Lebanese, Indian and Anglo LGBTQ + young Australians’ experiences at school and university: an analysis from the middle

ABSTRACT

This article explores LGBTQ + young adults’ schooling and university experiences at the intersection of ethnicity and sexuality in Australia. Using the lenses of sexual citizenship and belonging, a sociomaterial polytextual analysis of the ‘middle’ was conducted with data from qualitative in-depth narrative and photo-elicitation interviews among Lebanese, Indian and Anglo LGBTQ + young adults. The analysis found that while participants had encountered bullying and prejudicial attitudes based on sexuality, gender and ethnicity, many of them had positive experiences at school and viewed university as facilitators of opportunity and discovery. The findings suggest that educational institutions are neither inherently safe nor unsafe; rather, they are important spaces whereby the sociomaterial entanglements of identity, sexual citizenship and belonging are negotiated. Crucially, they demonstrate that minority sexuality, ethnicity and gender themselves are not immutable barriers to participation, and call for strategic investment into spaces that support both student safety and critical discussion.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexuality
• ethnicity
• intersectionality
• sexual citizenship
• belonging
• education

Introduction

While the wellbeing of young people in school and university has received considerable attention (Ainscow 2020; Osher et al. 2019), intersectional analysis moving beyond singular dimensions of race or sexuality has been more limited, with most studies being conducted in North America. This paper uniquely presents findings from a sociomaterial exploration of sexual citizenship and belonging in schools and universities among LGBTQ + young adults from three major ethnocultural groups in Australia.

Research on gender and sexuality diversity relating to young Australians is varied and well-developed, spanning topics as diverse as sexuality education and everyday experiences in educational contexts (e.g. Drummond 2007; Jones et al. 2016; Ullman 2017; Thompson 2005). This significant body of research indicates that while many students negotiate their social identities safely and often productively, LGBTQ + students still encounter prejudiced attitudes and little support. Additionally, it reveals that while considerable attention has been paid towards understanding LGBTQ + young people’s experiences, there is a lack of research exploring experiences of sexual citizenship and belonging across those from various ethnocultural backgrounds at a specific point in time.

To help fill this gap, this paper explores the schooling and higher education experiences of Lebanese, Indian and Anglo LGBTQ + young adults in Sydney, from a sociomaterial perspective of the ‘middle’ (Tiainen et al. 2020). Specifically, it uses concepts of sexual citizenship to explore experiences of participation, safety and belonging at school and university. Aggleton et al. (2019) broadly describe sexual citizenship as the ‘sexual claims of belonging’ that consider ‘the intimate and sexual aspect of a person, together with aspects of their identity, in their participation – or lack thereof – in the rights and responsibilities of being a citizen’ (4). Consistent with the existing literature, our analysis suggests that young people continue to experience everyday challenges that affect their wellbeing, participation and capacities to build sexual citizenship in educational settings. Paradoxically, despite these difficulties, findings suggest that young people generally feel safe and supported, often through informal means. These students, therefore, feel ‘safe-unsafe’, where ‘safe and unsafe are not distinct and binary experiences, but in any moment are always entangled unstably together’ (Allen, Fenaughty, and Cowie 2020, 9). The paper concludes with a call for educators to think more deeply about the sociomaterial investments that facilitate the ‘safe’ and ‘brave’ spaces – i.e. spaces that prioritise comfort and which encourage challenging conversations respectively (Arao and Clemens 2013) – that support the development of students’ social participation, belonging, and sexual citizenship.

Theoretical framing

Noting that gender, ethnicity and class cannot separately account for the complexity of lived experience, Black feminists advanced the concept of intersectionality (Crenshaw 1989). An intersectional approach holds that while minority groups experience discrimination, the forms of oppression confronting a particular group, or, indeed, individuals within the same group, are not necessarily congruent. For example, despite celebrating inclusion and diversity, aspects of ‘gay culture’ have been described as both racist (Callander, Newman, and Holt 2015; Han 2007; Prankumar, Aggleton, and Bryant 2021; Riggs 2018) and ageist (Lyons et al. 2015; Slevin and Linneman 2010; Suen 2017). Additionally, minority ethnic queer persons may encounter homophobia and transphobia from within their own communities of heritage, negatively affecting both mental and sexual health and a sense of safety (Arnold, Rebchook, and Kegeles 2014; Meyer 2015). This may, in turn, negatively affect their participation and academic performance (Beattie, Van Dyke, and Hagaman 2021; Fields and Wotipka 2022).

