Beyond Bathroom Bills and the Gender Identity Debate: Complicating the Policy Conversation About Supporting Trans Students in Schools

Abstract

Schools and districts across the country have been thrust into the political limelight as they grapple with sometimes competing policy messages about the education of transgender and gender expansive students. Drawing on 2 years of survey data from families of transgender and gender expansive youth in one mountain state, this article uses critical trans politics to examine the ways the current policy climate aligns with the supports schools provide. Results suggest that parents desire policies and practices that transform cis-heteronormative school structures, and they recognize that policy is often limited in its ability to affect the material experiences of youth in schools. We therefore argue that a focus on bathroom bills and policies regarding trans accessibility have distracted from a conversation that needs to be elevated to address broader structural issues and should ultimately be driven by families and trans youth.

School Factors Strongly Impact Transgender and Non-Binary Youths’ Well-Being

“…No assumptions should be made regarding how to adequately address their needs as each TNB person and experience are different [ 34 , 42 ] as reflected by the diversity of perspectives highlighted in our study. However, as mentioned by most, if not all, of the interviewed youths and by other authors, gender diversity often only becomes a matter of interest when a student discloses their TNB gender identity [ 43 , 44 ]. Thus, even if the individual needs of some gender minority students are considered in a growing number of schools, core obstacles to gender diversity acknowledgment, such as cisnormativity and transphobia, are rarely addressed [ 43 ].…”

“…However, as mentioned by most, if not all, of the interviewed youths and by other authors, gender diversity often only becomes a matter of interest when a student discloses their TNB gender identity [ 43 , 44 ]. Thus, even if the individual needs of some gender minority students are considered in a growing number of schools, core obstacles to gender diversity acknowledgment, such as cisnormativity and transphobia, are rarely addressed [ 43 ]. As many children begin to explore their gender identity, school climate should be open to gender diversity, even in the absence of other students who may have already disclosed a TNB gender identity [ 37 , 42 , 44 ].…”

Understanding democratic education policy queerly: Toward a queer democratic framework

“…Who gets to decide? Policies can serve as checked boxes, or even "distractions" (Farley & Leonardi, 2021) from underlying structural issues of oppression, and yet, policies affect people; therefore, centering issues of identity in policy conversations is consequential to lived experiences. As a queer theorist (Leonardi) and a contemporary liberal democratic theorist (Moses), in this article we try to make sense of the significant tensions that emerge from educational imperatives to "include" diverse perspectives within social contexts where "identity" is not a static category, inclusion is not enough, and indeed where these very notions need to be queered so that well-intentioned liberal policy initiatives actually can do more good than harm.…”

“…Concerned about how power invariably functions, they call attention both to the ways that marginalized communities are silenced and excluded from policy development, and to the importance of challenging the foundations of flawed social systems (Lugg, 2014;Piazza, 2014), even the deliberative spaces that liberal theorists endorse. Further, policy can serve to "distract" stakeholders in education from systems and structures that perpetuate inequity (Farley & Leonardi, 2021), or worse, that enact administrative violence through regulatory standards that serve to punish vulnerable populations they purport to help (Spade, 2015). Importantly, as Spade (2011) contends, these insights require that we resist "taking what the law says about itself at face value" (p. 54) and that we question the limitations of laws and policies to advance liberatory change.…”

“…As Spade (2011) assures us, we must continue to question what laws and policies say about themselves. We must also consider ways that policy solutions might act as "distractions… that divert attention from root causes, structural forces, and historical/contextual circumstances (Bell, 2003;Giroux, 2013Giroux, , 2017Spade, 2011Spade, , 2013Spade, , 2015" (Farley & Leonardi, 2021). And so, viewed through the QDF, this double path is situated in praxis (Freire, 1970), in how a policy like FAIR, for example, is understood and enacted, queerly.…”