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Religious reactions to gender identity: a comparative analysis of select Canadian and Australian Catholic schools
Abstract
Determining the depth of discrimination against gender and sexual minority groups in Catholic schools of selected western nations is best undertaken from an international-comparative perspective. In this article, we compare the Canadian case of Alberta’s ‘washroom wars’ and a ‘gender row’ over uniform changes in an Australian Catholic high school. In each case, practises inclusive of gender diversity in Catholic schools were framed as a departure from Catholic doctrine. To explore how oppressive structures exist and operate within schools, we examine media accounts of each case using Critical Discourse Analysis and contextualize this analysis by examining Canadian and Australian educational and legal settings. We find that despite differing legal frameworks, some Catholic schools continue to place Canonical law above the rights of transgender and gender-diverse students in both countries. We therefore argue that it is the Catholic system’s institutional stance on gender and sexual diversity that perpetuates discrimination.
... From this distance, glaring gaps are evident in this earlier policy era. These include intersectional understandings of how gender is simultaneously inflected by sexuality, class, race, ethnicity, religion, regionality, Indigeneity and more (Callaghan et al., 2023;Jones, 2015Jones, , 2020Keddie, 2017;Keddie & Mills, 2007;Kenway et al., 2006;Martino & Pallotta Chiarolli, 2003;Rasmussen, 2006;Robinson, 2005). This is not a shopping list of identities but rather indicates how gender is realised through dynamic, lively, affective processes. ...
... Understandings of gender and sexualities have expanded hugely in recent years, with many young people, families and teachers expecting that schools better reflect the societal changes around them. Simultaneously, resistance has been vocal, influential and multidirectional-ranging from organised campaigns from conservative organisations (Callaghan et al., 2023;Law, 2017;Poulos, 2021) to the pernicious effects on young people of online misogyny, homophobia and transphobia of social influencers such as Andrew Tate (Westcott et al., 2023). Gendered and sexualised violence have been the focus of much public concern and have underpinned a spectrum of initiatives ranging from the Safe Schools anti-bullying initiative, which although it remains available in Victoria, was blocked at the federal level (Carden, 2019;Rasmussen & Leahy, 2018;Ward, 2020), to Respectful Relationships Education which is being cautiously introduced in some states (Keddie & Ollis, 2021;Pfitzner et al., 2022). ...
This special issue presents a collection of recent papers drawing on qualitative research in and about schooling in Australia and the ways in which gender-related issues in the broadest sense continue to shape people’s educational experiences. These papers from the present are positioned in relation to the long histories of policy and research attention to gender equity in Australian education. We set the context for work in the present by scanning the past, noting the ambitions, the gaps and the failures of earlier policies, and drawing attention to the quality and volume of research that has previously been undertaken in this area. We explore the current policy vacuum regarding gender to consider some of the pressures and complexities that have led to the erasure or avoidance of gender-related issues. Each of the papers that form this special issue demonstrate—despite different methods, theoretical frameworks, settings and participant cohorts—how stereotypes and limitations circulate in everyday life in schools and beyond them, and how these impact on people. They each explore from a different starting point how gender injustices are perpetuated and produced, in often subtle and nuanced ways that require concerted effort to unpack. They simultaneously offer insights into the critical and creative ways that young people and those around them are reconfiguring gender and seeking more hopeful and more equitable educational experiences and outcomes. Collectively, the papers that form this special issue advocate for policies and practices that embrace the complexities of young people's lives and are oriented towards inclusive and equitable educational environments.
... The research brought to the forefront collectively stress the urgent need to reconsider and reevaluate exemptions that permit transgender and gender diverse discrimination within religious and faith-based educational settings. These exemptions, while aimed at upholding religious freedom, enable discrimination against transgender and gender diverse people, creating a hostile environment for these students (Callaghan et al., 2023). ...
Introduction: This systematic literature review (SLR) investigates the effects school environments have on the mental health outcomes of transgender and gender diverse students. Current literature highlights the need to support the mental health of transgender
and gender diverse students in school, however the research synthesizing the existing research is limited. This SLR brings together existing literature exploring the school experience
and mental health outcomes for this cohort in schools.
