(GAS5b) Worldbuilding In and Around Schools: Mapping the Struggle over Gender and Sexuality II

Homophobia and transphobia are rapidly spreading across North America and the globe, evidenced by shifts in public discourse, educational policy, and legislation that contribute to the structural, discursive, and physical violence faced by 2SLGBTQ+ people. This rise in hate is reflective of the ongoing ‘culture wars’ concerning gender and sexuality, of which schools have been a critical battleground. Using a sociological lens, this session will examine the ways in which anti-2SLGBTQ+ sentiment and the current sociopolitical climate of rising hate are being reinforced and resisted related to K-20 educational institutions. The session aims to outline how discourses of gender and sexuality are being mobilized in and around schools to uphold an increasingly rigid cisheteropatriarchal status quo, as well as trace how queer and trans youth and their allies are resisting hate and mapping new, more just worlds. Tags: Education, Gender, Sexuality

Organizer: JJ Wright, MacEwan University; Chair: Melissa Keehn, University of New Brunswick

Presentations

Yvonne Runstedler, Wilfrid Laurier University; James Dixon, Wilfrid Laurier University

From 'The Invisible Man' to 'Cozy Closets': Reflections on gender diverse student narratives in Ontario Catholic Schools

Understanding the relationship between religion and 2SLGBTQIA+ students has emerged as a critical area of study (Price and Gibbs, 2021). At the same time, such studies need to resist the urge to homogenize 2SLGBTQIA+ experiences (Callaghan, 2018; Nicolazzo, 2021). Research is needed to understand how religion, and religious schools, impact gender diverse youth especially in provinces with publicly-funded Catholic education such as Ontario. The rise of transphobic hate reinforces the need to challenge and address school climate (Egale Canada: Taylor and Peter, 2021). In intersectional work, examining the nexus of gender diversity, religiosity, and rurality has also been identified as a needed area of further understanding (Singh, 2015; Anderson-Carpenter, 2021). Studies which examine the experiences of gender diverse youth in Catholic spaces have emerged as an area of need across North America (Roy-Steier, 2021). These studies must also recognize student-led activism, resistance, and joy as paramount to garnering positive change, such as protests which prompted legislation enabling GSAs in schools (Iskander and Shabtay, 2018). In this presentation, PhD Candidate Yvonne Runstedler (she/her) and her former student, now co-researcher and transgender activist James Dixon (he/him) discuss inclusive opportunities, while describing intersectional oppressions that gender-diverse students face in Catholic schools in Ontario. They examine religious curriculum to demonstrate that leaning on the Catechism of the Catholic Church can create ‘hotbeds for homophobia,’ (Callaghan, 2012) while also suggesting that alternative pedagogical locations within theological discourse exist and a focus on these might decenter and challenge epistemological cis-heteronormativity as ‘required’ curriculum (McDonough, 2008; Airton et al., 2022). This is responsive to calls from many Catholic educators who describe desire to be demonstrably inclusive of sexuality and gender diverse students, but often experience fear of reprisal from a variety of Catholic stakeholders. Some leaders in Catholic spaces suggest that the symbology of the cross, and other theological narratives encouraging love and acceptance, are sufficient to address the needs of gender diverse students in this climate. Others work within systems de-center cis-heteronormativity, encouraging such acts as flying the Pride Flag in June. Using Michel Foucault’s panopticon and Judith Butler’s performativity as theoretical backdrop, James and Yvonne critique the Catholic context responsive to Yvonne’s insider experience as a teacher and James’ experience as a transgender student. They also share the results of Yvonne’s doctoral research project consisting of constructivist narrative interviews with transgender graduates of non-metropolitan south-western Ontario Catholic Schools based on the question: How do transgender graduates of Ontario Catholic schools make meaning of the narratives on gender present in their secondary school contexts? In this presentation, Yvonne and James will also share the development of their research collaboration, including the difficulties and opportunities of including elements of participatory action research in doctoral studies. They contextualize the themes they constructed from the interviews within an intersectional, trauma-informed, queer theoretical framework. Finally, they provide wide-ranging recommendations for better theological and educational inclusivity which centres joy and resistance to cis-heteronormativity in Ontario Catholic schools.  

