CONCEPTUALIZING GENDER, CONTEXTUALIZING CURRICULUM:
A CASE STUDY OF TEACHER EDUCATION COURSEWORK
By
M. Eli Kean

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Curriculum, Instruction and Teacher Education—Doctor of Philosophy
2017

ABSTRACT
CONCEPTUALIZING GENDER, CONTEXTUALIZING CURRICULUM:
A CASE STUDY OF TEACHER EDUCATION COURSEWORK
By
M. Eli Kean
This study explores and theorizes around issues of transgender curriculum in teacher
education courses. Using a conceptual framework informed by both transgender theory and
curriculum theory, I propose a Critical Trans Framework to analyze what trans-related curricular
materials are currently used in teacher education courses and what factors influence teacher
educators’ curricular choices. Gender-expansive syllabi were identified as those that contained
required readings utilizing anti-oppressive, humanizing, intersectional, or justice-oriented
characteristics. Data sources for this study include course syllabi, surveys with Likert-scale and
open-ended questions, one-on-one interviews, and a group interview with all participants.
Findings explore how participants were understanding or conceptualizing gender, queer, and
heteronormativity in relation to trans. Participants had a somewhat similar approach to teaching
gender as a concept, but had divergent and multiple understandings of queer. Heteronormativity
was understood to be the overarching system of oppression targeting all non-heterosexual and
non-cisgender people. In describing how they teach trans, the participants described attempts to
complicate dominant trans narratives, establish class norms that created an environment ripe for
gender exploration, and represent trans people through first-person narratives. Influential
contextual elements outside the classroom include institutional and/or programmatic supports or
constraints, the instructor’s own understanding and experience with transgender issues, and state
or local policies.

Copyright by
M. ELI KEAN
2017

To Devon,
for changing my life in so many positive ways.
Thank you for all you have taught me
about family and friendship,
about real life and fictional worlds,
and above all, being true to yourself.
I could not have come this far without you.
Live long, and prosper.

iv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am filled with gratitude for my advisor, Terry Flennaugh, who took a chance on me and was
always there to re-orient me toward hopefulness and courage.
To the faculty at UMKC who encouraged me to pursue a doctorate, and were integral in
introducing me to social justice education and foundations of education: Juan Carlos Gonzalez,
Carolyn Thompson, Loyce Caruthers, Dianne Smith, Jennifer Friend, Uzziel Pecina, Bonita
Butner, Devona Foster-Pierre and Wanda Blanchett.
To the members of all my doctoral committees, thank you for sharing your time, energy, and
wisdom with me: Lynn Paine, Lynn Fendler, Kris Renn, Kyle Greenwalt, Elizabeth Kenyon,
Alyssa Dunn, Django Paris, and Elizabeth J Meyer.
To Dorinda Carter Andrews, who welcomed me into the TE250 community many years ago, who
always believed in me and saw the importance of trans inclusion from the start.
To the TE250 crew, past and present, you were the absolute best part of my MSU experience.
Thank you for showing me, in big and small ways, what social justice is all about.
To coffee and Ghirardelli dark chocolate and homemade Chex Mix, you sustained me.
To music and musicals, especially to Lin-Manuel Miranda & Hamilton, you helped me to keep
going, keep feeling, keep fighting. You were there in my darkest hours, and because of you I am
not throwing away my shot. Thank you.
To my participants, I am honored to know you and to learn from you. Although this work can be
isolating, I am inspired knowing that you are out there doing amazing work and working towards
liberation, one class and one student at a time.

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. ix
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................ x
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY.................................................... 1
Research Questions ............................................................................................................. 5
CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ....................................................... 6
Transgender Topics in Teacher Education .......................................................................... 6
Teacher Education Textbooks ......................................................................................... 8
Transgender Topics in the K-12 Environment .................................................................... 9
Transgender Student Experiences ................................................................................. 10
In-Service Teacher Perceptions ..................................................................................... 12
Transgender Topics in the K-12 Curriculum ................................................................ 15
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 16
CHAPTER THREE: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS ................................................ 19
Essential Theoretical Concepts ......................................................................................... 19
Socialization & Performativity ..................................................................................... 19
The Heterosexual Matrix .............................................................................................. 21
Intersectionality............................................................................................................. 23
Feminist & Queer Theory: Limitations for Transgender Analysis ................................... 25
Contributions of Education Theories ................................................................................ 30
Curriculum is Ideologically and Politically Powerful .................................................. 32
Principles of a Critical Trans Framework ......................................................................... 34
Principle 1: Gender has Individual, Institutional, and Cultural Levels ......................... 35
Principle 2: Genderism is Endemic to Society ............................................................. 42
Principle 3: Transgender People’s Experiential Knowledge is Essential to Overcoming
the Epistemology of Ignorance ..................................................................................... 45
Principle 4: Visibility and Invisibility—Within Language, Academic Discourse, and
Curriculum— is Central to Understanding Trans. ........................................................ 47
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 50
CHAPTER FOUR: METHODOLOGY AND METHODS .............................................. 51
Methodological Commitments.......................................................................................... 51
Desire-Centered Research ............................................................................................. 53
Methods: Data Collection ................................................................................................. 54
Syllabus Solicitation ..................................................................................................... 55
Limitations of Syllabi ................................................................................................... 56
Data Analysis: Syllabi ................................................................................................... 58
Analytical Framework: Development of Gender-Expansive Criteria............................... 59
vi

Phase 2 Data Collection: Surveys and Interviews ............................................................ 62
One-on-One Interviews ................................................................................................. 63
Group Interview/Dialogue ............................................................................................ 64
Data Analysis: Interviews ................................................................................................. 66
Researcher Positionality.................................................................................................... 67
CHAPTER FIVE: PHASE 1 FINDINGS ......................................................................... 72
Required Readings: Quantities and Qualities ................................................................... 72
School Context .............................................................................................................. 73
Structural/Institutional Influences ................................................................................. 76
Personal Identity ........................................................................................................... 78
Activism and Theory..................................................................................................... 78
Gender-Restrictive Syllabi ................................................................................................ 79
Participants of Phase 2 ...................................................................................................... 82
Syllabus 6: Curriculum Theory at the Urban Art Institute ............................................ 83
Syllabus 7: Queer topics in Education at Mountain State University ........................... 83
Syllabus 8: LGBTQ topics in Schooling ...................................................................... 84
Syllabus 9: Diverse Contexts of Schooling .................................................................. 85
A note on limitations ......................................................................................................... 85
CHAPTER SIX: CASE STUDY CONTEXTUAL FINDINGS ....................................... 87
Contextual Factors Inside the Classroom ......................................................................... 87
Complicating Trans Narratives ..................................................................................... 87
Establishing Class Norms ............................................................................................. 89
“It Was All So New” ..................................................................................................... 89
Telling Our Own Story.................................................................................................. 92
Assignments .................................................................................................................. 93
Contextual Factors Outside the Classroom ....................................................................... 94
Local and State Political Commitments ........................................................................ 94
“The Bathroom Bill” ..................................................................................................... 96
Leaving the Obama Era: “A Re-Emergence of Rage” .................................................. 96
Departmental Support ................................................................................................... 97
Student Activism ........................................................................................................... 98
Getting Past the Diversity Course ................................................................................. 99
Implications of Transitory Labor ................................................................................ 100
Previous Teaching Experiences .................................................................................. 101
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 104
CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCEPTUAL FINDINGS ........................................................ 105
Gender ............................................................................................................................. 106
Queer ............................................................................................................................... 109
Queer as an Identity .....................................................................................................110
Queer as an expression or behavior .............................................................................111
Queer as a theoretical framework or mode of analysis ................................................113
Queer as a Politics ........................................................................................................114
Heteronormativity/Heterosexism .....................................................................................116
vii

CHAPTER EIGHT: DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS .......................................... 121
Summary of Findings ...................................................................................................... 121
Implications for theory and practice ............................................................................... 124
Limits of the Study.......................................................................................................... 128
Concluding Thoughts ...................................................................................................... 129
APPENDICES ................................................................................................................ 131
Appendix A: Call for Participation ............................................................................. 132
Appendix B: Syllabus Matrix ..................................................................................... 133
Appendix C: Topics/Themes of Transgender-related Readings ................................. 138
Appendix D: Guiding questions for interviews .......................................................... 144
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 145

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1 Characteristics of Collected Syllabi

58

Table 4.2 Criteria for Gender-Expansive Syllabi

62

Table 5.1 Topics and Themes of Required Readings in Collected Syllabi

81

ix

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 3.1. Author’s Categorization of Trans Identities

39

Figure 5.1 Themes and Topics within Required Readings

74

Figure 7.1 Manifestations of Queer as Described by Participants

109

x

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY
When Laverne Cox graced the cover of TIME magazine in 2014 and transgender rights
was declared the “new civil rights frontier” (Steinmetz, 2014), I was simultaneously delighted
and worried. For all the positive effects of having the first openly transgender person on the
cover of TIME, I knew that kind of visibility could also spur attempts to restrict and silence. As
Nicolazzo states, “to be visible as a trans* person means to be increasingly watched, scrutinized,
and surveilled…Simply put, visibility is neither a wholly rewarding nor a completely desirous
state for all trans* people” (2016, p. 17). Any student of history knows that efforts to secure and
defend civil rights, such as the Civil Rights Movement, the White women’s suffrage movement,
and Indigenous rights movements, are routinely met with violence, hate, and fear from dominant
groups who hold socio-political power. These movements may result in some overt policy wins,
but they also inspire more covert methods of systematically oppressing already vulnerable
communities (Alexander, 2012; McKibben, 2016; Stevens, 1920). Knowing this, those who are
committed to social justice must be cognizant of both overt and covert means through which
oppression and violence occur. In particular, teachers need to know how to protect and support
transgender students and identify transgender oppression in action. Teacher preparation programs
are in a unique position to influence future teachers’ supportiveness toward students of all
genders, to empower and support transgender pre-service teachers, and to lead education toward
transgender transformation.
Unfortunately, teacher education as a field has been slow to incorporate the theoretical
advancements and valuable empirical findings by Meyer (2008), Jennings and MacGillivray
(2008), and many others (Payne & Smith, 2014; Ryan, Petraw & Bednar, 2013). Traditionally,
U.S. educational scholars approach the topic of gender in two primary ways: exploring women’s

1

oppression at the hands of men in a patriarchal system, and exploring homophobia as a reflection
of sexism in a heteronormative system. The general absence of transgender individuals' identity
in U.S. curriculum enforces the normalcy and superiority of those who are cisgender; that is,
individuals whose gender expressions and identities align with the socially acceptable behaviors
for their assumed sex. Gorski, Davis and Reiter’s (2013) quantitative evidence shows that
teachers are inadequately prepared by their teacher education programs to create equitable, or
even safe, schooling environments for transgender youth. Further, multiple studies have found
little to no coverage of transgender identities or issues in teacher education textbooks, and when
coverage is present, trans people are typically presented alongside LGBQ youth as ‘at-risk’ or as
victims (Kean, 2017; MacGillivray & Jennings, 2008; Titus, 1993; Young & Middleton, 2002).
In addition to teaching content methods courses, many teacher education programs offer
courses that focus on educational foundations or diversity. In terms of their relevance to
transgender topics, these courses potentially serve two purposes. One is to introduce theoretical
frameworks to understand societal injustices such as racism, heteronormativity, patriarchy, and
ableism. At the present time, however, teacher education does not commonly use any framework
that adequately describes or interrogates cisgender privilege or transgender oppression. For
example, patriarchy describes a system in which men have privilege and social power over
women, but there is no clear place within discussions of patriarchy for transgender people, no
nuance for considerations of gender conformity or diverse gender identities.
The second potential purpose of educational foundations or ‘diversity’ courses is to guide
pre-service teachers through the process of reflecting upon their own identities and positionality.
It is crucial for instructors of these courses to have a solid theoretical and practical understanding
of the gender binary system and transgender identity. This is not only important because of the

2

implications for pre-service teachers’ future practice, but also because of the missed opportunity
to provide meaningful content for pre-service teachers who would benefit from exploring their
own gender identities in a supportive space. Although some might assume otherwise, teacher
educators may not be able to easily identify whether one or more of their students are
transgender or are questioning their gender identity. Pre-service teachers who are trans need to
see themselves represented in their coursework. Therefore, teacher educators need to ensure their
curricular content is meaningful for the pre-service teachers at the moment, not just for a
hypothetical transgender student in the future.
Within teacher education courses, transgender topics tend to get grouped into lessons
regarding sexual orientation, in large part due to the pervasiveness of the acronym LGBTQ
(Airton, 2009; Kean, 2017). Stryker reminds us that one of the predominant concerns of some
transgender theorists is the erasure of transgender identities within the acronym LGBTQ. Stryker
notes that the T in LGBT is "reduced to merely another (easily detached) genre of sexual identity
rather than perceived, like race or class, as something that cuts across existing sexualities"
(Stryker, 2004, p. 214). This acronym is ubiquitous in the work of educational scholars to date,
and is most often used in studies about sexuality to identify individuals who are not heterosexual.
However, the needs of transgender individuals differ significantly from the needs of cisgender
LGBQ individuals. For example, gay and lesbian students are not likely to change their pronoun
or their first name, or request access to various sex-segregated spaces such as bathrooms or
locker rooms. Considering that transgender topics are routinely ignored or erased in teacher
education courses (Kean, 2017; Jennings, 2008), pre-service teachers often move into the field
unprepared to support their transgender students (Meyer, 2008; Payne & Smith, 2014) and

3

unprepared to teach their students in a manner that advances gender diversity and works against
transgender oppression.
The present political climate makes preparing teachers to work against transgender
oppression an even more pressing need. Under President Obama, the national political
environment tended to support protections for transgender people in schools and other public
institutions. For example, the Obama administration’s Department of Education and Department
of Justice jointly determined that gender identity was a protected status under Title IX. In 2016,
the Obama administration published guidelines, regarding not only bathrooms but other issues of
privacy and disclosure, intended to assist and support schools in providing a safe and nondiscriminatory environment for transgender students (Lhamon & Gupta, 2016).
However, just one month into Donald Trump’s presidential term, the Department of
Justice and the Department of Education withdrew the guidance, although transgender students
are legally still covered against discrimination under Title IX (Dyson, 2017). The Trump
administration has also quickly abandoned a lawsuit, initially brought forward by Attorney
General Loretta Lynch, challenging North Carolina’s House Bill 2 (Stack, 2017). HB2 regulated
the use of public restrooms for transgender people in North Carolina, requiring that individuals
must use bathrooms based on their sex at birth. The bill also restricted cities and counties from
passing antidiscrimination measures that protect transgender individuals. Further, the Trump
administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development has removed online resource
documents for emergency housing shelters on best practices for serving transgender people
(National Center for Transgender Equality, 2017). These actions, combined with expanded
immigration raids and detention (Hernández, 2017), bans on refugees (Diamond & Almasy,
2017) and threats to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Haberman & Pear, 2017), have taken a

4

serious toll, physically, mentally and emotionally for our most vulnerable transgender
populations.
The purpose of this study is both descriptive and theoretical. Using a theoretical
framework informed by both transgender studies and curriculum theory, I explore what transrelated curricular materials are currently being used in teacher education courses, and what
factors influence these curricular choices. In their 2013 School Climate Survey, the Gay, Lesbian
and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) showed that compared to LGB (lesbian, gay, and
bisexual) students, transgender students face the most hostile school climates (Kosciw et al.,
2014). As a result of their national school climate survey, GLSEN identifies supportive educators
and LGBT-inclusive curricula as two of the essential elements necessary for improving the
school climate for all students (Kosciw et al., 2014). These elements—specifically, transsupportive educators and trans-inclusive curricula—serve as the focal points of this study. This
study will provide insights into the curricular practices of teacher educators, and, ultimately,
create a network of educators whose goal is to continue moving teacher education toward transinclusiveness together.
Research Questions
The research questions for this study focus specifically on the curriculum being used in
teacher preparation courses, and the context within which teacher educators are making transrelated curricular choices. Specifically, my questions are as follows:
1. What transgender topics are currently included in Teacher Education course syllabi?
2. How do teacher education instructors conceptualize and/or teach trans in their courses?
3. What factors influence how Teacher Education instructors teach trans?

5

CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
In this chapter, I will discuss the most relevant literature at the intersection of transgender
studies, K-12 schooling, and teacher education. One difficulty in conducting this literature
review is that much of the scholarship uses the acronym LGBT without including any
transgender participants and/or without focusing on issues of gender identity. I agree with Linda
McCarthy who argues that “using LGBT to be inclusive of transgender students is commendable,
but when there are no resources available and when educators are mostly uninformed and
unaware of the issues associated with transgender identity, it is in effect more harmful to include
the ‘T’ in name only” (2003, p. 46). Of course, a significant number of transgender people
identify as LGBQ and may be represented in that way. However, because I am intentional about
centering gender identity and the unique challenges, needs, and possibilities of transgender
people, I have limited my literature review to include scholarship that explicitly discusses issues
of gender identity, gender diversity, gender fluidity, and/or the gender binary.
The literature review will be organized based on the teacher career trajectory, from preservice to in-service. First, I will discuss scholarship focused on transgender topics within
teacher preparation programs and studies involving pre-service teachers. Second, I will discuss
scholarship focused on transgender topics within K-12 schooling and in-service teachers. I intend
to show that the present study provides an important contribution to the existing literature and
fills necessary gaps in the scholarship.
Transgender Topics in Teacher Education
Numerous studies have shown that issues of gender, especially transgender issues, are
minimally covered in teacher education coursework and that teacher education programs are
inadequately preparing pre-service teachers to create equitable school climates for LGBTQ youth

6

(Gorski, Davis & Reiter, 2013; Kysilka, 2011; Sherwin & Jennings, 2006). Horn et al. (2010)
conducted a survey assessment of all 57 Illinois teacher education programs for their inclusion of
LGBTQ content and attitudes toward gender identity and sexual orientation. The researchers
approached the study with an understanding that “the status of LGBTQ rights in teacher
education programs can be ‘read’ as an indicator of larger social justice questions in institutions,
namely: Who is welcome to be a full member and who is not? Whose needs are prioritized and
addressed and whose are not?” (Horn et al., 2010, p. 76). The deans and chairs who responded
were interested in LGBTQ inclusion, but did not feel prepared to practice LGBTQ inclusion. The
respondents admitted that their materials and resources on LGBQ topics were outdated, and the
majority of respondents “felt that they had no expertise in gender identity-related topics” (p. 70).
The researchers provide several recommendations for how teacher education programs can more
effectively integrate LGBTQ issues, including professional development for teacher educators,
enumerating gender diversity within all definitions of diversity, infusing gender identity topics
into all required courses, and ensuring that diversity frameworks within program and course
objectives address gender diversity (Horn et al., 2010).
In a survey of U.S. teacher preparation programs, Sherwin and Jennings (2007) collected
data from 142 program coordinators and department chairs who were asked to rank their
programs’ emphasis on various diversity characteristics. Jennings found that no programs ranked
gender diversity or sexual orientation diversity as high on their list of priorities compared to
topics such as race, disability, or language diversity. The low priority ranking was most highly
correlated with three challenges: program time constraints for other diversity topics, program
time constraints for non-diversity topics, and faculty discomfort with and lack of knowledge
about the topic (Sherwin & Jennings, 2007, p. 215).

7

Brant (2017) conducted a study investigating pre-service teachers’ understandings and
self-efficacy related to LGBTQ students and families. With regard to terminology, Brant found
that “pre-service teachers can generally accurately define terms related to sexual orientation, yet
they have a less secure understanding about terms related to individuals who do not exist within
the traditional gender binary” (2017, p. 47). Further, Brant (2017) discovered that pre-service
teachers felt more confident working with LGBTQ students, and less confident about identifying
biases in the curriculum and school context.
Teacher Education Textbooks
Textbooks designed for teacher education courses can provide a substantial amount of
course content and provide an already established course structure and order (Jennings &
Macgillivray, 2011). Accordingly, it is vital to critically analyze the content of these books in
order to understand and improve what teacher educators are teaching (and what pre-service
teachers are learning) about transgender issues and identities. Previously, education scholars
have investigated teacher education textbooks focusing on issues of sexism against girls and
women (Titus, 1993; Zittleman & Sadker, 2002), sexual orientation, and transgender issues
(Jennings & Macgillivray, 2011; Macgillivray & Jennings, 2008). All of the studies that
investigated transgender content in textbooks found that the books had little to no coverage of
transgender identities or issues in teacher education textbooks and, when coverage is present,
trans people are typically presented as deviants or victims (Kean, 2017; MacGillivray &
Jennings, 2008; Titus, 1993; Young & Middleton, 2002).
Because transgender topics are so new within the field of teacher education, it is that
much more important for textbooks to provide definitions that are clear and informed by the
most recent research and theory. Unfortunately, numerous texts define gender as an extension of

8

biological sex, with definitions for gender such as “the fact or condition of being a male or a
female human being” (Banks & Banks, 2013, p. 147) and “the cultural differences of men and
women, which define the characteristics behind the meaning of being a female or male”
(Gollnick & Chin, 2013, p. 115). To a reader attempting to differentiate sex and gender, or to an
educator attempting to learn about transgender identity, these definitions provide circular
definitions where sex and gender inherently rely on each other and cannot be separated.
Another common theme in multicultural education textbooks, in particular, is to approach
transgender individuals ‘as if’ they were the gender they believe themselves to be, with a strong
focus on cross-dressing. This phrasing echoes the larger social discourse around transgender
people being deceptive or ‘faking’ their gender (Bornstein, 1994; Serano, 2007; Nicolazzo,
2017). For example, the authors of one multicultural education textbook place a heavy emphasis
on cross-dressing, asserting that “transgender individuals cross-dress or have surgery to
physically alter their sex to match the one with which they identify” (Gollnick & Chin, 2013, p.
115), and a few pages later they explain that “many transgender people are transvestites, people
who cross-dress” (p. 117). Gollnick and Chin inform readers that “the protocol is to interact with
a transgender student as if the student is of the sex with which he/she identifies" (Gollnick &
Chin, 2013, p. 117, emphasis added). The wording here could be read as dismissive or
demeaning, or at least not affirming of the student’s preferred gender identity. In a sense, the
authors seem to be asking educators to ‘play along’ with transgender students as if their lives and
identities were a game.
Transgender Topics in the K-12 Environment
While there are a multitude of studies about gender role development in gendernormative youth (see Adler, Kless, & Adler, 1992; Davies, 1993; Stafford, 2013; Thorne, 1993),

9

scholars have more recently begun to investigate transgender-specific issues in the K-12
environment, including teacher perceptions of gender diverse students (Meyer, 2008; Payne &
Smith, 2014), and issues related to K-12 curriculum and pedagogy (Allan et al., 2008; Ryan,
Patraw & Bednar, 2013). This educational scholarship has shown that embedded in students’
everyday experiences are explicit and implicit messages about what it means to “do” gender
correctly.
Bronwyn Davies (1993) was among the earliest researchers to explore how children
understood their own gendered selves. Davies found that from a young age, children understand
and are influenced by “dominant heterosexual scripts” (Renold, 2006, p. 494) which deeply
informed their understanding of themselves as boys or girls. Understanding gender through
sexuality worked to further heighten the assumed differences between boys and girls. Davies also
found that children were very aware of the power of normative gender roles and the
consequences for transgressing these norms (Davies, 1993).
Transgender Student Experiences
Wyss (2004) conducted interviews with 24 transgender and genderqueer high school
students about their experiences with school-based violence. All but two of Wyss’s participants
were White. Wyss found that the majority of her participants experienced various degrees of
physical and/or sexual violence, such as being shoved, smacked, or punched in the hallways,
being set on fire, and being assaulted or raped (2004). These repeated incidents of violence led
some participants to engage in self-destructive behaviors, drug and alcohol abuse, and suicide
ideation. Wyss (2004) reported strategies that some participants developed for coping with the
violence, such as avoiding peer perpetrators, developing a tough and fearless reputation, carrying
weapons, and developing a heightened awareness of their surroundings to anticipate possible

10

attacks. Other of Wyss’ participants felt isolated and ashamed, “like somehow I was asking for
it” (p. 722), and took on a more normative gender expression. These participants felt as though
they needed to conform in order to keep themselves safe. These findings led Wyss (2004) to call
for comprehensive sensitivity training for teachers, incorporating transgender lives, knowledges
and experiences into the classroom and the library, and non-discrimination policies that include
gender identity and expression. In the long term, Wyss argues for “a radical revisioning of
gender, including the eradication of the binary sex/gender system, a move away from the
assumption that there are only two sexes and two genders, and the elimination of all gender
hierarchies and other forms of injustice” (2004, p. 724). Though the participants in this study
displayed agency in how they coped with trans oppression, they were still merely coping; Wyss’
suggestions would provide beneficial institutional and structural changes so that transgender
students can thrive rather than merely survive.
Grossman and D’augelli (2006) conducted focus groups with 24 transgender youth from
the New York metro area to examine the participants’ social and emotional experiences. 95% of
the participants were youth of color, and half lived in poverty conditions. The researchers found
that family and friends of the participants responded mostly negatively to their gender nonconformity, with a smaller number of supportive loved ones. At school, the participants
experienced verbal, physical and sexual harassment from peers and teachers. One participant
commented: “‘Teachers don’t realize,’ as one youth (F to M) said, ‘that when they call me by my
‘government name,’ everyone is going to call me that; it’s going to cause a fight. Because, if they
don’t stop, I’m going to fight’” (Grossman & D’augelli, 2006, p. 122). The participants also
discussed the lack of safe environments in school or at home, and lack of access to transinclusive physical and mental health services. Similar to Wyss’ findings, Grossman and D’augelli

11

found that these experiences of violence, rejection, and isolation led to shame, depression,
substance abuse, and suicide ideation. Based on these findings, Grossman and D’augelli
recommend increased access to transgender-specific resources in physical and mental health
care, schooling, employment and housing. The researchers also suggest that programs should be
established to assist transgender youth in developing a transition plan, including safe ways to
acquire hormones and other necessary healthcare. Finally, Grossman and D’augelli advise that
education about transgender people must be included in professional training programs for
teachers, school counselors, and social service and healthcare providers.
In a more recent study, Rooke (2010) collaborated with 18 transgender youth in a yearlong participatory arts project intended to “explore the science of sex and gender through art” (p.
655). The project, located in London, offered trans youth a supportive space to explore
understandings of themselves as sexed and gendered beings, interrogate and critique how their
everyday lives are shaped by gendered norms, and to “communicate the humanity of trans lives
with dignity” (Rooke, 2010, p. 659). The workshops provided a tangible feeling of comfort and
belonging in the participants; the project opened a “space of recognition…where a sense of
gendered agency could be expressed” (p. 663). The participants also reported feeling recognized
and more willing to play with gender fluidity. Rooke suggests that the participatory nature of the
project was key in creating the positive results. Although this study did not take place inside a
school, the pedagogical tools used by the workshop organizers were valuable to the trans youth
and could be emulated by teachers in more formal schooling settings.
In-Service Teacher Perceptions
At the elementary school level, Payne and Smith (2014) interviewed 12 elementary
school teachers and administrators to understand their reactions to having a transgender student

