Boys, girls, and everyone else: Ontario public school board responses to gender diversity

Abstract

Trans and nonbinary youth issue a challenge to K-12 schools, which regularly assume gender is binary and immutable. Although scholars have explored how educational institutions are responding to trans and nonbinary students, fewer have examined the assumptions implicit within these responses. By analyzing policy solutions as diagnostics of institutions’ implicit representations of social problems, I examine how educational institutions construct the terms of membership for trans and nonbinary students. This article examines all publicly-available Ontario public school board documents (N = 359) including the terms “gender identity” and/or “gender expression.” The findings show patterns in school board approaches. Roughly 80% of responses focus on a case-by-case, individual-level response. The remaining 20% adopt a systemic approach to trans and nonbinary inclusion. Few responses challenge binary-sorting practices. This article addresses the broader social issue of how public organizations deal with difference and the limits of individual accommodation responses to systemic inequity.