Methods: The review followed PRISMA Guidelines and included JBI quality appraisal tools of included studies. Four electronic databases were used, with literature searches conducted on 31 July 2023. Included studies were assessed against predetermined inclusion/exclusion criteria, with included studies written in English, no date or geographical limitations, online full-text availability, peer-reviewed, and relevant to the research question. Abstract, full-text
review, and quality appraisal were conducted by two independent reviewers. Collected data were synthesized using a revised and three-levelled socio-ecological framework and further
thematic analysis within the three categories.
Results: 15 studies were included for final synthesis with four using qualitative methodologies, and 11 being cross-sectional studies. The final synthesis comprised three themes, exploring structural level, interpersonal level and individual level barriers to optimal mental health outcomes for transgender and gender diverse students in school settings. Findings highlight and support previous findings of an alarmingly high rate of mental health concerns, including
self-harm, suicide and suicidal ideation in transgender and gender diverse youth in school settings.
Conclusions: The current literature highlights the need to explore how denominational affiliations of school environments affect the experiences, challenges and mental health outcomes of transgender and gender diverse youth. Further research needs to comprehensively unpack the unique structural, interpersonal and individual needs of transgender and gender diverse youth in these diverse school environments, to then provide adequate and affirming
support enhancing their overall health and wellbeing.
... Despite former Prime Minister Scott Morrison's promise that an amendment preventing religious schools from expelling LGBTIQA + students, this would not have prevented religious schools from discriminating against their sexuality and/or gender-diverse students. It must be noted that exemptions from the Sex Discrimination Act, which is a federal law, already existed in most states (Callaghan et al., 2023), which is why some schools were already implementing exclusions (Barnes et al., 2023). ...
This paper explores young people’s understandings of gender and investigates their gender-based experiences in high schools in Australia. The discussion is based on qualitative research including focus groups and interviews with 47 recent high school leavers from diverse linguistic, socioeconomic, religious, ethnic, gender and sexuality backgrounds, who attended a broad range of high school types in New South Wales (NSW). We found that young people are critically engaging in gender issues and are often challenging binary gender and associated inequitable practices in schools and beyond. They are taking a leading role in educating adults about gender—that is, they are ‘teaching up’, as young people conceptualised it, to their families and teachers about gender, gender-related issues and doing gender differently in contemporary times. Their views on gender are often in contrast to those institutional views that currently prevail in NSW schools, which often still reflect stereotypes that perpetuate gender inequalities.
Through a new materialist inquiry, as a bounded review, we cartographically and diffractively read/plot media reports about genderdiverse, transgender and non-binary (GDTNB) students in education in Australia. We utilise diffractive analysis to explore the complexities of these representations, revealing how exclusions shape the public discourse around GDTNB people and why these exclusions matter in line with Barad’s agential realism theory. Further, diffractions map where the effects of differences appear, how differences are produced, how they matter, and the entangled effects these differences make. Thus, we seek out exclusions, differences and entanglements. Our inquiry creates a cartography mapping into ways GDTNB children materialise within the educational structures, media society and systems of which they are compulsorily enrolled. To set the scene, we discuss public debate on matters relating to children and gender diversity. We cartographically and diffractively analyse 117 mainstream media articles on gender diversity in schools and Drag Story Time in council libraries from 2021 to 2023, to locate what matters in public discourse on gender diversity, the silences, along with what is entangled and what diffracts. By entering identified relevant media titles and content into Voyant Tool’s Knots Tool, most frequently used words and their relation to each other present entanglements and diffractions to consider as we identify patterns and gaps in media discourse. It became repeatedly visible that conservative politicians who have no authority on gender diversity dominate media airplay on gender diversity and schooling and Drag Story Time for young children. Our analysis illustrates that coverage is often dominated by conservative political narratives and which pathologise GDTNB students or depict them as vulnerable rather than affirming their identities. The silences, differences and disentanglements point to the need for public education on the lived realities of gender diversity along with proactive counter-storying to folk devil narratives of transfolk.