12

in their schools. The participants were from five different schools, both urban and suburban. The
researchers found that fear was the most common reaction, primarily stemming from a lack of
policy and procedure, but also from the fear that supporting the student would be met with
backlash by the local community as endorsing transgender identity. The mere presence of a
transgender child forced educators to reckon with their worldviews in ways that they were
unprepared for. These internal conflicts left the educators resistant to acknowledge that they did
not know how to create supportive environments for transgender children. Payne and Smith
identified lack of preparation as one of the primary concerns faced by elementary school
teachers, noting that none of the participants remembered transgender topics in their preparation
programs. This left in-service elementary teachers feeling “stressed, anxious, and incompetent
when faced with ‘the problem’ of creating accommodations for a transgender child” (Payne &
Smith, 2014, p. 405). Although the teachers felt a professional responsibility to ‘accommodate’
the transgender child, Payne and Smith argue that their decisions come from a feeling of
responsibility to the local community, to the parents, and to “the myth of childhood innocence”
(p. 415), but not to the transgender children themselves. These findings led Payne and Smith to
argue that lack of teacher preparation around transgender issues has very real implications for
daily practice, resulting in teachers and administrators who are anxious and hesitant rather than
confident and proactive.
Expanding on their 2014 study, Smith and Payne (2016) provided professional
development for elementary-level educators and reported on the educators’ responses to
transgender students after the training. The researchers found that educators were invested in and
routinely relied upon binary understandings of gender:

13

As long as the child easily passed as the transitioned gender, teachers made claims that
the child’s gender identity ‘didn’t matter’ in their daily routine. However, gender fluidity,
the possibility of future physical changes, and situations where transgender children were
present in gender-segregated spaces led teachers to fall back on binary gender systems to
help them decide how to place the transgender student in the school. (Smith & Payne,
2016, p. 42)
Smith and Payne found that educators resisted suggestions to critically examine the areas of their
curriculum and pedagogy that privileged normative gender, instead preferring to focus sharply on
logistical issues such as name and pronoun changes. To that end, Smith and Payne suggest that
curricular changes at the pre-service level regarding gender diversity and gender bias are critical
to creating educators who are confident rather than fearful.
At the high school level, Meyer (2008) conducted interviews with six urban high school
teachers in Canada about their responses to gendered harassment. Meyer defined gendered
harassment as “any behavior, verbal, physical, or psychological, that polices the boundaries of
traditional heterosexual gender norms and includes (hetero)sexual harassment, homophobic
harassment, and harassment for gender non-conformity” (2008, p. 556). In a series of three
interviews, participants discussed issues of race and ethnicity, issues of gendered harassment,
and a final conversation where participants reflected on the first two interviews and explored
their (in)actions in the face of harassment. Meyer found that both external and internal influences
shaped how teachers perceived and responded to gendered harassment. External influences
include elements such as a school’s culture and its embedded social norms, various
teaching/work demands, and their previous teacher training. Similar to Payne and Smith’s
findings, Meyer found that most participants felt their teacher preparation programs “did not

14

sufficiently prepare them to address incidents of harassment or bullying, particularly related to
gender and sexual orientation” (2008, p. 560). Based on these findings, Meyer suggests that,
although teachers are clearly motivated to intervene in gendered harassment, the formal and
informal structures of the school must be transformed in order to create safer learning
environments for transgender youth. These findings point to an area of crucially necessary
improvement for teacher education programs.
More recently, Luecke (2011) documented the details of a school district’s coordinated
response to the transition of a transgender elementary school student. Multiple stakeholders were
involved in managing the school’s response to the child’s transition, including district personnel,
student support staff such as counselors, and teachers. Luecke reported a positive outcome for
the child, and an increased sensitivity and heightened awareness to issues of gender diversity.
Based on these findings, Leucke asserts that we need more caring teachers who validate and
affirm their gender identities: “the discernment required for this simultaneously emerges from
and supports a kind of connected teaching; it is recognition that good teaching starts and ends
with the relationships” (2011, p. 151). Even though the school and district staff in this study were
not well versed on transgender theory or best practices, their active support and affirmation made
a big difference in the student’s life.
Transgender Topics in the K-12 Curriculum
Although there is a fairly robust body of literature about LGB and queer topics in
curriculum (Britzman, 1995; Kumashiro, 2002; Pinar, 1998; Sumara & Davis, 1999), fewer
scholars have taken up transgender curriculum specifically. In a substantial contribution to the
field, Ryan, Patraw, and Bednar (2013) chronicled one elementary school teacher’s attempt to
make her instruction inclusive of transgender and gender nonconforming people. The authors

15

report that the teacher “provided opportunities for students to reflect on their own gendered lives
as constructed and rulebound” (p. 102), and most significantly, her young students were able to
understand the relationships between gender and sexuality, and grasp the concepts of gender
identity and gender expression. These findings contradict the conventional wisdom that
preadolescents are too young to think about, let alone understand, these complex and supposedly
controversial topics. The authors also note that, while there has been research supporting the use
of gay and lesbian topics in elementary school curriculum, few studies examine the benefits of
incorporating specific information on transgender people and gender nonconformity. As a result
of their analysis, the researchers emphasize the importance of teacher educators focusing more
on gender diversity when preparing future teachers.
Conclusion
Research findings described here provide clear evidence that transgender and gender nonconforming students not only routinely experience harassment, discrimination, and violence from
peers, but also from school staff. These negative consequences act as tools in the preservation of
hegemonic gender norms that uphold and reassert the importance of conforming to binary gender
expectations. As a result, transgender and gender non-conforming individuals experience lower
levels of educational attainment and higher levels of homelessness, unemployment, and suicide
(Grant et al., 2011). Because gender is intricately connected with race, it is no surprise that
transgender and gender non-conforming students of color experience higher levels of
harassment, discrimination, and violence than their White counterparts (Grant et al., 2011;
Grossman & D’augelli, 2006). Transgender youth are becoming more visible and they need
teachers and schools who will support them and provide the necessary resources for their social

16

and academic success. Additionally, we also know that even one affirming and supportive
educator can make a huge difference in the lives of a transgender student (Luecke, 2011).
Educational researchers are only just beginning to explore transgender topics in
education. Influential research by the scholars mentioned in this chapter has paved the way for
my own work. To date, however, empirical work exploring transgender topics in teacher
education curriculum is very limited. Findings by Horn et al. (2010) and Sherwin and Jennings
(2007) provide a glimpse into the priorities of teacher education programs and their
administrators, but these studies did not capture the priorities of the instructors; we have little
research that shows what individual instructors are prioritizing in their own classes.
We know that multicultural and foundations textbooks largely ignore, underrepresent or
misrepresent transgender identities, experiences and knowledges (Kean, 2017; MacGillivray &
Jennings, 2008; Young & Middleton, 2002); what we don’t know is whether instructors are
actually using these books in their courses; and if they are, whether they are problematizing the
content. And if they are not, what other readings they use and how they choose them. Previous
research has also shown that pre-service and in-service teachers feel uncomfortable &
unprepared to support transgender students or make curricular & pedagogical improvements
(Brant, 2017; Meyer, 2008; Payne & Smith, 2014). What we don’t know is how teacher
educators are working to improve pre-service preparation in this area. The focus in the present
study is to build upon this important work, but with a focus clearly on transgender experiences as
they are represented through teacher education curriculum.
The focus in the present study is to build upon this important work, but with a focus
clearly on transgender experiences as they are represented through teacher education curriculum.
Further, no study to date has focused on teacher educators’ experiences teaching transgender

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topics. This dissertation aims to push empirical work on trans curriculum in teacher education
programs in new and important directions. In order to do this, I will spend the next chapter
outlining the theoretical frameworks that influence and guide my study.

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CHAPTER THREE: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS
In this chapter, I will introduce a new theoretical framework I developed by uniting
significant contributions from the fields of feminist, queer, and transgender theory on one hand
and critical curriculum theory on the other. I intend to locate this framework within the wider
arena of the aforementioned theories, while explaining why these theories, taken alone, are
inadequate for this study. In the first section of the chapter, I will detail theoretical concepts that
provide the foundation for the present study’s theoretical framework. Second, I explain why
queer theory and feminist theory are limited in their ability to interrogate transgender knowledge,
experiences, and realities. In the third section, I explore educational theories that inform my
work, and finally, I lay out the principles guiding my theoretical perspective.
Essential Theoretical Concepts
There are several theoretical constructs borne from feminist and queer theorists that are
foundational to the present study. First is the idea of gender socialization (Beauvoir, 1953;
Lorber, 1994), which moves us away from perceiving gender as a fixed and innate characteristic.
Second is gender performativity, which helps us understand the iterative and citational nature of
gender performance. Another important concept is the heterosexual matrix, which explains the
ways in which bodies, gender, and desires are intricately connected to normalize monogamous
heterosexuality and mark all other modes of gender and desire as deviant. In addition, I will
discuss intersectionality and its importance in understanding how gender, at all levels, interacts
with race, class, and other aspects of identity.
Socialization & Performativity
The French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir is famously quoted as saying, "One is not
born, but rather becomes, a woman" (1953). This means that people assigned female at birth are

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socialized into a deeply embedded system of norms that simultaneously guide and police their
development into what we understand to be a woman. In making her argument for this assertion,
Beauvoir suggested that the sex binary (which she asserts is a biological fact) has always existed
and thus women have always been subordinate to men. Beauvoir effectively argued that
biological sex is distinct from socially constructed gender, and that the process of socialization
into sexist and patriarchal systems is what creates our understanding of ‘woman’ as an identity.
Butler (1988) builds upon de Beauvoir’s substantial contribution and goes a step further
in asserting that gender is not just a social extension of one’s biological sex, but also a
structurally pervasive construction which is enacted through implicit participation in
performative acts.
Butler's description of gender as performativity insists that the reality of gender is not to
be found in the feminist account of differently socialised and encultured bodies, but is the
result of an illusion sustained by the incessant replication of norms that materialise that
which they govern. These norms of behavior…operate ideologically to structure the
fictive solidity of gender. (Hey, 2006, p. 440)
In other words, our understanding of gender norms and expectations is an iterative
process created through shared experiences. We are socialized as children to understand how our
gendered selves are supposed to look and act, and “we expend a tremendous amount of cultural
energy keeping gendered meanings intact as well as continually policing, moving, and
redesigning them” (Wilchins, 2004, p. 37). This process seems completely natural and necessary
because gendered acts are so structurally pervasive. Gender policing stems from an
understanding that gender is a static entity, one that must be internalized and maintained
throughout one’s life—particularly in the case of masculinity for men. True gender liberation

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cannot occur, then, without opportunities for pre-service teachers to dialogue and think critically
about their own gender and the ways they are implicated in a genderist system.
Butler (1988, 1990) suggests that gender creates restrictions on one’s ability to express
themselves rather than creating a space for one’s gender to flourish as it might. Thus, the fact that
we engage in gender policing is itself a signifier that conforming to gender norms is not a natural
or abiding quality. If it were, there would not be a need to police anyone’s gender expression,
because nobody would be non-conforming. “Performativity conceptualises the paradox of
identity as apparently fixed but inherently unstable, revealing (gender) norms requiring continual
maintenance” (Hey, 2006, p. 439). In essence, we are the tools through which gender is policed –
we are taught to police our own gender, and the gender of others, in ways that uphold male
dominance, patriarchy and the gender binary. Butler also acknowledges the possibility of a more
complex gender system that could encompass numerous gender expressions and identities.
“Butler's radical anti-essentialist critique argues that the equation in which sex (male, female) is
seen to cause gender (masculine, feminine) and thus cause desire (towards the other gender) is
false….and it critically reduces our capacity for thinking gender/sexuality/ desire otherwise”
(Hey, 2006, p. 446).
The Heterosexual Matrix
Foucault’s (1979) structures of intelligibility describe “regimes of truth that regulate - in
a given history - the thinkable, the recognizable, the limits, and the transgressions discursively
codified through legal, medical, and educational structures” (Britzman, 1995, p. 156). Judith
Butler (1999) utilized Foucault’s concept of structures of intelligibility in creating the
“heterosexual matrix,” which explains the ways in which the possibilities for gender and
sexuality are normatively produced and sustained through heteronormative practices. Further

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informed by Adrienne Rich's (1983) concept of 'compulsory heterosexuality' and Monique
Wittig's (1992) notion of the 'heterosexual contract', Butler identifies the heterosexual matrix as a
“hegemonic discursive/epistemological model of gender intelligibility” which assumes two and
only two sexes connected to two and only two genders, “oppositionally and hierarchically
defined through the compulsory practice of heterosexuality” (Butler, 1990, p. 151). This matrix,
which shows ‘man’ and ‘woman’ as two rows cross-referenced to columns labeled ‘straight’,
‘gay’, and ‘bisexual’, is upheld through power relations and regulatory regimes that sustain
gender inequities and enforce heteronormativity. Despite this, Butler (1993) asserts that
heterosexuality and gender are inherently unstable, and “exposes the fragility of the heterosexual
matrix as malleable and open to rearticulation” (Renold, 2006, p. 494). Queer theoretical
perspectives problematize the heterosexual matrix by questioning its fixed nature and
investigating the ways in which the heterosexual matrix makes certain identities, performances,
and sexual behaviors imperceptible (McWilliams & Penuel, 2016).
To update the heterosexual matrix, McWilliams (2016) suggests the addition of two more
gender boxes, transgender man and transgender woman. This creates a larger matrix with four
gender options cross-referenced to three sexualities. While this updated matrix includes the
transgender identities one might call binary, it still renders invisible non-binary identities such as
genderqueer, genderfluid, agender, bigender, and others. McWilliams (2016) notes that it is
“generally agreed that regardless of whether you’re transgender or cisgender, you still fall
squarely into either the ‘man’ category or the ‘woman’ category, so that you’re either a cisgender
man or a cisgender woman, or a transgender man or a transgender woman” (p. 1). This new
articulation of the matrix shows that even though options for gender identities may be expanding,

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there are still identities and behaviors that are unintelligible within dominant understandings of
gender and sexuality.
Intersectionality
Black feminist theorists have contributed many critical ideas to thinking about gender and
its interlocking relationship with race, sexuality, and class (Collins, 2002; Crenshaw, 1995;
hooks, 1984; Spelman, 1998). Black feminism asserts that the mainstream feminist movement
caters to the needs of middle-class White women, and that Women of Color have different needs
and experience different struggles. Issues that have not been emphasized in mainstream, White
feminist movements—particularly the second wave—include sexual and domestic violence,
access to affordable health care, and fair labor practices. Salient aspects of Black feminism
include the assertion that Black women have been, and still are, an oppressed group, and they are
oppressed in ways dissimilar from White women or Black men. Under both feminist and antiracist organizations, Spelman (1998) argues that issues facing Black women were less important
to the issues facing White women and Black men. Because systems of both race and gender are
implicated in Black women’s oppression, neither can be eliminated without also eliminating the
other. Black feminism aims to amplify the voices and experiences of Black women, to engage in
consciousness-raising leading to self-empowerment, and produce intersectional social change
through various means.
Although Black women were active in both the second wave feminist movement and the
civil rights movement, neither one was willing to take up the charge for issues that Black women
face. The Combahee River Collective Statement, published in 1977 by a collective of Black
feminists, describes the ways in which Black feminism goes beyond the common White feminist
concerns of the time, including unfulfilled lives and professional advancement:

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“The most general statement of our politics at the present time would be that we are
actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class
oppression, and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and
practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking. The
synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives.” (p. 1)
bell hooks (1984) was one of the first scholars who critiqued White feminists such as
Betty Friedan’s focus on middle-class White women. Specifically, hooks argues that women of
color have very different needs and experience different struggles due to the interconnectivity of
race, class, and gender and their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and
domination. Black women do not face two separate struggles, or realities, one of being Black and
the other of being woman; they face one struggle, or reality, of being a Black woman. hooks
(1984) insists that one does not have to identify as either anti-racist or anti-sexist, but instead, we
should identify as anti-oppression, in all its forms; for one type of oppression cannot be
destroyed unless the others are destroyed along with it.
Crenshaw (1995) builds upon hooks’ argument that Women of Color’s lived experiences
are not represented in feminist or anti-racist movements, and proposes an intersectional approach
using structural intersectionality and political intersectionality to analyze violence against
women of color. Structural intersectionality occurs when women of color simultaneously
experience oppression in the form of sexism and racism, intersecting to form an experience
different from racism or sexism alone. Crenshaw (1995) argues that anti-racist political
organizing is centered around Black male concerns, while feminist political organizing is
centered around White female concerns. This siloed approach to identity creates racially
oppressive feminist movements and patriarchal anti-racist movements, and causes barriers for

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full participation of Black women. Crenshaw argues that feminists must acknowledge the racial
hierarchy and anti-racists must acknowledge the patriarchy before black women’s experiences
are addressed, but it will be difficult because these messages are embedded in our culture.
Intersectionality is important because it provides a framework to understand how and why
various oppressions work together to produce different experiences and different injustices. It
also reminds us that oppression(s) cannot be quantified or pulled apart, that we cannot say
definitively which oppression is worse/more prevalent/more foundational than the other. It also
provides recognition that other forms of oppression (class, sexuality, disability, language, etc.)
also intersect with each other and mutually support each other; however, the results/ effects may
not be well known or supported by any mainstream social movements.
Feminist & Queer Theory: Limitations for Transgender Analysis
Mainstream White feminist theories have, at their core, a concern for the social
conditions of people designated as female and/or those who identify as cisgender women.
Feminist theory and the feminist movement(s) have been crucial in naming and interrogating
cisgender male supremacy, and the ways in which cisgender women are oppressed and
subjugated by sexist systems. The primary reason feminist theory is inadequate for a
transgender-centered analysis is its adherence to a dichotomous view of gender. Feminist theory
has historically centered the needs and experiences of cisgender women, and although thirdwave feminism has attempted to be more inclusive, there is still a philosophical divide within
modern feminism about whether or not trans women are actually women. Over time, there has
been “a silencing of transgendered voices, particularly in academic discourse, but also within
feminist and lesbian communities” (Doan, 2007, p. 63). A few feminist scholars, such as Butler
(1990), Feinberg (1996), Halberstam (1998) and Wilchins (2004), argue against “binary male or

25

female constructions of gender and transgender expression as mental illness, favoring more fluid
notions of gender identity” (Bilodeau & Renn, 2005, p. 32). However, feminism as a theoretical
construct largely presupposes a gender binary in which one gender/sex category (woman/female)
is systematically oppressed by another gender/sex category (man/male). Hines (2007) suggests
that “on a theoretical, political and cultural level, feminism has been largely hostile to
transgender practices” (p. 17). Feminism, therefore, does not singularly provide the necessary
frameworks for the purposes of centering transgender experiences and disrupting the gender
binary as a stable and necessary construct.
Queer theory aims to disrupt systemic heteronormative structures that regulate and police
desire and sexuality. At its foundation, queer theory builds upon the social constructionist work
of feminist theory and incorporates elements of postmodernism and poststructural theory.
Britzman (1995) asserts that queer theory critiques and problematizes normalcy “as a structure
and as a pedagogy”; normalcy creates exclusion, and exclusion creates a binary. By refusing and
destabilizing the idea that there is a ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ sexuality, queer theory disrupts
heteronormative assumptions and challenges dominant narratives of sexual desire and its
connection to gender. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1990), one of the founders of queer theory,
problematized the heterosexual/homosexual binary, noting that its primary use is to reinforce
heteronormative structures while othering homosexuality. Sedgwick, along with other queer
theorists, assert that one’s sexual identity is not innate, stable, or fixed; instead, they assert
identity is “multiple, shifting, and contingent on context” (McWilliams, 2015, p. 21). An
understanding of sexuality as intricately connected to binary sex and gender systems, according
to Sedgwick, is simplistic and limiting. Queer theory, then, asserts that queer people have

26

knowledge about the possibilities of sexuality, pleasure, and desire that are unintelligible within
heteronormative structures.
Queer theory and transgender theory have much in common; they both share an interest
in embodiment and the ways that bodies are politicized. Both queer theory and trans theory work
to destabilize identity and identity categories as fixed or natural. And both fields of theory are
interested in the ways gender norms can restrict possibility for full expression and happiness.
Apart from these similarities, there are two significant reasons why queer theory falls short for
the present analysis. First, at its core, queer theory centers sexuality and sexual desire rather than
gender identity. Although a significant number of transgender people may also identify their
sexuality as queer, their needs and experiences as transgender people are not necessarily the
same as queer people who are cisgender. Queer theory most directly explores the possibilities of
fluidity and creativity among gender expressions, behaviors, and objects of desire; it is less
attuned to fluidity and creativity among gender identities. These are some of the reasons why
several scholars have argued that queer theory neglects the lives of transgender people (Hines,
2006; King, 1993; Prosser, 1998).
Second, the concept of queer, as an identity or as a politic, does not necessarily include,
appeal to, or accurately describe all transgender people. For example, some transgender
individuals do not find the gender binary inherently problematic; they transition from one
sex/gender to another without necessarily contesting the stability or necessity of the gender order.
Elliot (2009) notes that some “transsexuals do not seek to queer or destabilize categories of
gender but to successfully embody them, regardless of sexual orientation” (p. 38). Doan (2007)
also notes that “most queer spaces have been unable to accommodate alternative subject
positions such as nontraditional gender presentations within these communities, leaving these

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individuals vulnerable and invisible in public spaces” (p. 63). Although gender transgressions are
typically welcome in queer spaces, deviations from binary gender identities are not always
accepted (Doan, 2007). In addition, not all transgender people identify with queer as a sexual
identity label. The sexual identities of transgender people are just as varied and vast as those of
cisgender people: heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, pansexual, asexual, demisexual,
and the list goes on. Depending on how a scholar or writer is defining queer, then, trans
experiences may or may not be represented.
Let us consider for a moment how feminist and queer theoretical perspectives manifest in
teacher education programs. In their critical interrogation of the aims of anti-homophobia
education, Lee Airton (2009) identified “two distinct paradigms professing to do or say
something about gender in school” (p. 129): a sex-based approach defining gender as
women/girls and men/boys, and a sexuality-based approach, exploring issues primarily relevant
to lesbian and gay communities. In the first paradigm, the focus is kept on topics such as gender
norms and stereotypes, bias against girls in STEM, or the disparity in boys versus girls assigned
to special education. This paradigm relies on a binary understanding of gender and generally
does not acknowledge or explore transgender as a topic within the category of ‘gender.’
The second paradigm, the sexuality-based approach, explores homophobia within a
heteronormative system (Airton, 2009). In teacher education courses, this paradigm can be seen
through issues such as coming out as gay or lesbian, bullying and violence experienced by gay
and lesbian youth, or marriage equality. Although the LGBT acronym is ubiquitous within the
sexuality-based approach, many scholars exclude or underrepresent transgender youth in their
studies, or focus solely on sexuality and not gender identity. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer
(LGBQ) identify individuals whose sexual orientation or sexual behavior falls outside the norms

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and expectations of heteronormativity. Transgender, on the other hand, refers to gender identity
in the same way that ‘man’ or ‘woman’ refers to gender identity. Just as it is possible for
(cisgender) men and women to be heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, pansexual, asexual
or any other number of sexual orientation identities, the same is true for transgender people. In
other words, transgender people have both a gender identity and a sexual orientation.
Transgender realities are not apparent in either of the paradigms Airton identified, and so preservice teachers continue to be underprepared to understand or effectively advocate for their
transgender students.
In this section, I explained the contributions of feminist and queer theory to
understanding sex, gender, and sexuality. I also briefly discussed intersectionality as an important
contribution to understanding intersecting forms or systems of oppression. Although gender
identity and the gender binary are at the center of this study, these elements are also viewed at
their intersection with other forms of oppression such as racism, ableism, and classism. In
addition, I explained why feminist theory and queer theory are singularly inadequate for use in a
transgender-centered inquiry. Transgender theorists “caution against trends in queer and feminist
theory that cast gender as taking place solely on a sociocultural level while neglecting the
embodied realities of the many transgender people who seek hormonal and surgical change to
align their physical and experiential realities” (Meyer, Tilland-Stafford & Airton, 2016, p. 4).
Although both feminist and queer theoretical approaches are concerned with power and
oppression and challenge dominant ideologies, neither provide an appropriate or accurate
framework to critique the ways in which the gender binary itself is implicated within systems of
oppression for transgender and other gender nonconforming individuals.

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In the next section, I will explain the contributions of education theories to the present
study, noting particular areas of curriculum theory and critical educational theory that are
influential to my research perspective and methodological commitments.
Contributions of Education Theories
Critical theory and curriculum theory have informed the theoretical framework with
which I approach the present study. Although there are an infinite number of educational theories
and teaching/learning models, I argue that the dominant culture relies on positivistic assumptions
about knowledge (Kincheloe, 2008) and emphasizes a teacher-centered, banking model of
teaching and learning (Apple, 1990; Freire, 1994). Alternately, critical pedagogy—a movement
of resistance against the dominant culture’s educational ideologies—is informed by assumptions
about knowledge that are anti-positivistic (Kincheloe, 2008) and emphasizes a learner-centered,
critical model of teaching and learning (Freire, 1994; Wink, 2004).
Critical theorists are concerned with theorizing systems of power, ideology, and
knowledge. The critical theories that most heavily inform my work emphasize schooling as an
opportunity for transformation and emancipation from social constructions of oppression
including race, class, sexuality and gender (DeMarrais & LeCompte, 1999; Kincheloe, 2005). In
this way, the ‘critical’ in critical theory calls upon an unearthing or deconstructing of the hidden
assumptions that govern society. In particular, critical theorists are interested debunking and
deconstructing assumptions about the legitimacy of power relationships and official knowledge.
The United States’ K-12 schooling system exists in a constant state of tension over the goals and
purposes of schooling, how knowledge is defined and constructed, who should have access to
schools, and many other complex concerns involving a multitude of constituents. War, global
competition, political whims, and changes in economic stability also influence the direction and

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function of the schooling system. While the dominant heteronormative culture attempts to
control the discourse of schooling, diverse and marginalized groups push back with resistance,
providing a turbulent undercurrent of discursive power. Critical pedagogy represents one of these
undercurrents attempting to disrupt the status quo.
Critical pedagogical practices and assumptions about knowledge work to stop the cycles
of oppression and violence that provide a barrier to both marginalized and privileged groups in
reaching true justice and equality. Macedo (1993) believes that teachers operating under the
dominant culture’s ideological assumptions are being rewarded “for reproducing and not
questioning dominant mechanisms designed to produce power asymmetries along the lines of
race, gender, class, culture, and ethnicity” (p. 75). Using critical pedagogy, educators can
transform the purpose of education from one of reproducing the dominant culture, to creating
informed citizens who question and challenge it.
In Education for Critical Consciousness, Paulo Freire explains how the colonial
imperialist history left the people of Brazil without the “habits of political and social solidarity
appropriate to our democratic form of government” (2010, p. 34). Freire continues: “we had to
appeal to education as a cultural action by means of which the Brazilian people could learn, in
place of the old passivity, new attitudes and habits of participation and intervention” (2010, p.
34). Freire held that new attitudes and habits had to be formed through critical education prior to
any sort of social change occurring, because the oppressed internalize the oppressor’s way of
thinking and behaving in the world. Internalizing oppressive ideologies occurs most dependably
through what Freire called a ‘banking model’ of education, where critical thinking is discouraged
and rote memorization of ‘official knowledge’ (Apple, 1990) is the mark of academic success.

