themselves). The paper concludes with recommendations for harnessing trans young people’s agency in the context of SRE.

KEYWORDS:

• Trans young people
• sexuality and relationships education
• story completion
• erasure
• agency

Introduction

In Australia, sexuality and relationships education (SRE) for trans young people remains fraught. Despite the growing numbers of young people disclosing that they are trans (a term used in this paper to include those with both binary and non-binary genders), growing public awareness and in some instances celebration of trans young people’s lives (McIntyre, Riggs, and Bartholomaeus 2022), and recognition of the specific needs of trans young people to inclusive education (Bartholomaeus and Riggs 2017; Riggs and Bartholomaeus 2018), SRE for trans young people remains in many ways bound by two forms of erasure as described by Namaste (2000): institutional and informational.

Institutional erasure occurs when policies fail to account for trans people’s lives. In terms of SRE, institutional erasure encompasses a lack of proactive planning for the inclusion of trans young people in SRE but can also include the intentional exclusion of trans young people from SRE. Informational erasure follows on from such institutionalised failures and occurs when information relevant to trans people is ignored, or when any information available is cisgenderist or otherwise exclusionary. In terms of SRE, informational erasure can include a failure to attend to trans people’s lives, or a refusal to response to trans young people’s needs as they voice them to be.

The literature on SRE for trans young people has consistently emphasised the existence of both institutional and informational erasure. In terms of institutional erasure, research undertaken in China, for example, has found that trans young people experience SRE as driven by policies that actively seek to exclude them (Kwok and Kwok 2022). The same has been found in other countries such as Australia (e.g., Jones et al. 2016; Ullman 2021) and the USA (e.g., Haley et al. 2019), specifically in the context of religious schools, where trans people’s lives are actively excluded from SRE. In terms of informational erasure, research has consistently reported that trans young people either find that their lives are not included in SRE at all, or where their lives are included, it is in brief information that is often marginalising or pathologising. In the context of the USA, for example, Van Rooyen (2021) found that SRE delivered typically focused on binary genders, and lacked a specific focus on trans-specific aspects of sexuality. Also in the USA, Hobaica, Schofield, and Kwon (2019) found that SRE typically focused on binary sexed bodies, reinforcing cisgenderist understandings of trans people’s bodies, a phenomenon also found in research conducted in the USA by Tordoff et al. (2021).

Importantly, however, while this body of literature necessarily emphasises institutional and informational erasure experienced by trans young people in the context of SRE, some of the literature also emphasises agency on the part of trans young people. Australian research by Shannon (2022), for example, highlights the role of peers in providing informal SRE for trans young people, including within the context of romantic relationships. Shannon also emphasises the importance of other forms of informal SRE for trans young people including popular media and social media, in which trans young people fill institutional and informational gaps through the creation of their own content. The findings of Shannon echo previous Australian research which found that trans young people engaged in forms of agency and activism at greater levels than their cisgender peers (e.g., Jones and Hillier 2013; Smith et al. 2014).

Similarly in the USA, Bradford et al. (2019) found that in the absence of formal SRE in schools, many trans young people actively sought out information from other sources. While some reported that seeking out information from other sources could be empowering, this also meant that young people were faced with having to navigate disinformation. Also in the USA, Brown and colleagues (2021) report that for some trans young people, parents fill an important gap in their SRE informational needs, supporting young people to be empowered to challenge cisgenderism within formal educational SRE contexts. By contrast, research by Warwick et al. (2022), also in the USA, found that informal SRE provided by parents was often unhelpful at best, or cisgenderist and exclusionary at worst.

Research by Tordoff et al. (2021) has provided recommendations for trans-inclusive SRE, based on the views of trans young people. Key to their recommendations is a focus on agency and autonomy for trans young people. Their specific recommendations included that trans young people should be empowered to determine what counts as useful SRE for them, that trans young people should be centred in knowledge creation about SRE, and that emphasis should be placed on how trans young people hold knowledge about SRE that they develop through their engagement in social media, with peers, and as agentic beings. With these points about agency in mind, as well as the above summaries of institutional erasure, the study reported in this paper sought to examine how trans young people living in Australia experience SRE, the sources of SRE they receive, and beyond formal SRE, the knowledges they hold about respectful relationships.

