“I am tired all the time from existing”: understanding non-binary student and staff experiences of higher education in the UK as social harm

Abstract

Transgender inclusion is an increasingly prominent part of “equality, diversity and inclusion” agendas in higher education. However, there has been little attention to the specific experiences of non-binary students and staff. This article seeks to redress this and draws on data from an online survey conducted in 2019 of UK non-binary higher education staff and students. The survey data highlight the importance participants attach to having their gender known and respected in their higher education institution, but also contained pervasive reports of erasure, invisibility, and ridicule in their work and/or study lives. We analyse these experiences through the lens of social harm in order to focus on the institutional norms, structures and practices that shape non-binary experiences of higher education, and to counteract narratives of vulnerability/victimhood. Our analysis demonstrates the
interconnections between mechanisms of harm in higher education, effects of harm as manifested in reports of exhaustion, distress, and fear and the strategies non-binary people engage in to mitigate or resist harm.

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ORCID for Avi Boukli: orcid.org/0000-0003-4281-1664

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