There is a common impulse within academic research on sexuality education to draw on the notion of moral panic in order to better understand 'unreasonable' and emotional opposition to the implementation of sexuality education programs. The aim of this article is to interrogate this tendency to classify religious opposition to the sexuality education curriculum as suggestive of a 'moral panic'. I begin with a brief discussion of how the notion of 'moral panic' is commonly used in academic and popular discourse, and proceed to a discussion of 'moral panic' in the field of sexuality education, specifically focusing on the work of US researcher Janice Irvine. I also consider some research on recent South Australian controversies related to sexuality education in schools. Finally, I consider the attribution of 'moral panic' in accounting for religious opposition to sexuality education as a secular formation.
Education is state-run in Australia, and within each of the eight states and territories there are both government and independent schooling systems. This paper details the position of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (GLBTIQ) students within Australian education policy documents nationally, focusing on the three largest states and educational sectors in Australia. Survey data are used to report on the schooling experiences of over 3000 Australian GLBTIQ young people aged 14–21 years. Data from interviews with key policy informants identify both the obstacles to implementing policies, and how such obstacles have been overcome. Much official policy sees sexuality education as promoting inclusive, protective and affirming messages around GLBTIQ students. There exist significant correlations between policy and a variety of well-being and psycho-social outcomes for GLBTIQ students, including lowered incidence of homophobic abuse and suicide, and the creation of supportive school environments. Ideal policy visions are outlined, along with practical recommendations of relevance to a variety of stakeholders.
This article analyzes backlashes to queer and Indigenous diversity-affirmative practices in Australia that entail perceived loss of dominance by the majority culture. The case studies outlined here demonstrate how whiteness, nationhood, and (gendered) heterosexuality are playing out in parallel ways through populist backlashes that have the purpose of containing queerness and indigeneity in "respectable" modes that do not challenge the default neutrality of a constructed "Australian" subject. The rhetorical and political strategies of erasing the queer and Indigenous others so as to reify the norm will be analyzed.
This article focuses on the journalistic rhetoric surrounding the Safe Schools Coalition Australia. This rhetoric is significant for two reasons. First, readers have been interpellated as parents by both pro- and anti-Safe Schools commentators. The reader/parent is either persuaded to feel indignation and horror at that program’s attempts to sexualize innocent children (and thus want to oppose Safe Schools), or gratitude that the program is actually benefiting children (and thus want to protect Safe Schools). Second, journalistic rhetoric about Safe Schools is significant because of what it suggests about how gender and sexual diversity in schools have been reported on by journalists.
‘Surrounded as we are by a masculinized populism that continues to enable insecurity, violence, and oppression, this book demonstrates the depth and breadth of the lineages that facilitate these masculinist practices.’
- Brent J. Steele, University of Utah, USA
‘This book shows how reactionary movements systematically mobilize masculine resentment, and how that links up with broader structures of patriarchy, white supremacy, and colonialism. It is essential for scholars, writers and journalists seeking to fully understand antifeminism as a political and ideological force.’
- Jason Wilson, Columnist and Journalist at The Guardian
This book examines whether we are witnessing the resilience, persistence and adaptation of masculinist discourses and practices at both domestic and international levels in the contemporary global context. Beginning with an innovative conceptualisation of masculinism, the book draws on interdisciplinary work to analyse its contours and practices across four case studies. From the anti-feminist backlash that can be found in various men’s rights movements, and responses to gender-based and sexual violence, to the masculinist underpinnings of human rights discourse, and modes of intervention to protect, including drone warfare. This interdisciplinary work will appeal to students and scholars of gender studies, security and international relations, and sociology.
Lucy Nicholas is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Swinburne University, Australia.
Christine Agius is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Swinburne University, Australia.
