‘It gets narrower’: creative strategies for re-broadening queer peer education

Abstract

Using collaborative performance ethnography in community-and school-based settings, sex education has the potential to challenge at-risk narratives for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) youth. This paper problematises the youth-led drama project Epic Queer to test the 'queer' potential of youth-driven initiatives at the school and community level, and to reject the singularity of victimised and 'at-risk' narratives so pervasive in sex education internationally about queer youth. By drawing on the It Gets Better Project as an example of widespread but narrowing social media texts encouraging normativity, deferred pleasure and a happiness narrative, this paper argues for the potential of performance-based arts engagement for re-expanding queer youth subjectivities.

Renewed commitments in a time of vigilance: sexuality education in the USA

“…Sexuality education in the form of entertainment and art also holds great promise. Harris and Farrington (2014) walk readers through a youth-driven enterprise and performance that queer youth developed outside of the school in response to being either defined as 'at-risk' or simply excluded. Leaving the classroom allowed youth to think outside of the box as they broadened the scope, reach and constituents of sexuality education.…”

Limitations of focussing on homophobic, biphobic and transphobic ‘bullying’ to understand and address LGBT young people's experiences within and beyond school

“…In a critique of the It Gets Better 3 campaign (which may feed into assumptions about the inevitability of LGBT youth experiencing bullying), Harris and Farrington (2014) have highlighted the ways in which the project presents a 'happiness discourse' which does not acknowledge that it might not 'get better' for everyone, and therefore might minimise people's ability to later articulate and seek support for their unhappiness. Grzanka and Mann (2014: 376) have also suggested that the campaign puts the responsibility of 'getting better' onto individual queer youth, rather than examining 'structural dynamics of sexualityand gender-based inequality'.…”

A Sociological Critique of Youth Strategies and Educational Policies that Address LGBTQ Youth Issues

“…The academic literature on bullying has grown alongside increased media attention on the phenomenon of bullying and the emergence of an antibullying industry (Pascoe n.d). These phenomena have evolved in the context of a growing global trend towards the singular representation of queer youth as vulnerable, "at risk" victims in schools and society (Harris and Farrington 2014). This narrative highlights LGBTQ youths' susceptibility to homophobic or transphobic bullying and their "at riskness" for a range of associated negative mental health outcomes such as self-harm, depression and suicidality.…”

“…This narrative highlights LGBTQ youths' susceptibility to homophobic or transphobic bullying and their "at riskness" for a range of associated negative mental health outcomes such as self-harm, depression and suicidality. The present article-which locates itself within the sociological tradition-seeks to contribute to an emerging literature which is critical of the discursive construction of LGBTQ youth as invariably "at risk" of bullying, victimisation and mental health difficulties (Airton 2013;Harris and Farrington 2014;Gilbert et al 2018;Jones 2013;Marshall 2010;Monk 2011;Rasmussen 2006;Talburt et al 2004;Talburt 2010). It operates from the premise that discourses constitute rather than merely reflect material reality, thereby shaping or structuring how we think about LGBTQ experiences and subsequent possibilities for action (Allen 2014;Fields 2008).…”