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Contrary to the banking model of education, critical pedagogy is student-centered where
the teacher is a facilitator or guide and the students are actively involved in their own education.
The reason this type of emphasis is beneficial for U.S. society is because the nation is becoming
increasingly diverse, not only in terms of race and ethnicity but also with respect to religion,
gender and sexual diversity. A curriculum and pedagogy reliant on the values, expectations and
worldviews of white middle- and upper-class heterosexual men simply will not benefit the
coming generations of Americans. A classroom enacting critical pedagogy makes use of
assumptions about knowledge, pedagogical and curricular practices that are often at odds to the
dominant culture’s preferred assumptions and practices. In order to achieve the societal ideals of
justice and equality, schooling must instill students with a powerful sense of agency.
Curriculum is Ideologically and Politically Powerful
Critical theorists argue that curricular choices can “serve dominant interests not through
sheer repression of the underprivileged, but through social practices that are normalized over
time” (Walton, 2005, p. 59). Textbooks and other written texts are integral elements of the
explicit or intended curriculum (Eisner, 1994) and can provide the basis for what is considered
important or valuable for pre-service teachers to know. Textbooks in the 19th century were
written by individuals such as William H. McGuffey (Reese, 2011) to encourage assimilation and
rote memorization, and the teachers followed this standard. The authoritarian, classical
curriculum model dominated much of this era; however, new ideas about education arrived
around the turn of the century with the Progressive movement and John Dewey.
Dewey’s reform movement, starting with his laboratory school, replaced classical
curriculum with student-centered learning that meets the specific needs, concerns and
motivations of each child (Dewey, 1902). While Dewey is not widely considered a critical

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pedagogue, his methods share some of the same attributes, such as the emphasis on teachers as
guides and facilitators centered on the learner’s interests and promoting critical thinking and
problem-solving skills. Critical pedagogues differ from Dewey’s methods on multiple issues,
including a clearer focus on systems of power and privilege and an emphasis on individual and
community empowerment against hegemonic practices (Kincheloe, 2008). Dewey perceived
social problems such as increased poverty to be caused by authoritarian schooling methods, and
hypothesized that students would become more invested in their own education, participate in
democracy, and create stronger problem-solving skills through a curriculum that was meaningful
for them. Progressive and experiential methods of education enjoyed popularity through the
economically prosperous years of the mid-20th century until World War II, when global
competition started to become a heavy influence on the process and policies of schooling.
Scholars interested in the hidden curriculum have asserted for decades that schooling is
always political and never neutral, with real consequences for society (Apple, 1990; Giroux,
2001; Vallance, 1974). Deciding what is important for students to learn and know is a loaded
question; inevitably, some content is included and much more is not. Because this is true, we
must pay attention to who makes curricular decisions, what those decisions are, and which
students benefit most from the curricular content provided. A critical analysis of the hidden and
null curriculum reveals not only that curriculum is limited, but also that it is skewed or biased
toward a particular status quo, supporting and reproducing systems of privilege for Whites, men,
Christians, heterosexuals, English speakers, the wealthy, and able-bodied people.
Considering the limitations of school curriculum, why does it matter that certain values or
knowledge is excluded or marginalized? Looking at it from a philosophical lens, Linda Alcoff
(1993) argues that certain discourses (in this case, discourses related to gender) are presented as

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constant, natural or normal, and it is not coincidental that these discourses are primarily those
that maintain oppressive systems such as sexism, racism, and ableism. As Ingrey (2014) states,
“Reiterations of myths become part of the hidden curriculum and have led to an assault on
people who feel their gender and their bodies do not cohere to society’s binary gender norms” (p.
104). Eisner (1994) suggests that we must give attention to what is not taught; like many
complex and sometimes controversial issues, what a teacher says or implies about gender is just
as important as what they do not say. The null curriculum is defined as everything left out of the
curriculum, which can be just as impactful as the explicit curriculum; it conveys meaning to
students that certain content or ways of knowing either do not exist or are not important enough
to include.
In summary, educational theoretical concepts such as the official knowledge
(Apple,1990), critical pedagogy (Freire, 1994; Kincheloe, 2008; Wink, 2004), and the hidden and
null curriculum (Eisner, 1994; Ingrey, 2014) are foundational to my theoretical perspective.
Disappointingly, there is minimal scholarship focused on the overlap of gender and curriculum,
and no theoretical frameworks that bring these two together while centering and challenging the
gender binary. Because of this, I put forward the following Critical Trans Framework, which
integrates important contributions from queer, feminist and transgender theory with critical
curriculum theories. These principles guided my analysis throughout this study.
Principles of a Critical Trans Framework
Through this framework, which I am calling a Critical Trans Framework, I am bringing
together understandings from gender theories and critical curriculum theories. This Critical Trans
Framework can be understood as working alongside existing theoretical paradigms within the
field of education that explain systemic oppressions such as racism, sexism, heterosexism,

34

decolonialism, and ableism. It also incorporates and builds upon important recent work at the
intersection of transgender studies and student affairs (Catalano, 2015; Nicolazzo, 2017).
The definitions I provide here should be considered in flux and inevitably insufficient to
describe people’s gendered realities. I approach concepts such as gender and transgender with a
poststructural sensibility (Ball, 1995; Derrida, 1980), in that I recognize the impossible task of
clarifying and simplifying concepts that are constantly in flux, concepts whose definition may
change given certain contexts or perspectives. Thus, readers may disagree with the ways in
which I have categorized, included or excluded various concepts. I cannot claim to create an
accurate portrayal or representation of all trans people’s experiences, and I reject the notion that
there are right and wrong ways of knowing gender. However, I propose that some ways of
knowing gender might be less damaging, more transformative, more liberatory, and/or more
representative than others. It is my intent, then, to put forth conceptualizations of gender that
achieve these goals most closely.
Principle 1: Gender has Individual, Institutional, and Cultural Levels
My definition of gender is informed by Beemyn and Eliason (1996), Butler (2004),
Stryker and Aizura (2013) and Catalano and Shlasko (2013). I describe gender as a system with
individual, institutional and social/cultural aspects. Viewing gender in this way helps us see how
it is operating at all three levels and, taken together, helps us see the complexity of the system as
a whole. This definition also acknowledges and celebrates the various ways in which individuals
resist and uproot the dominant understanding of gender as separate/different from one’s
biological sex.
On the individual level, gender is manifested through various complex means, distilled
here into the categories of gender identity and gender expression. Gender identity is defined as “a

35

person’s internal self-concept with regard to gender categories like man, woman, transgender,
genderqueer, and many others” (Catalano & Shlasko, 2013, p. 426). Though I do not believe
gender identity is biologically determined, I also do not agree that it is purely socially
constructed; in other words, I do not think it inherently follows that we “are” a gender by
“doing” it (Schilt & Westbrook, 2009). To be clear, there is not currently culturally recognized or
intelligible ways for some transgender people to “do” their authentic gender identity in a way
that is accurately perceived by others. For example, a variety of transgender identities that exist
between or beyond the currently available binary gender categories of man and woman, but have
no intelligible (Butler, 1999; Foucault, 1979) means of expressing or displaying non-binary
gender identities.
In the 1960s, Stoller and Greenson developed the term gender identity, which “clearly
differentiated the subjective sense of self from the behaviors associated with masculinity and
femininity” (Meyerowitz, 2002, p.115). Stoller was also clear in separating one’s gender identity
from one’s “sexual identity,” which is now generally referred to as sexual orientation.
Understanding gender identity to be separate from biological sex and sexual orientation was an
integral step for the medical field to acknowledge the need for gender affirmation surgeries.
While helpful constructs still today, it should be noted that Stoller and other researchers of the
time perceived gender identity through a Freudian psychoanalytic lens, and relied heavily on
such concepts as penis envy and the Oedipus complex to explain gender non-conformity.
Transgender theorist Sally Hines notes that since the 1970s, “medical perspectives on
transgender occupy a dominant position that has significantly affected how transgender is viewed
and experienced within contemporary Western society” (2007, p. 4). Gender Identity Disorder,
the psychological classification given to transgender individuals who intend to medically

36

transition, was finally removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM) in 2013, replaced with Gender Dysphoria. Many in the transgender community were
pleased with the removal of the term ‘disorder’ from the list of criteria needed to access medical
transition resources. As Butler (1990) reminds us, the problem does not stem from transgender
people’s mental health; the root of the problem is the binary and restrictive system of gender.
From the 1990s to the present, dominant ideas about gender identity have been disrupted and
expanded. The proliferation of the internet and social media has completely changed how people
understand their own and others’ gender, and we now see a proliferation of identity labels and
pronouns being used by trans people in various locations across the country.
Gender expression can be thought of as the “behaviors, such as attire, demeanor, and
language, through which we intentionally or unintentionally communicate gender” (Catalano &
Shlasko, 2013, p. 426-427). Gender identity and gender expression tend to, but do not always,
overlap. For example, someone who identifies as a woman might choose to signify this by
displaying mannerisms, wearing clothes and hairstyles that are culturally considered feminine,
thus being ‘read’ as a woman. This ‘reading’ of gender has been called gender attribution
(Bornstein, 1994). When attributing a gender to a person, we use physical cues such as hair,
voice, and movement; behavioral cues such as manners; textual cues including histories,
documents, and names (Rands, 2009). Many trans people become frustrated when others
attribute a gender that they do not identify with, which can result in greater feelings of anxiety,
depression, and social isolation. This can be especially true for non-binary or genderqueer
people, as there is no culturally recognized gender expression that allows them to be ‘read’ as
something other than a man or a woman.

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It should be noted that in this conceptualization of gender, biological sex is intentionally
separated from gender identity and expression. This is an explicit statement that biological sex
should be considered completely separate from one’s gender, except for the connection they both
have to certain institutional policies and practices and social/cultural norms, roles and
conventions. For example, when a person gives birth to a baby, the social institutions involved in
that event (government, medical, etc.) require the doctors to identify the biological sex of the
baby via visual inspection. That decision automatically connects the baby’s physiology to their
expected gender identity through the socialization process which includes the institutions of
family, media, and education. This is not to say that all people, trans and cis, should (or do)
consider their sex as being different from their gender, but instead to acknowledge that one’s sex
does not determine one’s gender, and for some individuals such as myself, my body and its
physiological parts have absolutely no relevance to my gender identity. Therefore, it is most
inclusive to consider sex and gender as separate concepts, so that individuals whose sex and
gender align and those that do not align both find themselves represented and acknowledged.
Calling on the work of gender theorists, such as Bornstein (1994), Feinberg (1997)
Wilchins (2004), and Bilodeau (2007) I am defining transgender as “a broad range of gender
non-conforming identities, including individuals whose biological sex assignment and societal
expectations for gender expression are in conflict with the individual’s gender identity” (Renn &
Bilodeau, 2005, p. 52). Catalano and Shlasko (2013) add that the mismatch between societal
expectations and one’s gender identity or expression “is central to their identity and/or important
in determining their life circumstances” (p. 427). Transgender is an achieved rather than ascribed
identity, in the sense that one cannot determine whether another person is transgender or
effectively label them as such. Identities under the broader umbrella of transgender could

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include, but are not limited to: Female to Male (FtM) and Male to Female (MtF) transsexuals
(also known as transgender men and women, respectively), non-binary, genderqueer,
genderfluid, bigender, third gender, and agender/genderless individuals.
I am hesitant to pin down what I mean by trans, because by its very nature it is defiant to
categorization. I am also strongly against putting borders around what is and is not trans, because
that encourages conflict and competition regarding who is ‘trans enough’, who is ‘really’ trans,
and what one must be or do to meet the requirements of ‘trans’. Figure 3.1 presents my own
attempt at categorizing and explaining trans identities, as imperfect as it is.

Binary Trans
Identities

Non-Binary Trans
Identities

• Trans Men
• Trans Women
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Agender
Bigender
Demigender
Intergender
Genderqueer
Gender-fluid
Culturally specific gender identities
(Two Spirit, Hijra, Fa'afafine,etc.)

Figure 3.1. Author’s Categorization of Trans Identities

Some generalizations can help to explain why I chose to separate ‘binary’ from ‘nonbinary’ transgender identities. Trans men and women are more likely than non-binary individuals
to want to bio-medically transition from one intelligible gender to the other intelligible gender.
Because gender-affirming surgeries can cost tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket, whether
trans men and women are actually able to undergo bio-medical transition depends largely on
their economic status, access to medical resources and/or trans-inclusive insurance. Trans people
who bio-medically transition face particular challenges, such as access to hormones and other
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medical procedures, airport security, and the sex-separated prison system (Spade, 2011;
Transgender Law Center, 2014).
Non-binary trans people may or may not undergo bio-medical transition, based on a
variety of factors including economic access and whether or not they believe bio-medical
transition would enable them to feel affirmed in their body or be perceived by others in a more
authentic way. But because gender is so tied with biological sex, itself a binary with two choices,
medical transition may not be helpful for non-binary individuals. Regardless of whether or not a
trans person biomedically transitions, there are certain challenges that nearly all trans people
face, including accessing trans-inclusive mental health (Carmel, Hopwood & dickey, 2014),
opportunities for dating & relationships, having your gender perceived authentically (Nicolazzo,
2015), and issues of social transition such as name and pronoun changes.
The use of an asterisk after trans, written as trans*, is an alternate textual representation
of “the multitude of identities and identity categories that refer to those of us who are trans*”
(Nicolazzo, 2016, p. 2; see also Tompkins, 2014). I have chosen not to use an asterisk after trans
in this paper because I believe that ‘trans’, on its own, creates space for any individual who does
not identify as cisgender.
Schilt and Westbrook (2009) explain that the term cisgender refers to “individuals who
have a match between the gender they were assigned at birth, their bodies, and their personal
identity" (p. 461). It is beneficial to consider that Schilt and Westbrook did not specifically
include gender expression in this definition. As Nicolazzo reminds us, “some people may
identify as cisgender, but have an outward gender expression others may read as transgressing
gender boundaries” (2015, p. 4). In other words, some people may actively resist normative
gender expressions through their hairstyle, clothing choices, and other mannerisms, yet identify

40

as cisgender. One example of this from popular culture is Ellen DeGeneres, a cisgender woman
whose gender expression would be considered masculine. Non-conforming gender expressions
could include cisgender women with masculine-learning gender expressions, and cisgender men
with feminine-leaning expressions.
Cisgender privilege is a set of social advantages provided to cisgender individuals that
are not available to transgender individuals. Evin Taylor (2015) discusses cisgender privilege in a
similar way to Peggy McIntosh’s (2004) “invisible knapsack” of white privilege, citing examples
of cisgender privilege such as being confident in and unaffected by checking ‘Male’ or ‘Female’
on forms; obtaining government identification that accurately represents your name and gender;
having regular interaction with someone whose gender identity matches your own; having access
to doctors who acknowledge your gender identity and provide you with holistic preventative and
emergency care; and not having to prove your gender before others call you by the correct name
and pronoun (Taylor, 2015, p. 456-457).
On the institutional level, gender is manifested through various policies and practices
which have encoded the gender binary into our socialization and social order, including the
social construct of a biological sex binary. Many of our social institutions are built upon the idea
that there are two sexes and two accompanying genders, and there is no possibility for anything
else. In other words, gender is constructed as a binary system manifested through gender roles,
gender norms, and other administrative practices (Spade, 2015). In his book Normal Life (2015),
Dean Spade explains how administrative gender classification practices and policies, such as
identification documents, sex-segregated facilities, and health care access codifies transgender
oppression into nearly every aspect of one’s life. It is our involvement within social institutions
such as family, church, media, and school that provide us with socially constructed gender

41

expectations. One aspect of institutional gender is its inclusion (or exclusion) from curriculum.
On the social/cultural level, our society’s norms, roles and conventions create and sustain
gendered expectations and gender inequality. Along with social institutions, this level is where
gender takes on social, interactive meanings.
Understanding gender as a system with multiple levels allows us to more clearly see the
systemic and institutional means by which gender non-conformity and trans identities are
oppressed and erased. Transgender people do not just experience individual hatred, fear, and
bigotry; there are social structures in place that maintain the gender binary as a hegemonic force.
It also helps us see that the way one understands their gender identity and expression is related
to, but not dependent upon, one’s sexual orientation. Through this distinction, it becomes clear
that neither sexism nor heterosexism fully articulates the multi-layered oppressive systems and
beliefs that oppress transgender people, and there is no clear or common understanding of where
trans people fit into these frameworks. To that point, Airton (2009) noted that “anti-sexist
projects address the effects of strict gender binary socialization and not their root cause” (p. 134,
emphasis original). The relatively new concept of genderism (Browne, 2004; Hill & Willoughby,
2005; Bilodeau, 2007) provides a much better lens through which to interrogate trans oppression.
Principle 2 is focused on the systemic level of gender.
Principle 2: Genderism is Endemic to Society
Dominant ideologies that serve the interest of dominant groups are embedded in everyday
life, and can be seen when “schools create and recreate forms of consciousness that enable social
control to be maintained without the necessity of dominant groups having to resort to overt
mechanisms of domination” (Apple, 1990, p. 2). Hegemonic ideology propagates the values and

42

norms of those in power until they become the preferred or “common sense” values and norms
for everyone.
Genderism provides a framework for interrogating the gender binary itself as problematic
and understanding the unique challenges trans people face that are related to, but not the same as,
oppression faced by cisgender women or cisgender LGBQ individuals. Genderism as an
ideology upholds the gender binary as normal and ideal, privileging gender normativity and
cisgender individuals over gender diversity and transgender individuals (Bilodeau, 2007; Hill &
Willoughby, 2005). Similar to other structural systems of oppression like racism and sexism,
genderism operates at multiple levels and within every social institution’s policies and practices
to uphold its beliefs and values. Hill and Willoughby (2005) define genderism in this way:
Genderism is an ideology that reinforces the negative evaluation of gender nonconformity or an incongruence between sex and gender. It is a cultural belief that
perpetuates negative judgments of people who do not present as a stereotypical man or
woman. Similar to heterosexism, we propose that genderism is both a source of social
oppression and psychological shame, such that it can be imposed on a person, but also
that a person may internalize these beliefs. (p. 534)
Bilodeau (2007) identified four major characteristics of genderism. First, genderism
forces categorization of all individuals into male or female identities at an institutional level.
Both qualitative and quantitative research shows evidence that the binary gender system creates
interpersonal and institutional expectations which not only restrict the ways in which we can
understand and express ourselves, but also perpetuate gender-based inequities (Annandale &
Hunt, 2000; Kimmel, 2004; Sadker & Zittleman, 2009). People are generally quick to refer to
someone as ‘he’ or ‘she’ depending on what gender we subconsciously attribute to them. Gender

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attribution (Bornstein, 1994) is a process by which one perceives another’s gender. When
attributing a gender to a person, we use physical cues such as hair, voice, and movement;
behavioral cues such as manners; textual cues including histories, documents, and names (Rands,
2009). Our spontaneous attribution of gender is disrupted when we encounter someone whose
gender is not instantly recognizable. Stryker puts it poignantly when she writes, “Because most
people have great difficulty recognizing the humanity of another person if they cannot recognize
that person’s gender, the gender-changing person can evoke in others a primordial fear of
monstrosity, or loss of humanness” (2008, p. 5). Individuals who do not fit neatly into one of the
two gender options are seen as outcasts, freaks, and often referred to derogatorily as ‘she-male’,
‘he/she’, ‘tranny’, or ‘it’. The absence of transgender and gender non-conforming realities, both
in practice and in theory, creates official knowledge about gender where transgender and gender
non-conforming individuals are silenced and invisible.
The second characteristic of genderism is that conforming to binary gender norms is
socially policed with punishments for those who fail to conform (Bilodeau, 2007). Deviations
from culturally normative gender behavior tend to be constrained by negative consequences that
range from disapproval and bullying to harassment and violence. These negative consequences
act as tools in the preservation of hegemonic gender norms that uphold and reassert the
importance of conforming to binary gender expectations.
The third characteristic of genderism states that marginalization of transgender people
occurs through “overt and covert privileging of binary systems” (Bilodeau, 2007, p. 48), and the
fourth characteristic states that the privileging of binary systems results in the invisibility and
isolation of transgender people. Pronouns present a particularly frustrating barrier for transgender
individuals, their loved ones, and even strangers they encounter in public. Many trans people

44

become frustrated when others attribute a gender that they do not identify with; this can result in
greater feelings of anxiety, depression, and social isolation. Genderqueer and non-binary
individuals who identify as neither woman nor man are completely invisible in the English
language, as there are no conventional pronouns that accurately and appropriately refer to
genderqueer or non-binary individuals.
Understanding genderism is critical in pre-service and in-service teachers’ ability to
respond to the challenges trans people face and incorporate a gender-expansive perspective into
their practice. We cannot fully understand the social context of education without acknowledging
the effect of genderism on everything from curriculum to classroom management to policy.
Principle 3: Transgender People’s Experiential Knowledge is Essential to Overcoming the
Epistemology of Ignorance
Experiential knowledge is a foundational principle in my Critical Trans Framework, and
teacher education courses need to ensure they are centering trans experiences and lived realities.
Nicolazzo (2015) provides the foundation for a “trans* epistemology” that explores “what the
possibilities are when trans* people imagine an epistemological standpoint of our own, and how
that standpoint may (re)frame educational praxis” (p. 3). Two of Nicolazzo’s tenets are
particularly significant for teacher education and ways in which we can understand trans
experiences. First, “we all experience our trans*ness differently as a result of our varied,
intersecting identities” (p. 7). Nicolazzo points to the ways genderism interacts with racism,
ableism, and other systems of oppression. As a result of this, “the way we make sense of
ourselves, and the way other people make sense of our embodiments/expressions of our
trans*ness, mediates our (in)ability to navigate our social contexts” (2016, p. 11) The second
tenet of Nicolazzo’s trans* epistemology that is most relevant to teacher education is

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“In/visibility and its varied meanings are central to our senses of self, community, and kinship”
(2017, p. 7). Here, Nicolazzo discusses the ways in which trans people are both visible and
invisible in different contexts, and how this reality is influential in the ways trans people
understand themselves and others. Nicolazzo suggests that although trans people are often
invisible in material spaces, virtual spaces offer a safer and more accepting environment.
Mills (1997) and Tuana (2008) direct our attention to ignorance, not as a state of
unknowing, but as intentional, and actively constructed. Though Mills originally developed this
concept in relation to racism, philosophers such as Tuana and Sullivan (2006) and Code (2014)
have since applied the concepts to feminist concerns. We can recognize that our traditional,
dominant understandings of gender not only privilege a dichotomous gender binary, but are
actively constructed to deny the existence of any other gender identities or experiences. This
echoes Britzman’s suggestion that “the relationship between knowledge and ignorance is neither
oppositional nor binary. Rather, they mutually implicate each other...ignorance is analyzed as an
effect of knowledge” (1995, p. 155). The effect is an epistemology of ignorance surrounding the
possibilities of gender. What we assume to know about gender identity and expression comes
from the perspective of cisgender people, primarily White men. Therefore, what is seen as
deviant, freakish, wrong, etc. in terms of gender identity and expression has been determined by
a certain epistemological perspective. We can identify this as an epistemic injustice, in that it
unjustly oppresses transgender identities, experiences, and knowledges.
Tuana’s (2008) framework for an epistemology of ignorance can be expanded to support
the assertion that there are vast areas of potential knowledge about gender identity, expression,
and possibility that are intentionally avoided. We remain in an ignorant state intentionally; we
fear what we do not know. When the hidden and null curricula maintain binary norms of gender,

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the null curriculum necessarily includes gender non-conformity and transgender identities. These
mechanisms work together to reinforce and normalize the gender binary.
Trans people’s experiences challenge dominant ideological assumptions about the
possibilities of gender. Social justice scholars centering race, disability, and other points of
marginalization have also emphasized the importance of experiential knowledge in
understanding and deconstructing oppressive systems (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017; LadsonBillings & Tate,1995; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). As bell hooks reminds us, “critical pedagogies
of liberation…necessarily embrace experience, confessions and testimony as relevant ways of
knowing, as important, vital dimensions of any learning process” (hooks, 1985, p. 8889). Integrating trans voices and experiences into teacher education courses is an important step

in humanizing trans people and gaining a deep understanding of the complexities of genderism.
In line with Greytak and Kosciw’s (2014) finding that knowing LGBT people is a statistically
significant predictor of a teachers’ frequency of intervention in anti-LGBT behavior, it is
critically important for preservice teachers to meet and interact with trans people in order to gain
a fuller picture of who trans people are.
Principle 4: Visibility and Invisibility—Within Language, Academic Discourse, and
Curriculum— is Central to Understanding Trans.
Language is a powerful tool in understanding what is valued in a particular culture. In the
English language, gender dichotomy is baked into nearly all of the ways we describe people: he
or she, husband or wife, aunt or uncle. It has only been very recently that English has
colloquially expanded to include words to accurately explain and identify individuals who are
genderless, gender-fluid, genderqueer, and/or non-binary. The Merriam-Webster dictionary has,
surprisingly, been fairly responsive to new gender-related terminology, adding ‘cisgender’,
‘genderqueer’, and the gender-neutral honorific ‘Mx.’ in 2016-17, and singular ‘they’ as a
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pronoun for non-binary people is currently on their ‘Words We’re Watching’ list, and may be
added soon (Chokshi, 2016). Presently, the lack of multi-gender language in mainstream gender
discourse enhances the feeling of invisibility among transgender persons. As Riki Wilchins
states, “all aspects of gender that are not named are also assumed not to exist—to be makebelieve” (Wilchins, 2004, p. 39). This linguistic failing is more prominent for non-binary
individuals who identify as neither woman nor man, as there are no widely-used and accepted
singular pronouns that accurately and appropriately refer to non-binary individuals. This means
that each individual who uses non-conventional pronouns such as singular ‘they’ or ‘ze’ must
make the decision whether and how to inform people in their lives about their correct pronoun.
The initial conversation being stressful enough, non-binary trans people must also be ready for
others to use the wrong pronoun, intentionally or not. Being mis-pronouned or mis-gendered is
considered a microaggression against trans people, and can cause psychological distress, strained
relationships, anxiety, depression and isolation (Nordmarken, 2014).
Beyond the words themselves, we can look at discourse as informed by larger social
discourses or ideologies. Using an understanding informed by Foucault (1972) and Fairclough
(1992), we can understand discourse as “broad constitutive systems of meaning that can be seen
as carrying ideology” (Sunderland, 2004, p. 6, emphasis original). According to Foucault,
discourse—as a set of meaning-making practices that produce knowledge—is a form of power.
The primary medium through which discursive power (as opposed to repressive or administrative
power) operates is through production: “discursive power produces specific kinds of individuals,
with specific bodies, pleasures, and sexes” (Wilchins, 2004, p. 62). One way in which discursive
power operates is through discipline, which Foucault (1972) recognizes as the ways in which we
regulate, police, and internalize dominant and restrictive discourses. There is some disagreement

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among critical and poststructural theorists regarding the role of agency within and against
dominant discourses. When considering the experiences of transgender people, it makes most
sense to understand discourses as positioning individuals in different ways, but at the same time,
individuals have some measure of agency in order to contest or resist a particular discoursal
positioning.
In her book Gendered Discourses, Jane Sunderland describes what gendered discourses
are and how they can be identified and named. In other words, Sunderland is looking at “what
people do with language as regards gender” (p. 17). She uses both empirical and theoretical
studies to demonstrate gendered discourse analysis. For example, the gender differences
discourse, identified by Sunderland (2004), relies on the idea that gender is predicated on
biological difference, and that gender is/must be dichotomous. Other dominant gender-related
discourses include the discourse of compulsory heterosexuality (Rich, 1980) where cisgender
women internalize the suggestion that heterosexuality and marriage are inevitable and ideal. We
also see discourses that conflate sexuality and gender identity, and discourses that presume
gender expression is indicative of one’s sexual orientation. These discourses carry dangerous and
inaccurate ideological assumptions about gender and sexuality. These discourses must be
interrupted, unlearned and transformed if our goal is social justice (Kumashiro, 2000). Many
discourses related to gender have potential to cause harm. This harm could come in many forms
– material, symbolic, psychological, and/or social. Similar in some sense to curriculum theory
and the null curriculum, a discourse can be damaging not just through what is said, but also what
is not said.