However, despite its utility in engaging with important questions concerning the relationship between social positioning and everyday experiences, the anthropocentric approach often employed by intersectionality scholars, which focuses analysis on categories of oppression, power and subjectivity, tends to neglect the ‘materiality of difference’ (Flatschart 2017, 293). The posthuman turn in critical theory has troubled the anthropocentric bias in sociology by expanding the application of intersectionality to include dimensions of materiality and non-human agency (Barad 2007; Bennett 2010), through, for example, the concept of the ‘middle’ (Tiainen et al. 2020). This concept considers ‘the situated emergence and relatedness of embodied subjectivities and social differences’ and the material and non-human factors that shape experiences (211). Here, rather than as attached to a passive, self-contained and discrete subject, identities are understood as phenomena that are dynamically and relationally co-constituted. The concept of the ‘middle’ has been used to more closely attend to the threads that give rise to a diverse range of more-than-human phenomena, including ‘safe spaces’ in schools designed to support the physical and emotional wellbeing of marginalised youth – which may be understood as co-constituted material-discursive ‘spaces-in-the-making’ (Tiainen et al., p. 217) – and the sociomaterial implications of being queer Afrikaner faculty members in South Africa (Maritz and Prinsloo 2021). In our analysis, we use the perspective of ‘the middle’ to consider the sociomaterial factors shaping participants’ experiences of participation, safety and belonging at school and university, which have implications for sexual citizenship.

Methods

The narratives included in this paper come from a wider study exploring sexual citizenship and belonging among LGBTQ + young adults of Lebanese, Indian and Anglo heritage in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Sydney is one of Australia’s most populous and culturally diverse cities (Forrest and Dunn 2007), and has long been considered the putative ‘gay capital of the southern hemisphere’ (Bashford cited in Clift and Wilkins 1995, 42; Ware 2019, 19). The three ethnocultural groups were selected based on their distinctive migration histories, the lack of existing intersectional research about their experiences of sexuality and ethnicity, and their significant numbers in the population. Numbering 180,000 persons, New South Wales is home to almost three quarters of Australia’s Lebanese community (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2022), who mostly arrived during and after the Lebanese Civil War in the 1970s (Batrouney 2002, 39). The state also hosts a significant Indian population – numbering some 300,000 (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2022) – many of them on student, temporary graduate or permanent skilled migrant visas.

Following ethics approval from UNSW Sydney (approval number: HC 180533), 42 participants aged 18–30 years, who had lived in the Greater Sydney region for three years or longer, were recruited through social media, word of mouth, and invitations distributed at LGBTQ + events and community services (see Table A). Data collection proceeded in two stages: a semi-structured interview followed by an optional photo-elicitation interview, both in English. The two-stage design facilitated the exploration of material, structural, interpersonal and discursive factors shaping participants’ everyday experiences. The semi-structured interview, averaging two hours, spanned a wide range of topics including health; family and friendships; cultures, communities and identities; sex and intimate relationships; education; media; employment; and state and the law. Twenty participants consented to participate in a follow-up photo-elicitation interview, in which they were encouraged – through a ‘preparatory guide’ that was sent to them after they consented to the second interview – to bring personal photographs, letters, mementos and screenshots of social media posts to discuss what it felt like to be LGBTQ + or as someone from their ethnic group, to consider what it means for them to belong, to expand on their first interview, and to explore new areas of interest linked to the study’s themes. These follow-up interviews were scheduled four to eight weeks after the initial interview and averaged one hour each. The first author, an Indian-Singaporean migrant, conducted and transcribed all interviews. The co-authors, who collaborated on data analysis and writing, are themselves first- and second-generation migrants to Australia and identify with various sexuality, gender, ethnic, age and linguistic backgrounds.

To delve into processes in the ‘middle’, we used a modified version of the polytextual thematic analysis process (Gleeson 2011), which ‘assumes that all texts (including visual texts) are predicated on one another … [and which] attempts to identify the repetitive features or themes in the data that enable patterns to come into view’ (315). Participants’ experiences in educational contexts were analysed thematically across both sets of interviews using NVivo 12 Pro qualitative data analysis software and then connected to larger conceptual categories of sexual citizenship and belonging. Meanwhile, photographs that were taken of the artefacts presented by participants in the photo-elicitation interview were subject to visual analysis. The results of both sets of analyses were then iteratively analysed to identify the various sociomaterial entanglements that resulted in participants thinking about their experiences as ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ in relation to the conceptual categories. This paper draws on insights from all participants, and with quotes selected based on how effectively they illustrate participants’ identified themes.

As we were mindful that these discussions might be difficult for participants, precautions were taken to maintain participant safety and confidentiality; these included briefing participants prior to the interviews that conversations might be of a sensitive nature, offering various interview options (e.g. in-person at a publicly-accessible location of their choosing, private instant messaging, telephone, Australian sign language, video conferencing), asking for their pronouns, and providing a list of support resources.

Results

Positive experiences

Two-thirds of all participants in the study reported positive and supportive experiences at school, and all participants who attended university reported having broadly positive experiences.