In the Australian context, inclusive SRE for trans young people specifically is not enshrined as a right within the national curriculum, though certainly anti-discrimination laws across Australian legislatures protect against exclusion in educational contexts. Nonetheless, in some legislative contexts, religious schools in particular are empowered (or seek to be empowered) to refuse to adopt inclusive approaches to SRE, despite research suggesting that Australians are broadly in support of the inclusion of trans young people in SRE (Ullman, Ferfolja, and Hobby 2022). More broadly, it is fair to state that SRE in the Australian context is at best (in a relatively small number of schools) actively inclusive of trans young people, whereas more typically (in a majority of schools) trans people’s lives are either a marginal focus in SRE or not included at all (Shannon 2022; Ullman, Ferfolja, and Hobby 2022).

Method

Participants and procedure

Ethics approval for the study reported in this paper was provided by Flinders University Social and Behavioural Research Ethics Committee (#4793). Participants completed a survey hosted on Qualtrics. Inclusion criteria were (1) living in Australia, (2) being a trans young person (which, it was explicitly stated, included young people with binary and non-binary genders), and (3) aged between 12 and 17 years. Participants were recruited primarily via Transcend, an Australian organisation that provides support to trans young people and their parents. Details about the survey were posted on the organisation’s social media, via mail outs, and were reshared widely on social media. The opening screen of the survey provided detailed information for parents, asking them to provide consent to their child participating in the study, and young people were then also asked to provide consent. The opening screen informed participants that they could opt to go into a draw to win one of 10 $100 vouchers of their choice or one of 10 $50 Google Play vouchers. The opening screen also provided details of phone helplines, should participants experience any discomfort as a result of completing the survey. On average, participants spent 17 minutes completing the survey.

Materials

The survey was designed by the authors, the aim of using a survey being to capture a diversity of views among the target population beyond what might be shared within a smaller number of interviews. Participants first completed questions on demographic information, specifically their gender, sexuality, age, year level at school, type of school attending, and State or Territory of residence. Participants were then asked about who/what (if anyone) had delivered or provided SRE to them, and what information was covered in SRE delivered/accessed, using a series of multiple-choice questions where participants could choose more than one option. Participants were then asked two follow-up open-ended questions: ‘If the sexuality and relationship education information you have received was relevant to you as a trans young person, what specifically about it was relevant?’ and ‘If the sexuality and relationship education information you have received wasn’t relevant to you as a trans young person, what could have been different about it to make it more relevant to you?’

Having completed these initial questions, participants were then presented with three story stems as part of a story completion task. Derived from projective testing, story completion involves giving participants the first part of a fictional story (or ‘stem’) and asking them to write more about the story (Clarke et al. 2017). Participants are often also given prompts to help encourage their writing. By asking people to imagine how the rest of a story or scenario might proceed, story completion provides researchers with access to the beliefs, stereotypes and ways of thinking that participants hold about a particular situation, group of people, or cultural phenomenon. Each stem in the present study provided a brief story about two fictional characters navigating sexuality and relationships. Prompts were then given about each story stem, asking participants to describe how the young people in the story stems might act, and what advice they would give the young people in the story stems. For ease of presentation, the story stems and prompts are provided in the results below.

Analytic approach

Responses to the demographic questions and the multiple-choice questions were exported into IBM SPSS v26.0. 156 participants started the survey, of whom 44 gave minimal or no responses. These 44 were then removed from the data set. For the remaining 112 participants, descriptive statistics were generated for the demographic questions.

For the same 112 participants who completed the survey, their responses to the questions about receiving SRE, along with their responses to the story stem prompts, were exported into Microsoft Excel 16.63. Responses to each story stem were analysed via conventional content analysis, adopting a realist theoretical framework given the relative brevity of responses and the fact that this was an anonymous survey which did not allow for further exploration of responses. As outlined by Hsieh and Shannon (2005), conventional content analysis involves (a) repeated readings of the data corpus, (b) developing codes by highlighting key words that capture frequently occurring concepts, (c) reducing codes in order to minimise overlaps, (d) examining codes for patterned responses, in order to group codes into categories, and (e) examining categories to determine whether or not they accurately reflect the data corpus. A limitation of conventional content analysis is that it does not utilise member checking or inter-rater reliability. Given the survey was anonymous, member checking was not possible for this study. In terms of inter-rater reliability, Hsieh and Shannon note that all analyses are subjective, and thus should be viewed as offering one interpretation derived by the researcher. That said, given the brevity of responses provided by participants (most participants provided only a brief one to two sentence response to each question about SRE received and for each story stem prompt), it is reasonable to suggest that the content analysis undertaken captures the semantic meaning of each response.