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Conclusion
The theories outlined in this chapter have several similarities. All theoretical paradigms
presented here look at how systemic structures and systems of power influence people’s
everyday lives, and vice versa. All problematize the idea of ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ and instead
intentionally center those on the margins. All look at the ways in which ideology and hegemony
are used by dominant groups to oppress and regulate. And finally, all are concerned with
transforming society and advancing social justice. However, I have outlined reasons why
feminist and queer theory, while critically influential in their own way, are independently
inadequate to frame this study. In addition, few transgender theorists take up issues of teacher
education curriculum, and few curriculum theorists take up transgender issues. The present study
is poised at the intersection of transgender theoretical frameworks and critical curriculum
studies. One of the significant contributions I hope to make with this dissertation is in merging
the practices of scholarship in each of these fields. In the next chapter, I detail the present study’s
methods of data collection and analysis.

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CHAPTER FOUR: METHODOLOGY AND METHODS
Data collection was conducted in two phases, with the first being a nationwide syllabus
solicitation followed by a summative content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) of the
transgender content in the syllabi. The second phase was a multiple case study comprising four
of the syllabi submitted during Phase 1. Data for Phase 2 included a survey with Likert-scale and
open-ended questions, a one-on-one interview, and a group interview/dialogue.
Methodological Commitments
I approach this study within an interpretivist paradigm (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2012),
meaning that my research does not intend to objectively measure truth, but instead attends to
questions of process and relationality. Through this study I intend to generate knowledge through
understanding participants’ lived realities, experiences, and understandings. I intend to
contextualize and interpret, rather than generalize and predict. In contrast to modernist or
positivist standpoints on research, I believe that my own values, experiences and beliefs
influence my methodology, my data analysis, and my interpretations (Lincoln & Guba, 1985).
Going further, my research has a clear focus on social justice, liberation and empowerment, and
these elements of my methodology are rooted in a critical theory paradigm. It follows, then, that
qualitative research methods are the most appropriate manner through which I explore and
investigate my research questions.
I am utilizing a qualitative research approach for this study because I intend to “obtain indepth understandings about the way things are, why they are that way, and how the participants
in the context perceive them” (Gay, Mills, & Airasian, 2012, p. 12). As a qualitative researcher, I
aim to be reflexive, engaged, mindful, and holistic in my approach to both the data and the
participants (Patton, 2002). I do not see myself as an objective observer; rather, my subjectivity,

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past experiences, and theoretical commitments undoubtedly impact my research. It is my goal to
provide thick description of the cases that I study. In every way possible, I intend to integrate
humanizing (Paris & Winn, 2013) and desire-centered (Tuck & Yang, 2013) practices into my
work. Following the suggestion of Patton (2000), I approached the interviews with a
commitment to seeking “vicarious understanding without judgment by showing openness,
sensitivity, respect, awareness, and responsiveness” (p. 40). Some of the interview questions I
asked were specifically intended to engage in reciprocity, community building and knowledge
co-construction (Paris & Winn, 2013). In the individual interviews, I asked participants, ‘how
can this study help you? What do you want to see come out of this study?’ and in the group
interview I asked, ‘what are our next steps, as a group of instructors committed to transforming
teacher education?’ In this way, I worked to break down the researcher/participant binary and
instead, “engage in a meaningful dialogic spiral based on storying, listening, and reciprocating”
(Kinloch & San Pedro, 2013, p. 33). Because I am interested in the context surrounding
curricular choices, and because my research questions are asking how and why questions, using a
case study method seemed most appropriate.
According to Merriam (1998), case studies should be particularistic, descriptive, and
heuristic. In this sense, a case study project should describe a particular phenomenon and provide
insight into the context of that phenomenon. Using a case study research method is appropriate to
my study because I am attempting to describe a particular phenomenon, that being the inclusion
of transgender curriculum in teacher education courses. Case studies are also concerned with a
particular bounded system; in this study, the teacher education courses are the bounded system
and the curricula within those courses is the unit of analysis.

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While the primary form of inquiry of this study is a multiple case study, principles of
participatory action research also heavily informed my study design. Participatory action
research (PAR) values cooperation and collaboration between researchers and participants,
diminishing the hierarchical assumptions of positivist paradigms where the researcher is the sole
producer and controller of knowledge. PAR at its core is interested in utilizing research as a
means toward social justice, and intends to empower both the participants and the researcher.
The principles of participatory action research can be seen most clearly in the current study
design through the group interview.
Desire-Centered Research
For this research study, I was committed to desire-centered rather than damage- or
victim-centered research frameworks. For example, instead of asking, what are instructors doing
wrong, or how are instructors creating trans-antagonistic environments, my research questions
instead looked at what instructors are already doing well, and how instructors are creating what I
call ‘gender expansive’ environments. I intentionally avoided avoiding damage-centered research
which operates under the assumption that “harm must be recorded or proven in order to convince
an outside adjudicator that reparations are deserved” (Tuck & Yang, 2014, p. 226-227).
Examples of damage-centered research can be seen quite plainly in the introduction chapter and
literature review to this dissertation. Damage-centered frameworks dominate empirical research
on transgender topics, and some would say that this is for a good reason – that genderism and
other forms of oppression are deeply affecting the daily lives of transgender people. However, I
also agree with Eve Tuck & K. Wayne Yang (2013), who suggest that
this [damage-centered] theory of change is both colonial and flawed, because it relies
upon Western notions of power as scarce and concentrated, and because it requires

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disenfranchised communities to position themselves as both singularly defective and
powerless to make change…in many cases, communities are left with a narrative that
tells them that they are broken. (Tuck & Yang, 2013, p. 227)
In summary, my methodology stems from a desire to advance social transformation and
gender justice, to build community and learn from each other, while being reflective of my own
positionality. I view the individuals who worked with me on this study to be participants that I
learned with and from, rather than subjects whom I studied. I was intentional about using a
desire-based framework that focused on what are people doing well, instead of what they are
doing wrong. In doing so, I intentionally resisted the dominant pain narrative (Tuck and Yang,
2013) and instead considered how to pursue a study that is interested in understanding
transgender people not as broken, but whole inside a broken system. In the next section, I outline
the means with which I solicited and gathered data for this study.
Methods: Data Collection
In an attempt to understand the context of trans in teacher education, my research is a
two-fold inquiry. First, I explore the transgender themes or issues that teacher educators are
including in their curricula. Second, using a multiple case study design, I investigate the context
of instructors’ curricular choices. This might include institutional and/or programmatic support
or constraints, access to trans resources and texts, and/or the instructors’ own understanding and
experience with transgender issues. Finally, I work to develop a network of educators committed
to trans issues in teacher education. The data for this study will be centered around the intended
curriculum for teacher education courses. In accordance with case study research design, I used
the following methods of data collection:
1. Syllabus solicitation

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2. Surveys with Likert-scale and open-ended questions
3. One-on-one interviews
4. Group interview/dialogue
Syllabus Solicitation
The medium through which curriculum for a course is first made explicit is through the
course syllabus. Most undergraduate syllabi provide a course description, various course
policies, and a course schedule including readings and assignments. Through reading syllabi, one
can get a basic sense for the epistemological commitments of the instructor (or the creator of the
syllabus), what topics the course will cover and in what order, and what voices/perspectives are
present in the readings. Syllabi, then, are the most direct, non-invasive, and descriptive data
source for answering my first question, “what transgender themes or issues do teacher educators
include in their curricula?”
For Phase 1 of the study, I solicited syllabi from instructors in teacher education
programs. Instructors could be full-time faculty, adjuncts/fixed-term, or graduate students. It was
important not to limit participation to full-time faculty because I recognize that part-time
instructors and graduate students provide a substantial amount of the instructional labor in higher
education. I solicited syllabi through relevant listservs, newsletters, social media, and direct
requests to my personal and professional networks (see Appendix A). In this nationwide search, I
attempted to gather the widest possible range of syllabi; the institution type or program type did
not matter (public/private, land grant or liberal arts, etc.), as long as the course was explicitly
intended for pre-service teachers (see Appendix B for the Call for Participants). The courses
could be required or electives, with the understanding that elective courses may not signify what

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students are required to learn, but at the same time acknowledging that much of the justiceoriented work in teacher education programs is pushed to the margins.
Limitations of Syllabi
Because I am relying on syllabi for phase one of the study, it is important to acknowledge
the limitations of syllabi as the primary source for understanding the curriculum. Syllabi are
created for numerous purposes, such as acting as a ‘contract’ of sorts between instructor and
student; delineating course objectives and relevant institutional policies; acting as an archival
record for purposes of accreditation, etc. Some would argue that one cannot get an accurate
picture of what happens in the classroom, or what students actually learn, by looking exclusively
at the syllabus. The enacted curriculum may be more or less equity-oriented than what is
intentionally listed on the syllabus, and some instructors may feel political pressure to include or
not include certain topics on their syllabi. In this sense, tension exists between the intended and
the implemented/enacted curriculum. I recognize that this concern and limitation is valid. In this
study, I do not attempt to determine what students actually learned or what specific pedagogical
moves an instructor makes while teaching transgender content. My emphasis is focused on the
intended curriculum itself, the choices that instructors make about including or excluding
particular topics, readings, or assignments, and the context surrounding those choices.
In addition to syllabi inadequately reflecting the enacted curriculum, there are also ways
in which syllabi can reflect common practices within higher education that go unexamined and
perpetuate harm. One such practice is requiring instructors to include within their syllabi various
statements, policies, and requirements that they have not been adequately trained to implement
or enact. With regard to transgender identities in the classroom, some universities now require or
encourage instructors to include a statement about name and pronoun changes in their courses—

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see Texas A&M, University of the Pacific, and Lake Forest College as examples. As with other
syllabus statements such as disability accommodations, the syllabus might claim that the
instructor will affirm, acknowledge, and accommodate students’ needs—without the instructor
even knowing how to. I experienced this unexamined practice during my time as a graduate
student.
During the last year of my Ph.D. program, a department administrator announced that all
syllabi needed to include a statement regarding transgender students, including the following
wording: This course affirms people of all gender expressions and gender identities. I will gladly
honor your request to address you by an alternate name and/or gender pronoun. This
requirement came after I had been an out trans student in the program for four years, and in my
experience, some instructors had not taken the time or made the effort to remember my alternate
name or correct pronouns after I informed them. I encountered several instructors who were
well-meaning, but lacked an understanding of how to be affirming of trans identities in their
language, their curriculum, or their pedagogy. To my knowledge, no department-wide training
had been offered to any instructors prior to this syllabus requirement, other than the support and
training I had provided to instructors of one course I was involved in teaching and cocoordinating. Considering all of this, the new requirement both surprised and upset me. It was
particularly upsetting because the administrator who sent the message had misgendered me in
front of my peers and colleagues on countless occasions, and when I met with her about these
continued microaggressions, she claimed that it was her ‘linguistic training’ that prevented her
from using the correct pronoun. And yet, this administrator had not reached out to me to ask how
the department can best prepare or train instructors to affirm trans identities. I felt as though
expecting instructors to add this language to their syllabus without any training on what it means,

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not to mention the lack of administrators modeling this expectation, is just as damaging and
dangerous as not adding the language at all.
Data Analysis: Syllabi
In response to my nationwide call, I received 10 syllabi from 9 instructors. One of the
syllabi was from a PhD-level course not intended for pre-service teachers, and therefore that
syllabus was rejected for not meeting the criteria. Of the remaining nine syllabi, five courses
were required for Education majors, and four were electives in Education programs (see Table
4.1). All the elective courses focused specifically on queer and/or LGBTQ topics in education.
The required courses were slightly more varied: three dealt with diversity, pluralism, and/or
diverse contexts, one was a social foundations course, and another was a curriculum theory
course. I did not receive any syllabi from content methods courses such as Math Education,
Science Education, or English Education.
Syllabus 1
Syllabus 2
Syllabus 3
Syllabus 4
Syllabus 5
Syllabus 6
Syllabus 7
Syllabus 8
Syllabus 9

Course Type
Required
Required
Required
Elective
Elective
Required
Elective
Elective
Required

Course Topic
Social foundations
Diverse contexts
Diverse contexts
Queer, trans and feminist theory
LGBTQ topics
Curriculum theory
Queer topics
LGBTQ topics
Diverse contexts

Table 4.1
Characteristics of Collected Syllabi

The first step in analyzing the syllabi was creating a descriptive matrix (see Appendix B).
The descriptive data I collected here allowed me to get a sense for how these instructors are
situating trans within their course readings and assignments. Specifically, I recorded the location
of transgender topics within the course, including the week during the semester where trans
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topics are discussed and what comes before and after on the course schedule. I also noted how
many class periods are set aside to discuss trans topics, how many transgender-related readings
were present during the whole semester, and what readings or lesson/unit topics explicitly
mention transgender or gender identity in the title.
After completing the descriptive matrix, I then used the information I collected there in
two ways. First, I developed a list of topics present in the transgender-related readings from each
syllabus. Examples of these topic categories include ‘gender identity development’, ‘student
negative school experiences’, ‘families with transgender children’, and ‘heterosexism/
heteronormativity’. I combined these categories together into larger themes, including ‘school
context’, ‘personal identity and interpersonal relations’, ‘structural/institutional influences’, and
‘activism and theory’. A full list of categories and themes for all transgender-related readings can
be found in Appendix C. Second, I determined which syllabi met the criteria for genderexpansive, the characteristics of which I will explain next. From the syllabi that were submitted
by instructors, I utilized purposeful sampling (Patton, 2000) to select cases for study that were
illuminative of the gender-expansive criteria I had designed.
Analytical Framework: Development of Gender-Expansive Criteria
Gender-expansive is a term I am using to characterize readings and syllabi that not only
expand thinking about gender, but are also particularly abundant in their coverage of transgender
topics. I was inspired to use this term after finding Merriam-Webster’s definition of expansive to
be particularly inspiring: “characterized by high spirits, generosity, or readiness to talk” and
“characterized by richness, abundance” (Expansive, 2017). I reviewed all required readings on
all syllabi to determine whether the syllabus met two or more gender-expansive criteria. In doing

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this, I used my prior knowledge of some readings, and if I was not familiar with a reading, I
found it through the university library system in order to review the content.
The gender-expansive selection criteria I developed were informed by reading a large
body of conceptual and empirical literature, and my own work with pre-service teachers. I
developed the criteria by placing social justice as a central aim of teacher preparation, and
thinking about what course readings can do to work toward social justice and against all
oppressive systems, and genderism in particular. With this in mind, I developed four criteria for
gender-expansive syllabi. The first criteria is Structural, informed by scholars such as Alan
Johnson (2001), Iris Young (2009), and Chase Catalano and Davey Shlasko (2013), whose work
has illuminated the structures, levels and implications of systemic oppression. From these and
other scholars we understand that inequality just doesn't occur at random or as an aberration, it is
an effect of a variety of measures, methods, policies and practices. These structural forces are
rooted in the social construction of normality and create particular ideological climates.
Examples of the Structural criteria would be readings that address transgender oppression at
institutional, systemic and/or cultural levels. It is important for pre-service teachers to understand
the structural factors influencing the trans experience because these structures create the
foundation for genderism and transphobia.
The second criteria is Humanizing, informed by scholars such as Django Paris and
Maisha T. Winn (2013), bell hooks (1984, 1994), and Eve Tuck (2013), whose work reminds us
that we must bring the margins into the center of our research and teaching, working
collaboratively to amplify voices and build relationships. A humanizing pedagogy “respects and
uses the reality, history, and perspectives of students as an integral part of educational practice”
(Bartolome, 1994, p. 173). Examples of humanizing curricular materials would be readings that

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are written by trans people, readings that provide a more complex and nuanced view of trans life,
and/or readings that employ a desire-based rather than pain- or victim-based perspective. As
witnessed in the literature review provided in this paper, the majority of research about
transgender people, to date, has been conducted by cisgender people, through a cisgender lens.
Trans people writing about their own experiences and trans people leading their own research
studies offers us a different, potentially more nuanced, and more humanizing perspective.
The third criteria is Intersectional, informed by scholars such as Kimberle Crenshaw
(1995), Audre Lorde (1984), and Eli Clare (2015) who remind us that systems of oppression
intersect in ways that influence various groups and communities in complex ways.
Understanding that the dominant discourse regarding any subject is crafted and controlled by
those with privilege, it is important to recognize that we must not limit our understanding of
trans to only those individuals who are privileged in every other way. Nicolazzo (2016) points to
the ways genderism interacts with racism, misogyny, and other systems of oppression, affecting
black trans women in extreme and often violent ways; the majority of trans people killed each
year are trans women of color (Nicolazzo, 2016). Examples of intersectional materials could be
readings that address the experiences or needs of trans women of color or trans people with
disabilities.
The fourth criteria is Justice-oriented, informed by scholars such as Sonia Nieto (2000),
Marilyn Cochran-Smith (2004), and Sensoy and DiAngelo (2015), who remind us that
recognizing and interrogating oppressive structures is just the first step in transformative change.
Justice-oriented materials include that which provides tangible suggestions for actions, or that
which frames difference as a beneficial asset. This criteria is an important one because it builds
upon the theoretical features of the other three criteria and moves them into praxis, or the

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combination of theory and practice. It is not just important for pre-service teachers to understand
issues of transgender oppression in theoretical terms, but also to have an opportunity to learn
tangible actions they can take as individuals, community members, and future teachers.
Individual and collective agency and the power of the people are key features in any struggle for
social justice.
With these four criteria in mind, I determined which syllabi met two or more criteria and
moved into Phase 2 of the study. Two or more criteria were required because, as informed by
Freire, we understand that action must be combined with dialogic communication and
consciousness raising in order to create a humanizing praxis (1996); in the same way, readings
on structural oppression, for example, may be good and helpful by themselves, but we cannot
move toward true liberation without some combination of structural, humanizing, intersectional,
and justice-oriented curricula.
Criteria
Structural
Humanizing
Intersectional

Examples
Readings that address oppression at institutional, systemic, and/or cultural
levels.
Readings that are written by trans people, and/or readings that provide a
complex, nuanced and/or positive view of trans life.
Readings that address the experiences or needs of trans women of color,
trans people with disabilities, etc.

Justice-Oriented Readings which provides tangible suggestions for actions.
Table 4.2
Criteria for Gender-Expansive Syllabi

Phase 2 Data Collection: Surveys and Interviews
Six of the nine syllabi submitted to this study were found to meet two or more of the
gender-expansive criteria listed above. Two of these syllabi were submitted by the same
instructor, so there were five instructors with gender-expansive syllabi. I communicated with
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each instructor for these six syllabi and requested their participation in the second phase of the
study. Four of the five instructors agreed to participate in the next phase of the study.
The first step of data collection for the next phase of the study was conducting a preinterview survey to gather specific information about the context of the course itself, such as
average enrollment, grade level of students, frequency of course offering, and a brief history of
the course. In addition, through this survey I asked participants about their perceived level of
support or constraint for including transgender topics in their course on a 5-point Likert scale.
Specifically, I asked how the course structure itself was supportive or constraining; how their
department was supportive or constraining; and how the institution was supportive or
constraining. After each Likert-scale question about the extent of support and constraint,
participants were provided text boxes to provide more detail about supports and constraints. I
used this information to prepare for their one-on-one interviews, allowing their survey responses
to inform interview questions relevant to each participant’s unique context.
One-on-One Interviews
There were two specific areas I explored in participant interviews. First, I wanted to gain
an understanding of how the participants are conceptualizing, making sense of, or defining
relevant terminology, such as gender, transgender, queer, or heteronormativity. In my own work,
I have found that these terms are sometimes used interchangeably but other times they are not;
sometimes they encompass transgender identity or transgender oppression and sometimes they
do not. Instead of assuming I know what they mean when they say ‘transgender’, for example, I
directly asked the question. I discussed the meanings of ‘gender’ and ‘transgender’ with all
participants, and added other conceptual questions based on each participant’s unique syllabi.
For example, some instructors used the term ‘queer’ in the title of their course, and so we had a

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conversation about what they mean by queer, and how transgender fits into that
conceptualization. Another syllabus did not use the term ‘queer’ but instead used terms such as
‘patriarchy’ and ‘heteronormativity’, and so we discussed what those terms mean to the
instructor and how transgender fits into those constructs.
The second purpose of the one-on-one interviews was to dive deeper into the context of
their course, including syllabus development, how they chose and organized the readings,
assignment details, and other elements of their classroom context such as how students
responded to trans content. For each interview, I chose particular lessons or weeks from their
syllabi to focus in on, those being the lessons or weeks that centered transgender topics most
heavily. These areas of the interview tended to be a bit broader for the instructors who taught
elective courses where the entire semester was dedicated to LGBTQ topics, versus the required
courses who typically had a much smaller percentage of trans-related content. In total, the
interviews included approximately eight questions and lasted 60-90 minutes. The interviews
were conducted and recorded using Zoom software.
Group Interview/Dialogue
After completing all four individual interviews, I brought the participants together (in
virtual space) for a group discussion. I chose to conduct a group discussion as part of this study
for several reasons. First and most importantly, I felt that the study provided an opportunity to
connect instructors from across the nation together so that we could learn, support, and
potentially collaborate with each other. Conducting a group interview was integral to the
humanizing and collaborative aspect of study; I considered this group conversation as an
opportunity to “make space for people to engage in personal, reflexive conversations that might
initially occur because of research, but not for the sake of research” (Kinloch & San Pedro, 2013,

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p. 40). In other words, I wanted to decenter my own authority as the researcher and allow
participants to connect with others who are similarly committed to advancing transgender
inclusion in teacher education. I also wanted to provide an opportunity for the participants to
counteract the feelings of isolation that often come with being the only one, or one of the few,
individuals within a given department or school that is passionate about these topics.
The group interview gave me and the participants a chance to share positive experiences
in teaching trans, ideas about what needs to happen next in order to move teacher education in a
gender-expansive direction, and an opportunity to share resources such as readings, syllabi and
assignments. To this end, in preparation for the group discussion, I created and shared a Google
Drive folder including all participants’ syllabi (with their consent), and an editable document
with the group interview questions where we documented our hopes for future action.
The second reason I chose to conduct a group interview was in order to strengthen the
validity of my data. In conjunction with the syllabi, survey, and one-on-one interview, the group
discussion provided further insights into the conceptualization of gender and contextualization of
the instructors’ curriculum. I was able to follow up with some of the comments the participants
made in our earlier one-on-one interview, and participants had the opportunity to share their
experiences with others. The purpose of the group interview was not only to collect data, but to
also share resources and experiences, and build a community of support for educators committed
to trans issues in teacher education, since we are often geographically and institutionally isolated.
Group interviews have been found to produce “data rich in detail that is often difficult to
achieve with other research methods, because participants built on each other’s ideas and
comments to provide in-depth and value-added insights” (Nieuwenhuis, 2007). This was
certainly true within our group. Our discussion was guided by a set of five questions, but the

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group was lively and dialogic, and the participants ended up asking each other questions about
each other’s experience, or what they think or how they feel about a particular topic or concerns.
Although I facilitated the conversation in the sense that I moved the conversation along to
various questions, I also answered many of the interview questions, provided details of my
personal and professional life, and affirmed the experiences of others in an attempt to create a
dialogic spiral, where the “process of listening and speaking co-creates an area of trust between
speakers – the space between” (Kinloch & San Pedro, 2013, p. 30). Each individual, including
myself, was given time to listen and respond to each question and to each other. See Appendix D
for one-on-one and group interview questions.
Data Analysis: Interviews
After I conducted each interview, I created research memos reflecting our conversations
and noting any particularly significant or compelling stories from each participant. These memos
informed my first manual pre-coding of the interview transcripts once they were complete. I
divided the coding of interviews into two cycles. During the first cycle of coding, I utilized
descriptive coding (Saldana, 2013), also known as topic coding, to assign labels to chunks of
data that in some way responded to my research questions. I chose a descriptive coding method
because the study explores epistemological questions and explores participant actions, processes,
and perceptions (Saldana, 2013). Questions that I considered as I coded were, what specific
decisions, choices, or strategies are the participants employing? How do the participants talk
about, characterize, and understand concepts such as gender, transgender, queer, etc.? What
unique perspectives or experiences do these participants bring to the topic? I kept in mind that
each case is special and unique, and I was committed to respecting and capturing details within
each case before and during the cross-case analysis.

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Together with the data from the individual interviews, I then coded the group interview
transcript, looking for contextual insights and nuances that were not present in the syllabi alone.
After the first round of coding all interviews separately, I combined all interviews in the second
round of coding, looking for cross-case similarities and differences and additional insights
provided by the group discussion. I looked at how each participant answered the same question,
and how each participant’s responses were reflective of their unique context. Some of the codes
were informed by my research questions, such as ‘defining gender’ or ‘local context’, and some
codes were inductively applied based on the insights of each interview, such as ‘transitory labor’
and ‘previous teaching experiences’. I coded all interviews by hand first, and then inputted my
hand-written codes into NVivo for further organization and analysis. Using NVivo, I combined
the inductive codes into larger categories or themes: Class and Syllabus, Context, and
Dispositions and Experiences. I distilled the data into Findings chapters and sent these chapters
to the participants for their review and feedback. Three of the four participants responded,
suggesting no changes or additions.
Researcher Positionality
In this study and in all of my research endeavors, I strive to be reflexive; this includes
acknowledging and naming aspects of my identity, experiences, and positionality that impact my
perspective and my work. Daley (2007) suggests that “reflexivity about our own social
positioning is necessary as a means to invoke a critical reflection on the ways we bring to the
research our own position of privilege, our vulnerabilities, and ideological commitments” (p.
201). A researcher’s positionality impacts everything about the study, from its conceptualization
to how the data is interpreted and presented. In this section on positionality, I provide three
vignettes that situate my current positionality and perspectives on gender.

