The Greek Legislation on Transgender People’s Rights and the Educational Processes of the Youth’s Socializing towards Gender-related Identity Choices

This study is concerned with political discourse development on transgender people’s rights in Greece in terms of intentions and legislation, directly correlated with the education policy and educational act. Focus is placed on the period 2017-2019 in order to analyse political symbolic discourse constructions about transgender people’s rights. To this end, political texts, interventions by the Ministry of Education, Institute for Education Policy (IEP) and pressure groups are the focal point of this study. Based on discourse analysis, we delve into meanings conducive to forming narratives on gender as well as the biological, social and sexual identity. Educational practices, in particular, are utilized to analyse issues of applied gender-related education policies in Secondary education. The policy of intentions along with the legislation is deconstructed into interpretative conceptualisations on gender as well as educational practices defined by the value system. Distinctive features of the Greek culture regarding the identities of the “other (male) and the “other” (female) in terms of gender are also taken into consideration. As far as the education system is concerned, the role of the Christian orthodox religion is highlighted in relation to developing curricula and the overall school operation. More special issues on equality, inequality, solidarity and citizenship are re-defined, putting forward the apparatus for constructing discourse on inequality and the legalized marginalization of one more group of “others”. The implemented education policy is particularly interesting because every time a political ideological section on the policy of rights is discredited, every procedure of adapting social upgrading is downplayed; and this issue does not concern solely the policy of transgender people’s rights. Despite the existing law on transgender people’s rights, which is in line with the European Union and international organisations’ decision, this study reveals that Greek males and females are not socialized within educational institutes in order to accept the “other” (male) or the “other” (female) in terms of gender. Selective educational interventions are accomplished by IEP, as the transgender issue is included in a broader thematic on sexual identity. Thus, the question whether education can contribute to a new narrative on transgender people’s rights is still pending.