In terms of the specific undertakings of the content analysis, the first author read through each open-ended response by group (i.e., looking at all responses to each question about SRE received separately, and each story completion prompt separately), making note of potential codes from each response. This initial coding was used to generate a list of all possible codes for each question. All responses were then read again by the first author, allocating one code to each response. Where more than one potential code was possible for a response, the code allocated represented the most salient code within the response, based on the greatest amount of text written (i.e., if a response included two possible codes, the length of text for a given code was used to determine if it was likely the most salient code). 92% of responses contained only one possible code. The final categories for each question (about SRE received or each story stem) reported in the results below are different for each question, given they are based on codes developed from the data, rather than a pre-existing set of codes used to uniformly examine responses to each question. Quotes included in the results are indicative, not exhaustive, and quotes are accompanied by the age and gender of the participant.

Results

Participants

As outlined in Table 1, participants were most commonly male, in year 11, attending a public school, residing in Victoria, and reported their sexuality as queer or bisexual. The average age of participants was 15.39 years (SD = 1.29), with the range being 13–17 years. In terms of those who indicated that their gender was not listed, terms given to describe their genders were genderqueer, non-binary boy, demi boy, genderfluid, and transmasculine. In terms of those who indicated that their sexuality was not listed, terms given to describe their sexuality were unknown, abrosexual, t4t, demiromantic, omniromantic, omnisexual, and poly. For participants who indicated a form of schooling not listed, examples given were described as an independent school, a virtual school or an alternative school.

Table 1. Participant demographics.

Variable	Category	N (%)
Gender	Male	47 (42)
	Female	24 (21.4)
	Non-binary	28 (25)
	Gender not listed	13 (11.6)
Year at school	7	2 (1.8)
	8	11 (9.8)
	9	20 (17.9)
	10	26 (23.2)
	11	29 (25.9)
	12	24 (21.4)
Type of school	Public school	59 (52.7)
	Private school	14 (12.5)
	Religious school	7 (6.3)
	Home schooled	6 (5.4)
	Distance education	7 (6.3)
	Not currently attending	5 (4.5)
	TAFE/VET/FLO	7 (6.3)
	Alternative education	7 (6.3)
State or Territory of residence	Victoria	38 (33.9)
	New South Wales	13 (11.6)
	South Australia	15 (13.4)
	Queensland	19 (17)
	Western Australia	23 (20.5)
	Australian Capital Territory	2 (1.8)
	Tasmania	2 (1.8
Sexuality	Queer	21 (18.8)
	Pansexual	15 (13.4)
	Asexual	3 (2.7)
	Lesbian	8 (7.1)
	Gay	11 (9.8)
	Bisexual	21 (18.8)
	Heterosexual	8 (7.1)
	Demisexual	7 (6.3)
	Sexuality not listed	18 (16.1)

Experiences of sexuality and relationship education

As outlined in Table 2, participants had most commonly received SRE in class, delivered by a teacher. Only a small minority of participants reported having not received any SRE. Participants who reported that they had accessed SRE through other sources of information gave examples such as books, a queer youth service, websites, sexual health clinic, and via experiences of intimacy. In terms of the topics addressed during SRE received, information about puberty and anatomy were most common, with information about abstinence being least common.

Table 2. Sexuality and relationship education received, topics and by whom.

Question	Category	N*
Have you received sexuality and relationship education from any of these	In class, by teacher	66
	Parents	51
	Friends	60
	Found information online	32
	Information session outside school hours	19
	Other source of information	15
	Have not received any sexuality or relationship education	5
If you have received sexuality and relationship education, which of these topics were covered	Puberty	84
	Anatomy	71
	Relationships	52
	Consent	59
	Sexual intercourse	55
	Reproduction	62
	Birth control	44
	Contraception and condoms	63
	Preventing sexually transmitted infections	48
	Sexual health	55
	Abstinence	18
	Sexuality (as in attraction)	30
	Gender identity	27
	Sexual violence prevention	25
	At-risk relationships	24
	Sex and the law	52
	Sex and sexuality online (sexting, pornography)	52

