http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6008-1664
We are currently witnessing a gender revolution, as evidenced by the increased discussion of gender, gender nonbinary (enby), and intersex issues in the media, television, pop culture, and politics. While the current administration reportedly makes attempts to frighten and erase the identities of a whole population of marginalized folks (Green, Benner, & Pear, Citation2018), young people are leading the way toward change at an unprecedented pace. Though people outside of the gender binary have existed for as long as humans have been on this earth, this heightened visibility has resulted in this population becoming the target of violent attacks, especially for transgender and enby women of color. Therefore, we felt compelled to help put together an issue of JCP that called for an awareness of issues that transgender people face. This special issue includes voices from transgender, gender nonconforming, and enby folks, as well as the voices of advocates to the community. This inaugural special issue is important for us, particularly because we are a part of the queer community in academia: Mario, a self-identified transgender man from the Texas-México border, and Patrick, a self-identified gay man from New Orleans. We came together to provide a thought-provoking perspective in curriculum studies. More expansive work in climate, demography, and attitudes of transgender and enby folks in PK-12 schools is essential.
The curriculum field has been immersed in lesbian, gay, feminist, and queer scholarship for over thirty years as evidenced by conference programs and publications. This has been well documented by Schubert (Citation1986) and Kridel (1998), among others. Gender and sexuality scholarship has been prominent in the leading texts in the field, particularly with the publications of Understanding Curriculum (Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, & Taubman, Citation1996). The immersion of many scholars in the sexuality and gender work of Foucault (Citation1972, Citation1990a, Citation1990b), Miller (Citation1980, Citation1987, Citation1990), and Anzaldúa (Citation1999, Citation2015), among many others, has demonstrated a keen interest and strong commitment to gender and queer themes. Transgender issues have not had the prominence and commitment in the scholarship in the field until recently as transgender issues have come to the forefront in society. Stanley (Citation1992) introduced the field to intersex issues in his work in the 1990s. Scholars such as Fausto-Sterling (Citation2000), Stryker (Citation2017), Thurer (Citation2005), Slattery (Citation2007, O'Malley, Hoyt, & Slattery, Citation2009 between 2007 and Slattery & Koschureck, 2008), Davis (Citation2015), and others started to extend intersex and transgender scholarship the 2000s. We envision this issue of JCP as a catalyst for further reflection and scholarship in curriculum studies.
The theme of transgender and gender nonconforming inclusivity for this special issue first materialized in 2017 at the Curriculum & Pedagogy annual conference in Cleveland, Ohio and was realized in 2018 at the same annual conference in New Orleans. The field of curriculum studies has a long tradition of scholarship of social justice, inclusion, and identities following the Reconceptualization of the field in the 1970s to 1980s. Since then, it has matured through postmodern and Post-Reconceptualized iterations in the 1990s and beyond. Foundational to our curriculum theory work is the notion of gender diversity and inclusion found in feminist, queer, and race scholarship. We have been particularly attentive to inclusion of intersex issues in previous publications and presentations. With this issue of the JCP, we make a conscious effort to advance transgender scholarship to the forefront. The authors whose work is featured in this issue is a critical, raw, and intersectional perspective. The authors stretch the possibilities within the field of curriculum studies.
We put the voices of transgender folks front-and-center with the first three pieces that speak to the nature of experiencing school and discriminatory bathroom legislation. We begin with the first piece titled “Gendered Bathrooms, Critical Geography, and the Lived Experience of Schools” by Kirsten Robbins and Rob Helfenbein that questions the implications in making bathrooms a space where transgender individuals are (not) allowed to be in. Similarly, the second short article, by Mario I. Suárez, Ebony Lai Hing, and Patrick Slattery, is titled “A Brief Exercise in Currere and Bathroom Bills,” and uses Pinar’s currere to visualize the past, present, and future of bathroom bill legislation. The third piece, by Michael D. Bartone, titled “One AssignedFemaleAtBirth Male Student’s Journal Through School to Understanding His Identity” uses narrative inquiry to bring us the story of James, a transgender student assigned female at birth, in a Catholic school.