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The first story takes place in 2009, when I was pursuing an MA in Higher
Education/Foundations of Education. The moment I wish to highlight occurred during a
Multicultural Education course, taught by a well-known multicultural education scholar. I admit,
perhaps it was naïve of me to assume that a unit on ‘gender’ in a multicultural education course
in 2009 would include transgender issues. It was my first course on the subject and I had no basis
of comparison. But my partner was undergoing medical transition and I was re-evaluating my
own gender identity at the same time. So I approached the instructor and requested that we also
talk about transgender issues, in addition to women’s issues. To her credit, she did respond to this
request. Unfortunately, the additional ‘transgender’ curriculum was a distorted and inaccurate
web video regarding Chaz Bono’s gender transition. In the discussion that followed, the
instructor first referred to Chaz correctly as ‘he’, then ‘he or she’, and stuck with ‘she’ for the
rest of the discussion. The instructor told us that there’s “trouble with these issues” in schools but
didn’t clarify what she meant by that. She suggested that teachers need to ask themselves if they
are “open to that kind of lifestyle” in their students, and then if, as a teacher, you choose to
ignore it, that was okay. With that blatant disregard, I left the room and spent the remainder of
class time crying in my car. I offer this story as a flash point that ignited my desire to pursue this
PhD, and a moment of realization that teacher education must be better so that students like me
don’t end up in tears over an ill-conceived curriculum.
The second story I wish to share occurred about five years ago. I was staying in a cabin
on the outskirts of Cleveland, nursing and supporting two trans friends who were there to get
‘top’ surgery (double mastectomy). One morning over breakfast, I told one of the guys that I
actually didn’t identify as a woman or a man—something, at that time, I had not admitted to
anyone other than my partner. He did not affirm my identity or inquire more about it. Instead, he

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immediately asked me, “why don’t you identify as a woman, just a different kind of woman?” He
argued that by keeping my biological body but not identifying as a woman, I was doing a
disservice to the feminist cause. Though I was personally offended by his suggestion, I
understood in some sense what he meant; if we continue to understand ‘woman’ and ‘man’ to
mean very specific things, we continue upholding that strict dichotomy and make it difficult for
gender diversity to thrive. With more women and men pushing the bounds of what it means to be
women and men, perhaps more and more people will eschew or ignore the socially constructed
boundaries altogether. On this, I agree. I think it is important for us to witness many different
kinds, types, looks, embodiments of ‘woman’ and ‘man.’ The problem, for me, is that I feel a
deep discomfort with seeing myself as a woman. The truth is, if I were at all comfortable with
the identity of ‘woman,’ I would claim it; how much easier my life would be if I were a
cisgender woman whose gender expression was a bit more masculine! But that is simply not the
case. At my core, in my head and in my heart, I feel no connection or attachment to being a
‘woman.’ It is not a refusal to be feminine; in fact, I highly value femininity and embody many
attributes traditionally considered ‘feminine’ such as being sensitive, nurturing, and quiet. It is
simply how I know myself to be, and nothing about my body or the way others gender me will
change that. It made me appreciate that each person should have agency to define their own
identity regardless of what body they were born with, or what gender expression to embody.
This leads to a final vignette regarding gender identity. When I attended AERA a few
years back, I was thrilled to meet other female-assigned but gender non-conforming people. As a
group of us gathered outside a conference room after a particularly queer/trans session, one of
the presenters – who came out as trans during his presentation- walked up to us and said, “I
found my tribe!” This phrase lifted my heart and made me feel as if I had finally found some of

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‘my people.’ We exchanged contact information and promised to keep in touch. I connected with
several of them on Facebook soon after, where I had the opportunity to get to know them better.
Soon after, one individual—whose gender expression was markedly more masculine than my
own, but who identifies as a woman—posted a link to an article written by a cisgender woman
decrying the recent ‘trend’ among butch women moving to identify as ‘agender’ or ‘non-binary.’
The author argued that this ‘trend’ somehow weakened ‘butch’ as an identity category and
created a rift in the lesbian/queer community. As a non-binary, agender person myself, I tried to
explain to my AERA acquaintance that identifying as such shouldn’t be considered a ‘phase’ or a
‘trend’ as this insinuates that such an identity is taken on without much deliberation or
forethought. For me and for other non-binary people I know, it is a constant struggle for others to
recognize and respect our humanity. She fervently disagreed; she was very invested in
maintaining ‘butch’ as a broad term for female-assigned but masculine-presenting individuals,
and she did not see a need for gender categories beyond woman and man.
In both two final vignettes, I have shared encounters with individuals who on the surface
seem to align with me ideologically or theoretically, but digging deeper reveals discontinuity in
our fundamental understandings of identity categories and the possibilities therein. I include
these stories not to discount their worth or validity; quite the opposite. I present them as two
valid ways of thinking that have both challenged and informed my own thinking on the issue of
gender identity. These two individuals, and many others, have helped me to clarify and
strengthen my framework for understanding my own gender identity, as well as the concept of
gender identity on a larger scale. I recognize that the way I conceptualize, theorize, or otherwise
discuss gender may be different from others, and I have come to the understanding that there is
room—within theoretical discussions as well as lived experiences—for both agender people and

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butch women, for both non-binary people and different kinds of women. I do not see identity
politics, or gender politics broadly, as a zero-sum game.
Of course, gender is not the only aspect of my identity that influences my work. Perhaps
the most influential aspect of my identity to this work, outside my gender, is my Whiteness. I
recognize that White privilege is at work in my life, and as frequently as possible, I work with
determination as an anti-racist ally. I also know that my Whiteness is a weakness; I know very
little about the complex ways that people of color and people of non-European cultures
conceptualize or make sense of gender. My understanding of gender, and of masculinity and
femininity, is situated within colonial/Western ways of thinking. As Susan Stryker (2006)
eloquently notes, “’gender,’ as it is lived, embodied, experienced, performed, and encountered, is
more complex and varied than can be accounted for by the currently dominant binary sex/gender
ideology of Eurocentric modernity” (p. 3). Various non-Western cultures use different terms to
describe forms of gender non-conformity, some even recognizing third or fourth genders. Within
U.S. borders, for example, the Navajo, Zuni, Lakota, and Sioux nations recognize Two Spirit as a
third gender, while the Mohave nation recognizes four genders. Outside the U.S., several other
countries, such as India, Pakistan, Germany and Australia, allow citizens to legally identify as a
third gender. While recognizing the validity and importance of cultural differences in
understanding gender, this research study is largely limited in focus to dominant U.S. categories
and conceptualizations of gender. I will attempt to mitigate this limitation whenever possible,
with the help of my committee, my participants, and other respected friends and colleagues.

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CHAPTER FIVE: PHASE 1 FINDINGS
This chapter will illuminate findings that respond to my first research question, “What
transgender topics are currently included in Teacher Education course syllabi?” I asked this
question because I wanted to know what readings or other curricula instructors were including in
their courses to talk about the topic of trans. To answer this question, I analyzed the required
readings in all collected syllabi to determine the type and frequency of topics covered in their
transgender-related readings.
Nine instructors responded to the nationwide call for syllabi containing transgender
content. In the four courses that were focused on queer or LGBTQ issues in schooling,
transgender topics were dispersed throughout the syllabus. In all five syllabi from required
courses, readings and/or lessons on transgender topics were placed near the end of the semester.
One might assume that topics presented near the beginning of the semester are ones that the
instructor intends to thread throughout the semester, and there may also be an expectation that
students cumulatively approach each topic; for example, an instructor might cover race first and
then discuss social class with an eye towards its intersection with race, and then the instructor
might discuss disability within an eye towards its intersection with race and social class, and so
on. This means that students who take courses with this format may not have an opportunity to
integrate transgender topics into the course’s prior curriculum which typically consisted of race,
social class, language, and disability.
Required Readings: Quantities and Qualities
In total, the nine syllabi required 410 readings. The number of readings per course ranged
from 8 to 102, with an average of 41 required readings per course. Of those 410 required
readings across all nine syllabi, 72 explicitly mentioned transgender, gender identity, or gender

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nonconformity in the title. The syllabi designated as gender-expansive in Phase 2 of the study
accounted for 68 of the trans-related readings, while the other syllabi accounted for four of the
readings. I coded these 72 readings based on prominent topics in each reading. Through
inductive coding of the readings, I developed a list of 20 topics. I combined these topics into
major themes in the readings: 1) School context, 2) Personal identity, 3) Structural/institutional
influences, and 4) Activism & theory. Figure 5.1 below displays a sunburst chart showing the
major themes and topics represented under those themes, with the size of each theme and topic
relevant to the number of readings represented. See Appendix B for the full Syllabus Matrices.
School Context
Under the theme of school context, seven readings focused on student negative school
experiences, including readings focused on LGBT students coping with school violence
(Grossman, Haney, Edwards, Aless, Aron, & Howell, 2009), peer victimization (Aragon, Poteat,
Espelage, & Koenig, 2014), elementary and secondary school climates (GLSEN, 2012), and
other risks and challenges faced by transgender youth in schools (Biegel, 2010; Meyer, 2015;
Wyss, 2004). Three readings focused specifically on transgender topics in the elementary school
context (Payne & Smith, 2014; Ryan, Patraw, & Bednar, 2013; Slesaransky-Poe, Ruzzi, &
Stanley, 2013), addressing questions of whether young children are ready for these topics, and
how teachers might approach them. Four readings spoke to trans-related issues in teaching
practice, including a review of LGBT issues in teacher education (Quinn & Meiners, 2011),
suggestions for a gender justice framework for teachers (Travers, 2014), and understanding
teachers’ reactions to gendered harassment (Meyer, 2008). The fourth reading under the topic of
teaching practice (Gilbert, 2016), offers a transgender youth transitioning in high school as an

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Figure 5.1
Themes and Topics within Required Readings

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example of “times when gayness has emerged as controversy and pushed against the limits of
educational thought and practice” (p. 26). While this reading does focus on an example of
transgender youth in schools, it does so by describing it as an issue of “gayness” alongside
examples of same-sex marriage debates and representations of sexuality within teacher
education. While it is possible that the transgender youth may have also identified as gay, the
author muddied the waters between gayness and transness, because medically transitioning is not
a direct reflection of one’s sexuality. Readings focused on school or district recommendations
accounted for seven of the readings under the theme of School Context. These readings included
GLSEN’s model policies for bullying enumerating anti-discrimination policies and state and
school district guidelines for supporting students and staff who are transgender. In addition,
readings provided practical suggestions for working with transgender children (Luecke, 2011),
decreasing LGBTQ bullying and harassment (Hillard, Love, Franks, Laris, & Coyle, 2014), and
providing LGBTQ-responsive school counseling (Goodrich & Luke, 2009; Singh & Burnes,
2009).
Five readings talked about trans youth of color, although three of these readings were
focused more broadly on LGBTQ youth of color, with only passing mentions of gender identity
or trans youth (Bridges, 2007; Burdge, Licona, & Hyemingway, 2014; Diaz & Kosciw, 2009).
Lance McCready’s article (2004) discusses the marginalization of gay and gender nonconforming black male students, and alternately refers to his participants as queer youth of color.
McCready seems to be speaking about cisgender youth of color whose sexuality and gender
expression might be considered queer or gender non-conforming, but he does not speak directly
about trans youth. While numerous readings across syllabi discussed queer youth of color (see
Kumashiro, 2001; Misa, 2001; Ressler, 2001), there was only one reading in any syllabus that

75

centered trans people of color (Singh, 2013). The scarcity of readings focused specifically on
trans youth of color points to an urgent need for more research and scholarship focused on this
multiply-oppressed and highly vulnerable community.
Trans youth resilience and/or resistance, and LGBT-inclusive sex education are the final
two topics under the theme of School Context. The topic of resisting and showing resilience in
the face of heteronormative systems was the focus of three readings (Cruz, 2011; Scourfield,
Roen & McDermott, 2008; Singh, 2013). Only one syllabus included readings on LGBTQ sex
education, including a study on LGBTQ youth perspectives on sexuality education (Gowen &
Winges-Yanez, 2014) and three articles speaking to the importance of inclusive sex education
(McGarry, 2013; Slater, 2013; Temblador, 2015).
Structural/Institutional Influences
Under the theme of structural/institutional influences, the family as an institution was
most heavily represented. Across syllabi, numerous readings provided the perspective of the
parents of transgender children, but not the children themselves (Beam, 2008; Nutt, 2015;
Padawar, 2012; Spiegel, 2008). Four out of nine syllabi incorporated readings that discussed
gender within other social institutions, such as Dean Spade’s (2015) work on administrative
violence and critical trans politics. Other institutional topics included gendered restrooms
(Herman, 2013) and state surveillance of transgender bodies (Beauchamp, 2009).
Heterosexism or heteronormativity was also a popular topic under the theme of Structural
and Institutional Influences. It was not always the case that readings on this topic included
gender identity in addition to sexual orientation, and some readings included gender identity in a
way that was ambiguous. For example, in Sumara and Davis’ article entitled “Interrupting
Heteronormativity: Toward a Queer Curriculum Theory”, the authors note that they do not use

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‘queer’ as an identity marker that represents LGBT identities, but instead as “a marker
representing interpretive work that refuses…the cultural rewards afforded those whose public
performances of self are contained within that narrow band of behaviors considered proper to a
heterosexual identity” (p. 192). It is not clear whether this framing of heteronormativity as being
related to “behaviors considered proper to a heterosexual identity” includes transgender people
or not, as the authors’ focus is squarely on issues of sexuality and not gender identity.
An article by García and Slesaransky-Poe provides an understanding of heteronormativity
that explicitly includes problematizing the gender binary, although not necessarily in a way that
forwards transgender awareness. The authors provide a conceptual deconstruction of the
connections between gender identity, gender expression and heteronormativity, forwarding the
idea that “the gender binary serves to ensure that we participate in the expected patterns of
‘‘appropriate’’ heterosexuality and corresponding gender identity” (García & Slesaransky-Poe,
2010, p. 247). Although the authors say they intend to differentiate sex and gender, they use
girl/woman interchangeably with female, and boy/man interchangeably with male. For example,
they define ‘sex’ as “the biological and anatomical differences between women and men, that is,
their genitalia” (p. 247) but also define the sex binary as “boy or girl” (p. 246), while later
describing gender expressions as being ‘male’ or ‘female’ (p. 249). The authors define gender as
the “social practices of femininity and masculinity”, and renounce the idea that femininity and
masculinity are dichotomous opposites, suggesting that this false duality encourages homophobia
(García & Slesaransky-Poe, 2010). However, the authors do not trouble the idea that a ‘male’ sex
at birth should lead to a ‘boy’ and then a ‘man’, and the same for a ‘female’ sex at birth leading
to a ‘girl’ and then a ‘woman’; instead, they assert this progression as a given. In this sense, the
authors discuss only gender non-conforming behaviors among cisgender youth, and they do not

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acknowledge or discuss transgender or non-binary gender identities in relation to
heteronormativity.
Personal Identity
There were significantly fewer readings that covered topics relevant to personal identity,
with a total of eight readings under this theme. Syllabus 6 covered this theme most abundantly,
with readings on gender identity development for transgender individuals (American Psychology
Association, 2011; Eliason & Schope, 2007; Olson, 2015), medical transition (Orr, et al., n.d.),
gender dysphoria (American Psychology Association, 2013), pronouns (Shlasko, 2015), and
microaggressions (Nordmarken, 2014). Overall, these readings were largely clinical in nature
and tended to portray the experiences of trans men and trans women, with less attention paid to
non-binary gender identities.
Activism and Theory
Finally, the majority of the readings under Activism and Theory derived from Syllabus
4—an elective course on queer, feminist and trans theory. Several of the readings in this category
were written by transgender people, providing an element of experiential knowledge. For
example, students read conceptual or theoretical pieces from Leslie Feinberg (2006) who wrote
about transgender liberation, Eli Clare (2013) who wrote about the intersection between trans
rights and disability rights, Kate Bornstein (2000) who wrote about gender outlaws, and Susan
Stryker (2004, 2006) who discussed transgender studies. Another group of readings focused on
the idea of gender borders and the tensions between feminist, queer, lesbian butch and trans
identities including Halberstam (1998), Heyes (2003), Rubin (1992), Stryker (2004), and Whittle
(2006).

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In addition to identifying the themes and topics covered in each reading on the syllabi, I
also wanted to determine whether any of the syllabi, taking the curriculum as a whole, met two
or more gender-expansive criteria. The following section provides descriptions of syllabi that did
not meet the gender-expansive criteria, and then I will discuss the syllabi that met the criteria.
Gender-Restrictive Syllabi
Syllabus 1 was a required course in Social Foundations of Education, offered at a state
university in the Midwestern region of the U.S. The class met twice a week for 16 weeks, with
topics including the history of public schooling, race, social class, ability, and education policy.
There were four major assignments in the course: an educational autobiography, analytical
response papers, a review of children’s literature or young adult novel, and a final essay. The
course had one week, containing two class sessions, on gender and sexuality. Syllabus 1
incorporated only one reading on transgender topics, and this reading emphasized the negative
school experiences of LGBTQ youth (Grossman et al., 2009), where transgender participants
were underrepresented compared to lesbian and gay participants.
Syllabus 2 was a required course focused on Cultural Diversity in Schooling. The course
was offered at a state university on the West Coast. The course met once a week for 15 weeks
with topics such as the role of culture in schooling, structural racism, immigration, religious and
linguistic diversity, and culturally responsive pedagogy. There was one week dedicated to gender
and sexual identities, and the placement was in the middle of the semester. Out of the 15-week
course schedule, only one week included readings that centered lesbian and gay (with largely
silent bisexual and transgender) topics, with readings discussing lesbian-led families, anti-gay
comments in the classroom, and binary gender identity development in early education
environments. The course schedule includes one week titled ‘Gender and Sexual Identities’, with

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one reading called “Playing with Gender” (Pelo, 2005), but this reading describes gender identity
development of kindergarten children and does not acknowledge or discuss transgender
identities. Further, the Gender and Sexual Identities week was also the midterm, so the reflective
journal typically due on reading topics was not required. This indicates that the students in the
course may not have had an opportunity to reflect on or grapple with that week’s readings as
they had to do with other areas of content. Interestingly, the instructor of Syllabus 2 included a
graphic on the top of the first page of the syllabus, an image depicting a pink triangle with the
university’s mascot in the middle of the triangle with its arms outstretched, with the words
“LGBT Safe Space”. It is unknown whether the course, beyond the course schedule and
readings, was really a ‘safe space’ for LGBT students in the class, or what that promise means to
the instructor or the students. Although it is outside the scope of this study, I remain curious as to
why the instructor believed that the course included transgender content; perhaps this is a
situation where the syllabus does a particularly poor job of representing the enacted curriculum.
Syllabus 3 was a required course in Diverse Contexts in Education with a focus on school
and community partnerships, offered at a state university in the Midwestern region of the U.S.
The class met once a week for 16 weeks, with topics including family as a social institution,
social class and poverty, culturally relevant pedagogy and curriculum, linguistic diversity, and
immigration. The assignments for the course included a self-identity and family study, an
interview project, attendance at a parent-teacher conference, a community-based action project,
and a book review. The course had one lesson entitled “What does gay mean? Complexities of
trust and fear in school family partnerships”, but there were no required readings focused on
transgender topics. The only trans inclusion noticeable from the syllabus was one of the optional
books for the book review, from the perspective of the parent of a transgender child (Nutt, 2015).

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Gender-Expansive Syllabi
Case Study Participants

Reading Topics
(# of readings)

S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6

SCHOOL CONTEXT (35)
Student negative school experiences (7)
X
Trans-inclusion in elementary curriculum (3)
Education policy and practice (7)
School recommendations (5)
Experiences of trans youth of color (4)
Trans youth resilience (3)
Sex Education (4)
School Support Structures (2)
STRUCTURAL/INSTITUTIONAL INFLUENCES (19)
Families with trans children (6)
X
Other social institutions (5)
Heterosexism/Heteronormativity (5)
Gender Norms (3)
PERSONAL IDENTITY (8)
Gender identity development (4)
X
Medical transition of youth (1)
Gender dysphoria (1)
Pronouns (1)
Microaggressions (1)
ACTIVISM & THEORY (16)
Social/Activist Movements (4)
Transgender theory (12)

S7

X
X
X

X
X

X
X

S9

X
X
X
X
X
X
X

X

X

S8

X
X
X

X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X

X
X

X

X

X

Table 5.1
Topics and Themes of Required Readings in Collected Syllabi

Syllabus 4 was an elective course focused on feminist, queer and trans theory. It was
offered at a private arts college in the U.S. Midwest, meeting three times a week for six weeks.
The course topics were noticeably interdisciplinary and intersectional, considering the ways in
which sexuality, class, race, ability and religion intersect with gender, with regards to the body
and embodiment. Assignments in the class included a critical review, a group lesson, analysis
papers, and a collaborative newsletter. Thirteen of the required readings explicitly mentioned

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trans in the title, and/or were written by transgender people. These readings were not isolated in
one week or lesson but dispersed throughout the course schedule. The instructor of Syllabus 4
submitted two syllabi to the study, and we decided together to focus on the other syllabus
(Syllabus 6) in our conversations.
Syllabus 5 was an elective course on LGBTQ topics in K-12 classrooms, offered at a
state university in the Pacific Northwest region. The course was unique in its delivery, meeting
on Saturdays only and running for only three weeks. The course offered 1-credit and 2 credit
options, with 1-credit enrolled students attending the Saturday morning sessions only, while 2credit enrolled students stayed for an extended afternoon session as well. Assignments in this
class included self-reflective journaling and a case study analysis, where students chose a
particular theme or topic as a ‘case’ to study from a particular theoretical framework. Although
the course only ran for three weeks, transgender topics were well integrated into the readings; out
of eight required readings, trans was a central topic for three of them (Catalano & Shlasko, 2013;
Portland Public Schools, 2014; Serano, 2016). The instructor of Syllabus 5 was asked to
participate in Phase 2 of the study, but could not commit due to time constraints.
Participants of Phase 2
For Phase 2 of the study, I asked all instructors who submitted syllabi that met two or
more of the gender-expansive criteria if they would participate in the next phase of the study.
Four out of the five individuals agreed to move on to the next phase. The participants will be
referred to with the following pseudonyms throughout the paper. I discussed with the four case
study participants how they are teaching trans; in other words, how and why they chose
particular readings, how trans is part of their assignments, and how the trans-related readings
and/or lessons play out in the classroom context.

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Syllabus 6: Curriculum Theory at the Urban Art Institute
The Curriculum Theory course at Urban Art Institute (both pseudonyms) is a required
course for students in the post-undergraduate teacher certification program. The course is offered
every Fall semester and has a typical enrollment of 12-15 students. There is one section of the
course offered, and Cooper (pseudonym) is the primary instructor. Cooper describes the course in
this way: “The course is grounded in Pinar's idea of currere so it allows for space/time to think
about complicated conversations in our contemporary world”. Cooper identified the presence of
transgender students in the program and the school as being a supportive or encouraging element
for including transgender content in his curriculum. He also notes that the Urban Art Institute has
a new program promoting developing multicultural curriculum that provides material supports
for faculty to do the work of engaging issues such as transgender topics, which serves as an
element of institutional support.
Cooper is an adjunct professor at a private art school (Urban Art Institute) in a large city
in the U.S. Midwest. Cooper identifies as a White cisgender man and a queer scholar, and he
earned his Ph.D. in teacher education. Cooper submitted two syllabi that he developed to the
present study: one elective course on queer, feminist, and transgender theory, and a required
course on curriculum theory. While both syllabi met the criteria for gender-expansive, Cooper
exclusively spoke about the required curriculum theory course in the surveys and interviews.
Syllabus 7: Queer topics in Education at Mountain State University
The Queer Topics in Education course at Mountain State University (both pseudonyms)
is an elective course for undergraduate students in the teacher certification program. It is also
cross-listed as a graduate-level course. The course is new, offered once in a recent Spring
semester and expected to be offered every Spring semester moving forward. There is one section

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of the course offered, and Paige (pseudonym) is the primary instructor. Paige describes the
course in this way: “I developed the course because I wanted to support students to engage in
queer thinking about education-- not only to break the historical silences in teacher education and
schools of education in general, but also to support students to understand and engage queer
theoretical perspectives”. Paige notes that she was intentional about including gender diversity
into the course curriculum, and that transgender topics was central to the design of the course.
Paige works at a public state university in the western region of the U.S. (Mountain State
University). Paige identifies as a White cisgender queer woman, and earned a Ph.D. in
educational foundations. She has experience teaching in secondary schools in addition to
conducting district- and school-level professional development on issues of sexuality and gender.
The syllabus Paige submitted was for an elective course on queer topics in schooling, which she
developed.
Syllabus 8: LGBTQ topics in Schooling
The LGBTQ Topics in Education course at Southern University (both pseudonyms) is an
elective course for undergraduate students in the university’s School of Education. The course
was developed and taught by Harold (pseudonym) and had an enrollment of eleven students.
Harold describes the course in this way: “Rarely do existing survey courses explicitly include
LGBTQ issues as topics in the syllabus. I wanted to meet undergraduate pre-service teachers'
need to know about LGBTQ issues in education through the course. I also wanted to demonstrate
to the School of Education that the course could be designed and delivered in a rigorous way”.
Harold notes that there were no LGBTQ-related courses offered in Southern University’s school
of education, so he developed the course and offered to teach it for free.

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Harold is a doctoral student in educational policy at a public state university in the U.S.
South (Southern University). Harold identifies as a White cisgender gay man, and has experience
in teaching and administration in secondary schools. The course syllabus Harold submitted was
an elective course on LGBTQ topics in education.
Syllabus 9: Diverse Contexts of Schooling
The Diverse Contexts of Schooling course at Northeast University (both pseudonyms) is
a required course for undergraduate students in the teacher certification program. The course is
offered each Fall and Spring semester, with a condensed version being offered in “Maymester”.
The average enrollment for the course is 38, being the largest class to be involved in this study.
There is one section of the course offered, and Casey (pseudonym) is the primary instructor.
Casey describes the course as “the token ‘critical/cultural’ education course for teacher
candidates”. Casey served as a teaching assistant for the primary course instructor for several
semesters, and then had the opportunity to teach the class solo. The course readings and
assignments relevant to gender were not changed when Casey taught the class, so he primarily
relied on the previous instructor’s curricular choices.
Casey is a doctoral student who teaches at a private research university in the Northeast
region of the United States (Northeast University, pseudonym). Casey identifies as straight,
cisgender, and White. The course syllabus Casey submitted was for the required teacher
education course in diversity, which he noted was the only course in the teacher education
program that directly addresses gender issues.
A note on limitations
Harold and Paige taught the elective courses that focused the whole semester on queer or
LGBTQ issues; this lent itself to richer conversations, more data. Cooper and Casey taught

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required courses where trans topics were one unit among many other topics. In addition, Casey
did not develop the course he was referencing, although he did have the opportunity to change
the syllabus before teaching it but he chose to keep trans related curriculum the same. So, he
could not comment on some interview topics such as finding the readings, for example.
All participants in this study are White, cisgender U.S. citizens who speak fluent English.
These demographics may be representative of college faculty and graduate students in most U.S.
schools of education, but they are not necessarily representative of the students in our K-12
schools or the demographics of society more broadly. As I will discuss below, these instructors
are knowledgeable and passionate individuals whose contributions should not be discounted. At
the same time, I must acknowledge the privileged position that the participants inhabit with
respect to their race, level of education, gender identity, citizenship, and language. I, too, inhabit
privileged positions in most of these categories. And so, it is important to acknowledge that this
study is missing the voice and perspective of individuals who do not share these demographics.

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CHAPTER SIX: CASE STUDY CONTEXTUAL FINDINGS
Contextual Factors Inside the Classroom
In the first section of this chapter, I will discuss findings specific to the second aspect of
the question, “How do teacher education instructors conceptualize and/or teach trans in their
courses?” I explored these question with the Phase 2 case study participants only, which
correspond to Syllabi 6-9 in the above chart. Cooper’s course is Syllabus 6, Paige’s course is
Syllabus 7, Harold’s course is Syllabus 8, and Casey’s course is Syllabus 9. These findings
extend the data presented above from Phase 1, and provide a more complex picture of what, and
how, trans content is currently being taught in teacher education courses. Three areas I will
discuss in detail are the instructor’s attempts to complicate the trans narratives present in their
readings, establish class norms that created an environment ripe for gender exploration, and
represent trans people through guest speakers and other first-person narratives.
Complicating Trans Narratives
When I asked the instructors why they chose the readings that they chose, Cooper, Paige
and Harold discussed how they wanted to ‘complicate’ or provide complexity and
intersectionality to the discussion of trans identities and the lived experiences of trans people. In
Paige’s words, “I really wanted to make the readings uncomfortable for students in the class.”
This included being intentional about featuring multiple readings that centralized the experiences
of trans students of color, various depictions of transgender children that were not damagecentered, and bringing in the voices and experiences of trans people through guest speakers and
videos.
Going further, Cooper discussed the benefits and drawbacks of infusing trans matters
throughout the syllabus—so that it is there but not necessarily ‘seen’ through individual lesson

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topics—versus enumerating trans more explicitly. Cooper suggested that “the consequences of
not enumerating are that people don’t get to see,”, but at the same time “the consequences of
enumerating is that we then realize there’s still more work to be done.” He suggested that “it’s
kind of like the melting pot idea, oh, if we just melt everything into the pot of curriculum, we
don’t see any of the distinctions, the differences, the histories.” For this reason, Cooper believes
that enumerating various identities in course syllabi is still an important move in teacher
education courses. At the same time, Cooper was intentional about acknowledging gender
diversity even when the reading or topic was not centered on trans. He says,
I ask students to not only think about race when you’re reading Lisa Delpit, right? Delpit
is forefronting race but how is she also implicating gender? How is she implicating
sexuality? Including is she not implicating sexuality? So it becomes a part of the
complicated conversation of a curriculum theory course, on curriculum as a complicated
conversation. To be able to train the eye in many ways to see what’s there and what’s not
there. (Cooper)
Overall, the instructors discussed the deliberate nature with which they approached developing
their syllabi and choosing their readings on transgender topics. Two instructors lamented the lack
of transgender-related readings in their own Ph.D. programs, compared to research on more
mainstream topics or the traditional ‘canon’ in educational scholarship. The instructors suggested
that they found it difficult and time-consuming to find relevant and accessible transgender
content when developing their own courses, since it was not a built-in aspect of their institutional
training.

