Are secondary schools a safe space for trans students?

Is it safe to be trans in a secondary school? (image: Unsplash)

Picture this: you are someone born in the wrong body. You must wake up every morning and wear a uniform that is restrictive, uncomfortable, and not representative of you. Then as you’re walking to class you get harassed, bullied and hate crimed by your peers and you can’t report it because you fear your parents finding out your identity.

This is the life of an average trans person in high school.

A report by LGBT Youth Scotland found that 27% of trans young people left education because of homophobia, biphobia or transphobia and only 24% of LGBT young people felt confident enough to report transphobic bullying in schools.

A trans young person said: “I was often called a ‘tranny’ or ‘dyke’ and told to kill myself by numerous pupils throughout the school.”

According to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), all children and young people have the right to education, freedom from discrimination and the right to an identity.

Currently these rights are not being upheld.

68% of trans young people said that bullying negatively affected their educational attainment.

Trans people are constantly being targeted by politicians and the media, due to the rise of right-of-centre politics. They are continuously targeted by those in power due to being such a minority.

In 2023-24, Police Scotland recorded 6,227 hate crimes. Of those 6,227 hate crimes, 3% were due to transgender identity, that is 187 people.

27% of trans students left education because of transphobia (image: Getty Images)

In 2023-24, there were 11,286 aggravations recorded against convictions. 574 were aggravations due to sexual orientation or transgender identity. Between 2014-15 and 2023-24, there was a 79% increase in aggravations due to sexual orientation or transgender identity.

These aren’t just numbers and statistics; these are real people behind those numbers.

As of 19 December 2024, the Scottish Government released LGBT inclusive education guidance written from the recommendations of the LGBTI Inclusive Education Working Group. The guidance is for all local authority-run schools in Scotland and sets out expectations regarding the implementation of LGBT inclusive education, however a year later we haven’t seen any improvement on inclusive education.

What the government should be doing is creating inclusive guidance with the involvement of those in the trans community, work with organisations that are already trying to improve education around these subjects like Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) or LGBT Youth Scotland’s Trans Rights Youth Commission (TRYC).

As a transgender young person, I have faced my share of hate crimes, I have been assaulted because of my identity and had words like ‘tranny’ and ‘gender-bender’ shouted at me on public transport.

I have been spat on and had rocks thrown at me. I tried reporting it and after being told a statement would be taken from me, 3 years later, im still awaiting the statement being taken.

Trust between the police and minority communities has faded and is near non-existent.

83% of trans young people experienced bad mental health due to bullying in schools (image: tie.scot)

63% of trans young people experienced suicidal thoughts or behaviours, 59% of trans young people had self-harmed and 83% of trans young people experienced bad mental health problems due to bullying in schools.

We need better education and better protections for trans young people in Scotland. They are facing a pandemic of hate filled prejudice due to misinformation around their identities. If we had better early education on LGBTQ+ identities, I believe that bullying would go down.

All these statistics are just things that have been reported, the figures are likely much higher, but people are scared to report it or even misgendered on reports.

We must improve the experiences of trans students in schools, or we could face a pandemic of those not attending out of fear for their lives.

The exclusion has not been helped by recent political issues such as the Cass Review, ban on puberty blockers, Supreme Court ruling, etc. The very fact so many trans exclusion policies can be named so close together is in itself concerning. It has shown the trans community are a constant target for those in power because of how ‘easy’ it is, but I don’t think they expected the amount of push back and direct action being taken to combat it.

To bring it back to my original question ‘are schools a safe space for trans students?’ my answer is no. Not until there is better education, better support and more inclusive environments for trans young people.