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This paper explores how young people of diverse genders and sexualities share information about sex, sexualities and genders. Formal approaches to education often fail to consider young people’s communication and information exchange practices, including the circulation of peer knowledge through social media. In the wake of recent Australian backlash against the Safe Schools Coalition, we can observe how homophobia and queerphobia in the broader community can impact upon young peoples’ ability to learn about themselves and their bodies through formal education. Yet young people of diverse genders and sexualities can be observed to support each other in peer spaces, utilising their knowledge networks. This paper explores young people’s informal learning practices, the capacity of peer networks to support and educate young people, and the challenges of recognising such networks in a culture in which health and education discourses present them as ‘risk subjects’ rather than ‘health agents’. These issues are discussed in relation to our own experiences in research and health promotion, including one author’s role as a youth peer educator. Drawing on our workplace experiences, we provide a number of anecdotal examples which highlight the complexities of informal knowledge practice and information circulation, and the ways these can challenge and reform professional health, education, and research approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To date, people with intersex variations have been mainly studied via small-scale clinical research, with only a small amount of reflective commentary contributed by sociocultural scholars. This paper reports on findings from a 2015 online Australian survey of 272 people with intersex variations, which aimed to redress the gap in research on this groups’ experiences and perspectives concerning education. Participants ranged in age from 16 to 87 years, and represented all Australian states and territories. Most had experienced two medical treatment interventions related to their intersex variation: commonly reported interventions included hormonal treatment and genital surgery delivered to participants when they were aged under 18 years of age. Participants reported various physical and psychological impacts from these treatments. Well-being risks were high; most of the group had engaged in suicidal ideation, particularly when individuals first found out about their variation. This impacted on their schooling – almost one-fifth of survey respondents had received no high school certification due to their early dropout and the overwhelming majority did not attend schools with inclusive puberty/sex education provision or counselling. Most survey participants had not disclosed their intersex variation to staff, although more than half had done so to their classmates. Many had experienced bullying. Only one-quarter of participants rated their overall education experiences positively. Participants suggested improvements to schools’ information provision and support features. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Homosexuality is widely perceived among many Muslims as a ‘western disease’, a natural outcome of the West's secularity and cultural degeneracy. In spite of the emergence of more liberal attitudes towards sexual differences in modern times, moral issues have not lost their relevance in polemical discourse against homosexuality among many Muslims. The heightened visibility of homosexuals, together with the decriminalisation of homosexuality, lie at the heart of Muslim objection; such movements towards the acceptance of homosexuality are viewed as a concerted and unified homosexual front attempting to squeeze out the hegemonic heterosexual norm. The common response among many Muslims to remedy this perceived ideological corruption is to resort to Islamic doctrine, which prohibits homosexuality and gives merit to heterosexism. This paper reports on some findings from a study by the author which examines how a group of Australian Muslim teachers deliberate on how to include studies on homosexuality as part of a wider dialogue on developing comprehensive sexuality education for Muslim youth. In their deliberations, teachers craft pedagogies which appropriate moral frameworks and expressions of embracing sexual difference. These pedagogical propositions give insight into how teachers generate epistemological, ethical and ontological approaches to critical thought about the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]