Positive experiences at school

Positive experiences at school included being accepted or tolerated by classmates, and being supported by staff. Some participants recalled specific occasions when school leaders, teachers and students had signalled their support for sexuality and gender diversity, and, by extension, for sexual citizenship (i.e. their right to identify, present, participate and be recognised as LGBTQ + persons). Such support enabled students’ participation in class and in extracurricular activities such as school formals,¹ and to access sexuality and gender-affirming facilities and services such as gender-affirming washrooms and counselling support.

Leon (20, Lebanese, Australian-born, cis man/gay), for example, said: ‘I was close to some of my teachers, and they picked up on my sexuality … they were able to be there for me’. Leon’s teachers acknowledged Leon’s sexuality, encouraged him academically and provided support when needed. He credited the support of his teachers for his academic achievements and positive high school experience, despite experiencing some homophobic and racist attitudes from students and other teachers. Likewise, Kanak (21, Indian, overseas-born, queer/transgender woman) spoke positively of her relationships with teachers at the government boys’ school, where she was encouraged to apply herself academically and which accepted her sexuality and gender difference. One of the photographs Kanak discussed in her photo interview was a yearbook photograph of her English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher:

That’s my first teacher I ever had [in Australia] … the first time I met her I was transfixed … she was just this beautiful white woman who was speaking English so fast, and my little immigrant ass was like, ‘Oh my god, who is she, she’s so nice’ … she wasn’t getting paid for this shit [but] she used to sit down with me after school in the library and she’d be like, ‘This [book] is good, you take your time with this … [and] talk to me [about] how you felt about it’ … When I left school … I [came out to her] her [and she] was like ‘Well I’m glad you moved out, and you went to a different school’; because it was predominantly a Muslim school, I would’ve had a hard time. But then she’s like ‘Yeah my sister’s gay, so I understand how you feel’ … [and] she was the one who made me understand what being Australian was. (Short pause). Like the whole egalitarianism [and] the mateship and all of that … When I [felt like] I didn’t belong … I would just look at her and be like, ‘Okay I’m meant to be here … (short laugh) because she’s telling me you’re meant to be here’ … 

Kanak’s memory of her ESL teacher was replete with material references. She recalled being captivated by her ESL teacher in racialised and gendered terms (a ‘beautiful white woman’ vs ‘little immigrant ass’) and was impressed by the fact that her teacher took time to sit with her in the library (the physical act of sitting and talking in a quiet space with someone she respected, despite the latter not getting additional material remuneration) which eventually led to Kanak falling ‘in love with reading’. Some of the books Kanak’s teacher placed in her hands were written by Australian authors, from which Kanak learned about Australian culture and values², and, crucially, what it meant to be an Australian citizen i.e. norms of ‘egalitarianism’ and ‘mateship’. Understanding these values made her feel strongly connected to Australia despite her sexuality, gender and ethnic difference. Further, Kanak felt compelled to work hard in class (described in material terms of ‘pushing [her] pen’) when she looked at her teacher and what she represented, i.e. as a white Australian woman in a position of authority who held the legitimacy to proclaim that Kanak belonged in Australia and was capable of excelling in school. These material-discursive factors, together with her teacher’s familiarity with sexuality and gender difference and her awareness of the ethnoreligious sensitivities of their predominantly Muslim school (here coded as unreceptive to sexuality and gender diversity), made Kanak feel understood, accepted, and confident.

Both Kanak’s and Leon’s experiences reveal how staff members’ LGBTQ + sensitivity, signalled informally (instead of through formal support networks and the instructional curriculum), resulted in students feeling recognised, valued, and more motivated to participate in school.

Participants also described how the actions of other students indicated acceptance. For example, Tim (24, Anglo, Australian-born, cis man/gay) recalled how his classmates had responded with indifference when he came out during a classroom presentation, while Srikanth (18, Indian, Australian-born, atheist, cis man/bisexual) remembered how his friends had enthusiastically supported him when he came out as bisexual after his final examinations. In a photograph taken in the final week of high school where his peer group cross-dressed, a smiling Srikanth, sporting his high school’s cardigan and skirt, is shown kneeling on the floor, facing diagonally upwards towards a white, female classmate who is applying red lipstick on him. He recounted:

… I was with my friends, like she [friend who was painting his lips] got (short laugh) like a whole makeup set and did it for me, as this was right after I’d come out, and … they were all supportive and everything. And I surprisingly felt comfortable in the (short laugh) fucking female school uniform … I remembered like being really happy that day. Because school was ending, because everyone around me was good … [and] because I wasn’t hiding anything anymore … and because my friends were all supportive. Yeah. A sort of mental peace.