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Establishing Class Norms
Harold and Paige discussed setting particular class norms at the start of the semester
including having good intentions, approaching the content with curiosity, and a willingness to be
vulnerable. Paige remarked, “given that some people have never talked about these issues,
there’s going to be a lot not to know. So just having the attention to vulnerability the whole time
was something that students really talked about a lot in their journals and how important that was
and how freeing that was to just name that in the beginning.” Harold talked about his students
being worried about using the right terminology. In his class, he made sure the students knew
that “vocabulary is going to get in the way sometimes”, and so “as long as you come from a
point of good intention and curiosity versus judgment or power difference, we’ll work through
finding the right vocabulary word.” The students in Harold and Paige’s classes were encouraged
to “start where you are, but don’t stay there” (Milner, 2010). With these norms, the instructors
opened up space for a supportive space to unlearn, relearn, and reflect (Cochran-Smith, 1995;
Kincheloe, 2005). Freire developed a non-traditional pedagogy that relied on dialogue to develop
critical consciousness. Dialogue and critical reflection is an important processing tool that helps
students combine theory with everyday life. Reflections can be informal or iterative processes
that help students make sense of the content in a low-stakes atmosphere. Both Harold and Paige
recognized that pre-service teachers have gender identities, and preservice teachers need
opportunities to reflect on and potentially experiment with gender identity and gender
expression.
“It Was All So New”
Instructors reported that for many of their students, this course was the very first time
they had learned about trans identities. For example: “Several students from rural communities

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were like: ‘We had one stop light. We never talked about this.’ There was a lack of
understanding, but not resistance outright” (Paige). Casey suggested that for his students, “it was
all so new. It was new and a lot and they didn’t really know how to say much about it.” This
provided challenges to instructors because they had to start at basic terminology and build from
there. Cooper asked, “How do you start getting pre-service teachers to think about them
[transgender issues] when they might not have had opportunities to think about them, or are
uncomfortable thinking about them, or don’t have the language to think about them?” The source
of the unfamiliarity was not just from previous life experience; the structure of teacher
preparation programs also influenced the depth to which Casey felt he could go:
I don’t want to say we did a ton of specific analysis on specific gender identities. Not that
I didn’t want to, but I think that requires a lot of work to get to a point where that would
be a very productive and informative conversation. For these students, this is the one
class that they have on this. There’s a few other professors who do critical work, but this
is the most systematic.
The task of getting past terminology was easier for instructors teaching elective courses that had
a semester-long focus on LGBT or queer issues in education, rather than for those teaching
required courses that had to cover a long list of other topics.
Instructors reported that the course topics and classroom environment, including the
established norms discussed earlier, gave students an opportunity to explore their own gender
fluidity and/or cisgender privilege. In thinking through aspects of cisgender and heterosexual
privilege, Casey noted that “there was an aha moment for those students who felt their dominant
privilege in that moment. They began to understand how that really exists in the world and how

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other people have a radically different experience.” For others, the course provided the impetus
to, as Paige put it, “really use that space to figure out who you are”:
One of my students changed pronouns over the course of the semester. The student came
in using she/her/hers, and then there’s an assignment that I give called a Queer
Autobiography. During this time, the student said, ‘I think I’m going to change pronouns’
and ‘this is a real surprise to me.’ The student ended up using different pronouns and
now still uses the same pronouns that they were using at the end of class. So for that
student, and for other students in that class, just having somebody take that risk – that
was a big moment for that student and for all of us. (Paige)
According to Paige’s syllabus, the Queer Autobiography is an ongoing writing
assignment where students are asked to “reflect, queerly, on your own experiences, both in and
out of education contexts” and aims to “trouble the ways you understand yourself in the world”.
The autobiography chronicles the students’ personal journeys through the course, as Paige asks
her students to
write the impossible, to think about the ruptures, the places that are sticky, the gaps, the
silences, the tunnels that you have yet to explore—and to reflect not only on you, but also
how you are affected by, contribute to, benefit from, disrupt, trouble, complicate, grapple
with the topics, issues—and systems, discussed throughout the semester. You will use this
assignment as a way to engage with the readings, but also with your own process of
becoming. (Paige’s syllabus)
Overall, the instructors reported that their students seemed open and curious about
transgender topics, even though students’ previous knowledge may have been minimal. None of
the instructors reported remembering a time when their students were outwardly hostile towards

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transgender topics. Instructors who provided space and time for students to reflect on and
explore their own gender identities found that experience to be extremely beneficial for
themselves and the students.
Telling Our Own Story
Instructors were deliberate in their attempts to bring in guest speakers and seek out
transgender-created media such as Youtube videos and independent films. Guest speakers
included transgender high school students, transgender school administrators, and parents of
transgender youth. These real-life representations worked, as Harold describes, to “put a human
face on the data we had just read, the articles we just read.” Rather than waiting for a transgender
student to present themselves, Harold remarked that “I did my very best to make sure they had
representations of trans people, even though everyone in the room, to my knowledge, was
cisgender.” Continuing their attempts to humanize transgender people, instructors also worked to
interrupt certain dominant narratives about trans people that are incomplete. For example,
Harold showcased an independent film entitled “Ross: A Transgender Short Film” because
I think most of the time we think about transgender, people are thinking about male to
female. It seems to be the dominant story or narrative. So I wanted my students to have
an example of the challenges that a female to male student encounters. And this little
short film does that very well, it gets those points across. That like oh, there are things I
should be considering, like dress code and the physical pain that a young person may be
experiencing because they’re trans.
Paige invited a parent of a non-binary child to speak to her class. Paige reported that
“hearing the parent be super on board, super supportive, that really disrupted the narrative for my
students of parents not being supportive and not understanding. I think that having the story from

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a parent was like, ‘Oh, yes. This is a family, and this is somebody’s kid’.” These findings are in
line with Greytak and Kosciw’s (2014) finding that knowing LGBT people is a statistically
significant predictor of a teachers’ frequency of intervention in anti-LGBT behavior. Students in
most of the participants’ classes had an opportunity to meet at least one transgender person,
which in turn might increase the likelihood that they will speak up in the face of trans oppression
or antagonism. These instructors intended to disrupt damaging narratives, to familiarize and
humanize transgender people. There is immense power of representation, of having a real person
I'm trans, or my child is trans, and this is what my life is like, this is the way we see the world
and this is how we think society can and should change. That first-person experience can be
more powerful than any text and should be essential to teacher education’s approach to teaching
trans.
Assignments
Most instructors realized through our conversations that transgender matters were not
explicitly attended to in their assignment instructions. For example, instructors mentioned that
“the assignments are kept pretty wide open in terms of what content is taken up” (Cooper), and
“I didn’t say take up the topic of transgender in a particular way, so I don’t think it was
something that I placed as central to the assignments” (Paige). Expanding further, Harold
admitted that “there is nothing [in the assignments] that is explicitly trans. The students were
able to do what was relevant to them. So I would say since most of them are cisgender there were
very few trans assignments, trans products.” In other words, broadly defined & expansive
assignment instructions sometimes provided opportunities for students to engage in trans matters,
but it also gave them the option not to engage. This seemed to be particularly true for LGBQ and

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cisgender students, who seemed to be drawn to issues of queerness and sexuality when they had
the option to do so.
Sometimes the assignment instructions conflated sexuality with gender identity, or relied
on a binary understanding of gender. Noticing assignment instructions that lists transgender as a
sexual orientation, Harold realized that “I think that’s something else that’s difficult in doing
this, is making sure that in every space that I’m not conflating those two things.” Casey noted,
upon reviewing his course’s final exam questions:
One of our questions on the final was: ‘Discuss how gender roles that are reproduced in
schools harm both males and females in our society?’ Even in that question it’s implying,
reinforcing, the gender binary rather than a spectrum. I just noticed that. The final is
made by the professor and I didn’t change that.
In some courses, assignments and exams appeared to be an element of the curriculum that was
less attended to than the readings with regards to ensuring accuracy and inclusion of transgender
concepts.
Contextual Factors Outside the Classroom
In this section, I offer the findings relevant to my third research question, “What factors
influence how Teacher Education instructors teach trans?”. To answer his question, I asked
participants open-ended questions about factors outside of their own control that influenced how
and why they teach trans.
Local and State Political Commitments
The political leanings and dominating ideologies of the surrounding district and state
have a major impact on what is possible for teachers—and even teacher educators—to do.
Relationships with local school districts and communities influenced the ways in which
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instructors framed conversations around what it looks like to be a supportive K-12 teacher for
trans students. For Paige, the surrounding district’s progressive stance created a mutually
beneficial relationship between parents, the school district, and the university. Parents of LGBTQ
youth pushed the local district to improve their policies and practices, motivating the district to
request professional development from the university, which spurred the university to commit
more resources to professional development efforts, both for the district and for faculty within
the teacher education program. This relationship also provides an opportunity for university
scholars to share new research and knowledge with the local schools.
In many parts of the U.S., it is risky it is for K-12 teachers to be trans allies, much less
identify as trans themselves. In order to address this, Harold talks with pre-service teachers about
finding and keeping a job, what to do if the principal is not supportive, and symbolic ways to
show support for trans students, such as displaying the trans pride flag. Several instructors agreed
that it is important to provide the unique preparation necessary so that “teachers who are
committed to being active allies for trans students will work in contexts that are not great so that
they can provide that support” for transgender and gender non-conforming students. At the same
time, Paige said, “we also want those teachers to stay safe and keep their jobs and have a good
experience. We can’t just say, this is the right thing to do, go do it. Because ‘doing it’ doesn’t
look the same in every context.” These findings show that when instructors are committed to
preparing teachers to be allies and supports for transgender students, they need to understand the
political landscape that their pre-service teachers may be walking into, and discuss potential
ways around these constraints.

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“The Bathroom Bill”
At Southern University, an anti-transgender bill in the North Carolina legislature
provided a real-world example for Harold’s students. Harold was teaching his course on LGBTQ
topics in education when the general assembly in North Carolina introduced House Bill 2, which
regulated the use of public restrooms for transgender people in the state, requiring that
individuals must use bathrooms based on their sex at birth. The bill also restricted cities and
counties from passing antidiscrimination measures that protect transgender individuals. HB2
became law in March of 2016. Harold reports:
While we had discussed heteronormativity, the fact that we were able to listen to the
general assembly’s discussion, or lack thereof, of this topic during class while it was
happening kind of hit home that heteronormativity that is not something that is passive or
that happened years ago to create institutions that we now need to dismantle, but rather it
is something that continues to reinforce institutions that police non-conforming people.
That was a huge aha for my students.
Under President Obama, Attorney General Loretta Lynch filed a lawsuit challenging the
North Carolina law, claiming that the law was nothing more than “state sponsored
discrimination” (Graham, 2016). Unfortunately, under the next presidential administration,
Attorney General Sessions dropped the lawsuit against the North Carolina law.
Leaving the Obama Era: “A Re-Emergence of Rage”
On the federal level, the issue on most of the participants’ minds was the presidential
transition. My interviews with participants spanned the time between just before the election in
November 2016 and the inauguration in January 2017. Several instructors shared concerns and
fears about the upcoming changes to the political landscape. Harold lamented the fact that Betsy

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DeVos was slated to be our next Secretary of Education, considering her ideological views on
schooling. Cooper suggested that those of us interested in social transformation and trans
liberation must “move from being in an offensive state to a rather defensive stance to protect the
basic grounds that have been gained.” Together, we discussed what a defensive stance might look
like, such as holding our local contexts accountable, attending marches and protests, and using
our university resources to support local schools in their efforts to protect trans youth. Cooper
encapsulated the ensuing struggle: “there’s got to be a re-evaluation, re-orientation or perhaps a
re-emergence, hopefully, of rage”. We are only beginning to see and feel the impact of the new
presidential administration, and I, along with my participants, fear what else the future will bring.
Departmental Support
Administrators such as department chairs, deans and chancellors had impact on
participants’ ability to teach trans. Harold called his course “an anomaly”; not only did he
develop and propose the Special Topics course on his own, the university did not pay him to
teach it because “it is not a strategic part of the university’s teacher preparation program.”
Further, Harold reported the dean at his school “claims she doesn’t have the authority or the
power to even mention or encourage what is taught in the classes by the faculty.” particularly
regarding LGBTQ topics. According to Harold, “even though she thinks they should [teach
LGBTQ topics], she doesn’t have the positional power or political power to make that
successful.” At the institutional level, just one individual could make or break the chances of
transgender topics getting incorporated in the teacher preparation program, or even just one
course.
In contrast, Cooper found significant support for infusing trans issues into the curriculum
at his institution, Urban Art Institute. The campus has seen a big push - by the students, in

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particular - for the institution to be more trans-inclusive. In addition, students “have access to
queer spaces in ways that other contexts might not have” (Cooper), such as being in close
proximity to entire neighborhoods dominated by a plethora of businesses, restaurants, clubs, and
other establishments that exclusively cater to gay and queer communities. Being a private
institution that is arts-focused provides specific allowances that public institutions, particularly
land-grant, assessment-focused, institutions do not offer. And, according to Cooper, Urban Art
Institute’s students are more likely to be coming from families with more economic privilege
than average, which can provide more ease in exploring ‘controversial’ issues. In fact,
transgender topics might be more approachable than issues of race or class to people with
wealthier backgrounds, because gender diversity cuts across all racial and class lines.
Student Activism
At Northeast University, a university leader’s unexpected decision caused a wave of
student activism on campus. The tipping point was the closure of the sexual assault advocacy
center on campus, and the movement grew to address issues of sexism, racism, and other forms
on inequity on campus. Students in Casey’s class saw and heard about this movement, and it
motivated them to ask questions and increase their awareness of the issues. Casey remarked that
“all these things were happening on campus, it was there, it was powerful, it was visceral.
Students could relate to that.” An administrator’s decision sparked massive resistance from the
student body, which Casey suggested created conversations and awareness that permeated this
participant’s classroom discussions.
At Urban Art Institute, students are not actively resisting an oppressive administration;
rather, they are working to move conversations even farther along. Cooper reports that, for the
last few years, there has been a very visible trans presence in student activist circles at his

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university, led by a student group centered on gender diversity. He explained, “They really
spearheaded in the way that I think student activists can, conversations around bathroom
accessibility. They produced a lovely little zine that talked about trans issues 101, pronouns, the
history, different ideas of bodies. I think part of the work that has done for the community for the
last couple of years is open up spaces for the conversation” (Cooper). At both Casey’s and
Cooper’s institutions, student activism has permeated classroom spaces and discussions in
positive ways.
Getting Past the Diversity Course
Several participants noted the importance of threading trans and LGBQ topics throughout
teacher education programs, but also acknowledge the difficulty in doing so. Threading LGBTQ
topics throughout the teacher preparation curriculum ensures pre-service teachers are well
prepared to be active allies to trans students (Meyer, Tilland-Stafford, & Airton, 2016). Of all the
participants, Paige has found the most success in this endeavor:
What we try to do in our teacher prep program is string queer topics throughout the
teacher education program. In the foundations class, students get a look at queer topics
from a foundations perspective and a social justice perspective, and by the time they get
to the methods class they’re ready to enact some of these things. Once they get through
the whole program the ideas become more robust.
Previous research has shown that LGBTQ topics are under-prioritized in teacher
education program and largely isolated within diversity courses that cover various aspects of
identity in isolation (Horn et al., 2010; Sherwin & Jennings, 2007). Threading queer topics
through all levels of the teacher education program, as Paige’s program does, allows pre-service
teachers to go beyond the typical exposure to LGBTQ topics in an isolated diversity or

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foundations course. Instead, faculty in Paige’s program are encouraged to be intentional about
incorporating LGBTQ topics and perspectives within other courses such as methods and the
internship, re-iterating and strengthening pre-service teachers’ understanding of these issues.
This is essential to making K-12 schooling a more liberatory space for transgender students,
because without these kinds of intentional practices, we know from previous research that preservice and in-service teachers feel uncomfortable & unprepared to support transgender students
or make curricular & pedagogical improvements (Brant, 2017; Meyer, 2008; Payne & Smith,
2014).
This integrated model is clearly not the norm everywhere; Casey noted that in his teacher
preparation program, “this is the one class that they have on this”, and students only receive a
basic understanding of trans issues without learning how to incorporate that into their own
pedagogy or curriculum. This echoes similar criticisms from educators who want to see a more
deliberate attempt at weaving other issues of oppression and privilege, such as racism and White
supremacy, into courses beyond foundations or multicultural education (Nieto, 2000; Picower,
2009; Sleeter, 1995, 2001).
Implications of Transitory Labor
The increased reliance of transitory labor (adjuncts and graduate students) means that
improvements to teacher education courses may arise and disappear without becoming enmeshed
in the fabric of the department or program. This can mean that instructors end up ‘re-inventing
the wheel’ based on their own interests and expertise, putting in more time and energy to create
something meaningful, only to have their ideas leave with them when they move on. Indeed,
three of the participants were temporary instructors: Casey and Harold are doctoral students and
Cooper is an adjunct instructor. The implications of job insecurity was heavy on Cooper’s mind.

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If the teaching job is temporary, instructors might take less risk in covering ‘controversial’
topics:
I imagine there’s lots of faculty out there that don’t take up these issues that would like to
because they have to survive themselves. At the end of the day, doing this type of work in
particular contexts is going to put people at risk. And people have to decide whether they
want to take those risks or not. (Cooper)
Previous Teaching Experiences
In addition to the socio-political context, instructors had past experiences that heavily
influenced their passion for and interest in teaching trans. In particular, Paige and Harold’s past
teaching experiences in undergraduate and high school spaces had powerful influences on their
thinking on teaching trans. In one instance, Paige witnessed a promising trans student drop out of
the teacher preparation program because he did not feel safe or supported in the local schools.
According to Paige, this experience “really affected my thinking about which identities and
issues to position as central in conversations and how necessary that was.” This points to the
importance of a strong relationship between the university and the local schools, where the
university is able to support pre-service teachers who are trans, and then have confidence that the
local school districts will also support their in-service trans teachers.
Harold encountered a transgender student early on in his K-12 teaching career. In his
first-hour class, this student would arrive dressed in ‘masculine’ clothes and throughout the
course of the hour, would apply makeup and trade clothes with the girls. This activity meant that
the student was not paying attention, and for the first half of the semester, was failing the class.
Harold grappled with how to best approach this situation. Instead of dehumanizing this student,

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Harold asked, “what do I need to do to help make this better?” The conversation continued
between Harold and the student:
‘I’m going to write [preferred name] on my papers’. And I’m like, sure. And I asked,
‘what about this makeup and getting dressed stuff? Can’t you do that at home?’ And he’s
like ‘no, because mom doesn’t know I’m a girl yet, and I’m not sure how she’s going to
respond to it’. And so class started at nine, and we made a pact that he could come to
class at 9:10 if he was already dressed as [preferred name] and had his makeup done.
(Harold)
Harold went on to explain how he adjusted his references to the student based on context.
For example, in class, Harold referred to the student with her preferred name and ‘she’ pronouns.
The student was able to use her preferred name on all coursework. At the same time, when
speaking to her parents or classroom outsiders, Harold called the student by her legal name and
‘he’ pronouns. This short conversation, the pact, and the actions that followed, seemingly turned
things around for this student; she earned a B for the last half of the semester. For Harold, this
experience helped him move from teaching content to teaching students, and it was one of the
reasons why he decided to later pursue his Ph.D.
In a second powerful story, Harold recounted a situation in a different high school where
he was serving as an administrator. It was graduation time, and everyone was excited to celebrate
this rite of passage with one student in particular, a transgender girl who had gotten a lot of
support from teachers and administrators to pass a particularly difficult class. However, the
student didn’t show up to graduation:
Somewhere between graduation practice and graduation night, a staff member told the
student that she would need to come to graduation as a boy, to be able to march. She

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needed to get her hair cut, she needed to wear pants, she needed to wear a button-down
shirt and a tie. But it was someone who didn’t have any authority to say that. Not the
principal, not me, not the teacher who had the responsibility of leading graduation. And
it’s weeks later that I discover why she didn’t’ show up – because she thought she had to
come to graduation as a boy.
Harold expressed frustration that the student was discouraged from attending graduation
as her true self, but he also admitted that the situation made him question himself: “it makes me
wonder if she perceived our actions as being authentic when we were trying to be supportive. I
think about that now.” In each of Harold’s stories, there was one person whose actions created a
turning point. In the first story, Harold’s actions created a positive turning point. In the second
story, the actions of the staff member created a negative turning point. Harold’s experiences
showed the best example of a teacher seeing a human with needs, rather than a problem to be
solved. This is at the essence of a humanizing pedagogy (Winn & Paris, 2013).
Two participants referenced their identity and belonging in the broader LGBTQ
community as being highly relevant to the ways they understand and teach gender diversity.
Paige identifies as queer, and her and Cooper both referenced instances in history and in the
present time that represent for them an overlap between queerness and trans-ness. Within history,
Cooper pointed to the Stonewall riots as a point of overlap between drag queens and trans
women of color: “Where drag and trans-ness get collapsed into one another and have been used
for different, mutually beneficial political and ethical arguments.” In the present time, Paige’s
gender nonconformity (being “not at all” femme identified) means that she frequently gets
unwelcome gendered comments from strangers—a familiar occurrence in many transgender
people’s lives, as well.

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Conclusion
Instructors found most success when a significant number of faculty and administrators
were committed to trans-inclusion. Faculty, department chairs, and deans are all important actors
in moving teacher education in a gender-expansive direction. The institutional contexts
encountered by the participants were often, but not always, a reflection of issues at the local and
state level. The reliance on transitory labor is also a significant factor in the lack of stability or
longevity of transgender topics in teacher education courses.
In this chapter, I provided findings on the first research question: How are we teaching
trans?. There was a wide variety of readings across the nine syllabi, with few readings repeated
on more than one syllabus. This may be a result of the disparate nature of literature and
scholarship on transgender topics; unlike other areas in teacher education, there is no established
canon of texts for transgender topics in education and so it is up to each individual instructor to
find and evaluate transgender-related readings. The transgender-related readings covered an
assortment of topics, with a large number of readings related to the school context and trans
student experiences.

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CHAPTER SEVEN: CONCEPTUAL FINDINGS
Coming into this study, I have felt tension with the common collapsing of trans into other
terms that reference gender or sexuality. Building from my earlier critique in Chapter Three
regarding the reasons why feminist and queer theory are influential but not adequate to analyze
transgender issues, I entered this study with the belief that certain terms such as ‘gender’,
‘queer’, and ‘heteronormativity’ are often assumed to be inclusive of trans identities and
experiences but are not always so in practice. For evidence of this, one can look to Airton’s
(2009) exploration of sexuality and gender education programs, where transgender realities are
not apparent in either the sexuality-oriented or the gender-oriented paradigms. A recent study of
mine (Kean, 2017) corroborates Airton’s findings with regards to multicultural education and
foundations of education textbooks, where transgender topics were found to be largely absent,
underrepresented or misrepresented in sections of text that claim to discuss transgender topics,
but are actually devoted to cisgender girls & women, and cisgender LGBQ individuals.
Overall, it has not been true in my experience that something—an event, a research study,
or a course, for example—that is queer-oriented or queer-centered will automatically represent
and meet the needs of transgender people. I have had similar concerns about the term
‘heteronormativity’, and how or whether transgender identities and experiences are being
included when heteronormativity is studied, discussed, or learned. Because of this, I asked
participants who mentioned ‘queer’ and ‘heteronormativity’ in their syllabi how they defined
these terms, and how they understand queer and trans as being connected or not. In the following
sections, I will describe my findings from those conversations. First, I will describe the ways in
which the participants define gender, and then I will share how they described their
understanding of ‘queer’ and ‘heteronormativity’ in relation to ‘transgender’.

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Gender
All four participants reported speaking to their students about gender being a social
construct. The term ‘social construct’ is helpful in understanding gender in several ways. First, it
helps to distinguish gender from biological sex, which itself is not an immutable binary, and is
related to but not synonymous with gender. Second, gender as a social construct illuminates the
idea that gender roles and norms can change over time, which Cooper refers to as a “historicist”
idea of gender. In my own teaching of gender, I present students with a list of the following
characteristics: long hair, leggings, jewelry, and high heels. I ask the students, if you saw a
person with all of these attributes walking around on campus, would you consider them feminine
or masculine? Without fail, students agree that this would be a feminine person. Then I show
them a painting of King Louis XIV, posing with his signature high heels, wearing the historic
version of leggings, plenty of jewelry and long flowing hair. I ask my students if they would
guess that people considered Louis XIV feminine in his time, and they answer, certainly not! The
king would surely be the epitome of masculinity. We then connect this example to the
understanding that one’s cultural context, rather than one’s physiological traits, determines ideal
and normative behaviors, mannerisms, and social roles for different genders. Casey described a
similar pedagogical method he has used:
I had them get into small groups and list 10 things for each. I asked them the question:
Today, in our world, what does it mean to be female or feminine? That was one question.
Then: What do you think it should mean? On the other side: What does it mean to be
male or masculine? What do you think it should mean? I had them list 10 things per each
and then we talked about that. I used their own responses and ideas to contrast: this
person says it’s this, this other group says, no, that’s actually feminine or whatever. Then

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we took that and we’re like: Where does that come from? How do you even answer that
question, what do you think it should mean? I think largely the students understood. They
were like: Okay, yes, if there’s no objective, it’s kind of whatever you want. (Casey)
In describing how he conceptualizes gender with his students, Cooper emphasized Judith
Butler’s well-known concepts of performativity and citationality; those “simple everyday
examples” such as the act of getting dressed, as a way to think about what the social construction
of gender is. Cooper continues to say:
I think a revelatory moment that oftentimes happens is students themselves kind of
transgress gender norms, right? So thinking about the everyday simple things of growing
up and having their mother put them in pink versus blue. And all of those very simple
things and the ways in which that gets policed for themselves. Then also connecting that
to what I think about in terms of the identity categories, of individuals who identify as
trans. And really kind of teasing apart the experiences of gender, that they kind of relate
to on various levels from the things they wear to the way they speak, their voice
intonations. To then also thinking through gender beyond that binary in terms of thinking
about individuals who identify as trans whose experiences might parallel their own in
some ways but engage contemporary issues in a different way. So I think that’s usually
where there’s some minor aha moments of connecting that kind of everyday gender
experience to then thinking how does that affect people who encounter those realities in a
different way, perhaps a more severe way. And I think those aha moments become, I
don’t want to say easier but they’re visible now because of the visibility of trans issues
now than say, five years ago.

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As Cooper explains, understanding gender as a social construct also provides space for
individuals whose interests, behaviors, and gender expressions do not conform to dominant
expectations of gender. This openness to non-conformity and fluidity can also be seen in Casey’s
remarks:
What I stress is that there’s a continuum, there’s a spectrum. I don’t know if fluid is the
right word for it. I’m trying to stress this thing like instead of thinking and categorizing,
boxes and options—I try to stress to them that this is a dynamic experience that is
different for everyone given their context and social interactions and this can change of a
lifetime. (Casey)
Instead of relying on a textbook definition of gender, Paige describes defining gender as a
process that occurs in an iterative fashion throughout the course of the semester, with input from
the readings and the students:
I think that gender is really defined over the course of the semester through the readings.
And I think some of the ways that it’s defined is from students in the class, the ways that
they identify and the ways that their identity has actually shifted during the course.
Pronouns changed. I feel like I give definitions, but if I had to say how it’s defined I don’t
know that I would just say, ‘I define it in this way and that’s the definition that we
operate from.’
Similarly, Harold does not rely on a textbook definition of gender; in fact, he intends for his
students to discover that “these notions of gender sometimes get in the way of us being able to
meet the needs of students and creating safe learning spaces for students.” In this way, Harold’s
primary concern is identifying the needs of transgender youth and providing the appropriate
support and accommodations for their specific situations.