*responses not mutually exclusive

In terms of the two questions about the relevancy of SRE for trans young people, Table 3 provides an overview of the codes developed from responses to these two questions. For the first question, five codes were developed, with the most prevalent by far being participants noting that nothing was of relevance to them as trans young people in terms of SRE received. A small minority of participants provided responses that indicated some utility to the SRE they had received. Some participants spoke of minor coverage about LGBTQ+ people, such as ‘Teachers talked a bit about LGBTQ+’ (female, 13). By contrast, a smaller number of participants spoke about major coverage of trans young people in SRE they had received, such as ‘The inclusion of all trans bodies, our bodies change throughout our transition and so does the way they work. By including all trans bodies in the education I received it gave me a better understanding of my body’ (male, 17). A small number of participants also indicated that information about contraception was appreciated: ‘Information about alternative types of contraception, for example dental dams, was useful’ (non-binary, 17). Finally, some participants noted that information about healthy relationships including consent was useful: ‘Basic things about consent were useful’ (male, 16).

Table 3. Content analysis of questions about sexuality and relationships education received.

Question	Code	N
If the sexuality and relationship education information you have received was relevant to you as a trans young person, what specifically about it was relevant?	Nothing of relevance	93
	Minor coverage of LGBTQ+ people	7
	Major coverage of trans young people	3
	Healthy relationships including consent	6
	Contraception information	3
If the sexuality and relationship education information you have received wasn’t relevant to you as a trans young person, what could have been different about it to make it more relevant to you?	Have a queer/trans focus	37
	Be less cisgenderist/heteronormative	46
	Sex for pleasure and how it works for trans young people	6
	No response given	20

In terms of the second question, a relatively small number of participants gave no response. For those who did respond to the second question, the greatest number suggested that so as to be better relevant to trans young people, SRE should be less cisgenderist and less heteronormative. An example of this was: ‘The sexuality and relationship education classes were all heteronormative and about cisgender people’ (male, 14). Similarly, a number of participants suggested that SRE should include a queer/trans focus: ‘I think that we should have covered more about the gender spectrum and the diversity of non-binary identity, as well as binary trans identity as that wasn’t something that was really discussed at all’ (non-binary, 16). Finally, a small number of participants suggested that beyond simple inclusion of trans people in SRE, attention should be given to sex for pleasure and how it works for trans young people. An example of this was: ‘Add more genders, more information about trans sexual health, how trans people have sex or in general how gay [sic] and lesbians have sex’ (non-binary, 13).

Story stem responses

Table 4 provides an overview of the codes developed for each prompt for each story stem. In the subsections below, we first report each story stem before then providing an overview of the codes developed for each prompt, including indicative example responses provided by participants.

Table 4. Content analysis of story stem prompts.

Story stem	Prompt	Code	N*
Sarah and Mark	What do you think Sarah should do in this situation?	Discuss the issue with Mark	15
		Restate her boundaries	23
		Leave the relationship	31
		Talk to an adult	24
		Stay true to herself	10
	What could Mark have done differently?	Be respectful, not pressure	36
		Communicate better	15
		Listened better	28
		Have patience	24
	What advice would you give Sarah if she asked you?	Be careful about Mark	12
		You deserve respect	46
		Don’t feel guilty	22
		Validate her position	34
Sam and Troy	What things might Sam want to consider before engaging in intimacy with Troy?	Boundaries including language	28
		Safety (including condoms)	24
		Potential for dysphoria	14
		Know your own body first	12
	What things could Troy do and say to ensure that they are both safe when they are intimate?	Be guided by Sam	37
		Educate himself	35
		Check in often	24
	Imagine Sam is your best friend. What advice would you give them?	Don’t rush into it	52
		Have fun	14
		Be sure it is what you want	12
Farid and Alex	What would you say to Farid to help him think through how he might talk to Alex about his feelings?	Consider potential outcomes	38
		Be honest	31
		Explore Alex’s views first	23
	How might Farid be feeling about telling Alex about his feelings?	Nervous and anxious	29
		Fear of negative response	33
		Worried about relationship changing for the worse	21
	If Farid chooses to tell Alex about his feelings, how would you hope that Alex responded?	Calm and respectful	35
		That Alex was interested in Farid too	31
		Be honest and remain friends	27

* Not all participants responded to each prompt

Sarah and Mark

For this first story completion task, participants were provided with the following stem: ‘Sarah is a 15-year-old trans girl. She is currently dating a cisgender boy, named Mark. Sarah enjoys spending time with Mark on the weekend. The last time Sarah saw Mark, he tried to pressure her into being intimate with him, even though she had told him before she didn’t want to do anything more than kiss’. Three prompts were provided, each of which is now explored in turn in regard to the codes developed for each prompt.

