The Aftermath of Human Rights Protections: Gender Identity, Gender Expression, and the Socio-Legal Regulation of School Boards

Kirkup, Kyle; Airton, Lee; McMillan, Allison; DesRochers, Jacob

doi:10.1017/cls.2020.7

Cited by 14 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…This foundation gives leaders an initial framing to adapt processes and practices. Similar to Airton, Kirkup, and colleagues' (Airton, Kirkup, McMillan, & DesRochers, 2019;Kirkup, Airton, McMillan, & DesRochers, 2020) analysis of guidance documents in Ontario, guidance documents in this study provided expansive definitions of gender. These definitions signaled more sophisticated approaches to gender and challenging stereotypical ideas about what it means to be transgender than in Meyer and Keenan's (2018) analysis of 10 California districts collected the same year.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 59%

A Starting Point: Gender, Hot Cognition, and Trans-Informed Administrative Guidance

McQuillan

2022

Educational Researcher

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Trans-informed administrative guidance introduces concepts from trans studies to educational leaders, but researchers have relatively ignored these policy implementation tools. This content analysis describes the design of administrative guidance using a representative sample of 112 Illinois districts: the who, what, how, and why of supporting transgender students. The results substantiated evidence of trans-informed guidance that introduced complex gender “definitions” and legitimized students’ identity. Many of these same texts also included barriers to supporting students with administrative gatekeeping, definitions reinforcing the gender binary, and mandates to involve parents in access decisions. All but one district (96%) highlighted existing state and local policies to motivate administrative actions around 13 issues. A minority of the texts provided specific directions to guide decision-making and reform efforts. This paper includes areas of concern and suggestions as policymakers initiate gender reforms.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 59%

A Starting Point: Gender, Hot Cognition, and Trans-Informed Administrative Guidance

McQuillan

2022

Educational Researcher

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“…Its passage required a variety of provincially-regulated entities, including schools, to create environments free from gender identity-and gender expression-related discrimination. While its passage provided legal protections for transgender students, its scope is potentially far more vast (Kirkup, 2018;Kirkup et al, 2020). The present study is there- Data collection proceeded systematically with Google lexical searches (e.g., board name paired with "gender expression," "gender identity," etc.…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moving beyond OHRC definitions, our study turns to the inherently gendered spaces of Ontario's K-12 schools, where the meaning of gender expression, in particular, is being shaped in ways that affect public understandings of this ground and its implications (Kirkup et al, 2020). In Ontario, gender identity and gender expression protections have produced a series of responses across the education sector such as changes in the province's Health and Physical Education curriculum (see Martino et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite this absence of legal clarity, secular and Catholic public schools in Ontario have had a legal duty to provide an environment free from gender expression and gender identity discrimination since 2012. The speculative nature of both grounds has resulted in a varied response to the Code from Ontario's secular public school boards (see Airton et al, 2019;Kirkup et al, 2020), but this response is conceivably more variable if the scope is expanded to include the province's publicly-funded Catholic school boards (see Laucius, 2016;Pickel & Wark, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Toby Goes to Catholic School: Gender Expression Human Rights, and Ontario Catholic School Board Policy

Airton

DesRochers

Kirkup³

et al. 2022

CJE/RCÉ

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In this article, we share findings from an analysis of Ontario Catholic school board policy documents (N = 179) containing Canada’s newest human rights grounds: gender expression and gender identity. Our major finding may be unsurprising—that Ontario Catholic boards are generally not responding to Toby’s Act (passed in 2012) at the level of policy, as few boards have added these grounds in a way that enacts the spirit of that legislation. While this finding is likely unsurprising, our study also yielded findings that unsettle any facile binary of “Catholic boards/bad” and “public secular boards/good” in relation to gender diversity. We also leverage our findings to suggest a striking possibility for a vigorous and doctrinally-compatible embrace of gender expression protections in Catholic schools, if not gender identity protections. We argue that fear of gender expression protections may stem from an erroneous conflation of “gender expression” with “gender identity” when these are in fact separate grounds—a conflation that is also endemic within secular Ontario school board policy; this doubles as a conflation of gender expression with “transgender,” as the latter is unfailingly linked with gender identity human rights. We make a series of recommendations for policy, and a case for Catholic schools embracing their legal duty to provide a learning environment free from gender expression discrimination without doctrinal conflict and arguably with ample doctrinal support, so that students of all gender expressions can flourish regardless of whether they are or will come to know they are transgender.

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“…This focus on context specificity was not the purpose of the study. However, it does reveal a glimpse into policy enactment and a proliferation of a policy discourse across a range of school board and school contexts, which speaks to the nature of the Ontario policyscape marked by a human rights legal requirement for all public institutions to address anti-discrimination on the grounds of gender identity and gender expression (Kirkup et al, 2020; Martino et al, 2019).…”

Section: About the Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“We Have No ‘Visibly’ Trans Students in Our School”: Educators’ Perspectives on Transgender-Affirmative Policies in Schools

Martino

Omercajic

Kassen

2022

Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education

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Background/Context: In Ontario, and Canada more broadly, anti-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression is enshrined in the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which have required schools to address trans inclusion. However, the ways in which educators understand or enact these policies, and whether they are even aware of them, remain largely underexplored. Purpose/Research Question/Focus of Study: Our purpose was to learn more about educators’ awareness and understanding of trans-inclusive policies in schools and the extent to which such policies were informing practice. Participants: While this research is based on survey data comprising 1,194 respondents, this article examines comments provided about trans-affirmative policy from 463 educators. Research Design: This study involves large-scale survey research conducted on 1,194 educators in Ontario K–12 schools; the survey was disseminated via social media and educational affiliates. We draw primarily on the qualitative data component of the survey, where educators provided detailed comments about and insights into trans-inclusive policies. We employed a reflexive approach to coding and thematic analysis to identify key themes. Findings/Results: Although our quantitative data depicted a favorable assessment of support for trans-affirmative policies—94% of respondents found their school’s policy to be very or somewhat relevant—our findings highlight a discrepancy between policy and practice, and a lack of commitment to addressing cisgenderist, cisnormative, and cissexist systems. The themes that emerged from our coding and analysis of the qualitative data were: (1) educators’ understanding of policy as accommodation; (2) individualized approaches to trans inclusion; (3) lack of administrative support and intervention; (4) the gap between policy and practice; (5) transphobic and cissexist resistance to supporting gender diversity; (6) the need for trans-affirming and gender-expansive curriculum, and (7) the problem of generalized approaches to equity and acceptance of diversity. In addition, we discuss several educator comments that raise important questions about race and the need for intersectional approaches to addressing equity and trans inclusion in schools. Conclusions/Recommendations: We advocate for a paradigm shift with respect to the necessity of employing a trans epistemological framework that addresses the need for gender-expansive education which focuses on the harmful effects of cisgenderism, cisnormativity, and cissexism in the education system. Central to addressing gender justice and trans marginalization in schools for all students, we conclude, is the need for policy makers to ensure accountability and budgetary allocation for the provision of resources and professional development for educators in schools.

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The Aftermath of Human Rights Protections: Gender Identity, Gender Expression, and the Socio-Legal Regulation of School Boards

Cited by 14 publications

References 18 publications

A Starting Point: Gender, Hot Cognition, and Trans-Informed Administrative Guidance

A Starting Point: Gender, Hot Cognition, and Trans-Informed Administrative Guidance

Toby Goes to Catholic School: Gender Expression Human Rights, and Ontario Catholic School Board Policy

“We Have No ‘Visibly’ Trans Students in Our School”: Educators’ Perspectives on Transgender-Affirmative Policies in Schools

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