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Overall, every participant clearly defined gender as a social construct in their teaching, as
a concept separate from but related to biological sex and sexuality. Going further, each had ways
which they problematized strict gender role expectations and attempted through various readings,
assignments and class activities to show that gender can be a dynamic spectrum rather than a
restrictive binary. Although all participants had a relatively standard way of conceptualizing
gender, they differed more significantly in the ways they conceptualized queer, which I will
discuss in the next section.
Queer
From our conversations, I derived multiple dimensions of ‘queer’ as understood by the
three participants for whom ‘queer’ was a salient term in their course: queer as an identity, queer
as an expression or behavior, queer as a theoretical framework, and queer as a politics. In Paige’s
words, “I talk about ‘queer’ as a noun and ‘queer’ as a verb and the problematics of ‘queer’”.
Queer as an
Identity

Queer as an
Expression

Cooper

Cooper

Harold

Harold

Paige

Paige

Queer as a
Theoretical
Framework

Queer as a
Politics

Cooper
Cooper
Paige

Figure 7.1
Manifestations of Queer as Described by Participants

All three participants who discussed their understanding of ‘queer’ spoke about queer as an
identity marker, the act of identifying as queer or having a queer sexuality. Similarly, all three
participants discussed queer as having important relationships with gender expression, behavior,
or performativity. Cooper and Paige specifically discussed queer as a theoretical framework or
analytical lens through which anyone can ‘queer’ or ‘look queerly’ at a topic. Finally, Cooper
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spoke about queer as a politics, identifying important distinctions between identity politics and
queer politics.
Queer as an Identity
The primary way that the participants spoke about ‘queer’ was in the form of an identity
label for one’s sexuality. Queer is sometimes used as a synonym to mean all non-heterosexual
identities, or as a more simplified way of including all letters of the LGBTQIA+ acronym.
However, others intentionally use it instead of terms such as ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ because it is
intentionally ambiguous and open ended; neither the subject or object of interest/desire is
necessarily labeled or gendered. Others use it in order to reclaim the negative connotation
attached to the term for much of history. In this way, queer is “an anti-normative positioning with
regard to sexuality” (Jagose, 1996, p. 98). It is for these and other reasons that ‘queer’ is the
identity of choice for younger generations, particularly youth of color. Harold referenced these
thoughts in our conversation:
Harold: Anyone who is expressing themselves and is disrupting that normative behavior
in my mind is queer. So queer is a broader term to address the sexual and gender minority
people as a whole. Which I think is interesting in that younger folks are willing to adopt,
use and embrace the term queer and to be more inclusive, and folks that are older than me
don’t like that term at all, it’s derogatory for them.
Eli: Yeah, that’s been my experience too, that younger people who are non-conforming
are much more willing to use the word queer. But I’ve also found young people, straight
cis young people, still think of queer as a derogatory term that they potentially use in
derogatory ways. So it’s always interesting because when I teach about LGBTQ issues,

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almost every time they ask me ‘what does queer mean?’ because in their mind, queer is a
negative term that you call someone who you don’t like.
Harold: I think that my students of color really pushed me to use queer more than I would
normally would have used the word queer because it’s part of how they identify. And so
in trying to demonstrate I was learning from them, and I was learning from them, I use
the word queer a whole lot more than I used to.
Queer as an identity term was the most prevalent dimension of queer present in my
conversations with the participants. As with other identity terms identifying one’s sexuality or
sexual orientation, ‘queer’ cuts across all gender identities, meaning that it can be referring to
both cisgender and transgender people. However, some transgender people identify as queer, or
identify with queer communities, and some do not; therefore, it is important to recognize that this
dimension of queer is not always or entirely inclusive of all transgender people.
Queer as an expression or behavior
From a queer perspective, conforming to gendered norms is generally considered as
abandoning your true self or accepting current systems of social power. Perhaps it is exactly
because conformity is not appealing to queer-identified people that they choose a word that is
only recently being reclaimed from pejorative definition of ‘freak’, ‘weirdo’, or ‘strange’. Queer
as an expression or behavior was illuminated most frequently by participants who talked about
subversive, fluid, or non-conforming gender expression. In a similar way to ‘queer’ as an
identity, ‘queer’ as an expression can cut across all gender identities. If ‘queer’ as an identity is
about being queer, then ‘queer’ as an expression is about doing queerness on a personal level.
There are a handful of non-binary identity labels such as genderqueer, genderfuck, or
genderfluid, which describe individuals whose gender identity, and often their gender expression,

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changes or fluctuates between masculine or feminine expressions. Considering ‘queer’ as a way
of describing gender non-conforming expression or behavior creates a clear connection to trans
identity, which can be seen as similarly ‘doing’ gender in a non-normative way. Indeed, some
educators, such as Harold, use the phrase ‘trans and gender non-conforming’ as a catch-all to
refer to the overlapping needs of all individuals whose gender expression—dress, hair,
mannerisms, and style—are presented or perceived in non-normative ways. The phrase ‘gender
non-conforming’ is especially helpful when referring to youth who may be expressing
themselves in non-normative ways but have not adopted a trans gender identity, or have not
come out publicly as trans.
For Cooper, there is a relationship between queer expressions of gender and trans
expressions of gender as seen within the flexible boundaries between drag and trans:
I think, this is probably the way it came out in my life most vividly, and I think it is a
sticky point between trans and gay scholarship, was my relationship with drag queens and
drag kings. That history of drag experiences and trans experiences. Thinking about the
early days of gay liberation where there’s, for me, an interesting overlap between
Stonewall stories that talk about drag queens and Stonewall stories that talk about trans
women of color. Where drag and trans-ness get collapsed to one another and have been
used for different, mutually beneficial political and ethical arguments. (Cooper)
Because the term transgender has only been popularized in the last 50 years, Cooper points to the
difficulty in discerning how individuals in the past might label themselves with today’s terms.
This is especially true in the complex boundary between drag and trans identities. And yet,
regardless of other labels of gender identity or sexuality, communities on this boundary have
often found common ground in utilizing ‘queer’ as an expression. In addition to these two more

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personal dimensions of queer, some participants also referenced two other dimensions: first,
queer as a theoretical framework or mode of analysis, and second, queer as a politics.
Queer as a theoretical framework or mode of analysis
Queer as a theoretical framework refers to the act of analytically ‘doing’ queer work,
queer thinking, queer research, etc. A queer framework is informed by queer theory and its focus
is on destabilizing, deconstructing, and problematizing anything which is assumed to be stable,
fixed, or normal. Queer theorist Deb Britzman (1995) explains it in this way:
The strategy attempts to get at the unmarked criteria that work to dismiss as irrelevant or
valorize as relevant a particular mode of thought, field of study, or insistence upon the
real. It is meant to move beyond essentialist/constructivist debates that have been
necessary to rethinking questions of social difference, identity risks, and politics, but that
tend to stall in stories of origin, arguments of causality, and explanations of conditions.
(Britzman, 1995, p. 156).
Paige explained how ‘queering education’, which is the focus of her course, is an example of
queer as a framework:
Queer is about the ways that we engage with, in this case, education issues across the
board. The questions that we ask. “Queering”, or ‘to queer’, in the ways that I talk about
it in this class, is like how are we disrupting the foundations of how we think teaching
looks, or how we think gender has looked, or how we think the concourse standards have
looked. Queer identity is very central to this course, but also queer as an action or ‘queer’
as an ongoing project, I think that’s the bigger thing that I want my students to walk away
with. It is about identity in this class, but it’s also about disrupting normative practices

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and assumptions across the board in education in ways that we think about even policy
issues. (Paige)
In essence, thinking queerly or doing queer analysis echoes many of the theoretical
constructs located in critical and poststructural frameworks, with a particular attention on
considering aspects of gender and sexuality binaries, norms, assimilation, and resistance.
Considering queer as an analytical framework allows any individual to engage in a queer
analysis, to ‘look queerly’ at a topic or situation without having to necessarily identify as queer.
Queer as a Politics
Queer Politics, as it is understood by intersectional scholars such as Cathy Cohen (1997),
aims to respond to the racism and classism within the mainstream gay and lesbian movement. As
such, a queer politics is anti-assimilationist and subversive, and its goal is an intersectional
framework or an “infinite coalition” (Jagose, 1996) where all marginalized or oppressed people
come together in order to fight against all dominant norms and oppressive systems. In particular,
queer politics is a reaction to identity politics, which assumes/requires a shared identity and
shared goals or needs; queer politics recognizes that shared identity leads to exclusion and a false
sense of universality. Jagose (1996) refers to this as the “constraining effects of naming” (p. 3).
In thinking about material realities, Cooper talked about the differences and tensions
between identity politics and queer politics. Cooper’s thinking on this topic has been
significantly influenced by Cohen’s standpoint. Cooper says, “In my own work, I always have to
make this distinction between the use of ‘queer’ as a kind of identity marker, and I don’t usually
use queer as an identity marker for myself. I think of ‘queer’ as a political stance.” Going further,
Cooper suggests that even if one uses queer as an identity, it does not always follow that one also

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has a queer politics. The same goes for trans individuals, and Cooper uses Laverne Cox and
Caitlyn Jenner as examples of this line of thinking:
For me, there is that tension between an identity politics, which I think is still important
politics, and then a queer politics that pushes against the very real arguments of identity
politics. So I’m thinking of someone like Caitlin Jenner. Caitlin identifies as trans but I’m
not convinced she’s interested in a queer politics. Laverne Cox identifies as trans, but I
think also has a queer politics. I don’t know if either of them identify as queer, and if they
do that’s fine as well. But I don’t know if identifying as queer that makes you necessarily
having a queer politics. I suppose part of it is that difference, an analytic distinction
between being something and doing something. That’s probably one way to see how they
fit together and how they don’t have to fit together. Just because an individual is gay
doesn’t mean they have to embrace a queer politics. Just because Caitlin Jenner is trans
doesn’t mean she has to buy into a queer politics or even a politics that’s interested in
actually thinking about trans material realities, as she doesn’t necessarily seem to do.
Here, Cooper marks an important distinction between gay/queer/trans identities and queer
politics: sexual and gender identity markers are not predicated upon, and don’t automatically
presume, a particular ideological or political stance. Therefore, one can practice a queer politics
without using queer as an identity. And vice versa, someone can be queer or trans in identity
without supporting an anti-assimilationist or subversive politics.
Throughout my conversations with the participants, my goal was to uncover the ways
they were conceptually connecting terms like ‘queer’ to transgender identities and experiences.
What I found was that the participants saw trans and queer connecting through a disruption in

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gender norms, through activism and politics, and through a shared vulnerability to oppression –
particularly those who are both trans and queer. To this last point, Paige added:
I think the question of where transgender and queer, how those two interact, I think for
me with this course it’s been clear to me, that kind of in the spirit of Dean Spades’ work,
centralizing the most vulnerable of the vulnerable is something that I want to take more
and more seriously. I’m looking at those readings from Week 3, “Queer Theory’s Erasure
of Transgender” and then “Queer Theory’s Evil Twin” to say that queer doesn’t speak
about everyone in the same ways. We have to really pay attention to this. In that week,
specifically, I think that the relationship between ‘transgender’ and ‘queer’, it’s like
transgender is almost challenging queer and queer theory to show up in some ways.
(Paige)
Fundamental to all of these manifestations of queer was an intentional subversiveness and
a commitment to anti-assimilationist practices. The distinctions made by the participants were
nuanced in a way that is rarely captured in teacher education texts, or even empirical and
conceptual pieces of scholarship.
Heteronormativity/Heterosexism
Heteronormativity has been a term used in academic scholarship since the 1990s, but
gained greater popularity in the 2010s (Google Trends, 2017). In 2005, Celia Kitzinger (2005)
defined heteronormativity in this way:
The term ‘heteronormativity’ is widely used…to describe socio-legal, cultural,
organizational, and interpersonal practices that derive from and reinforce a set of takenfor-granted presumptions relating to sex and gender. These include the presumptions that
there are only two sexes; that it is ‘normal’ or ‘natural for people of different sexes to be

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attracted to one another; that these attractions may be publicly displayed and celebrated;
that social institutions such as marriage and the family are appropriately organized
around different-sex pairings. (p. 478)
In this definition, heteronormativity clearly includes a reference to the sex binary, challenging
the idea that there are only two sexes. Because sex and gender have been and still are heavily
conflated, it is difficult to discern whether Kitzinger is also inferring that there are more than two
genders, but let us assume that she is. What concerns me is that, other than including the word
‘transgender’ in the acronym LGBT, Kitzinger—and many others who study, discuss or teach
heteronormativity—largely do not contend with the sex/gender binary, transgender experiences,
or gender identity; instead, they focus much more heavily on the latter presumptions regarding
attraction, public affection, and institutional discrimination (Kean, 2017; Nicolazzo, 2015). For
this reason, I am hesitant to assume that scholarship or discussions about heteronormativity
necessarily includes transgender identities or reflects transgender knowledge. After conducting
the Phase 1 analysis of the syllabus readings, this hesitation proved reasonable: it was not always
the case that readings on this topic included gender identity in addition to sexual orientation, and
some readings included gender identity in a way that was ambiguous. For example, in Sumara &
Davis’ article entitled “Interrupting Heteronormativity: Toward a Queer Curriculum Theory”, it
is not clear whether the author’s framing of heteronormativity as being related to “behaviors
considered proper to a heterosexual identity” (Sumara & Davis, 1991, p. 192) includes
transgender people or not, as the authors’ focus is squarely on issues of sexuality and not gender
identity. Similarly, an article by García and Slesaransky-Poe (2010) provides an understanding
of heteronormativity that explicitly includes problematizing the gender binary, although not
necessarily in a way that forwards transgender awareness. The authors provide a conceptual

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deconstruction of the connections between gender identity, gender expression and
heteronormativity, forwarding the idea that “the gender binary serves to ensure that we
participate in the expected patterns of ‘‘appropriate’’ heterosexuality and corresponding gender
identity” (García & Slesaransky-Poe, 2010, p. 247). Although the authors say they intend to
differentiate sex and gender, they use girl/woman interchangeably with female, and boy/man
interchangeably with male. For example, they define ‘sex’ as “the biological and anatomical
differences between women and men, that is, their genitalia” (p. 247) but also define the sex
binary as “boy or girl” (p. 246), while later describing gender expressions as being ‘male’ or
‘female’ (p. 249). Going further, the authors do not trouble the idea that a ‘male’ sex at birth
should lead to a ‘boy’ and then a ‘man’, and the same for a ‘female’ sex at birth leading to a ‘girl’
and then a ‘woman’; instead, they assert this progression as a given. In this sense, the authors
discuss only gender non-conforming behaviors among cisgender youth, and they do not
acknowledge or discuss transgender or non-binary gender identities in relation to
heteronormativity.
For my participants, however, trans oppression was clearly and intricately tied to
heteronormativity. I asked Harold and Casey, in particular, about the connection between
heteronormativity and trans oppression, because both of their syllabi featured readings with
‘heteronormativity’ or ‘heterosexism’ in the title. Harold provided a particularly powerful
response reflecting his understanding of how trans fits into heteronormativity:
Eli: So in your mind, what is the relationship between heteronormativity and transgender
issues?
Harold: I think heteronormativity is the root cause of the majority of social and health
issues that trans people experience as they are growing up. As they are older, it is the root

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cause of social, economic, educational, housing outcomes that trans people experience.
From my reading, and I can’t say from my lived experience, but from my reading, it’s my
understanding that trans people, as a whole, experience workplace discrimination at
higher rates than cisgender people, experience homelessness at higher rates, experience
suicidality at higher rates, suicide attempts at higher rates, suicide completion at higher
rates, higher incidences of obesity or depression or anxiety, higher rates of alcohol and
drug abuse, smoking. Less likely to complete school. If they do complete school, lower
GPAs, higher rates of absences at school. And from my reading, and I think from my
observation, heteronormative expectations in school with respect to dress code, with
respect to how they want to live their lives, with respect to which gendered facilities they
use, which pronouns they use, how we represent them in school life, how we represent
them in the curriculum, impacts whether they feel wanted or not wanted, accepted or not
accepted, authentic or not.
Casey described the ways in which heteronormativity and patriarchy are interwoven systems of
oppression, and how he stresses the importance of understanding their relationships to each other
within a larger context. Casey’s class was a required course covering a host of different topics,
and so in his short time on the topic of gender and sexuality, he said he focused on the larger
context of patriarchy, homophobia and heterosexism, the direct relationships between those
systems, and how they play out in a classroom environment. In Casey’s words, “the issue is not
trans identity, the issue is patriarchy, homophobia, and heterosexism”.
In summary, my conversations with the participants were fruitful in gaining insights into
the various ways these educators were understanding or conceptualizing gender, queer, and
heteronormativity in relation to trans. I discovered that all had a fairly similar approach to

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teaching gender as a concept, but had divergent and multiple understandings of queer.
Heteronormativity was understood to be the overarching system of oppression targeting all nonheterosexual and non-cisgender people. In the next chapter, I will provide a summary of my
findings in addition to discussing major implications of this study, including some discussion on
the ways in which I and the participants grappled with various concepts.

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CHAPTER EIGHT: DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS
Summary of Findings
In this chapter, I aim to highlight some of the key findings and implications that have
emerged from this study. These are both conceptual and empirical in nature, because this study
aims at pushing both the dominant conceptual frameworks within teacher education and the
methodological approaches typically used to explore transgender and other marginalized groups
within education. I propose these findings and implications not as a prescriptive demand or as a
list of best practices, but as areas of insight and avenues of possibility.
This dissertation focuses on curriculum as a powerful tool in understanding gender and
advancing transgender justice. I have aimed to build on prior work exploring how teacher
education courses, instructors, and textbook authors prioritize and approach transgender topics,
and work that identifies robust pre-service training on transgender topics as essential preparation
for teachers’ ability to be an active ally to their transgender students. My study contributes a
connecting element between gender theory and curriculum theory, understanding curricular
choices as politically and ideologically powerful, in line with scholars of critical curriculum
theory, and understanding that the dominant cultural view of gender is harmful and constraining,
in line with queer and transgender frameworks.
This study is situated within critical and poststructuralist strands of educational research
and within education-focused strands of queer and transgender studies. My study builds on the
empirical work emerging from these fields in two important ways. First, it explicitly adopts a
critical trans theoretical approach to curriculum analysis. Most empirical work in curriculum
studies to date is positioned within and does not challenge the gender binary. It is not uncommon,
for example, to see studies that claim to center ‘gender’ in schooling contexts without

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considering or even acknowledging the existence of transgender people. My study takes a
different approach, simultaneously troubling the idea of binary gender categories and centering
transgender experience and knowledge.
Second, my study builds upon previous work by providing conceptual and contextual
insights from instructors who are already working to teach gender in expansive ways. I set out to
investigate teacher education curriculum from a theoretical and methodological perspective that
would allow the instructors’ insights to emerge. I believe, following Tuck and Yang’s (2013)
forwarding of desire-based rather than victim-based research methodology, that it is just as
important to highlight and understand the praxis of instructors making positive contributions to
teaching trans as it is to understand the more often researched practices of unsupportive
instructors or damaging practices.
In Chapter 2 of this dissertation, I discussed the relevant prior literature and things that
we already know about the intersection between transgender topics and teacher education.
Findings by Horn et al. (2010) and Sherwin and Jennings (2007) provide a glimpse into the
priorities of teacher education programs and their administrators, but these studies did not
capture the priorities of the instructors; before the present study, we had little research exploring
what individual instructors are prioritizing in their own classes. Based on the findings of this
study, we see that instructors prioritized four major themes in the 80 readings related to
transgender topics: 1) School context, 2) Personal identity, 3) Structural/institutional influences,
and 4) Activism & Theory. Under the theme of school context, student negative school
experiences and education policy and practice were the most numerous topics. Under the theme
of structural/institutional influences, the family as an institution was most heavily represented,
with several readings providing the perspective of parents of transgender youth. There were

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significantly fewer readings that covered topics relevant to personal identity, with a total of eight
readings under this theme.
In conversations with the case study participants, I found that establishing class norms of
vulnerability and openness, utilizing guest speakers, and providing a space for their students to
explore their own gender identity were crucial elements in teaching trans. Instructors found most
success in teaching trans when a significant number of faculty and administrators were
committed to trans-inclusion. Faculty, department chairs, and deans are all important actors in
moving teacher education in a gender-expansive direction. Teacher education programs must
play a central role in advancing the movement toward safer, more affirming schools for youth of
all genders. The institutional context encountered by the participants were often, but not always,
a reflection of issues at the local and state level. The reliance on transitory labor is also a
significant factor in the lack of stability or longevity of transgender topics in teacher education
courses.
Previous studies have discovered that multicultural and foundations textbooks largely
ignore, underrepresent or misrepresent transgender identities, experiences and knowledges
(Kean, 2017; MacGillivray & Jennings, 2008; Young & Middleton, 2002); what we did not know
before this study is whether instructors are actually using these books in their courses; and if they
are not, what other readings they use and how they choose them. The data from this study show
that instructors who meet the gender-expansive criteria are not using these textbooks. One
participant used an anthology text that was cited by Kean (2017) as having positive and accurate
coverage of transgender issues, but otherwise, participants in the case study did not rely on
textbooks for a majority of their readings. Instead, they hand-picked personal narratives,
empirical studies, non-profit research reports, theoretical pieces, video testimonials, policy

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papers, and other resources for their curriculum. For many of my participants, and for me, course
development of this kind is a labor of love.
Previous research informs us that pre-service and in-service teachers feel uncomfortable
& unprepared to support transgender students or make curricular & pedagogical improvements
(Brant, 2017; Meyer, 2008; Payne & Smith, 2014). What we didn’t know before this study is
how teacher educators are working to improve pre-service preparation in this area. Participants in
this study shared insights on certain curricular and pedagogical moves they are making when
teaching transgender, such as emphasizing the importance of reflection and self-growth,
discomforting the comfortable, and centering the experiential knowledge of trans people and
their families.
Implications for theory and practice
The first major implication of this study is that educators are grappling with multiple and
sometimes contradictory definitions and conceptualizations. There was nothing standardized or
replicable about how the participants defined many of the terms we discussed, such as ‘gender’,
‘queer’, and ‘transgender’. Their understandings of these terms were deeply informed by their
own experiences and positionalities. As I discovered from my conversations with participants,
many of these terms can have multiple dimensions – ‘queer’, for example, can be used as an
identity category, a behavior or expression, a theoretical or analytical framework, and/or as a
form of politics. It is clear that not all educators do, or should, define or use terms such as ‘queer’
in the same way; however, I do find it essential that educators critically reflect upon and
articulate how they are understanding and using these terms in their teaching and scholarship.
All of the participants in this study taught gender as a social construct, specifically
distinguishing it from biological sex, which is a common approach for many educators, in my

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experience. Beyond this, several participants used this framing as a way to identify similarities in
the everyday gender experiences of cis and trans people, and also to provide an entry into
challenging and problematizing the rigidity of the gender binary as it is socially constructed. This
was a promising finding for me, because in my own (anectodal) experience, cisgender educators
typically don’t offer a nuanced or trans-inclusive understanding of gender in their classes. The
participants showed why it is important to understand that within a society where gender is
socially constructed, there are people whose self-determined gender identity breaks that highly
restrictive binary. Educators who conceive of gender as something that we do rather than
something we are, or understand gender to be performative, should also consider how socially
unintelligible identities, expressions and behaviors fit into that conceptualization and ways in
which to teach gender in a more trans-inclusive way, as the educators in this study did.
Paige helped changed my understanding of educators who use queer as a framing that
includes transgender topics – she said, “I trouble that framing even though I also use that
framing”. It clarified for me that using the framing of queer, with trans subsumed within it, does
not necessarily mean that you do not find the inclusion of trans within queer problematic or that
you do not trouble this categorization in your teaching. Paige had a willingness to question the
inclusion of trans within queer, both in her own conceptualization and within her curriculum.
This was a refreshing and affirming finding for me. Still, I wonder whether Paige’s approach to
queer is commonplace, considering her extra-ordinary background with teaching trans and queer
topics.
The participants rightfully identified structural discrimination and systemic oppression
that causes violence against trans people, and they consistently identified this phenomenon as
heteronormativity. Harold identified heteronormativity as having “an element of gender identity

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and gender expression as well as sexual orientation and romantic attraction”. This clarification
was helpful in seeing that heteronormativity is a system of oppression relevant to transgender
people’s lives, and it aids in understanding the complex relationships between sex, gender, and
sexuality, but it does not necessarily work as a theoretical construct that can consider transgender
people’s experiences outside of interpersonal relationships, marriage/family related institutional
structures. To that end, I want to suggest that we need another more specific term to
understanding structural oppression against trans people and that is genderism, which is outlined
in the first principle of the Critical Trans Framework that I am forwarding. The need for this term
was illuminated when Casey said: “I also introduced heterosexism, homophobia, and how it’s all
intertwined. Definitely I would stress how the phenomenon of, the oppression of LGBT people. I
don’t know the best way to characterize that, and that was part of it. What’s the best language?”.
Whereas heteronormativity centers norms of sexuality, marriage, and family, genderism is
uniquely focused on gender and all of its various levels and manifestations, irrespective of one’s
sexual or romantic orientations. Simply put, genderism is a more relevant and specific means of
understanding transgender oppression that centers issues of gender and de-centers issues of
sexuality.
The second major implication of this study is the cyclical nature of the lack of training,
inclusion, integration of transgender topics in all levels of education. Participants did not feel that
their own schooling, including their doctoral programs, prepared them to teach transgender
topics. Several participants lamented on the difficulty of finding trans-related curriculum for their
own courses because it was not something provided in mainstream educational coursework. Any
marginalized area of research is more difficult to find and takes additional time to read. As a

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graduate student and as an instructor, it is simpler to call upon the work that has been introduced
and recommended to you even though it may not be the most accurate or representative.
Teacher education must recognize transgender people’s needs and be responsive to them,
attending to the ‘epistemology of ignorance’ (Mills, 1997; Tuana, 2008) around transgender
issues. Second, teacher education has a responsibility to transgender youth to ensure teachers are
prepared and justice-minded. Teacher educators must feel comfortable and confident in
transgender topics and must be able to model this approach with their students. There must be a
programmatic and curricular focus on what it means to teach and affirm all students, especially
trans students. We need to not only provide preservice teachers with foundational knowledge and
terminology, but provide opportunities to grapple with and implement gender diverse ideas in
content methods courses and field experiences. And finally, teacher education needs the voices of
transgender people in order to better respond to their needs. This is particularly true for the most
marginalized transgender communities such as trans women of color, trans people with
disabilities, and undocumented trans people. Teacher education also needs to provide preservice
teachers with tools to use when responding to and supporting transgender youth.
The third major implication of this study relates to the present socio-political moment as
being gripped by fear and rage. I conducted the one-on-one interviews with participants from
October through December of 2016. In the midst of the interviews, Donald Trump won the
electoral college vote and became the President of the United States. It is fair to say that the
participants of this study assumed, or at least strongly hoped, former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton would win the election; I think it is also fair to say that some of us were in shock or
denial when Trump won the electoral college vote. It was not until our group discussion in
January of 2017, less than a week from Inauguration Day, that I and my participants were

127

coming to terms with what had happened, and what could happen next. The participants
displayed a belief in the power of alliances, coalitions and community to create social
transformation, but spoke with hesitation about what is possible in this new political landscape.
Writing this chapter now in December 2017, Trump and his administration have enacted
executive orders and rescinded important policies and recommendations set forth by President
Obama protecting and supporting trans individuals and other vulnerable populations. These
changes are not just isolated to the Department of Education, but have also involved the
Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. We are seeing
now a rise in both fear and rage. Some are acting upon beliefs rooted in ignorance, fear, and hate;
some are fearful for their lives and livelihoods, as federal and some state governments continue
to pull funding from social welfare programs and the Affordable Care Act. There is also an
abundance of rage; people are taking to the streets, raging at the injustice playing out daily,
sometimes hourly, in overwhelming amounts. These actions and the climate of hostility and
oppression they provoke have major implications for the efforts to transform teacher education
into a gender-expansive and liberatory space.
Limits of the Study
All the participants were White and cisgender, though not all were gender conforming.
Considering this positionality, what they knew about trans experience they had learned from a
friend, read in a book, or understood through a student. Therefore, the study was limited by the
lack of transgender participants or people of color. In future studies, it will be important to do the
necessary work of identifying trans educators and/or educators from various racial and ethnic
communities, in order to gain valuable insights that were lacking from this study.