Material elements of the photograph that signified citizenship, belonging and acceptance included his smile and relaxed posture, the red lipstick, the whiteness of the classmate applying the lipstick on him (in his first interview Srikanth had equated whiteness with Australianness and was proud that unlike his parents, he had ‘assimilated’ to Australian culture), the affordances of the school’s facilities and the ‘female school uniform’ (the latter signalling belonging to his high school and to being LGBTQ+). The photograph was also discussed in terms of timing and was linked by Srikanth, via whiteness, to ideas of Australianness such as friendship, wellbeing, acceptance, a disregard for convention, and having a good time, which facilitated his sexual citizenship through allowing him to freely and safely experiment and express himself as a bisexual man.

Positive experiences at university

After high school, most participants chose to attend university. The independence and relative anonymity of being a university student, the diverse student body, the varied academic and social opportunities, and the dedicated LGBTQ + wellness support on campus allowed participants to feel recognised and provided them with opportunities to safely explore sexuality and gender difference with others, often for the first time in their lives. Johann (30, Anglo/German, overseas-born, agender/queer) came out to themselves, their friends and their family after reading queer literature at university, and Yasmin (25, Indian-Chinese, Australian-born, genderqueer/queer) credited her time at university for providing the opportunity for her to better understand her own sexuality, whereby she was ‘suddenly granted all of these words, and … all of these ideas’ which, like Johann, helped her make sense of who she was and made her feel less alone.

One group at university consistently mentioned by participants (albeit in slightly different ways) was the ‘queer collective’, which are independent student groups formed at various universities to support the wellbeing, networking and advocacy needs of LGBTQ + students and their allies. Participants’ enthusiasm about the queer collective – and university more broadly – had a strong material aspect. Melina (21, Anglo-Lebanese, Australian-born, cis woman/queer-lesbian), for example, was awed and excited by the material presence of queer clubs and spaces on campus. She said, ‘the idea of like a queer collective and queer spaces and … queer studies as something I could do was phenomenal, like it was the most exciting thing I’d ever seen … ’. For Benedict (21, Indian, Australian-born, genderfluid/gay), the material and symbolic presence of a comfortable ‘queer room’ – an official campus ‘safe space’ run by the respective universities’ queer collectives where LGBTQ + students can socialise and access resources – was instrumental to him feeling safe and supported during his period of homelessness when he was twice evicted from each of his divorced parents’ homes. The physical space, and with it his queer officer’s support, provided him a place to sleep at the weekend until he was allocated transitional housing by a youth organisation.

Another participant, Avinesh (20, Fijian Indian, overseas-born, non-binary/pansexual), whose family has been hostile towards their sexual identity, was introduced to LGBTQ + activism and student politics through their queer collective. One of the photographs Avinesh discussed was of dinner and drinks during a national student conference on social justice. In the photograph, a large group of smiling young undergraduates was squeezed around several tables at a homely restaurant. Everyone looked at ease with one another, and there was a preponderance of brightly dyed hair, colourful decorations, and denim and leather jackets.

The photograph represented a ‘random’ event that marked Avinesh’s life-changing introduction to student politics, something they did not know existed prior to the conference. Reflecting on the photograph, they said:

… queer spaces are quite cliquey … so having fifty people [in the restaurant] allowed me to be included … it was very important to me. And it showed that … people are able to break down those [cliquish] cultures and create an inclusive environment that allows people to belong.

Additionally, the materiality of the cosy restaurant and the colourful, smiling crowd depicted in the photograph reminded Avinesh of comfort and close-knit friendships tied to a broader social purpose, which they had never before experienced. The presence of a group of like-minded peers was instrumental in Avinesh’s understanding of, and advocacy for, sexual citizenship, such as when they protested on the streets for LGBTQ + sexual citizenship rights during the 2017 national marriage equality postal survey.

Negative experiences

While most participants had positive experiences at school and university, all of them were aware of, or had experienced, hostility towards sexuality and gender difference.

Negative experiences at school

Participants’ negative experiences at school included encountering intolerant and hostile attitudes and behaviours from schoolmates and staff. Young people reported little being said about sexuality and gender diversity in the formal curriculum, a lack of LGBTQ-affirming support services, and being prevented from participating in extracurricular activities.

Most of the negative experiences occurred in the classroom. Some participants recalled individual teachers being hostile or intolerant of LGBTQ + persons or issues. For example, Nadia’s (30, Lebanese, Australian-born, non-binary trans/queer) Year 11 teachers ‘sympathised’ with LGBTQ + people because they were ‘gonna go to hell’ and Tyler’s (20, Anglo, Australian-born, cis man/gay) scripture teacher called homosexuality a ‘sin’. Outside the classroom, young people sometimes felt prevented from participating in school activities and counselling services. For example, Madhavi (28, Indian, overseas-born, cis woman/lesbian) was prevented from playing soccer in primary school despite enjoying it in kindergarten because her teacher felt soccer was ‘a boy’s sport’ and had convinced her mother to feel similarly. Meanwhile, Tyler ‘didn’t understand’ why his school had a full-time chaplain³ but shared a part-time counsellor who worked across various schools, which he felt made it difficult for LGBTQ + students to have material access to secular counselling services. These material restrictions constrained students’ sexual citizenship in that they felt unable to access activities and services that allowed them to explore and express their interests and concerns relating to gender and sexuality.

