A Transgender Studies Approach for Educators in Schools: Reflections on “Cissexist Pitfalls,” Bifurcated Frameworks, and Racial Justice

Abstract

Background/Context: Trans studies provides onto-epistemological, theoretical, ethical, and political frameworks that have a particular application for studies in education, and specifically for educators in schools, that remains largely unexplored or unelaborated. Within a context of resurgent right-wing extremism that fuels anti-trans and white supremacist rhetoric, trans studies provides analytic tools for deepening an understanding of gender expansive education and addressing gender and racial justice in schools. Purpose/Focus of Study: The purpose of this article is to illuminate the utility of trans-informed frameworks and the hermeneutic resources they provide in their potential to enhance and deepen an understanding of the pedagogical interventions in the classroom that are needed to educate about trans marginalization and racial justice. The focus is on the application of these frameworks, both with respect to fostering professional learning for educators in schools, and for my own pedagogy and course development. Research Design: In adopting a critical incident/critical reflexive practitioner approach, the author provides a sustained reflection on his own pedagogical practices and approach to curriculum development within the context of teaching a graduate course on gender and sexual diversity in schools. While such critical reflections emerged in response to one core critical incident, they are extended through an application of a trans studies approach to thinking through the scaffolded learning process for educators in the application of trans studies, and what this means for the sort of teacher threshold knowledges that are needed in schools for addressing gender and racial justice. Findings: Trans studies provides hermeneutic resources and analytic concepts that serve as tools for supporting teachers in reflecting on cissexist assumptions and how these materialize through their practice in the classroom. A concretization of what it means for teachers to enact a trans-studies-informed pedagogy requires a scaffolded approach and one that entails a weaving through of a critical and integrated focus on race, settler colonialism, and cissexism. Conclusions: The article highlights that there are certain limits to conceiving of a pedagogical commitment to interrogating gender binaries as a basis for addressing gender-expansive education in schools. The author concludes that such frameworks, in an absence of embracing a trans-informed approach to thinking about gender diversity and racial justice, run the risk of relying on a bifurcating categorization of trans students’ identities that ignore fundamental questions related to the impact of cissexism and its implication in colonial domination and racialization.