All takatāpui and rainbow young people have the right to thrive in learning environments free from bullying and discrimination. Sadly, bullying that is based on harmful assumptions about people’s diverse genders, sex characteristics and sexualities is still happening in schools and kura across Aotearoa.
InsideOUT Kōaro’s new resource, Ending Rainbow-Focused Bullying and Discrimination, has been developed with support from the Ministry of Education to address and prevent the different types of bullying that rainbow young people have told us they experience at school and kura. The interactive workbook aims to support staff to create inclusive learning communities that foster kindness towards all students regardless of gender, sex characteristics, or sexuality.
“Sadly, bullying that is based on harmful assumptions about rainbow communities is still happening in schools and kura across Aotearoa,” said Tabby Besley, Managing Director of InsideOUT Kōaro. “This can include invasive questions, slurs, threats or acts of violence, misgendering and more, and contributes to rainbow young people hiding their identities, feeling out of place, alienated or unsafe and disengaging from school to avoid bullying.”
In the Identify survey of over 2000 rainbow secondary school students, over one third (37%) said that they had experienced bullying at school at least once in the past 12 months. Trans students were more likely to have been bullied in the past 12 months than cisgender students (46% vs 27%). The government’s national youth health and wellbeing What About Me 2021 survey report found rainbow young people were more likely to experience bullying than the majority of other young people, with 48% having experienced bullying in the last 12 months.
“We are excited to release this new resource with support from the Ministry of Education to provide schools with tools to prevent and challenge rainbow-focused bullying and discrimination, with the hope that all schools can become safer places for our rainbow young people.”
Building on existing frameworks such as Bullying Free New Zealand’s roadmap, this workbook aims to build confidence in identifying rainbow-focused bullying and discrimination and its impacts, creating rainbow-inclusive learning environments to counter bullying, and building strategies within bullying prevention plans and policies to ensure rainbow students are acknowledged and cared for.
Everyone in a school community has a role to play in ending rainbow-focused bullying, and ongoing self-review of prevention strategies and school climate is central to preventing rainbow-focused bullying. The process of addressing rainbow-focused bullying requires school communities to actively challenge belief systems, such as homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, and interphobia. Such a challenge can create uncertainty and discomfort for all involved. This resource invites schools to embrace this challenge — with a whole-school effort, school communities can be places of safety and inclusion where everyone can feel free to be who they are.
The information in this resource is relevant to all primary, intermediate and secondary schools in Aotearoa, at any stage of the journey towards rainbow inclusivity and bullying prevention.
The resource can be downloaded or ordered from our website. Hard copies will be sent to all schools and kura in Aotearoa.