Australian parents of gender and sexuality diverse children: Labouring through the schooling experience

This paper focuses on 16 parents of gender and sexuality diverse (GSD) children and their experiences of negotiating their child’s education in Australian public schools. It reports on the ways these parents worked to protect their child/ren from an educational climate that is frequently, but not always, institutionally and interpersonally hostile towards, and/or uninformed about, gender and sexuality diversity. Applying a descriptive thematic analysis to qualitative data arising from an online forum, the discussion illustrates how parents of GSD children provide considerable labour to foster the well-being of their child at school. Several themes illustrated this labour, including: building understanding; seeking external support; checking in and proactive problem solving; addressing marginalisation and abuse; dealing with bureaucracy as well as curriculum surveillance and monitoring. Much of the parent labour stemmed from hetero-cis-normative educational policy, curriculum, practice and environments.