Trans and gender diverse youth resisting cisnormativity in school

Abstract

In this article, we demonstrate how the theory of vulnerability-in-resistance is manifest in the school experiences of trans youth in Ireland. Despite rapidly changing cultural attitudes towards gender and sexuality diversity and increasing visibility of LGBTI+ youth, we show that trans youth in Ireland continue to be vulnerable to marginalisation, discrimination, and violence within school settings because of institutionalised cisnormativity. We explore how this vulnerability drives some trans youth to resist the conditions of their vulnerability. Strategies of resistance include naming their experience, mobilising their voice and building networks of solidarity. Enacting such resistances invariably exposes trans youth to harm but these same actions reveal their potentiality in disrupting and fragmenting educational cisnormativity.