LGBTQ+ Students’ Experiences of Misnaming in Swedish Secondary Schools

Background/Objectives: Bias-based bullying is widely recognised as having a detrimental impact on child and adolescent health. One form of bias-based bullying that is directed at transgender and non-binary students more specifically is misnaming, whereby someone is referred to by their birth name rather than their chosen name. While there have been some studies exploring the experiences of young LGBTQ+ people’s experiences of bias-based bullying, and a number looking at misnaming more specifically, there has been very little research on the issue in the Swedish school context. The aim of this study is to address this lacuna in knowledge by focusing on LGBTQ+ students’ experiences of misnaming in Swedish schools. 

Methods: The findings are based on 21 semi-structured interviews with LGBTQ+ young people aged 15–25 from around Sweden. The interviews were analysed with reflexive thematic analysis and in relation to the concepts of orientations and affect. 

Results: The findings highlight how misnaming negatively impacts the health of those who are subjected to it through disorientation and by triggering negative emotions such as anger, sadness, anxiety, and hurt. The findings also illustrate how the affects of misnaming extend beyond individuals and accumulate as collective emotional experiences that negatively transform schools into sites of personal and social tension. 

Conclusions: The article demonstrates not only the importance of recognising misnaming as a pernicious form of bias-based bullying that negatively impacts the health of students, but also the need for schools to actively review their administrative systems to ensure that misnaming is not institutionalised and perpetuated within schools.