A brief exercise in currere and bathroom bills

Abstract

North Carolina voted into law legislation known as the Privacy Facilities and Security Act, commonly known as HB2 or the anti-transgender “bathroom bill.” We use Pinar’s (1975a, 1975b, 2012) currere methodology as a brief exercise in deconstructing this bathroom bill and others similar to it. In this short piece, we go through each moment: the regressive, progressive, analytical, and synthetical. Historical, social, and biological aspects of the bill are discussed and critically analyzed to outline a pathway to a synthetical moment that includes cultural reconceptualization, social justice, and equality for disenfranchised groups such as transgender, intersex, and gender nonconforming people.

Notes

1 We keep the term “medical condition” to show the unfortunate need for transgender people to feel obligated to use this term as many insurance companies will not cover medical care related to transition without deeming it a medical necessity.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mario I. Suarez

Mario I. Suárez is a Ph.D. candidate in Curriculum and Instruction at Texas A&M University in the Department of Teaching, Learning and Culture in the College of Education and Human Development. His research interests include queer studies in education, quantitative methods, curriculum studies, and pathways to inclusive STEM education for historically underrepresented students.

Ebony Lai Hing

Ebony Lai Hing has a Masters in Biochemistry and is also a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Teaching, Learning & Culture in the College of Education and Human Development at Texas A&M University specializing in Science Education. Her research focus is evidence-based pedagogy and student centered learning to improve science achievement for all students especially underrepresented minority groups and women.

Patrick Slattery

Patrick Slattery is Professor and Associate Department Head for Graduate in the Department of Teaching, Learning & Culture in the College of Education and Human Development at Texas A&M University where he teaches courses in Philosophy of Education, Curriculum Theory, Social Foundations of Education, and Arts-Based Research. The central teme of his work is the promotion of a just, compassionate, and ecologically sustainable global culture through holistic and reconceptualized approaches to curriculum, constructive postmodern understandings of education, queer studies in gender and sexuality, and Process philosophical visions of creativity and change.