For the first prompt, participants were asked what Sarah should do in the situation outlined in the story stem. The majority of participants suggested that Sarah should leave the relationship with Mark, such as ‘break up with him’ (female, 14) and ‘she should remove herself from the situation’ (female, 13). The next most common response was that Sarah should talk to an adult, such as ‘reach out to a trusted adult’ (non-binary, 15) and ‘ask an older person to help figure out what to do’ (male, 13). Almost the same number of participants stated that Sarah should restate her boundaries, such as ‘Sarah should explain to him again that she isn’t comfortable being sexual with him yet. She doesn’t need to tell him why, unless she is comfortable’ (male, 15) and ‘Discuss with Mark her boundaries and let him know that she doesn’t feel ready and that he should respect that’ (female, 16). Similarly, a small number of participants emphasised that Sarah should stay true to herself: ‘she should stick to her word’ (female, 13).

For the second prompt, participants were asked what Mark could have done differently. The greatest number of participants suggested that Mark should have been respectful and not pressured Sarah, such as ‘not pressured her into being more intimate’ (non-binary, 13) and ‘respect Sarah’s boundaries and comfort zone’ (female, 13). The next most common response suggested that Mark should have listened to Sarah better in terms of boundaries, such as ‘Mark should’ve thought more about the boundaries Sarah had set’ (female, 12) and ‘Mark should’ve listened to Sarah and not pursued anything outside her comfort zone’ (non-binary, 15). Some participants also suggested that Mark should have been more patient: ‘He should have waited until she was more comfortable’ (non-binary, 12) and ‘He should have waited and not pressured her’ (demi boy, 14). Finally, a smaller number of people suggested that Mark should have communicated better about his desires: ‘Have a calm conversation with her about being intimate’ (male, 17) and ‘talked to her about it in a non-pressured way’ (male, 16).

The third prompt invited participants to consider what advice they would give to Sarah. The greatest number of participants suggested that Sarah deserved respect from Mark, such as ‘I would tell her if Mark can’t respect her boundaries, then she should consider no longer seeing him’ (non-binary, 17) and ‘Tell Mark that he should respect her feelings and support her as a person’ (female, 12). The next most common response was to validate Sarah’s position, such as ‘Stay true to yourself. Don’t give into pressure’ (non-binary, 12) and ‘I’d tell Sarah to have confidence in herself; Enough to be able to push back and say no to her boyfriend’ (female, 17). Some participants suggested that Sarah should not feel guilty about having boundaries, such as ‘Don’t feel guilty about Mark, it’s not her fault she doesn’t want to do that step yet’ (male, 16). Finally, a small number of participants suggested that Sarah should be careful about Mark in the future, such as ‘Be careful around Mark, he seems predatory’ (female, 14).

Sam and Troy

For the second story completion task, participants were provided with the following stem: ‘Sam is 16-years-old and is non-binary. Sam was assigned female at birth. They have been dating their partner Troy, a cisgender guy, for one year. Sam and Troy have been talking about intimacy a lot, as both of them would like to be more intimate’. Three prompts were provided, each of which is now explored in turn in regard to the codes developed for each prompt.

The first prompt asked participants what Sam might want to consider before engaging in intimacy with Troy. The greatest number of participants suggested that Sam should consider and discuss boundaries, including in terms of language, such as ‘State boundaries with terminologies and what’s comfortable to be said’ (male, 16) and ‘Discuss boundaries with Troy, and make sure that consent is clear before engaging in intimacy’ (genderqueer, 15). A similar number of participants suggested that it was important for Sam to consider safety, including in terms of condoms: ‘They may want to consider factors such as safety (diseases, pregnancy, etc)’ (female, 13) and ‘Make sure they are sexually safe e.g., condoms and birth control’ (non-binary, 13). Some participants raised the possibility of gender dysphoria, and the need for Sam to consider how intimacy may trigger this: ‘They might want to consider how being intimate might affect them, would it make Sam dysphoric?’ (male, 17) and ‘What they’re comfortable with Troy touching or anything dysphoria-related’ (male, 16). Finally, some participants suggested that Sam should be sure they know their own body first, before engaging in intimacy with Troy, such as ‘Sam might want to, if they haven’t already, explore masturbation so they can understand what they enjoy or don’t enjoy in order to feel more comfortable with Troy’ (genderfluid, 16).

