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Gender and Sexuality Politics in Post-conflict Northern Ireland: Policing Patriarchy and Heteronormativity Through Relationships and Sexuality Education

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Abstract

Introduction

Due to conflicts of national identity and religion, human rights legislation has been integral to Northern Ireland’s post-war journey. As a result of this, the post-conflict generation of girls, female adolescents, and non-heterosexual, queer-identifying peoples have more rights, opportunities, and recognition in educational policy than generations prior. However, government reports show issues within the country’s Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) curricula, including that only one in five Northern Irish schools have touched upon lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) topics.

Methods

This paper presents the first feminist post-structuralist analysis focusing on gender and sexual inequalities within the current national policy framework (as of September 2021) informing school-based RSE. Applying feminist critical discourse and content analysis to examine official government circulars, legislative text, and RSE policy guidance distributed to schools, feminist lenses are drawn on to examine four main sets of issues: bodies, sexual agency and pleasure, the inclusion of gender and sexual diversity, and heteronormativity.

Results

Findings show that despite human rights legislation and having statutory RSE with legislated content, central discourses within the national RSE policy framework impose a story of female victimization, problematize binary constructions of gender, participate in the erasure of non-binary identifying persons, and prioritize compulsory heteronormativity.

Conclusions

Until inclusive, non-binary language and standardized content is prescribed within the minimum content found in legislation and deemed statutory by the Department of Education, young people will not receive uniform RSE, undermining the importance of gender and sexual inclusivity and diversity.

Policy Implications

Discourses illuminated within this paper may be drawn on by international policy actors and researchers to elucidate taken-for-granted or problematic language found within their own policies so that the rights of marginalized bodies and sexual identities are instilled and those who have been victimized may find empowerment.

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  1. Department of Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, USA

    Dana Cavender Wilkinson

  2. Dublin 4, Ireland

    Dana Cavender Wilkinson

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Correspondence to Dana Cavender Wilkinson.

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Wilkinson, D.C. Gender and Sexuality Politics in Post-conflict Northern Ireland: Policing Patriarchy and Heteronormativity Through Relationships and Sexuality Education. Sex Res Soc Policy 20, 18–31 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-021-00648-w

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