Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, Youth and School Policies: A Path to Justice and Change?

• In Event: 26.033 - De/constructing the LGBTQ Student: Policy and Politics

Abstract

This project began as a discursively driven policy analysis of the 35 school board policies in British Columbia that address, at least in some manner, homophobic and more recently transphobic harassment. As I sat through school board consultations on a new policy to respond to the needs of trans and gender variant children and youth, the ways that discourse functions amongst the tangible experiences of those giving testimony, became simultaneously more and less clear. The presentation will: 1) demonstrate how the policy language holds meaning and re/produces particular knowledges about youth, sexuality, sex and gender; and 2) interrogate the ways in which policies are constructed solidify identity and simultaneously fragment queer, trans and youth identities as to make them appear tangible.

Author

• Lisa W. Loutzenheiser, The University of British Columbia