The next four articles provide a lens from an educator/advocate perspective into possibilities for incorporating a greater awareness of transgender issues in the classroom as ways of advocating for our students. The article titled “Ripping Back the Veil: Examining How Trans Visibility Shapes Understandings of Gender and Instruction” by Stephanie Shelton presents how an openly transgender teacher has an effect on the view of several of her colleagues and the curriculum they teach. The article by J. Scott Baker, Mirm Hurula, Alaina Goodreau, and Benjamin Johnson is titled “Poetic Explorations of Cisgender Privilege: How Teacher Candidates Learn to Advocate for Gender Non-conforming Youth,” and uses arts-based instruction as a way to raise pre-service teachers’ awareness of gender identity and expression. The next short piece from Boni Wozolek and Reagan P. Mitchell is titled “Plastic or Phalloplasty?: Negotiating Masculinity and (Cis)Gender Norms in Schools and the Academy,” and views a possible future in gender-queer curriculum and space as a way to enact social justice. Finally, the piece by S. Gavin Weiser, Travis Wagner, and Myles Lawter titled “Double Jeopardy: (Trans)versering Higher Ed as Queer Trans Advocates” presents inherent challenges in being advocates for their transgender students.
We hope you are as excited as we are about this special issue.
We would like to thank the editors of the Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Will Letts and Jennifer Sandlin, for their support and invaluable assistance with this endeavor.
References
- Anzaldúa, G. E. (1999). Borderlands/la frontera: The new mestiza. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books.
- Anzaldúa, G. E. (2015). Light in the dark/Luz en lo oscuro: Rewriting identity, spirituality, reality. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
- Davis, G. (2015). Contesting intersex: The dubious diagnosis. New York, NY: NYU Press.
- Fausto-Sterling, A. (2000). Sexing the body: Gender politics and the construction of sexuality. New York, NY: Basic Books.
- Foucault, M. (1972). Power/knowledge. New York, NY: Pantheon.
- Foucault, M. (1990a). The history of sexuality, volume one: An introduction (R. Hurley, Trans.). New York, NY: Vintage Books. doi: 10.1086/ahr/84.4.1020
- Foucault, M. (1990b). The history of sexuality, volume two: The use of pleasure (R. Hurley, Trans.). New York, NY: Vintage Books. doi: 10.1086/ahr/84.4.1020
- Green, E. L., Benner, K., & Pear, R. (2018, October 21). ‘Transgender’ could be defined out of existence under Trump administration. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/21/us/politics/transgender-trump-administration-sex-definition.html?fbclid=IwAR1AyfuGJDB5v27IRvcQrdkHaX-3HP_5gbKoXEO6IDaToHTe0bvK5gn80QU
- Koschureck, J. W., & Slattery, P. (2008). Meeting all students’ needs: Transforming the unjust normativity of heterosexism. In M. Oliva & C. Marshall (Eds.). Leadership for Social Justice: Making Revolutions in Education (2nd ed., pp. 156–175). New York, NY: Routledge.
- Kridel, C. (1998). The eight-year study revisited: Lessons from the past for the present. Curriculum Studies, 9(2), 7.
- Miller, J. L. (1980). Women: The evolving educational consciousness. JCT: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Curriculum Studies, 2(1), 238–247.
- Miller, J. L. (1987). Women as teacher/researchers: Gaining a sense of ourselves. Teacher Education Quarterly, 14(2), 52–58.
- Miller, J. L. (1990). Creating spaces and finding voices. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
- O’Malley, M. P., Hoyt, M. W., & Slattery, P. (2009). Teaching gender and sexual diversity in foundations of education courses in the US. Teaching Education, 20(2), 95–110. doi: 10.1080/10476210902730505
- Pinar, W. F., Reynolds, W. M., Slattery, P., & Taubman, P. M. (1996). Understanding curriculum: An introduction to the study of historical and contemporary curriculum discourses. New York, NY: Peter Lang.
- Schubert, W. H. (1986). Curriculum: Perspective, paradigm, possibility. New York, NY: Macmillan.
- Slattery, P. (2007). Teaching gender and human sexuality diversity. JCP Perspectives, 4(2), 12–16.
- Stanley, W. B. (1992). Curriculum for utopia: Social reconstructionism and critical pedagogy in the postmodern era. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
- Stryker, S. (2017). Transgender history: The roots of today’s revolution (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Seal Press.
- Thurer, S. L. (2005). The end of gender: A psychological autopsy. New York, NY: Routledge.