Trans*+ing classrooms: The pedagogy of refusal as mediator for learning

Abstract

Gender and sexuality norms, conscribed under cis/heteropatriarchy, have established violent and unstable social and educational climates for the millennial generation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, agender/asexual, gender creative, and questioning youth. While strides have been made to make schools more supportive and queer inclusive, schools still struggle to include lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender*+, intersex, agender/asexual, gender creative, queer and questioning (LGBT*+IAGCQQ)-positive curricula. While extensive studies must be done on behalf of all queer youth, this work specifically focuses on how to support classroom teachers to uptake and apply a pedagogy of refusal that attends to the most vulnerabilized population of queer youth to date, those that are trans*+. A pedagogy of refusal will be explored through an evolving theory of trans*+ness, then demonstrated through a framework for classroom application, followed by recommendations for change.