The Safe Schools Program and Young People’s Sexed and Gendered Geographies

ABSTRACT

This essay examines the recent controversy surrounding ‘Safe Schools', a federally-funded education program designed to reduce anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) bullying in Australian schools. Although LGBTI students are known to experience homophobic, biphobic and transphobic verbal and physical abuse at school, opponents of Safe Schools have argued that the Program is both unnecessary and potentially harmful. In the essay, we argue that geographers have valuable contributions to make to this debate, particularly by revealing the ways in which sexuality and gender shape young people's experiences of school spaces.

KEY WORDS:

• LGBTI
• schools
• young people

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.