Combatting Rainbow-Focused Bullying
What it is and how it affects rainbow young people
Schools’ Pride Week Visibility
Homophobic and transphobic bullying and discrimination can happen at any time, but during Schools’ Pride Week this can often be heightened due to increased visibility.
The effects on staff or students of having been subjected to any form of violence cannot be underestimated. That said, the fear of pushback should not prevent us from taking action to celebrate and protect our takatāpui and rainbow students. We can always find safe ways to resist violence and promote the rights and wellbeing of rainbow ākonga safely.
Having rainbow-specific bullying and discrimination prevention policies and procedures can help school staff recognise this when it happens, and give them the tools and confidence needed to deal with it swiftly. Awareness of the policy and procedures by all students and staff is a proactive way to make a stance against rainbow-focussed bullying at all times.
Relevent Resource: Ending Rainbow Focussed Bullying and Discrimination
What is Rainbow Focussed Bullying?
Bullying-Free NZ outlines four widely-accepted factors that can be used to identify and define
bullying:
- Bullying is deliberate – it involves harming another person intentionally
- Bullying involves a misuse of power in a relationship
- Bullying is usually not a one-off – it is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated over time
- Bullying involves behaviour that can cause harm – it is not a normal part of growing up
InsideOUT defines rainbow-focused bullying as:
- Any bullying of rainbow students (regardless of whether there is specific reference to their gender or sexuality); and
- Bullying of any kind that is based on, or uses, gender stereotypes, homophobic, biphobic, interphobic, or transphobic beliefs or attitudes (for example, a cisgender heterosexual student being teased because their parents are gay).
What does it look like?
Findings from a series of Creating Rainbow Inclusive Schools workshops held by InsideOUT in 2020–2021 illustrate that rainbow-focused bullying and discrimination in schools across Aotearoa can involve:
- Derogatory slurs, mockery and negative remarks about rainbow communities
- Deliberately using someone’s wrong name or pronouns
- Ripping down rainbow diversity group posters
- Disclosing a student’s rainbow identity without their permission
- Over-sexualising or fetishising rainbow identities (e.g., making comments based on stereotypical thinking about promiscuity)
- Physical harassment or threats to physical safety
- Cyberbullying targeted at a person’s gender or sexuality
Quotes from young people about their experiences of Rainbow Focussed Bullying in school
“I didn’t suffer any physical bullying at school. People weren’t overtly cruel to me. Mainly I was just ignored. I didn’t have a lot of friends, most of the students didn’t even acknowledge I was in the room. But I was never sure what was going to happen, or what wasn’t going to happen.I didn’t want to be by myself (in the toilets) because I thought that would make me vulnerable for someone to attack me. If there had been a more open conversation about what was acceptable and not acceptable at the school, I might have felt safer.”
“I felt like my world was over. I felt like disappearing.”
“In high school I got the continuous mocks, and then one day they all decided to get together and put me in a circle and punch me. Being tough I was like “it’s ok, I’ll take it” because there is no one who is going to stop this, it’s out of my hands.”
“My parents found me one night crying about it, and I told them why. I told them about the student who had been bullying me. I said to them “Mum, Dad, I’m scared that if they keep saying it, then I’ll believe it, and that will make it true.”
How to make an anti violence and bullying policy
Policies and Procedures
A school’s bullying prevention policies and procedures should describe how the school will respond to all reports of bullying, including serious incidents.
The policy and procedures should describe:
- discipline approaches, including escalation processes
- how the school will respond to cyberbullying
- how the school will communicate with students and parents/whānau about bullying incidents
- process for managing complaints
when the school will involve other agencies - how the school will respond to bullying that takes place outside of school premises, but is affecting students’ wellbeing at school.
Please note: Some bullying may reach the level of serious assault or child abuse. Schools should not investigate such incidents themselves and must refer these to New Zealand Police and/or Oranga Tamariki for follow-up.
InsideOUT Templates
We have a great rainbow-focussed bullying template as part of our resource called:
“Creating rainbow-inclusive school policies and procedures: A resource for school boards, leaders, teachers, guidance counsellors, and school communities.”
Further Resources
Respectful Schools – Restorative Practices in Education
Published by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and the Institute of Policy Studies, Victoria University, this report summarises findings from a study of restorative practices in New Zealand secondary schools, and includes information on practices and examples of how they have been introduced and used.
Pink Shirt Day Teacher/Kaiako Toolkit
Ideas and inspiration to help teachers bring Pink Shirt Day to life at kura or school.