What’s so contentious about promoting acceptance of gender and sexual diversity?

The school environment is where children who fall outside the prevalent hetero-normative model have been most vulnerable to abuse. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender diverse and intersex students have been marginalised and subjected to bullying and harassment and have not been in a position to enjoy a range of rights in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet initiatives in line with human rights education have proved to be highly contentious, with children’s voices and perspectives drowned out by moral panic dominated by adult perspectives and assumptions and the CRC largely absent from the debate. This paper focuses on Australia’s Safe Schools program as a model of human rights education. It examines the public and political response to the program and its ramifications for human rights.