Both within and beyond the classroom, a major source of hostility experienced by participants was their classmates’ use of homophobic epithets such as ‘fag’ and ‘that’s so gay’ to refer to people or behaviours that were boring or undesirable, regardless of whether they were LGBTQ+. For some participants, the use of these epithets introduced them to the concept of ‘gay’ as a descriptor of same-sex desire, and was fundamental to shaping their negative perceptions of non-heterosexuality. They remembered not knowing what the term ‘gay’ meant until it was repeatedly used against them by other students in primary school, with Timothee (22, Anglo, overseas-born, genderqueer-non-binary/gay) recalling how the word ‘gay’ was spoken about in terms of ‘[describing] bad things or … talking about rape and gay sex in this like, really horrible, violent way’. Teachers and administrators were often ignorant of, or ignored, the use of such language. Consequently, participants were left to deal with the situation alone by joining in the name-calling, by confining themselves to their friendship groups, by playing to stereotypes, by getting used to – and reclaiming – the terms used against them, or by asserting their physical presence.

For example, Dheeman (19, Indian, overseas-born, cis man/gay) and Fatimah (27, Lebanese-Anglo, Australian-born, genderqueer/lesbian) adopted the strategy of joining in with their peers whenever they used such epithets because they viewed them as casual insults that were not necessarily linked to sexual orientation or gender identity, and because it helped them feel like they belonged with their peer groups. Mary (18, Lebanese, Australian-born, cis woman/bisexual) decided to take up space; during her photo interview, she described what happened at her Year 12 school formal. Dressed in a ballgown, she had arrived an hour early for the photographs because she was deliberately given the wrong time, but decided to take photographs on her own and was determined to remain at the event:

I always think about … how I didn’t really belong … how badly I was treated by everyone, yet I still showed up to formal in a massive ballgown and blew everyone away. […] I [stayed because] didn’t want to give them the pleasure of not having me there. I wanted to go because it was my Year 12 formal, it wasn’t only theirs. And I sort of just ignored all the bad people, and just … focused on myself and the few people I was sitting with and it was good. And I felt like a princess … 

Mary’s objective was to take many material reminders (through photographs) of herself in a dress she enjoyed, and to assert her right to belong by taking up space that she felt entitled to. Years after the event, she continued to use the photograph as her mobile phone’s home screen to remind herself of her resilience.

Of the small minority of participants who said their schools had acted against students using homophobic or transphobic language, intervention typically intended to stop open discussion of sexuality in order to ‘keep the peace’. One of Isra’s (27, Lebanese, Australian-born, cis woman/bisexual) teachers in high school merely asked her bullies to apologise to her following her complaint about being called a ‘dyke’ (Isra remembered that at the time the bullies ‘were super happy’ since ‘they got away with it’). Fatimah’s teachers at her private Islamic school placed the entire class in detention after some boys exchanged homophobic epithets, not because they wanted to address bullying or were supportive of LGBTQ + sexual citizenship, but because they felt the use of such epithets injured the spiritual health of the school by making reference to ‘sin’.

Mary, Isra and Fatimah attributed their bullying and marginalisation to a combination of racism, sexism, xenophobia and homophobia, all of which had social and material causes and consequences. As queer minority ethnic women, they felt they could not connect with other students and teachers of similar ethnic backgrounds, who appeared hostile towards deviations from cis-heteronormative notions of sexuality and gender. Further, they felt their claims towards being Australian were questioned by others following public discourse that at the time linked Islam and Middle Eastern heritage with terrorism. Overall, minority ethnic participants felt that their ethnic difference presented a stronger challenge than being LGBTQ+ as they could not hide their ethnicity and the attendant racialised, gendered and heteronormative expectations and assumptions placed upon them; they struggled to belong as their allegiances towards their cultures of heritage and to Australia were questioned.

Negative experiences at university

While participants appreciated the presence of queer groups at university and the recognition given to LGBTQ + students, many felt disconnected and even alienated from the emotional or political tenor of such spaces. Tyler felt that his university’s queer collective, which consisted mainly of transgender members, had a ‘depressive … dark and gloomy vibe’, while Benedict bemoaned the ‘drama’ he often witnessed at his university’s queer collective when members got politically confrontational, and was frustrated with the attacks endured by those who did not yet know the ‘correct’ things to say. In contrast, Isra was frustrated that her queer collective was racist, misogynistic and much too apolitical as it was populated by cisgender gay men who made ‘jokes about vaginas’, who were ‘mostly just interested in pizza’ and who ‘had shit views about Palestine’. The shifting materiality of the types of bodies that belonged and held influence, and the small and sometimes ‘gloomy’ ambience of official queer spaces at university served to render these spaces safe for some and unsafe for others. Participants however remarked that the varied spaces and opportunities at university allowed them to engage with new activities and spaces that better supported their belonging.

