More than half of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Thai secondary school students say they have been bullied, according to a report.
The Unesco report “From insult to inclusion” polled students aged 13-20 in five Thai provinces.
Of those students, 56 percent said they had been bullied within the last month, 31 percent had been physically abused, 29 percent verbally abused, and 24 percent sexually harrassed.
Lesbian and bisexual female students said they had been targeted by teachers for hairstyles and clothing that violated school rules, with some even saying they had experienced physical violence from male students, the study said.
A transgender young woman said: “I was told that the rules of the university require us to cut our hair, conceal our breasts and dress as males during the graduation ceremony. We complained about the discriminatory rules for wearing male attire. The university replied that people who have already completed their sex change operation can wear female dress, but otherwise we must wear male clothes.”
Many were scared or unwilling to seek help, with 68 percent of victims of anti-LGBT bullying saying they did not report or talk about the incidents.
Of those remaining silent, 23 percent said it was because “nothing would happen even if someone was told.”
“I can’t really focus on my classes,” said Tom, a Thai transgender secondary school student. “I normally worry about trivialities… it’s like ‘Huh, why do they have to blame me, do something like this to me?’ I get stressed and like, I feel I don’t understand anything in class. It’s psychological pressure. It affects my mind.”
The report added that even those students not identifying as LGBT were at risk, with those perceived as LGBT also falling victim to anti-LGBT bullying.
Unesco said the bullying had been linked to a higher risk of depression, missing school, lower grades, having unprotected sex and even attempting suicide.
It referred to its 2014 report carried out in conjunction with Mahidol University which found that seven percent of students who experienced anti-LGBT bullying had attempted suicide in the past year.
Some transgender students also experienced discrimination when it came to further education, with some reporting that teachers had discouraged them from going into teaching because “teachers must be ‘good role models’ for students”, while some families would not support them in studying subjects like medicine, law or engineering as they believed they would fail to get jobs in these fields.
Transgender medical students said they were discouraged from becoming surgeons “because this requires ‘a normal mental state'” or studying psychology “as they are deemed ‘psychologically abnormal'”.
“There is a significant body of research in ‘From Insult to Inclusion’ indicating that bullying, violence and discrimination [based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression] is pervasive, and has a toxic and long-lasting impact on learners as well as on school communities,” said Justine Sass, Asia-Pacific regional HIV and health education adviser, Unesco Bangkok.
“If educational institutions can create a supportive study environment then this will motivate transgender people to complete their higher education, so they can hold professional positions in society,” a transgender woman was quoted as saying in the report.
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