This essay focuses on tensions within Canada and Australia between religious freedoms and sexual freedoms. Both countries have sought to develop religious accommodations for publicly funded religious schools. The essay is also informed by contemporary research related to the experiences of LGBT identified teachers and students. I briefly consider how their experiences of education are shaped by religious exemptions which operate to accommodate claims related to religious freedom. I also consider how advocates on both sides deploy particular understandings of secularism in order to distinguish between public and private spheres.
Education has been powerfully affected by the rise of a neoliberal political, economic and cultural agenda. The Australian experience since the 1980s is outlined. Educators need to understand neoliberalism, and also to think about the nature of education itself, as a social process of nurturing capacities for practice. Education itself cannot be commodified; but access to education can be. Markets require a rationing of education, and the creation of hierarchies and mechanisms of competition. Hence, the redefinition of schools and universities as firms, and the striking revival of competitive testing, as well as the expansion of public funding of private schools. Teachers are placed under performative pressures that tend to narrow the curriculum in schools, and make the sector's workforce more insecure. Even the knowledge base of education is impacted, with technicization of professional knowledge and a growth of cultural fakery around education. Bases for alternatives exist, but have not yet found institutional articulation.
Discrimination against lesbians and gay men has been endemic throughout Australia’s history. However, in twenty-first century Australian society there are signs of growing sophistication and acceptance of sexual diversities. Despite this, schools continue to be organisations where sexual ‘difference’ is marginalised and silenced, having ramifications on the professional lives of lesbian and gay teachers. This article, based on qualitative research with 14 lesbian and gay teachers working in metropolitan Sydney, explores the ways in which schooling micro-cultures and systemic practices affect participants’ working lives. In particular, it highlights the ways in which these teachers negotiate the complex discursive fields in schools to perform their ‘professional’ teacher subjectivities in ways that are personally functional and effective, and simultaneously organisationally ‘acceptable’ in what has been for lesbian and gay teachers, traditionally hostile workplaces.
This paper seeks to explain why the policy history of school funding in regard to Australian Catholic Education looks and sounds the way it does today through the production of a genealogy of the subject. The questions addressed are, first, why has the funding of Catholic schools in Australia become an occluded historical site since the 1970s, despite the controversy in which popular accounts of the funding of Australian schools is mired, and when its prevalence so completely dominated the discourses of Australian education in the prior century? Second, has funding policy discourse been defined and contained and what basis is there for contesting such discourse in light of events since that period of time? Third, which or whose policy version triumphs and becomes the accepted policy process and which other policy approaches are obliterated in this process? The theoretical perspective adopted in this paper draws from both postmodern critiques and cultural theories of historical construction, as framed within Foucauldian Studies.
Discourse Studies is the largest, most complete, most diverse and only multidisciplinary introduction to the field. Now combined into a single volume, this essential handbook: Is fully updated from start to finish to cover contemporary debates and research literature; covers everything from grammar, narrative, argumentation, cognition and pragmatics to social, political and critical approaches; adds two new chapters on ideology and identity; puts the student at the center, offering brand new features such as worked examples, sample analyses and recommended further reading Written and edited by world-class scholars in their fields, it is the essential, one-stop companion for any student of discourse analysis and discourse studies.
This article is a contribution to widening the focus of moral panic studies. Our aim is to advance recent attempts to link moral panic studies to the criminological literature on moral regulation. We argue that moral panics should be conceptualized as volatile expressions of long-term moral regulation processes. To substantiate these conceptual and theoretical arguments, we examine claims-making activities about the threat posed by British youth who don hooded tops in public places.
There is much debate surrounding the application of exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation for religious schools. This article seeks to discover the views of a wide cross-section of religious schools, and organisations which play a role in administering or guiding those schools, with regard to the current state of anti-discrimination laws in Australia. It presents a number of different views on anti-discrimination laws and examines how these attitudes affect policy and decision-making processes in religious schools. The article contributes to the current debate by demonstrating that there is no single cohesive viewpoint held by the religious schools sector. Rather, the sector is shown to be a highly heterogeneous one.