Managing ethnic difference

At school, minority ethnic participants often struggled with a sense of belonging due to fears of judgement by ‘Australian’ (putatively Anglo) students due to ethnic difference, by other students from their communities of heritage for not following cultural expectations of sexuality and gender expression, and by members of the cisgender and heterosexual student population for not aligning with scripts of cis-heteronormativity.

Several participants attempted to mitigate their sense of ethnic difference by deliberately distancing themselves from what they considered the conservative and cis-heteronormative values of their communities of heritage. Zain, for example, said that studying at a Catholic school, consuming Australian media and being Lebanese made him feel that ‘being gay was wrong’ and something he ‘didn't wanna engage with’. In his later years of high school, he chose not to interact with other students of Lebanese or Middle Eastern heritage because of their ‘homophobic opinions’ and lack of shared values. Likewise, Kanak, who was surprised by the racial slurs she received after moving from India to Sydney for high school, ceased interacting with a group of classmates of Indian heritage after they responded negatively to her coming out as gay. However, while Zain’s and Kanak’s actions allowed them to go through school with a relatively accepting group of friends, they continued feeling a sense of displacement from schoolmates who shared their cultural heritage.

While most non-Anglo participants felt unable to explore or express sexuality or gender difference, they learned about what it meant to be LGBTQ + from observing how their openly-LGBTQ + Anglo peers – whom they felt did not experience the pressures of conforming to sexual or cultural norms – expressed themselves. Their vicarious engagement with sexuality and gender diversity from a safe distance helped them to acknowledge that they might themselves be LGBTQ + and that they had rights in the broader Australian context, and opened pathways towards LGBTQ-affirming friendships.

Campus spaces and events as safe–unsafe

Taken together, participants’ experiences point to how school and university are neither inherently safe nor unsafe, and how minority sexuality, ethnicity and gender are not immutable barriers to participation. Instead, in alignment with Allen, Fenaughty, and Cowie (2020), ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ are affective responses contingent on relational and ongoing material-discursive entanglements, rather than ontological categories. Despite their struggles navigating belonging, for many participants, particularly minority ethnic participants, school and university felt safe because they provided a space – physically and affectively – for young people to explore new friendships and ways of living; they provided a buffer from the surveillance of families and communities; and they allowed young people to distinguish themselves through their academic and leadership achievements.

For example, Kanak shared that while school sometimes felt unsafe as a queer Indian immigrant, she eventually felt safe. Reflecting on a photograph taken with her male classmates at her Year 12 formal, she said:

I was like I’m gonna go to my formal in drag. (Short pause). And I asked my teacher, who was like, ‘It’s okay, you can do it, but I’m just scared for you … I just don’t want you to get picked on’. I was like ‘No, I wanna do this, I really wanna do this’. And I remember buying a dress, and got my hair and makeup done … for a minute people didn’t recognise [me], until I sat down and I started speaking and they were like ‘(Gasp)! Oh wait, this is Kanak, oh my god, what?’ […] I remember everyone … even boys who were religious … they kept coming up to me and were like ‘I’m so proud of you for what you’re doing … ’.

Despite Kanak’s initial fears of attending a boys’ school and her experiences of bullying both by classmates of Indian heritage (for being gender and sexuality diverse) and by others (for being Indian), over time she found, to her surprise and gratitude, that school provided an environment for her to live in accordance with her gender identity. School was thereby an important space where her sexual citizenship was affirmed.

In the photo interview, another participant, Benedict, reflected on a range of items from the ‘treasure box’ he had brought, which included academic medals, a clipping from a local newspaper that highlighted his status as a student leader, letters from his best friend, and some notes he had written since childhood. His experiences of being bullied and feeling like a ‘misfit’ at school contrasted with the gratitude he felt for having the physical space to interact with his friends, which resulted in an ambivalent relationship with belonging:

[My experience at school] speaks to me of the duality of what it means to belong and not belong at a same time, where we can belong somewhere and not belong in another place. Where we can feel so accepted and loved in a community … but also feel the same intensity of emotions, in the opposite direction … 

Benedict hoped that his academic medals and his newspaper appearance would elicit pride and acceptance from his parents. Instead, they trivialised his achievements as irrelevant towards qualifying for a prestigious university course. What reoriented him from his feelings of frustration, hurt and dejection was a handwritten letter from his best friend reminding about him why he became a student leader. The materiality of the letter is meaningful; while a few years old, it is a personal and tangible object to which he keeps referring whenever he needs encouragement. Studying the items in his ‘treasure box’ made Benedict realise that school was the only place in which he felt recognised and accepted, even though it sometimes felt unsafe. His experiences of being bullied and feeling ‘different’ at school contrasted with the gratitude he felt for having a physical space in which to interact with his friends and to distinguish himself academically and as a leader. For Benedict and other participants, school represented a safe-unsafe space in which their thoughts and feelings of sexual citizenship and belonging were negotiated.

