Memories of schooling amongst trans women and sexuality diverse men in Papua New Guinea

ABSTRACT

Drawing from a life history study we examine memories and experience of schooling in Papua New Guinea among 45 trans women and sexuality diverse men. While participants reported regulating their expression of gender and sexuality to ‘fit in’ and avoid physical and verbal abuse at school, others felt able and supported to express their gender and sexuality diversity more freely beyond stereotypical norms. Schools provided a varietyof experience for trans and sexuality diverse youth, unsupportive in many ways but supportive in others. The study highlights the importance of examining the impact of colonial discourses driving homophobia and transphobia in diverse settings, and understanding the socio-cultural climates of schools to identify solutions to the discrimination and violence experienced by trans women and sexuality diverse students. Further research into the current experiences of trans, gender and sexuality diverse young people in school would provide a valuable comparative perspective to our retrospective study.

KEYWORDS:

• Asia and Pacific
• young people
• education
• LGBTQI+ sexuality
• gender

Acknowledgements

We thank those who participated in this study, sharing their stories.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data is not publicly available to non-investigators, as per ethical approval.

Notes

1 Hun’s father uses a male pronoun here to refer to herself as her father’s son.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the PNG Institute of Medical Research’s Internal Competitive Research Award scheme.

Notes on contributors

Herick Aeno

Herick Aeno is a senior social scientist in the Sexual and Reproductive Health Unit at the PNG Institute of Medical Research.

Padmini Iyer

Padmini Iyer is a senior researcher on the Children and Families Team at NatCen Social Research in the UK.

Jamee Newland

Jamee Newland – is a qualitative public health researcher in Global health, equity and justice research group at the Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney.

Ruthy Boli-Neo

Ruthy Boli-Neo is a senior social scientist in the Sexual and Reproductive Health Unit at PNG Institute of Medical Research.

Peter Aggleton

Peter Aggleton is an Emeritus Scientia Professor in the Centre for Social Research at UNSW Sydney, a distinguished honorary professor in the School of Sociology at The Australian National University, and an honorary professor in the Centre for Gender and Global Health at UCL in London.

Kerry H. Robinson

Kerry H. Robinson is a distinguished professor in sociology, Director of the Diversity and Human Rights Research Centre, and member of Sexualities and Genders Research, in the School of Social Sciences at Western Sydney University, Australia.

Angela Kelly-Hanku

Angela Kelly-Hanku is a Scientia Associate Professor and Group Lead, Global health, equity and justice at the Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney and Senior Principal Research Fellow at the PNG Institute of Medical Research.