The second prompt asked participants what things Troy could do and say to ensure they are both safe. The greatest number of participants suggested that Troy should be guided by Sam, such as ‘Asking Sam how do you like to be pleasured, are you comfortable having sex with me’ (female, 17) and ‘Ask before doing things, like asking what’s ok from sexual things to pronouns etc’ (female, 15). By contrast, a similar number of participants suggested that it was Troy’s job to educate himself: ‘Troy needs to make sure he understands non-binary people’s lives’ (non-binary, 16) and ‘Troy needs to bring something to the table by learning about Sam first’ (transmasculine, 15). Finally, some participants suggested the importance of frequent check-ins with Sam: ‘Keep asking for consent and checking in that Sam is okay while they are being intimate. Stopping at any time if Sam is uncomfortable or wants to stop. Using a safe word so they can both know there is an out if they need it’ (male, 16) and ‘Keep checking in during activities especially if something feels off, make sure to check your [sic] both comfortable, encourage them that they’re safe and can stop any time’ (male, 17).

Finally, in the third prompt, participants were asked what advice they would give to Sam. The greatest number of participants suggested they would advise Sam not to rush things: ‘Take it slow, don’t rush it’ (non-binary, 17) and ‘Tell them to take things at their own pace’ (female, 16). Some participants suggested that they would tell Sam to have fun: ‘If it makes you happy then do it but be safe’ (female, 15), ‘Life is too short, give it a try’ (male, 15) and ‘Stay safe and have fun dude’ (non-binary, 16). By contrast, some participants suggested they would encourage Sam to be sure that intimacy with Troy is what they really wanted, such as ‘Are you okay with this? Make sure you do it safely’ (non-binary, 13) and ‘Make sure that you are okay with the idea and that you not just agreeing with Troy because you love him’ (male, 16).

Farid and Alex

For the final story completion task, participants were provided with the following stem: ‘Farid is a 13-year-old trans boy. He has lots of close friends, but one of them, Alex, is someone he is especially close to. Farid finds Alex cute, but isn’t sure how to tell him that, and worries how Alex might respond’. Three prompts were provided, each of which is now explored in turn in regard to the codes developed for each prompt.

In the first prompt, participants were asked what they would say to Farid to help him think through how he might talk to Alex about his feelings. The greatest number of participants suggested they would encourage Farid to consider the potential outcomes of sharing his feelings with Alex, such as ‘Do you want to still be friends with Alex, even if he says no?’ (male, 17) and ‘Think about how the relationship may go from there. If Alex doesn’t think that Farid is attractive or isn’t attracted to Farid, then Farid needs to accept that and not feel too hurt’ (male, 16). Participants also suggested the importance of Farid being honest: ‘I would just be honest if they are your close friend they should understand you’ (female, 13) and ‘Be honest and open, don’t pressure Alex into anything and hope for the best’ (non-binary, 16). Finally, some participants suggested that Farid should try to determine Alex’s potential views before disclosing his feelings: ‘It’s important to find out if Alex is into that sort of thing. It would be horrible to lose a friendship’ (non-binary, 17) and ‘Try and see if Alex is attracted to people of the same gender and if he is then maybe have a conversation about your feelings and go from there’ (female, 14).

In the second prompt, participants were asked to consider how Farid might be feeling about talking to Alex about his feelings. The greatest number of participants suggested that Farid would fear a negative response from Alex, such as ‘Anxious as not only is he telling someone that he is interested in them romantically but is also doing it as a trans boy, and henceforth is unfortunately more likely to receive bullying as a result’ (non-binary, 16) and ‘Scared, and rightfully so to be. There’s so much unrealised and subconscious prejudice within people that is impossible to predict’ (female, 17). Participants also emphasised that Farid was likely to be feeling nervous and anxious: ‘Scared, nervous anything like that it’s scary asking anyone out’ (male, 12) and ‘He is probably extremely nervous, and thinking about all the possible outcomes’ (non-binary, 14). Finally, a smaller number of participants suggested that Farid would be worried about changing the relationship for the worse: ‘Farid may be feeling nervous and/or worried that telling Alex may ruin their friendship’ (female, 16) and ‘Anxious of destroying their potential relationship and current friendship’ (genderfluid, 16).

