Experiences of gender-based discrimination or harassment at school may entail prejudicial consequences for students, including mental health problems and school dropout. This is particularly the case for LGBT teenage students who are in the process both of exploring their gender identity and sexual preferences and seeking out ways to make them acceptable to their social circle. Enrolment in vocational training offers specific challenges, as openness to sexual minorities is very context-based. In particular, contextual homo- and transphobia may be related to institutional policies, but also to occupational fields and to proportions of male/female workers or students, with more masculine-dominated contexts being more prone to discrimination against LGBT students, and may vary greatly between school and workplace contexts.

In this paper, we explore homo- and transphobic discrimination and/or harassment experienced or witnessed by first-year vocational students in Geneva, Switzerland. We look at different kinds of harassment/ discrimination and explore how they are related to power relations in schools and organizations: while some of these acts of harassment/discrimination are perpetrated by peers, they may also come from people who are hierarchically superior, or from clients. We explore how such acts may intersect with other kinds of discrimination, such as sexism, racism, etc.

The second aim of this paper it to explore how the victims cope with these experiences of harassment/discrimination. Several of our interviewees anticipated experiences of harassment or discrimination without necessarily having experienced them personally and chose avoidance strategies such as dissimulating their sexual identity or self-exclusion from some contexts. Other reactions ranged from denial and rationalization to weariness and resilience.

In the framework of the Swiss National Science Foundation project “Vocational training through the lens of gender and sexual orientation” (2019-2023), quantitative data is collected over three waves among approx. 1300 1st year vocational students in Geneva, in schools which were selected according to their gender composition – female dominated schools in the field of social work and healthcare, male dominated schools in the fields of technical and construction work, and mixed gender schools in the fields of commerce and administrative work. Students were administered a questionnaire exploring their current occupational track and aspirations, their experience of gender-based discrimination and violence, and included scales measuring sexism and homophobia. Students from the quantitative sample were systematically offered the opportunity to talk further about these topics in an interview, and 30 of them finally took part in one after the first quantitative wave. Interviews were led during Spring 2021, when students were ending their first year of vocational training. The present analysis is thus based upon 30 qualitative interviews with students in Geneva, Switzerland, of which approx. one third identify as LGBT or as belonging to other sexual minorities. While only the qualitative data will be discussed in this paper, the quantitative results constitute a background against which they are analyzed and to which occasional reference will be made.

Preliminary results show that discrimination/harassment in school contexts is identified as primarily coming from peers, but attitudes of teachers and staff no doubt play an important role in defining what kind of behavior such perpetrators allow themselves. We also find that anticipation of discrimination is a powerful determinant of behavior for LGBT students, who adapt their attitudes and behaviors in contexts perceived as hostile in order to avoid showing their sexual identity or orientation. The situation in occupational contexts varies greatly, some students having been bullied by colleagues and having found no support from management, while other were very happy with the inclusive atmosphere they found in their workplace. However, the perceived atmosphere towards LGBT persons in a given workplace is related to the presence or not of inclusive policies, and workplace discomfort of students is not always adequately monitored by the school system. In some workplaces, students are confronted with harassment from clients/patients, for example in the context of care giving to elderly people, and find little support from institutions which appear more eager to avoid crossing their clients than to support their staff. Several of our interviewees mentioned their desire to quit their school and/or workplace for reasons at least in part related to (anticipated) bullying, harassment and/or discrimination.

Lavinia Gianettoni, Edith Guilley, Jérôme Blondé, Dinah Gross (2021), "Discriminations sexistes et homophobes dans la formation professionnelle à Genève : état des lieux, conséquences et pistes d'action". Note d'information du SRED No 79.