Discussion

By employing the concept of the ‘middle’, we have been able to consider difference, sexual citizenship and belonging ‘not only as a matter of structures, systems and already-existing possibilities for being, but also as open-ended relationalities happening across social, material, discursive, human and more-than-human areas of activity’ (Tiainen et al. 2020, 219). Indeed, in their accounts and responses, participants demonstrated how feelings of safety, sexual citizenship and belonging are shaped by unique sociomaterial entanglements. In other words, how they explored and felt at the intersection of ethnicity, gender and sexuality depended on the physical affordances of campus spaces, the discussions and activities being conducted within these settings, the flow of bodies engaging within those spaces, the manner in which matters of social difference were considered in the formal curriculum and extracurricular activities, and policies from various levels that were enacted to govern and manage student and staff conduct (e.g. inclusion, discipline and curriculum policies; funding priorities such as investing in chaplains for broader pastoral care and counselling support rather than registered counsellors and psychologists, etc.).

While students’ sense of inclusion and belonging in schools appeared to rely more on informal teacher-student and peer relationships, universities were experienced as more intentional in creating spaces in which young people could learn about and express themselves in relation to others and the material environment. Throughout this study, we found that the extent to which young people could enthusiastically participate (or not) in school and university was influenced by the degree to which recognition was given to sexuality and gender diversity within the formal curriculum and in social life beyond the classroom, the latter including interactions with educators, peers, student societies, parents, counsellors, chaplains and advisors. Their experiences were also shaped by the spaces in which they could freely explore and express sexuality and gender diversity, such classrooms and hallways in addition to private ‘queer rooms’. The informal cross-dressing tradition at Srikanth’s school, for example, remained one of Srikanth’s most treasured memories and helped him achieve a sense of belonging and wellbeing; here, the specific entanglement of space (an open, public area in school), time (at the end of high school), and matter (his and his friend’s ethnicities and facial expressions, the materiality of the ‘female uniform’ and make-up, and his friend’s intervention at helping him apply lipstick) eventuated a sense of belonging, mental wellbeing and freedom as a student, bisexual man, immigrant and Australian. Importantly, participants’ experiences of school made them more aware of the possibilities of sexual citizenship and belonging as LGBTQ + people living in Australia.

Formal efforts to promote LGBTQ + inclusion are therefore only one contributory factor to students’ wellbeing. Our findings suggest that educational institutions should think carefully about the sociomaterial factors implicated in the educational environment and how these factors influence who is invited to belong, by considering not just the policies that are enacted to support sexuality and gender-diverse students but also the material and informal aspects of the educational experience. One example of this could include how mental health and pastoral care is structured. At Tyler’s school for instance, the presence of a part-time counsellor but a full-time chaplain made him question his ability to seek care if he needed it, since he felt his school prioritised a particular view of religion (which he viewed as unsupportive of LGBTQ + wellbeing) over mental health (to which he felt all students should be entitled). Another example would be how conversations regarding global discourse on religion, politics and identity are facilitated (in terms of content and the spaces in which they occur), as they have consequences on students’ everyday experiences at the local level.

One potential area of future focus relates to developing spaces that support meaningful participation in school and university life, in addition to safe spaces that focus on feelings of comfort and safety. Safety alone may not be enough to facilitate open enquiry, equity and belonging, which are practices linked to meaningful participation; indeed, ‘safe spaces’ automatically entail exclusions. In this study, for example, we found that queer collectives at university were safe spaces for some but not for others: safe because participants could meet other LGBTQ + people, clarify their ideas about sexuality and gender diversity and seek emotional and physical refuge, yet unsafe because of a pressure to conform to certain ways of thinking, with some participants criticising the sexism, racism and confrontational atmosphere present within these groups. The sense of safety (or lack thereof) that participants attached to these spaces were not fixed – the same space could feel safe one year and deeply unsafe the next, depending on who the officeholders were, the activities carried out, and the physical spaces to which individuals had access. These examples, examined through the perspective of the ‘middle’, demonstrate that safe spaces are ‘never fixed or stable’ (Tiainen et al. 2020, 271).

In their writing, Arao and Clemens (2013) have distinguished between safe and ‘brave’ spaces, with the former centred on safety, support and affirmation, and the later focused on challenging conversation that brings participants out of their comfort zone and disrupts the ‘conflation of safety with comfort’ (135). In other words, safe spaces allow students to comfortably express themselves away from the judgment of others, while brave spaces aim to facilitate recognition, consciousness-raising and emancipatory education by providing environments in which ‘students learn to confront the uncomfortable and unfamiliar and respond in ways that enable them to grow’ (Palfrey 2017, 30). Brave spaces, which need to be supported by strong teacher-student relationships, educator confidence, and a ‘robust and mutually agreed learning agreement’ (Winks 2018, 104), operate from the understanding that learning requires ‘vulnerability and willingness to let go of previous ways of understanding and engagement with the world’ (Cook-Sather 2016, 3). The social justice conference that Avinesh attended is one such ‘brave space’, since it productively engaged attendees in spirited and often uncomfortable debate over ideas of sexuality, gender, sexual citizenship and social justice.

