Transgender Students' Experiences of Bullying: Some Case Study Evidence

Abstract

This phenomenological case study research explored the bullying experiences of transgender students in educational institutes.For this purpose, two participants were selected through snowball sampling who had a minimum of 16 years of education from different educational institutes in Pakistan. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, and a within-case analysis was done. Both transgender students identified their gender as contrary to the gender assigned at birth, which affected them adversely, and they had to go through different experiences and issues as compared to cisgender students.Due to gender identity, transgender students faced different types of bullying (verbal, non-verbal, physical; and sexual) in different places(classes or corridors, playgrounds, washrooms, hostels; and social media or cyberspace), which led to serious consequences (depression,hiding gender identity, missing school or classes; and others). Implementation of training to sensitize students and teachers about transgender students to promote exclusivity, equity, diversity, and in discrimination is recommended.