Ripping back the veil: Examining how trans visibility shapes understandings of gender and instruction

Abstract

Based on interviews, focus groups, and observations for the duration of a 6-week high school summer enrichment program, this article considers the ways that having a visible trans faculty member shaped other teachers’ understandings of and pedagogical approaches to the concept of gender. Using Judith Butler’s concept of “losing expertise” in gender, the thematic analysis considers the ways that participants’ notions of gender initially conformed to binaries and then, after working to support a trans colleague, shifted to more directly confront and critique gender norms in classroom instruction. Additional considerations are the degrees to which gender is inculcated into classroom spaces and the challenges that even veteran educators face in acknowledging and confronting gender normativity.

Contributor

Stephanie Anne Shelton is Assistant Professor of Qualitative Research in the College of Education at The University of Alabama, and an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Gender and Race Studies. Her research interests include a) queer and feminist theoretical approaches to interview-, focus group-, and narrative-based studies and b) examining the intersections of gender identities, gender expressions, and sexualities with other identity elements within educational contexts.

Notes

1 Unless otherwise written in a reference, this article uses “trans” to reflect the form and spelling most commonly used by both “Ione,” the focused-upon participant and relevant literature.