In line with the experiences and perspectives of this study’s participants, a combination of two types of spaces – safe and brave – is important in facilitating safety, mutual understanding and growth. Safe spaces continue to provide vital spaces for marginalised groups to ‘recuperate, reconvene, and create new strategies for resistance’, and ‘makes visible the collective and individual traumas which disrupt neoliberal narratives of self-resilience’ (Waugh 2019, 145). Meanwhile, rather than prioritising comfort, brave spaces aim to facilitate challenging and often uncomfortable discussions and are oriented toward building trust, respect and mutual understanding (Arao and Clemens 2013). In this sense, brave spaces provide learning environments that enable students to challenge the ‘implicit and explicit ways in which inclusion and exclusion, affirmation and disenfranchisement, and belonging and alienation play out for people with different identities’ (Cook-Sather 2016, 2). Such spaces allow for critical and respectful debate around norms and possibilities, which question the boundaries of sexual citizenship and point young people towards opportunities to flourish.

Participants’ responses underscore the importance of taking a ‘middle’ perspective, i.e. intersecting intersectionality and new material perspectives, to robustly study the human-nonhuman (i.e. space-time-matter) entanglements that form these spaces and the factors that make them feel safe-unsafe, along diverse factors of social difference (e.g. ethnicity, sexuality and gender identity). As Kenway and Youdell (2011) suggest, considering spaces more fully can point to the ‘implications of education’s centres and margins, mobilities and stabilities, hierarchies, relationalities and positionalities’ (133), thereby enabling stakeholders to purposively design learning environments that facilitate students’ critical engagement with ethics, power and selfhood which might nurture their sexual citizenship, belonging, and wellbeing.

Conclusion

Educational settings provide important spaces of learning, growth and support for LGBTQ + young people. However, schools – and to a lesser extent, universities – continue to represent ‘safe-unsafe’ spaces. Feeling ‘at home’ may be particularly difficult for those from minority ethnic backgrounds, for whom sexuality, gender and race intersect in often alienating ways.

The analyses presented demonstrate how a materially-inflected intersectional analysis – adopting a perspective of the ‘middle’ (Tiainen et al. 2020) and the lens of sexual citizenship – can productively contribute to a more holistic understanding of inclusion, safety, belonging and participation. The accounts provided by participants in this study, and the analysis we have offered, demonstrate what LGBTQ + young people can achieve when provided with recognition and support, but suggests the importance of creating spaces of comfort and spaces that encourage creative and challenging interactions. Ultimately, it is the combination of these two types of spaces that provides supportive conditions for wellbeing and belonging.

Crucially, our findings call for attention to the ways in which human-nonhuman entanglements shape educational experiences in ways that may feel ‘safe-unsafe’ at certain points in time, for certain communities of students. Through engagement with this discomfort and associated sociomaterial factors, difference can be recognised and productive tensions can be acknowledged, towards a journey of flourishing.

Acknowledgements

We are indebted to the study’s participants, and community-based leaders and groups, for their participation and advice. We are also thankful for the constructive feedback offered by the anonymous reviewers of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a University of New South Wales Scientia Scholarship.

Notes

1 In Australia, the Year 12 ‘school formal’ refers to the end-of-year dance attended by graduating high school students.

2 The topic of ‘Australian values’ is a contentious one. Most participants, sometimes hesitatingly, linked ‘Australian values’ to cultural idioms of ‘mateship’ (friendship, loyalty and solidarity) and a ‘fair go’ (equality of opportunity), which are historically rooted in white, masculinist, working-class experiences (Altman 1987; Pease 2001). Some participants, particularly those who were Australian-born, expressed discomfort with the racialised and masculinised tenor of these values, and linked it with colonisation and the erasure of Australia’s Indigenous cultural heritage.

3 The Australian Government contributes an estimated $245.7 million (GST exclusive) to states and territories to fund the National School Chaplaincy Program (Department of Education 2022). Previously, chaplains did not require formal qualifications, but since 2011 chaplains needed to have a Certificate IV in Youth Work or Pastoral Care (or equivalent). The scheme has attracted criticism from professional bodies in education, psychology and counselling, and a 2021 parliamentary inquiry into mental health and suicide prevention called for an independent review of the scheme and for increasing the number of school psychologists (House of Representatives Select Committee on Mental Health and Suicide Prevention 2021).