Mods and Rockers, skinheads, video nasties, designer drugs, bogus asylum seeks and hoodies. Every era has its own moral panics. It was Stanley Cohen’s classic account, first published in the early 1970s and regularly revised, that brought the term ‘moral panic’ into widespread discussion. It is an outstanding investigation of the way in which the media and often those in a position of political power define a condition, or group, as a threat to societal values and interests. Fanned by screaming media headlines, Cohen brilliantly demonstrates how this leads to such groups being marginalised and vilified in the popular imagination, inhibiting rational debate about solutions to the social problems such groups represent. Furthermore, he argues that moral panics go even further by identifying the very fault lines of power in society.
Gender Bender: Mom Raps Criticism of Alberta School Transgender Guidelines
- Bartko Kaern
Supreme Court of Canada
- Adler V Ontario
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- Attorney-General
Guidelines Released for Mandatory LGBTQ Policies in Alberta Schools
- Cbc News
Education Minister Makes 1st Address to ATA as Teachers Say GSAs Need Protection
- Cbc News
- News
Allowing Shorts at a Catholic Girls’ School Is Sensible and without Hidden Intent
- Dargie Rebecca
Santa Sabina Principal Digs in over Gender Row
- Devine Miranda
Gender Row at Girls School a Test of Parents’ Rights
- Devine Miranda
Elite Catholic Girls’ School in Gender Identity Uproar Now Accused of Promoting Islam
- Devine Miranda
- Bruce Mcdougall
‘This Is How the Minister of Education Refers to #LGBTQ Youth
- Abndpcaucus
A ‘concerned Alberta Mother’ Is Being Ridiculed for Her Rap Video Opposing Alberta’s LGBTQ School Rules
- Calgary Herald
The Catholic School in Crisis over Gender Fluidity.” The Daily Telegraph
- Devine Miranda
Editorial: Protecting Faith-Based Schools
- Editorial Board
Indoctrinate, Not Educate, the a-Gender
- Miranda Devine
‘Uniform’ a-gender a very bad fit.” The Courier Mail
- Devine Miranda
Why Does Alberta Still Have a Separate Catholic School System? Here’s a 2-Minute Explanation
- Fletcher Robson
Edmonton the Scene of Duelling Protests over Alberta Legislation Protecting LGBTQ Individuals
- Janet French
Twenty-Eight Private Schools Defying GSA Law Risk Losing Public Funding Says David Eggen
- Clancy Clare
Battling the Identity Politics Rise.” The Courier Mail
- Devine Miranda
Calgary Catholic Schools to Uphold ‘inclusive Communities
- Eva Ferguson
Catholic School Board Chair Defends Discouraging Transgender Girl from Using Girls
- Roth Pamela
Second Reading for Edmonton Catholic Schools’ Transgender Policy
- Robb Trevor
Mother of Trans Girl Edmonton Catholic School Board Reach Agreement in Bathroom Dispute
- French Janet
Edmonton Catholic Teachers Required to Sign Contracts Agreeing to Catholic ‘Lifestyles
- French Janet
The Continuing Tradition of Catholic Education
- Mccormack Maeve
State Aid for Non-Government Schools: The Emerging Debate.” Brief. Current Issues Brief. Canberra AU: Parliamentary Library of Australia
- Mcintosh Greg
It’s Time To Excommunicate Public Catholic Schools
- Ostroff Joshue
New Alberta Guidelines Go beyond Bathroom Use by Transgender Students
- Sinnema
Alberta Parents Rally against Transgender School Mandate.” Life Site
- Weatherbe Steve
Alberta Releases Draft of New Kindergarten to Grade 6 Curriculum
- Kanygin Jordan
“Don’t Be so Anti-Sects.” The Daily Telegraph
- Kurti Peter
Power Move: Why This Sydney Private School Is Suiting up Its Girls
- Jenny Noyes
‘Campaign of Misinformation’: Parents Back Santa Sabina Principal.” Sydney Morning Herald
- Jenny Noyes
Religious Freedom Review: Report of the Expert Panel
- Phillip Ruddock
- Rosalind Croucher
- Annabelle Bennett
- Frank Brennan
- Nicholas Aroney