11 September 2025
Carey hosts the 2025 Gender and Sexuality Interschool Student Symposium
In August, Carey was proud to host the 2025 Gender and Sexuality Interschool Student Symposium. This year, more than 130 students and 40 educators and school leaders from over 20 schools attended.
This annual event aims to celebrate authenticity, inclusivity and resilience, with this year’s theme – ‘How far to equality?’ – providing a provocation and reflection statement for all attendees to consider.
Powerful stories from guest speakers
One of our 2026 School Captains, Bonnie Lee, opened the event with a poem entitled ‘Her voice, our power’, which challenges societal and patriarchal judgments about women’s clothing and the double standards in how women are expected to present themselves. It set the tone for the day: passionate and inspired to advocate for positive change.
Our keynote speaker was Archie Beetle, a respected thought leader in LGBTIQ+ advocacy and the visionary founder and CEO of Queer Town. Archie’s charismatic address and personal story shaped many conversations. Many participants were inspired by Archie’s message to be one’s true authentic self.
‘Just being surrounded by likeminded people … made for a safe and comfortable environment where everyone could be themselves without fear of judgement.’
– Year 10 student
A moving Q&A panel
The Q&A panel was facilitated by Katie Sproule from the Reach Foundation. Our first panel member to speak was Carey alum Ruby Mountford (2008). Ruby shared their work in the Human Rights field and sensitively spoke of the positive changes they’d observed being back at Carey after many years.
Daniel Cash, past Melbourne Grammar School Captain now studying at the ANU, shared his experience of being an openly gay school captain. Being open and authentic in your identity was one of his key messages.
Ethan McKenzie-Howell an Honours student from the University of Melbourne who shared his research into the topic of what has now been described as the ‘Manosphere’ – online groups promoting hegemonic masculinity to the detriment of women and healthy role modelling.
Aimy Skym, from the Victorian Department of Education, spoke about the Education Department’s priority of Respectful Relationships and carefully considered wellbeing programs and highlighted Carey’s exemplar work in this area.
Finally, academic friend of Carey who is leading Corridor Cultures, Dr Victoria Rawlings from the University of Sydney, outlined the huge steps forward schools like Carey have made to create inclusive educational programs and support gender and sexuality in secondary education.
Thought-provoking workshops
The core of the 2025 Symposium was the numerous school-led workshops. Topics included human rights, marginalisation and positive role modelling for young men, among many others. The energy and agency shown by the leaders of these workshops and the participation of attendees was commendable.
The day culminated in plenary overviews and our final presentation from MINUS-18, a charity dedicated to improving the lives of LGBTIQ+ youth. The MINUS 18 research highlighted how student agency and engagement supports a dynamic and open school culture.
‘The Symposium shed light on the fact that … it’s good for me to stand up, ask people why they believe a certain view and have conversations with people to understand where they're coming from and why they may have certain beliefs.’
– Year 11 student
Carey is grateful to the generous donors who help make our mission to support all students and celebrate diversity and inclusion a reality.
We look forward to the 2026 Gender and Sexuality Interschool Student Symposium hosted by Caulfield Grammar School.
Simon Carver
Leader of Learning – Art and Design, Facilitator and Student advocate – Carey Pride Group, Corridor Cultures Co-Researcher and Symposium Co-ordinator 2025
