Professor Tiffany Jones has travelled the world sharing data on LGBTQ+ issues and encouraging protective education and health policies, but that is just the start of her advocacy. She answers a dedicated set of 10 questions ahead of Wear It Purple Day on Friday 26 August.

Tiffany grew up on Dharug land. She started working on gender and sexuality education policies in 2017 at Macquarie’s School of Education, funded by an Australian Research Council Fellowship. She is now the Director of Research and Innovation and has shared her research on LGBTQ+ issues with UN bodies including UNESCO, UNDP, UNAIDS and various governments.

Tiffany is known for authoring the first study to link protective policies for LGBTQ+ students to lowered suicide rates. She undertook the largest study on people with Intersex variations and her intersectional LGBTQ+ data has been influential in a range of Australian legislative and policy debates. She has recently been conducting work on LGBTQ+ euphoria (happiness), how religious freedom debates affect LGBTQ+ people in education systems and she is advising government development of conversion therapy bans and related training packages.

1. Tell us about your area of research?
For the last decade I have been working hard to fight off legislative attacks on LGBTQ+ people in education institutions. This includes gathering data around, and writing submissions against, laws enabling religious institutions to mistreat LGBTQ+ students. However, there are still anti-discrimination legislation exemptions for religious schools in place enabling their discrimination.

2. Have you had any interesting recent findings?
My 2022 Gender and Sexuality in Schools survey uncovered that 56.1% of LGBTQ+ students overall had received the message that their identities ‘go against the natural order’; this rose to 86% in religious schools. However, our work on LGBTQ+ euphoria (happiness) uncovered that education institutions can make structural and social efforts to overcome negative messaging, and to become a source of incredible happiness and joy for this group.

3. Why is Wear it Purple Day Important?
My 2022 Gender and Sexuality in Schools survey found Wear it Purple Day was celebrated at the schools of just under 37% of LGBTQ+ students. It was the LGBTQ+ event their education institutions were most likely to celebrate above Mardi Gras, IDAHOBIT, or Pride month. Another survey we also ran this year found it was repeatedly mentioned as a key source of happiness – often cited as sparking a powerful sense of comfort for LGBTQ+ students, staff, parents and guardians. It helped to enhance a sense of institutional inclusion, community connection and acceptance.

4. What does Wear it Purple Day mean to you personally?
This is a time for solidarity with all allies and fellow LGBTQ+ community members; and for renewing my commitment to making education and health services safer for the community.

5. This year the theme for Wear It Purple Day 2022 is ‘Still me, still human’. What does this theme mean to you?
We must fight against efforts to casually or systematically dehumanise LGBTQ+ people, or any other group, in debates and even casual conversations. Dehumanisation functions to justify harms. If we admit groups and individuals are ‘human’, we admit they are not a simple saint or victim or villain; but complex and imperfect and inherently worthy of basic dignity and respect like anyone else.

6. What can we do to help young Rainbow students feel they belong at MQ?
We can pro-actively celebrate important events like Wear it Purple Day; IDAHOBIT; Pride Month and Mardi Gras. We can use rainbow flags and symbols to indicate key communal spaces are safe, including anywhere students need to regularly go for administrative or daily purposes.
We can ensure forms that collect data are structured to allow for the full range of titles, genders, relations and other data befitting diverse people. We can ensure gender neutral bathroom options in all key buildings and maintaining safe spaces like the Queer Room. We must stand against education-related exclusions of LGBTQ+ people in Australian law. Education is a basic human right.

7. What genuine and meaningful actions can staff take to make a difference?
Wear purple on Wear It Purple Day to show your support for LGBTQ+ people; including those who may never come out to you but may deeply appreciate this support. You can use a rainbow lanyard or badge, join the Ally Network and let your students know you are an ally.

8. What can teaching staff do for LGBTQ+ inclusion?
Use students’ requested names and pronouns regardless of how they are listed on the system; be aware some people are in transition or use pronouns like they/them socially only.
Make sure to use gender neutral collective terms in addressing groups or their relations that don’t presume a cis/heteronormative dyadic world – ‘students’, ‘your partners or loved ones’, ‘your parents or guardians’. Also, incorporate the work of LGBTQ+ thinkers from your discipline into unit studies to show the diverse contributions made by the community to knowledge, alongside Indigenous and culturally diverse thinkers and women academics and draw on a mix of sources and perspectives.

9. What message would you like to share with the community?
Statistics about us are useful for informing state policy, but statistics don’t necessarily say anything particular about who you are as an individual. LGBTQ+ people are not a monolith. We, like members of any other group, live diverse varied lives rather than fitting only one story.

10. Any other comments you might like to add?
Thanks for recognising this important day!