Melissa Keehn, University of New Brunswick; Casey Burkholder, University of New Brunswick

Building Queer Joy through Participatory Collage-Making with 2SLGBTQIA+ Youth in New Brunswick

How do queer and trans youth mobilize queer joy amidst escalating educational and political hostilities? Queer joy is a resistive strategy that gestures away from the deficit–the suffering queer–and toward the productive, the joyful (Wright, 2023). Amin Ghaziani (2024) writes, “marginalized groups struggle and suffer–from the crushing forces of capitalism to a core of whiteness, belt buckle encounters and blackface, institutionalized homophobia and systemic inequalities–but they also find moments of joy” (p. 206). This is the joy we center in our work: A joy that seeks out pleasure during devastation, one that dreams about more livable futures in a ruinous present. By imagining queer joy in this way–productive, radical, and embodied (Duran and Coloma, 2023; Shuster and Westbrook, 2022; Tristano Jr., 2022)–we can use it as a tool to address the oppressive educational norms and policies that are currently inciting violence on queer and trans youth in schools. In New Brunswick, the recent amendments to the province’s 2SLGBTQIA+ school inclusion policy by the provincial Conservative government has instigated a wave of moral panic and public debate about the lives and rights of trans and queer kids in schools (Silberman, 2023; Warick, 2023). Queer joy responds to this destructive educational climate–one that attempts to minimize and erase queer childhoods–and mobilizes something different. We are two white educational researchers: Casey is a cis, bisexual university professor and Melissa is a cis esbian graduate student. Between October 2023 and November 2023, we engaged 250 high school students in four separate participatory collage-making workshops across New Brunswick: At a rural high school in Nackawic, at a trans youth conference in the town of Riverview, and at two provincial Francophone and Anglophone 2SLGBTQIA+ youth conferences in the cities of Saint John and Fredericton. Using participatory visual methodologies, we prompted youth participants to think about queer and trans joy in schooling and community spaces and asked them: What do you want to say about queer and trans joy in schools? What does this joy look like now and what might queer joy look like the future? The four workshops were part of a broader SSHRC-funded study called Pride/Swell+: an intergenerational art, activism, and archiving project that brings together queer and trans children, youth, adults, and elders from across Atlantic Canada to engage in art and media production and archive 2SLGBTQIA+ pasts, presents, and futures. During the four workshops, we wondered: What can we learn about queer joy when we make collages together? How might we access this joy through art production? We noticed the youth participants making new communities with others around them as they made things together. They used the collage materials to speak back to the real violence found in their schools and to show us where queer and trans joy exists, through their worldbuilding, romances, and resistance (see Figure 1). During the workshops, we also noticed that the teachers present shifted the research space–and that this has implications for how queer joy exists and is noticed in classrooms and schools. Ultimately, we argue that queer and trans youth communities in New Brunswick mobilize queer joy as a felt, lived, and embodied emotion and strategy (see Figure 2) against and despite the province’s harmful educational policies and school practices.

Katherine (KD) Merritt, University of New Brunswick; Void Clark-Nason, University of New Brunswick

"It didn't matter to me if the flag was threaded in gold, it didn't belong on the same mast with the Canadian flag": A duoethonography of homonationalist discourses at Oromocto High School, New Brunswick

