Chinese Sexual Minority Students Experiencing Microaggressions: Implications for Sexuality Education
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Literature Review
2.1. Sexual Prejudice and Microaggressions
2.2. Manifestation of Microaggressions
2.3. Types of Microaggressions
2.4. Chinese Schools and Context Barriers Faced by Tongzhi Students in Hong Kong
3. Purpose and Research Question
4. Methodology
4.1. Recruitment and Participants
4.2. Data Collection
4.3. Data Analysis
5. Results
5.1. Approving Heteronormative Culture and Invalidating Non-Heterosexuality
“In my school, which is Christian-affiliated, a poster I saw outside the classroom, saying: ‘We insist on once in a lifetime, one husband and one wife, one man and one woman’. Our sexuality education was all around the theme of preparing us to be good wives in society as if an individual’s identity ‘should’ be as a man’s ‘future wife’. From my perspective, sexuality/ies for many girls around me are fluid, and some of my friends are lesbians or even transgender women who love girls, what about those girls who fall in love with girls?”
“I would not come out when I had a crush on a girl in my school. What should I do? Hide my identity? I knew that there was this girl who came out as a lesbian and was dating another girl. The teachers worked hard to break apart this relationship, to prevent them from meeting each other. How could you come out after that incident?”
“I am interested in dating boys. I came to talk to my counselor. The counselor was affiliated with a Christian agency in Hong Kong. He said I cannot breach God’s wish. He repeatedly shared the perspective that being a gay man is only a developmental ‘stage’ for me, and I will become ‘straight’ in the future, such as in the university stage. Now, I am in the university, I am still attracted to men. Yet at the time of secondary school, while I was exploring myself, I heard that message … that information he provided was wrong. It was disturbing when someone with ‘professional’ authority said that.”
5.2. The Use of Heterosexist and Abusive Language
“Looking back to my school days, I was always teased by my peers in my junior years of secondary school as they perceived me as a non-straight ‘sissy’ boy. They went further and accused me of being gay. I was intentionally picked on with verbal assaults by some bullies because I ‘act like a girl’, as they said, and was regarded as ‘sissy’. They would not pick on classmates who looked straight or had strongly built bodies. Instead, they would turn and stalk me at bus stops or throw away my school bag, particularly when I talked back. I felt ashamed and humiliated to be condemned this way simply because of my sexual orientation.”
5.3. The Assumption of Sexual Abnormality: Endorsing Stereotypes
“I had an experience with my favorite teacher. When I decided to come out, I first came to her, whom I expected to be there for me … to my disappointment, she said that I may not be sure what I am getting into … and this is a developmental stage (falling in love with boys), and this is not a healthy lifestyle. I might fall in love with girls in the future, at the end, she said, it’s better to fall in love with a girl. I felt very bad about this coming-out experience, as she had stereotypical concepts about sexual orientation, and without awareness that she had induced hurtful feelings in her students.”
“One teacher talked about a Bible story, which was about God demolishing a town because there were sins, and one of the sins was homosexuality. In the sexuality education workshop, the invited guest speaker talked about sexuality education based on religious and abstinence principles, that unwed pregnancy should be avoided, and their assumptions were taken from a heterosexual framework.”
“Some peer students assumed that lesbian students, such as those who are ‘tomboys’, are cutting their hair short due to the influence of popular culture. They are merely acting out these ‘attention-seeking’ behaviors to attract adults’ attention.”
“These questions offended me. I was not comfortable having to answer, and my emotional response was minimized for the sake of having other students get opportunities to learn about bisexual culture.”
5.4. Allowing Institutionally Endorsed Microaggressions
“On the student intake form for the counseling service, on the item asking about sex, there are only the options of either male or female but no room for intersex, or transgender. No question on sexual orientation can be found on the form. The principal in my school, which is a Catholic school, thought that homosexuality does not exist. There are no guidelines from the Education Bureau on how to handle it.”
“The sexuality education curricula focused on abstinence education, such as not having premarital sex, or how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases, etc. The female classmates and male classmates were separately engaged in two different rooms. Teachers were not allowed to talk about sex or dating outside marriage. My teacher once told me that they could not afford to face the consequences, such as pressures from the parent-school association members and the school administrators, such as the principal, or complaints from the parents.”
6. Limitations
7. Discussion
8. Recommendations
9. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Kwok, D.K.; Kwok, K. Chinese Sexual Minority Students Experiencing Microaggressions: Implications for Sexuality Education. Children 2022, 9, 1331. https://doi.org/10.3390/children9091331
Kwok DK, Kwok K. Chinese Sexual Minority Students Experiencing Microaggressions: Implications for Sexuality Education. Children. 2022; 9(9):1331. https://doi.org/10.3390/children9091331
Chicago/Turabian StyleKwok, Diana K., and Kim Kwok. 2022. "Chinese Sexual Minority Students Experiencing Microaggressions: Implications for Sexuality Education" Children 9, no. 9: 1331. https://doi.org/10.3390/children9091331