Processes, policies, practices and people that perpetuate inequity

What more could your school do to make it easier for rainbow students?

Ākonga 1:

I think Pride week would be a good thing. But I think just normalising all that stuff, like not making it a big deal, but not completely brushing it under the rug or anything. 

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Ākonga 2:

I don't want teachers to do like this and that and just have it be like purely for performance sake. I think if there was just more of them actually caring about us and caring about how we feel, and recognising us as, like you know, as deserving of respect as you know straight people, then that would be nice.

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Ākonga 3:

I think my school could have made things easier for me by kind of having a group as well. We didn't have a QSA group.

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Ākonga 4:

Yeah I think the biggest thing, or some big things right now, are getting some more gender-neutral bathrooms. And also getting teacher training, just because teachers are of a different generation and they don't quite know how to, like, handle certain situations.

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Ākonga 5:

One thing we're talking about at the moment with our teachers, because we're educating them, is the phrase ‘visible allyship’. So ways that they can sort of present themselves as an ally. Because it's all well good to be an ally, like, behind the scenes, like, oh yeah I support gay and trans people, and then it's like your students aren't going to know that. And that includes your homophobic students and your rainbow students, like none of them are going to know. So they're still going to be, like, rude or not feel comfortable in your class. 

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So we've talked about visible allyship, which is things like introducing yourself with your pronouns at the start of the year, telling off students when they use slurs or like rude phrases and all that sort of stuff. Just little ways that they can show to their students, hey I see you and I'm a visible ally aka I'm somebody you can come to if bullying and stuff does happen.

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Ākonga 5:

Maybe to include more LGBT characters in history or, you know, talk about the LGBT or rainbow community as a whole, and things like sex education, so kids don't feel left out or confused.

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Ākonga 6:

Just listen and really just not implement the strategies or policies without consulting students first. Because we know what we need, you know. We know what is going to be best for us. And so if the school actually talks to us then we can work with them instead of working against them.