In the final prompt, participants were asked how they hoped Alex would respond if Farid shared his feelings. The greatest number of participants suggested that they hoped Alex would be calm and respectful: ‘I would hope Alex would respond in a kind and understanding manner regardless of any mutual feelings or not’ (female, 13) and ‘I would hope that Alex responded positively even if he doesn’t feel the same way’ (female, 16). Many participants were hopeful that Alex would be interested in Farid too, such as ‘Alex hopefully likes Farid back and they have a healthy relationship’ (non-binary, 15) and ‘I feel the same way, would you like to make our friendship a little closer’ (non-binary, 13). By contrast, some participants hoped that Alex would be honest and that the two would remain friends regardless: ‘Hopefully he would return the affection, and if he doesn’t, hopefully he would respectfully decline and continue the close friendship’ (demi boy, 14) and ‘I hope that Alex responds well, whether it be because he is attracted to Farid or not and still being friends’ (transmasculine, 14).

Discussion

The findings reported in this paper both confirm and extend previous Australian and international research. In terms of institutional and informational erasure, while most participants had received some form of SRE, and for a minority this was useful or in a small number of cases inclusive of them as trans young people, most participants indicated that formal SRE had failed to represent them adequately or accurately. Whether or not this was active institutional erasure, as has been found in previous research (e.g., Haley et al. 2019; Jones et al. 2016; Kwok and Kwok 2022; Ullman 2021), or whether the erasure was not intentional, is irrelevant. The net outcome was informational erasure, such that, as has been found in previous research (e.g., Tordoff et al. 2021; Van Rooyen 2021), participants felt that the SRE provided to them was cisgenderist, heteronormative, and lacked a focus on the specific SRE needs of trans young people.

In the face of this erasure, participants spoke about actively seeking out informal SRE, and on the whole appeared to hold considerable knowledge about the intimacy and relationships needs of trans young people. Not only were participants adept at accessing informal sources of SRE, as has been found in previous research (e.g., Bradford et al. 2019; Shannon 2022), they appeared to be readily able to apply their knowledge to the story stems. Notably, this capacity to apply knowledge was evident across genders and ages, as indicated by the quotes included in the results above. This capacity for agency and activism echoes previous Australian research that, while not focused specifically on sexuality and relationships education, has consistently highlighted that trans young people engage in activism far more often than do cisgender young people (e.g., Jones and Hillier 2013; Smith et al. 2014). Given the context of cisgenderism in which trans young people live, it would seem that many are unfortunately aware of power imbalances, and actively seek to resist or find alternate ways of expressing their needs beyond those imposed within educational settings and beyond.

Given the injunction provided by the participants in research by Tordoff et al. (2021) to focus on the agency of trans young people in terms of SRE, it is important here to further consider how participants in the present study displayed agency through their responses to the story stem prompts. In terms of the first story stem, participants were clear that Sarah had the right to have her boundaries respected, that if this were not the case she should leave the relationship, and that overall she should stay true to herself. Participants expected that Mark should have been respectful and should have listened better, but nonetheless cautioned that even if this were the case, Sarah should be careful and not feel guilty about staying true to her position on intimacy. These accounts would appear to display considerable knowledge about what it means for trans young women to navigate relationships with cisgender men, mindful of the potential for transmisogyny at worst and mundane cisgenderism at best. These are certainly accurate appraisals of the situation facing many trans young women, and it is important that formal SRE includes a focus on the challenges trans young people more broadly are likely to face in dating. But it is also important that SRE does not simply adopt a damage-centred approach (Tuck 2009). It is important that cisgender young people are educated about respectful relationships with trans young people, and that trans young people are encouraged to believe in the potential for respectful relationships with cisgender young people (see for example https://transfemme.com.au).

