Trans faculty and queer battle fatigue: poetic (re)presentations of navigating identity politics in the academy

Abstract

Research on the experiences of trans* employees show that trans* individuals face disproportionate levels of harassment, discrimination, violence, and forms of aggression in the workplace. While broader organizational and workplace research exploring issues of trans* employees may be transferrable to higher education settings, higher education nevertheless has specific needs that make it distinctly different from non-higher education work environments. Although organizational scholars writing on workplace discrimination issues have offered recommendations for increasing trans-affirmation in workplace environments, little research has focused exclusively on trans* faculty on college and university campuses. Responding to calls for a nuanced understanding of trans* educators in more creative ways, this article (re)presents the experiences of six trans* identified post-secondary faculty in the format of a found poem that weaves together the voices of the participants into a collective narrative. When read through the lens of queer battle fatigue, the poem highlights the violence, marginalization, and forms of aggression experienced by trans* individuals that lead to feelings of exhaustion.

Keywords:

• Transgender
• narrative inquiry
• poetics
• faculty

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Consistent with scholars who use the term minoritized when referencing those whose identities have been consigned to lower status, visibility, and power (e.g. Benitez, 2010; Chase et al., 2014; Patton et al., 2015; Robinson, 2018), I use minoritized identities of sexuality and gender (MIoSG) rather than LGBTQ because choosing particular identities in the LGBTQ acronym excludes and normalizes groups of people. I do use versions of the LGBTQ acronym to honor names, titles, and terminology choices of other authors when appropriate.

2 Consistent with prior scholarship (e.g., Pitcher, 2017; Simmons, 2017; Tompkins, 2014), I use trans* as a way to encompass additional self-described identities including but not limited to trans, FTM, MTF, non-binary, gender non-conforming, and genderqueer, unless specifically referencing an individual and their personal identities. As seen in the poem later in this paper, the participants in this (re)presentation hold multiple identities along both gender and sexuality spectrums.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sean Robinson

Sean Robinson is a Professor of Higher Education Leadership & Policy and currently serves as the Program Director for graduate programs in higher education and student affairs at Morgan State University, in Baltimore, MD. Sean has over 25 years’ experience on university campuses in both academic affairs and student affairs. His teaching interests include higher education administration, policy, and legal issues; organizational behavior and theory; student development theory; and qualitative research methodology. His primary research interest is related to identity development and sexual orientation/gender expression within educational environments, with a particular interest in the ways in which culture and climate impact identity. His secondary research relates to the mentoring and socialization experiences of minority graduate students.