Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Children and Youth Services Review journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth Gender diversity and safety climate perceptions in schools and other youth- serving organisations Douglas H Russell a, ⁎ ,1 , Joel R Anderson b,c,2 , Damien W Riggs d,3 , Jacqueline Ullman e,4 , Daryl J Higgins a,5 a Institute of Child Protection Studies, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne Campus, 115 Victoria Pde, Fitzroy, VIC 3065, Australia b Faculty of Health Sciences, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne Campus, 115 Victoria Pde, Fitzroy, VIC 3065, Australia c Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University, Building NR6, Bundoora, VIC 3086, Australia d College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, South Australia 5001, Australia e Centre for Educational Research, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia ABSTRACT Although there is a lack of data on experiences in other youth-serving organisations, past research on schools has found that transgender youth often perceive the school climate, as well as the physical aspects of the school environment, as less safe than their cisgender peers. Similarly, transgender students’ level of confidence in adults and staff in many US studies paints a poor picture of the support transgender students receive, which in turn can affect truancy, academic and social outcomes, mental health and discrimination experiences. The purpose of the current research was to extend previous US studies by examining an Australian sample of gender diverse and cisgender young people, and to investigate if differences between these groups existed in perceptions of safety (including confidence in adults to act, barriers to seeking help, and the culture of safety) across a variety of youth-serving organisations. Using the Australian Safe Kids and Young People survey 27 gender diverse, and 54 cisgender (27 male- and 27 female-identifying) triads were matched on age, Aboriginal identity, and then postcode. Participants were 11–18 years old (M = 14.54, SD = 2.14), and were part of a convenience sample of over 1400 participants in a larger study investigating perceptions of safety in youth-serving organisations. Results indicated that gender diverse youth report poorer school safety climate than cisgender male and female youth (who did not differ from each other) and more barriers to help seeking when they felt unsafe. Gender diverse youth however had more confidence in adults to support them when feeling unsafe than their peers. Like previous international studies, the results suggest that youth-serving organisations struggle to provide environments that foster more positive perceptions of safety in gender diverse young people. 1. Introduction The interpersonal safety of young people has evolved in focus over the past 50 years from the historical ‘stranger danger’ focus of the 70s and 80s, to a focus on safety in neighbourhoods and in the home. More recently the focus has shifted to the safety of children and young people in youth-serving organisations such as schools, sport and youth devel- opment clubs, alternative (out-of-home) care settings, and religious organisations. As with the research and practice in interpersonal safety, the concept of gender has also undergone recent major social trans- formation, particularly in western dominated cultural groups. Where traditionally gender was seen as a binary construct with two op- tions—male and female—recent medical, social science and anthropological research has provided credence to the notion that gender occurs on a continuum, and that an individual’s assigned sex does not determine their gender. Organisations where young people interact with others are sites where gender is a salient category. This can be observed when adults, and other young people, treat individuals differentially based on their actual (or presumed) gender, when youth are routinely divided into groups based on a gender binary, or where information about gendered norms is incorporated into activities uncritically. This backdrop of gender as a salient category is heightened by cisgenderism: the ideology that delegitimises people’s own understandings of their bodies and genders, particularly for those whose gender identity does not match that assigned to them at birth (Ansara, 2010, 2015; Ansara & Hegarty, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105334 Received 8 May 2020; Received in revised form 5 August 2020; Accepted 5 August 2020 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: d.russell.psych@icloud.com (D.H. Russell), joel.anderson@acu.edu.au (J.R. Anderson), damien.riggs@flinders.edu.au (D.W. Riggs), J.Ullman@westernsydney.edu.au (J. Ullman), daryl.higgins@acu.edu.au (D.J. Higgins). 1 ORCID: 0000-0001-7976-7375. 2 ORCID: 0000-0003-3649-2003. 3 ORCID: 0000-0003-0961-9099. 4 ORCID: 0000-0002-6999-423X. 5 ORCID: 0000-0003-0268-8243. Children and Youth Services Review 117 (2020) 105334 Available online 08 August 2020 0190-7409/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T