On May 11th, 2015, Oromocto High School (OHS) in New Brunswick flew the gay Pride flag for the first time on campus grounds to celebrate the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia (May 17th). The intent was to keep the flag up for the week and take it down Friday afternoon. The decision to fly the Pride flag was met with resistance, hostility, and outrage by certain members of the school community and the town of Oromocto itself - home to 5CDSB Gagetown, the second largest Canadian Forces Base in the country (Government of Canada, 2021). On Wednesday, May 13th, 2015, an unknown individual scaled the OHS flagpole afterhours and stole the Pride flag, and was heavily rumoured to have burnt it. Both authors, Void and KD, were students at OHS when these incidents happened. In our duoethnography, we explore Void’s past as an outspoken queer student and KD’s past as a closeted lesbian student during the 2015 Pride flag situation. Reflecting from inside the closet, KD reveals how her internalized homophobia, shaped by compulsory heterosexuality, reinforced misinformation and her own skewed perception of acceptable queerness. Void draws from their history as a member of the OHS Gay-Straight Alliance and openly pansexual twelfth grader to unpack how teacher-led discussions fueled harmful rhetoric against the OHS 2SLGBTQ+ student body and created a volatile ‘us versus them’ mentality between the 2SLGBTQ+ community and the military community. In this paper, we employ a critical duoethographic approach. Researchers employing duoethnography use reflective research practices to critically examine how their lived experiences and personal histories entwine and contrast, while situating them in a socio-cultural context (Breault, 2016; Sawyer and Norris, 2013; 2015). Duoethnography provides a forum where researchers may engage in resistance and social change through narratives and counternarratives (Noreiga and Nason, 2023). Through our duoethnography we explore the homonationalistic discourses present in responses to OHS’s raising of the Pride flag in 2015, illustrating how this nearly decade old event provides insight into modern anti-2SLGBTQIA+ rhetoric in schools. Homonationalism refers to how queerness is co-opted and placed in relation to nation-states and national identity rooted in Western imperial interests, and solidifies a convivial relationship between queerness and militarization (Puar, 2007). Tied to ideas of patriotism, homonationalism only welcomes certain values which align with national values. This works to create national recognition for ‘palatable’ (white, cis) queer groups to the detriment and ostracization of queer people who do not fit within the boundaries of inclusion into the nation state (Puar, 2007). Together, our discussions provide a historical context to present day anti-2SLGBTQIA+ policy in schools, including New Brunswick’s (NB) Policy 713: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (Policy 713), an educational policy aimed at ensuring safe space for trans and gender diverse students. These critical reflections show the ways in which public schools in Canada have consistently been a key institution involved in enforcement of discourses of queer hate. We argue that the homonationalistic discourses in reaction to OHS’s raising of the Pride flag in 2015 are crucial to understanding contemporary anti-2SLGBTQIA+ rhetoric and panic in schools.  

Andrew Chapados, University of Windsor

Are the Parents Alright? Examining "Parental Rights" of 2SLGBTQIA+ Children.

Canada guarantees the legal protection of rights for 2SLGBTQIA+ (Heritage Canada, 2022). However, advances guaranteeing the rights of marginalized groups do not guarantee a society welcomes or respects them. The 2SLGBTQIA+ community face ongoing threats, violence, and social exclusion. Hate crimes against people due to their sexual status are among the highest in Canada (Abramovich, 2012). Sexual minority individuals often face harm from family members, peer groups, state institutions, and faith communities. Heterosexual parents of 2SLGBTQIA+ children experience similar fears of rejection from society (Riggs et al., 2023). This can be helpfully understood through the concept of “symbolic violence” (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992) as a form of non-physical violence that is imposed on minority groups by a dominant one. Recent public discourse that discusses whether specific identities should be “allowed” to have rights by the dominant group has the effect of constructing populations that Foucault (2012) describes as “normal and abnormal”; one is accepted and the other is excluded or a target of domination. The case of the parent of an affirming parent of 2SLGBTQIA+ children is unique in that they are initially categorized as “normal” but they become an “abnormal” body once they perform the duty of parents, which accords with the dominant ideology of love. This paper analyzes and explains the experience of heterosexual parents who affirm their 2SLGBTQIA+ child. Through my own experience as the parent of a transgender youth and interviews with other parents, along with a discourse analysis examining authoritative discourse problematisations, I examine how issues surrounding sexual status are framed in public discourse and the impact it has on parents of sexual minorities, how parents experience social hostility directed at their children and themselves, examine and propose what post-queer belonging looks like for parents, and analyze the limits of “rights-based” approaches and legalism in light of recent public discourse on “parental rights” regarding the education system. Ridgeway (2009) theorizes that gender is a primary frame for organizing social life. People expect others to know how to act in society according to their gender categorization. The parent who affirms their child’s sexual minority status thus works against the assumed norm of society. The parent then experiences the possibility of their own social exclusion as well as fears of what their child will experience. This paper draws on Bourdieu’s theoretical concept of symbolic violence, Foucault’s theory of sexuality, aspects of Queer theory, and Ridgeway’s concept of gender-framing. I show how parents of 2SLGBTQIA+ move from being constructed as “normal bodies” to “abnormal” because they affirm their children and seek to provide them with a safe social space. The dominant ideology of the family in Western society normalizes parental love and protection of children. Parents of sexual minorities face pressure from society to do the opposite in order to remain “normal”. Ridgeway (2009) suggests however, that members of subgroups who share alternative beliefs about gender learn to negotiate social relations differently when they are together, thus creating new possibilities of “normal”. Parents who affirm their 2SLGBTQIA+ children learn to navigate social life, in light of the discourse on “parental rights”, establishing new norms as they work .