The Role of School Counsellors and Psychologists in Supporting Transgender People

Abstract

As growing numbers of transgender people — including students, parents, and educators — become visible within schools, so comes with this the requirement that schools ensure their full inclusion. This article suggests that school counsellors and psychologists have an important role to play in supporting transgender people within schools. As an initial scoping of this suggestion, the article reports on findings from two Australian surveys: one focused on cisgender parents of transgender children, and one focused on cisgender school counsellors and psychologists in regard to their capacity for working with transgender people. The findings suggest that while the parent sample had largely negative experiences with school counsellors, the professional sample reported a high level of confidence in working with transgender people, although differences in gender and religiosity impacted upon school counsellors’ and psychologists’ acceptance of transgender people, and clinical knowledge for working with transgender people. The article concludes by advocating for ongoing training for school counsellors and psychologists in regard to working with transgender people, in addition to outlining the role that school counsellors and psychologists can play in facilitating a whole of school approach to transgender issues.

Keywords::

• transgender
• counselling
• schools
• inclusive education

Acknowledgments

We begin by acknowledging the sovereignty of the Kaurna people, the First Nations people upon whose land we live and work. Thanks must go to helpful comments from the three reviewers and the journal editor, Chris Boyle, in addition to audience feedback provided on an earlier version of the paper presented at the Australian Psychologists and Counsellors in Schools National Conference, 2015. Finally, thanks must go to Clemence Due for her work on the development of the first study reported in this article.

Financial Support

Funding for the research reported in this article was provided by the Flinders University Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences.

Conflicts of Interest

None.

Ethical Standards

The authors assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional committees on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008.