With regard to the second story stem, participants appeared very mindful of the trans-specific concerns that likely required attention, specifically in terms of the potential for intimacy to trigger dysphoria, the need to negotiate boundaries including in terms of language used to describe bodies, the value in knowing one’s own body and desires, and the importance of trans young people being able to determine what works for them, but also that potential cisgender partners should hold their own knowledge, rather than being solely reliant upon trans young people to teach them. There is a growing body of literature on the diversity of language that trans people use to describe their bodies (e.g., Edelman and Zimman 2014), literature that could usefully inform SRE. Similarly, while dysphoria is often an overwhelming focus in the literature on trans young people, the participants in the present study offered a more nuanced account, suggesting that being mindful of dysphoria was different to presuming that dysphoria was omnipresent and would by default limit or hinder intimacy. As suggested by participants, formal SRE also has a useful role to play in educating cisgender young people as potential intimate partners of trans young people. In other words, trans inclusive SRE does not only benefit trans young people: it benefits everyone (Riggs and Bartholomaeus 2018).

Turning to the final story stem, participants again appeared to endorse an understanding of relationships for trans young people that was both cautious but also optimistic. Participants suggested Farid should be cautious and thoughtful, and should carefully examine the views that Alex may hold, but at the same time many were hopeful that Alex would reciprocate Farid’s feelings. Certainly, there is a sense of normative desire here, such that many participants hoped that the feelings would be mutual and a relationship would ensue. But despite being normative (in terms of romantic attraction), it is also agentic and hopeful: that Farid should be seen as desirable, and that being trans isn’t a barrier to him being loved. Nonetheless, participants were mindful of the potential for rejection, again highlighting the importance of SRE that speaks to all young people about desire and about trans young people as having desires and being desirable, and that which can potentially contribute to the increased likelihood that should trans young people share their feelings with other young people, that their feelings will be well received, even if not reciprocated.

Limitations

In terms of limitations, the demographic information collected in this study was relatively limited, meaning that there are certain aspects of the participants’ lives that may have led to some of the patterned responses. We did not ask about family income, or family acceptance, community connectedness or visibility as a trans young person. Each of these factors is likely to impact on knowledge, awareness and agency in regard to SRE. Indeed, given that parental consent was required for participation, young people who completed the survey were those likely to already have supportive parents. The SRE knowledge, awareness and agency of young people who do not have supportive parents thus require concerted focus in future research. This is relevant to the Australian context, given international research suggests that for some trans young people, family, community and visibility can play an important role in SRE exposure and uptake (e.g., Brown et al., 2021; Warwick et al. 2022). It must also be acknowledged that most participants gave relatively brief responses to the questions about SRE received and to the story stems, somewhat limiting the depth of analysis that could be undertaken. Future research will benefit from the use of interviews, as much as it must be acknowledged that the use of story completion tasks likely gives considerable insight into the views that young people hold about SRE, a sensitive topic that may be equally as challenging to explore through interviews.

Conclusions

In conclusion, the findings reported in this paper suggest that in the face of institutional and informational erasure in terms of SRE, trans young people in Australia appear to hold relatively developed and agentic understandings of the needs, rights and responsibilities of trans young people in terms of navigating intimacy and relationships. That such understandings appear largely to have been developed through informal sources of SRE suggests that, should trans young people in Australia be provided with inclusive and affirming SRE that meets their needs and acknowledges their agency, trans young people’s SRE knowledge is likely to be even higher. Furthermore, and as suggested above, trans inclusive and affirming SRE must be delivered to all young people. The onus should not be solely on trans young people to be aware of their needs and how to express them. Cisgender young people should be knowledgeable about the needs, desires and rights of trans young people, both as friends (so that they can support one another in conversations about intimacy and desire) and as potential intimate partners. Seeing knowledge about trans young people as a marginal topic only of interest or relevance to trans young people within SRE will only serve to perpetuate the misinformation, stereotypes, stigma and marginalisation that currently contributes to the cisgenderist climates in which trans young people negotiate intimacy and relationships.

Acknowledgments

We begin by acknowledging that we live on the lands of the Kaurna people and the people of the Kulin Nations, and we acknowledge their sovereignty as First Nations people.

Disclosure statement

The first author provided funds to Transcend to support data collection. The second author was paid by Transcend to engage in creation of the survey and write up of findings. The third author is the CEO of Transcend.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The first author was supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship, FT130100087. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or the Australian Research Council.