128

Though it was my intention to create a supportive group of instructors who could actively
work together on curriculum development or other projects, it did not turn out this way in reality.
All the participants were excited to ‘meet’ each other virtually, respected each other and shared
openly during our conversation. Since then (January 2017), it has been difficult to re-convene the
group and take further action. I contacted the participants to see about meeting up at the AERA
conference in April, but only two of the four were attending. When I reached out to them a
couple of times over the passing months, only one or two folks responded. This is not to shame
them but to point out that maintaining a community and working together on projects is
immensely difficult considering all the responsibilities that educators are faced with, particularly
considering our geographic distance from each other. And especially, more than the problem of
distance, is the daily anxiety so many have felt since Trump took office, the constant concern of
and for our most vulnerable populations, every day a new and more terrifying future comes into
view. I cannot fault my participants for not being able to fit this onto their already overflowing
plates. Still, it is important to find the love and joy in this work. Community-building and
coalition-building are essential to surviving and thriving in this neoliberal, trans-antagonistic
culture.
Concluding Thoughts
Butler (1988) suggests that through critiquing and questioning the social construction of
gender, we may be able to rise from beneath its oppressive force. In order to do this, we must
consider how or why we as a culture have such deeply entrenched ideas regarding gender,
examine the mundane and implicit beliefs we hold about appropriate gender performance. When
all of us, especially educators, are immersed in an epistemology of gender that is binary and
restrictive, we are less able to imagine, explore, and express our multifaceted selves. We are less

129

able to accept these imaginations, explorations, and expressions in others. We may inadvertently
support an oppressive gender ideology and approach gender diversity with fear and ignorance.
Instead of relying on an essentialist view of gender as either/or, educators must create tools and
strategies that help us interrogate our own gender and practice epistemic resistance.
This study provides insights into the curricular practices of teacher educators, and creates
a network of educators whose goal is to continue moving teacher education toward transinclusiveness together. My participants and I are excited about our plan to create and publish this
framework in an upcoming book, which will also include the beginnings of a list of essential
texts on transgender topics in education. Many of the participants displayed a belief in the
importance and power of alliances and community to create social transformation. Together, we
intend to use our collective wisdom and experience to advance the transformation of teacher
education in the long run. In the short run, we hope to bring trans and trans-allied educators like
ourselves out of isolation, and into a closer relationship and dialogue. In closing, I end with an
inspirational quote: “Don’t forget to act. For it is the action grounded in reflection, it is the
praxis, that will transform the world” (Blackburn, 2014, p. 55-56).

130

APPENDICES

131

Appendix A: Call for Participation
Dear Teacher Educators,
This letter extends an invitation to you to join my research project. For my dissertation
study, I am interested in learning about what transgender themes or issues teacher educators are
including in their curricula. The first phase of the study will be comprised of a thematic analysis
of syllabi. To that end, I am asking for teacher educators of all ranks (faculty, fixed-term,
graduate instructors, etc.) to send me a copy of your most recent syllabus featuring issues of
gender and/or sexuality with a specific focus on transgender issues. You can participate by filling
out this short survey and sending an electronic version of your syllabus, including the
readings/course schedule, to keaneli@msu.edu. I am looking to gather the widest possible range
of syllabi; the institution type or program type does not matter, as long as the course is explicitly
intended for pre-service teachers. The courses can be required or electives.
There are no known risks or costs to participating in this study. Your participation in this
study will not be financially compensated, but your participation will provide insights into the
practices of teacher educators with regard to transgender topics. The results of this study may be
published or presented at professional meetings, but the identities of all research participants will
remain anonymous. Participating in this study is completely voluntary. You have the right to say
no to participating, and the right to change your mind at any time and withdraw your syllabus
from consideration in the study.
If you have concerns or questions about this study, or to report an injury, please contact
Dr. Terry Flennaugh at 517-353-9337, flennaug@msu.edu. If you have questions or concerns
about your rights as a research participant, would like to obtain information or offer input, or
would like to register a complaint about this study, you may contact, anonymously if you wish,
the Michigan State University's Human Research Protection Program at 517-355-2180,
irb@msu.edu, or 207 Olds Hall, MSU, East Lansing MI 48824.
Sincerely,
Eli Kean

132

Appendix B: Syllabus Matrix
Gender-Restrictive Syllabi
Syllabus 1

Syllabus 2

Syllabus 3

Syllabus 4
Elective
(PhD level
course)
Inherently
but not
explicitly

Required or
Elective?

Required

Required

Required

Trans Included?

Yes

No

Yes

How much Trans?

One reading on
LGBT youth;
includes 5
transgender
participants (out
of 30)

None

2 readings (one
of which is
optional);
potentially other
(unlisted)
readings
digitally
provided to
students on
Blackboard

N/A

Where is Trans
within the course
sequence?

1 day in Week 10
out of 15; after
history of public
schooling (4
weeks), Race &
Ethnicity (1
week), Social
Class (2 weeks)

There is a week
titled 'Gender and
sexual identities'
but none of the
readings refer to
transgender
people.

Second to last
week of class
(Week 15 of 16)

No explicit
mention of
trans*. Lots
of focus on
'queer' and
one reading
with LGBTQ
acronym in
title.

What readings are
explicitly transinclusive?

Grossman, A.H.,
Haney, A.P.,
Edwards, P.,
Aless, E.J., Aron,
M., and Howell,
T.J. (2009).
“Lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and
transgender
youth talk about
experiencing and
coping with
school violence:
A qualitative
study”. Journal
of LGBT Youth
6(1), p. 24-46.

Kroeger (2008)
"Doing the
Difficult",
One reading called written by
"Playing with
instructor of
Gender" describes course, uses
the gender identity LGBTQ
development of
acronym but
kids in
does not talk
kindergarten, but
specifically
relies on a binary
about
understanding of
transgender
gender.
people. Second
reading is an
optional book:
Nutt, E. (2015).

Trans may or
may not be
included in
the readings
with a 'queer'
focus.

133

"Becoming
Nicole"
High school
student
experience
Themes/Perspectives (empirical
in the Readings?
study): victim
stance, means of
coping, school
recommendations
Explicit
intersections of
No.
identity?

Other transinclusive curricular
elements?

None

Gender-Expansive?

No, because only
one article to
cover the whole
of LGBTQ
identified
students, and
transgender
participants are
underrepresented
in the study.

Gender identity
development in
early elementary;
gender norms

Transgender
kids (binary),
how families
navigate having
a transgender
child

N/A

N/A

No

N/A

No. Instructor
included a 'safe
space' graphic on
the top of 1st page
of the syllabus.
Midterm is same
week as gender &
sexual identity
readings, so
students are not
required to write
reflection on that
topic.

No

N/A

No, because trans* No, because the
topics are not
T in LGBTQ is
explicitly covered. largely silent.

134

No, because
there are no
readings that
speak
specifically
to trans*, and
the course is
at the PhD
level (outside
scope)

Gender-Expansive Syllabi NOT in the Case Study
Syllabus 5
Required or Elective?
Elective
Trans Included?
Yes
Thirteen readings explicitly
mentioned trans* in the title
How much Trans?
and/or are written by transgender
people.
Transgender is explicitly
mentioned (in readings, topics or
Where is Trans within
discussion questions) in four of
the course sequence?
six weeks. beginning, middle, and
end.

What readings are
explicitly transinclusive?

Syllabus 6
Elective
Yes
Out of eight readings, three
explicitly discuss trans issues
in the title.
First and second week (two of
three weeks) incorporate trans
readings.
Transgender Oppression by
Catalano & Shlasko (pp. 425431)
PPS Memorandum: Supporting
our transgender students and
PPS FAQ

(See syllabus)

Trans Woman Manifesto by
Serano (pp. 443-446)

Themes/Perspectives in
the Readings?

Transgender theory, systems of
oppression, social institutions
(media/pop culture, medicine,
law), social movements. At least
four pieces written by transgender
people.

Oppressive systems; personal
perspective of trans woman;
education policies (local, state,
federal)

Any explicit
intersections of
identity?

Very intersectional with issues of
sexuality, disability, race.

No

Other trans-inclusive
curricular elements?

Assignments including critical
review, analysis papers, etc. pull
from readings; could easily
include trans* topics

Many of the assignments use
the phrase "gender and
sexuality" to note that students
should focus on both. Does not
frequently specify gender
identity.

Yes, because it is intersectional,
heavy on readings by and about
Yes, because they address
trans* people, includes complex
systemic oppression and
Gender-Expansive?
view of trans* people in various
include first-person narrative
social institutions, discusses
from a trans person.
systems of oppression
Gender-Expansive Syllabi in the Case Study
Syllabus 7
Syllabus 8
Syllabus 9
Syllabus 10
135

Required or
Elective?
Trans Included?
How much
Trans?

Required

Elective

Elective

Required

Yes
4 readings

Yes
12 readings
with titles
explicitly
addressing
trans*

Yes
23 readings
with titles
explicitly
addressing
trans*

Where is Trans
within the course
sequence?

Week 7
(Reconceptualizi
ng curriculum)
and Week 13
(The queer and
trans
curriculum), of
17 weeks
(See syllabus)

Dispersed
throughout:
Weeks 3, 4, 9,
14, 16

Dispersed
throughout:
Weeks 1, 2, 3,
5, 6, 7, 11, 13

Yes
Explicitly, 1
reading; though
there are several
other readings
on gender
norms, social
construction of
gender,
heterosexism.
Week 9, at the
top of a 5 week
unit of gender,
heterosexism,
homophobia

(See syllabus)

(See syllabus)

Intersection of
gender, race &
sexuality; gender
theory; systems
of oppression;
experiences of
transgender
students

transgender
theory; teacher
education;
heteronormativi
ty; trans*
children; transinclusion in
elementary
curriculum;
systems of
oppression;
social
institutions;
bullying;
education
policy;
transgender
authors

psychology of
gender identity
development &
gender
dysphoria,
heteronormativi
ty, education
policy, systems
of oppression,
experiences of
trans youth,
experiences of
trans youth of
color, families
with trans
children,
bullying and
violence, transinclusion in
elementary
curriculum;

What readings
are explicitly
trans-inclusive?

Themes/Perspecti
ves in the
Readings?

136

Kate Bornstein "Which
Outlaws? Or,
Who was that
masked man?"
Trans author;
Heteronormativi
ty; gender norms

Any explicit
intersections of
identity?

Yes, intersecting
race and gender
(McCready
reading)

Other transinclusive
curricular
elements?

Assignments
relate to the
readings and are
open-ended, so
students would
likely need to
engage with
trans topics in
some
assignments.
Yes, because it
is intersectional,
includes
complex view of
trans* people in
various social
institutions,
discusses
systems of
oppression

GenderExpansive?

Yes,
race/ethnicity
(latinx) and
transgender.
Many other
intersections
between 'queer'
or 'LGBTQ' and
disability, race
(black, asian,
latino, men of
color, women of
color)
Nothing
explicit, but
inherent in
assignments
focused on
'queer' or
'queering'

Yes, because it
is intersectional,
includes
complex view
of trans* people
in various social
institutions,
discusses
systems of
oppression,
includes several
trans* authors.

137

transitioning
youth,school
support
structures
(counseling,
facilities,
extracurriculars
); sex education
Yes,
race/ethnicity
and transgender

No

Trans student
No
panel, trans
school
administrator
guest speaker,
weekly essential
questions

Yes, because it
is intersectional,
includes
complex view
of trans* people
in various social
institutions,
discusses
systems of
oppression,
includes several
trans* authors.

Yes (slightly),
because it
includes a trans
author and
explores systems
of oppression

Appendix C: Topics/Themes of Transgender-related Readings
I.
School Context
A. Student negative school experiences (victimhood, means of coping with violence,
school bullying)
i. Grossman, A.H., Haney, A.P., Edwards, P., Aless, E.J., Aron, M., and Howell,
T.J. (2009). “Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth talk about
experiencing and coping with school violence: A qualitative study”. Journal of
LGBT Youth 6(1), p. 24-46. High school student experience (empirical study):
victim stance, means of coping, school recommendations. Participants were
diverse in terms of race and class, and went to urban schools, but "this study
did not address issues related to typical urban characteristics, such as poverty,
community disorder, racial and ethnic discrimination"
ii. GLSEN and Harris Interactive (2012). Playgrounds and Prejudice: Elementary
School Climate in the United States, A Survey of Students and Teachers. New
York: GLSEN.
iii. Aragon, S. R., Poteat, V. P., Espelage, D. L., & Koenig, B. W. (2014). The
influence of peer victimization on educational outcomes for LGBTQ and nonLGBTQ high school Students. Journal of LGBT Youth, 11(1), 1-1
iv. Meyer, E. J. (2015, January 25). School dangerous for LGBT youth despite
legal protections: New data show high risks for LGBT youth at school.
Psychology Today.
v. Biegel, S. (2010). Confronting the challenges faced by transgender youth. In
The right to be out: Sexual orientation and gender identity in America’s public
schools (pp. 175-195). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
vi. Wyss, S. E. (2004). ‘This was my hell’: the violence experienced by gender
non-conforming youth in US high schools. International Journal of Qualitative
Studies in Education, 17(5), 709-730.
vii. Grossman, A. H., & D'Augelli, A. R. (2006). Transgender youth: Invisible and
vulnerable. Journal of Homosexuality, 51(1), 111-128. doi:
10.1300/J082v51n01_06
B. Trans-inclusion in elementary school
i. Ryan, C. L., Patraw, J. M., & Bednar, M. (2013). Discussing princess boys
and pregnant men: Teaching about gender diversity and transgender
experiences within an elementary school curriculum. Journal of LGBT
Youth,10(1-2), 83-105.
ii. Payne, E., & Smith, M. (2014). The big freak out: Educator fear in response to
the presence of transgender elementary school students. Journal of
homosexuality, 61(3), 399- 418.
iii. Slesaransky-Poe, G., Ruzzi, L., Dimedio, C., & Stanley, J. (2013). Is this the
right elementary school for my gender nonconforming child? Journal of
LGBT Youth, 10(1-2), 29-44.
C. Education policies or practices
i. Gilbert, J. (2016) Let Us Say Yes to Who or What Turns Up: Education as
Hospitality Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, 4(1).
“This article asks how our conceptualizations of gayness would shift if we
saw sexuality as part of the ordinary work of teaching and learning; indeed if
138

sexuality, in all its strange and unexpected manifestations, was seen as
ordinary” (Gilbert, p. 25). “In this paper, I have assembled three examples of
times when gayness has emerged as controversy and pushed against the limits
of educational thought and practice—debates about same-sex marriage, a
story about a transgendered youth transitioning in high school, and explicit
representations of sexuality in a teacher education classroom. Each example
offers a different vantage to consider the qualities of gayness and their relation
to teaching and learning. In these examples, I consider how a turn to
hospitality might make possible an education that welcomes gayness as
ordinary in its manifestations and as a quality of experience that could be
made relevant for anyone” (Gilbert, p. 26)
ii. Quinn, T., & Meiners, E. R. (2011). Teacher education, struggles for social
justice, and the historical erasure of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and
queer lives. Studying diversity in teacher education, 135-151.
iii. Travers, A. (2014). Transformative gender justice as a framework for
normalizing gender variance among children and youth. In Meyer, E.J. &
Pullen Sansfaçon, A. (eds.) Supporting Transgender and Gender Creative
Youth: Schools, Families, and Communities in Action. (pp. 54-68). Peter
Lang: New York, NY.
iv. Meyer, E. J. (2008). Gendered harassment in secondary schools:
Understanding teachers’(non) interventions. Gender and Education, 20(6),
555-570.
D. School or district recommendations
i. GLSEN’s model policies on Enumeration and Bullying
ii. State and School District guidelines for the support of students and staff who
are transgender and/or gender nonconforming
iii. Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. (2012).
Nondiscrimination on the basis of gender identity Guidance for Massachusetts
public schools: Creating safe and supportive school environment. Boston,
MA: Author.
iv. Luecke, J. C. (2011). Working with transgender children and their classmates
in preadolescence: Just be supportive. Journal of LGBT Youth, 8(2), 116-156.
doi: 10.1080/19361653.2011.544941
v. Hillard, P., Love, L., Franks, H. M., Laris, B. A., & Coyle, K. K. (2014).
"They were only joking": Efforts to decrease LGBTQ bullying and
harassment in Seattle Public Schools. Journal of School Health, 84(1), 1-9.
vi. Slesaransky-Poe, G. (2013). Adults set the tone for welcoming all students.
Phi Delta Kappan, 94(5), 40-44.
vii. Goodrich, K. M., & Luke, M. (2009). LGBTQ Responsive School
Counseling. Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling, 3(2), 113-127. doi:
10.1080/15538600903005284
viii. Singh, A. A., & Burnes, T. R. (2009). Creating Developmentally Appropriate,
Safe Counseling Environments for Transgender Youth: The Critical Role of
School Counselors. Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling, 3(3-4), 215-234.
doi: 10.1080/15538600903379457
E. Experiences of trans youth of color
139

II.

i. Burdge, H., Licona, A. C., Hyemingway, Z.T. (2014). LGBTQ Youth of Color:
Discipline Disparities, School Push-Out, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline.
San Francisco, CA: Gay-Straight Alliance Network and Tucson, AZ:
Crossroads
Collaborative at the University of Arizona.
ii. Diaz, E. M. and Kosciw, J. G. (2009). Shared differences: The experiences of
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students of color in our nation’s
schools. New York: GLSEN. (pp. ix- xiv).
iii. Bridges, E. (2007). The impact of homophobia and racism on GLBTQ youth
of color. Washington, DC: Advocates for Youth.
iv. Lance McCReady – “Understand the Marginalization of Gay and Gender
Non-Conforming Black Male Students” “This article proposes a
multidimensional framework that takes into account multiple categories of
difference and forms of oppression to understand and suggest interventions
for gay and gender nonconforming Black male students in urban schools.”
“The term gender non-conforming refers to individuals who blend attributes
stereotypically associated with various forms of masculinity and femininity
(Connell, 1987)”
F. Trans youth resilience and/or resistance
i. Cruz, C. (2011). LGBTQ street youth talk back: a meditation on resistance
and Witnessing. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, Vol.
24, No. 5, September–October 2011, 547–558
ii. Scourfield, J., Roen, K., & McDermott, L. (2008). Lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender young people's experiences of distress: Resilience, ambivalence
and self destructive behaviour. Health & Social Care in the Community, 16(3),
329-336
iii. Singh, A. (2013). Transgender youth of color and resilience: Negotiating
oppression and finding support. Sex Roles, 68(11-12), 690-702.
G. Sex education
i. McGarry, R. (2013). Build a curriculum that includes everyone: Ensuring that
schools are more accepting of LGBT students and issues requires more than
passing mentions of diversity in sex education classes. Phi Delta Kappan, 94
(5), 27.
ii. Gowen, L. K., & Winges-Yanez, N. (2014). Lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender, queer, and questioning youths' perspectives of inclusive schoolbased sexuality education. The Journal of Sex Research, 51(7), 788-800.
iii. Temblador, A. (2015, March 3). Why is LGBT-inclusive sex education still so
taboo? Huffpost Gay Voices.
iv. Slater, H. (2013, June 21). LGBT-inclusive sex education means healthier
youth and safer schools. Center for American Progress.
Personal Identity and Interpersonal Relations
A. Gender identity development
i. One reading called "Playing with Gender" describes the gender identity
development of kids in kindergarten, but relies on a binary understanding of
gender.

140

III.

ii. Olson, K. (2015). Transgender Kids Show Consistent Gender Identity Across
Measures.
iii. American Psychology Association. (2011). Definition of terms: Sex, Gender,
Gender Identity, Sexual Orientations. Washington, DC: Author.
iv. Eliason, M. J., & Schope, R. (2007). Shifting sands for solid foundation?
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender identity formation. In I. H. Meyer &
M. E. Northridge (Eds.), The health of sexual minorities: public health
perspectives on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender populations (pp. 3-26).
New York: Springer.
B. Microaggressions
i. Nordmarken, S. (2014). Microaggressions. Transgender Studies Quarterly,
1(1-2), 129-134. doi: 10.1215/23289252-239981
C. Medical transition of youth
i. Orr, A., Baum, J., Brown, J., Gill, E., Kahn, E., & Salem, A. (n.d.). Schools in
transition: A guide for supporting transgender students in K-12 schools.
Washington, DC: American Civil Liberties Union, Gender Spectrum, Human
Rights Campaign, National Center for Lesbian Rights, National Education
Association
D. Gender dysphoria
i. American Psychology Association. (2013). Gender dysphoria: Fact sheet.
Washington, DC: Author.
E. Pronouns
i. Shlasko, D. (2015, February 9). How using 'they' as a singular pronoun can
change the world. Feministing.
Structural/Institutional Influences
A. Families or Parents with transgender children
i. Nutt, E. (2015). "Becoming Nicole"
ii. Padawer, Ruth. (August 8, 2012). What’s so bad about a boy who wants to
wear a dress? The New York Times.
iii. Spiegel, A. (Host). (2008, May 7). Two families grapple with sons’ gender
identity. This American Life. [Podcast.] Chicago: Chicago Public Radio.
iv. Beam, C. (2008) Transparent: Love, Family, and Living the T with
Transgender Teenagers. New York: Mariner Books. (pp. 10-16, and pp. 6166).
B. Social institutions (media, pop culture, medicine, law, marriage)
i. Spade, D. (2015). Introduction. Normal life: Administrative violence, critical
trans politics, and the limits of law. Brooklyn, NY: South End Press, 1-19.
ii. Spade, D. (2011). What’s wrong with rights?
iii. Herman, J. L. (2013). Gendered restrooms and minority stress: The public
regulation of gender and its impact on transgender people's lives. Journal of
Public Management and Social Policy, 19(1), 65-79.
iv. T. Beauchamp - Artful Concealment and Strategic Visibility: Transgender
Bodies and U.S. State Surveillance After 9/11
v. Dean Spade – “Mutilating Gender”
C. Heterosexism/Heteronormativity

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IV.

i. Dennis Sumara & Brent Davis - Interrupting Heteronormativity: Toward a
Queer Curriculum Theory: “Working from the premise that discussions of
curriculum are not only sexualized, but heterosexualized, we argue that
studies of sexuality must become intertwined with all questions of curricular
relations” (Sumara and Davis, p. 191). “"Queer" is not meant as a signifier
that represents gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered identities. Rather,
"queer" functions as a marker representing interpretive work that refuses what
Halley has called "the heterosexual bribe"-that is, the cultural rewards
afforded those whose public performances of self are contained within that
narrow band of behaviors considered proper to a heterosexual identity”
(Sumara and Davis, p. 192).
ii. García, A. M., & Slesaransky-Poe, G. (2010). The heteronormative classroom:
Questioning and liberating practices. The Teacher Educator,45(4), 244-256.
“In this article, we expand the conceptual notions and the corresponding
practical implications that challenge the heteronormative classroom, and that
create a more expansive and less dichotomous environment for children,
giving them latitude to cross traditional gender roles”
iii. Blackburn, M. V., & Smith, J. M. (2010). Moving Beyond the Inclusion of
LGBT Themed Literature in English Language Arts Classrooms: Interrogating
Heteronormativity and Exploring Intersectionality. Journal of Adolescent &
Adult Literacy, 53(8), 625-634.
iv. Schilt, K., & Westbrook, L. (2009). Doing gender, doing heteronormativity:
“gender normals,” transgender people, and the social maintenance of
heterosexuality.
v. Toomey, R. B., McGuire, J. K., & Russell, S. T. (2012). Heteronormativity,
school climates, and perceived safety for gender nonconforming peers.
Journal of Adolescence, 35(1), 187-196. doi:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2011.03.001
Activism & Theory
A. Social movements
i. Mayo, C. (2013). Background to LGBTQ Movements for Equality with a
Focus on K-12 Related Issues. LGBTQ youth and education: Policies and
practices, 17-31.
ii. Leslie Feinberg – “Transgender Liberation: A Movement Whose Time has
Come”
iii. Isaac West – “PISSAR’s Critically Queer and Disabled Politics”
iv. Eli Clare – “Body Shame, Body Pride: Lessons from the Disability Rights
Movement”
B. Transgender theory
i. Kate Bornstein – “Which Outlaws? Or, 'Who was That Masked Man?'”
ii. Judith Butler – “Diagnosing Gender”
iii. Stryker, S. (2004). Transgender studies: Queer theory's evil twin. GLQ: A
Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 10(2), 212-215.
iv. Susan Stryker – “(De)subjugated Knowledges: An Introduction to
Transgender Studies”
v. Joan W. Scott – “Gender: Still Useful for Analysis”
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vi. Jacqueline Rose – “Who do you think you are?”
vii. Stephen Whittle – “Where did we go wrong? Feminism and Trans Theory –
Two Teams on the Same Side”
viii. Cressida Heyes “Feminist Solidarity after Queer Theory: The Case of
Transgender”
ix. J. J. Halberstam -“Transgender Butch: Butch/FTM Border Wars and the
Masculine Continuum”
x. Gayle Rubin – “Of Catamites and Kings: Reflections on Butch, Gender, and
Boundaries”
xi. Cathy Cohen - “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens”
xii. Judith Butler “Critically Queer”
xiii. Gayle Salamon – “Boys of the Lex: Transgender and the Rhetorics of
Materiality”

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Appendix D: Guiding questions for interviews
One-on-One Interviews
1. What’s the definition of gender that you try to get your students to understand?
2. If you define transgender in your class, what definition do you use?
3. How does transgender fit into your understanding of Queer/Heterosexism/Patriarchy, if at
all?
4. Has there been any specific experience(s) in your life that has influenced your understanding
of gender diversity/transgender?
5. Can you tell me more about [Readings X and Y or Week 9 and 10]?
a. How did you choose these readings?
b. How do you use these readings together?
6. How is trans part of assignments?
7. Can you think of a time where a student might have explicitly embraced or outwardly
resisted learning about trans topics?
8. What would you like to see come out of this research study? In other words, how can my
research help you?
Group Interview/Dialogue
1. Introductions (name, pronoun, institution, course title)
2. What do you think it’s most important for pre-service teachers to know about trans issues,
and why?
3. Have there been any ‘a-ha’ moments (for you or your students) in your class while discussing
trans topics?
4. What are the contextual factors that matter, when it comes to increasing trans-inclusion in
Teacher Prep?
5. What could we do or create that could advance these ideas/possibilities?

144

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