Risks and Resiliency: Trans* Students in the Rural South

• In Event: Teaching, Affirming, and Recognizing Trans and Gender-Creative Youth: A Queer Literacy Framework

Abstract

Purpose and scholarly significance:
The Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network (GLSEN)’s study of American secondary students found that while LGBT students nationwide faced substantial risks, students in the American Southeast—an area of the country where politically and religiously conservative values shape legal and education policies—particularly in rural areas of the South, face “amplified” and “magnified” experiences with bullying and substantial lacks in school support (2012b). Specifically, the survey found that trans* students from rural areas reported attending schools that had openly discriminatory policies, such as gender-segregated school facilities (e.g., gym, locker room) and consistent refusal from school personnel to support trans* students (p. 16). One Southern trans* student described his mother declaring gender-nonconformity “the work of the Devil,” while classmates “shoved [me] into my locker and called [me] a redneck fag” (2013, n.p.). Trans* students’ experiences in this region are an important and relatively unexplored facet in understanding how to support this vulnerable population, and there is a severe dearth in research in this area which this proposal’s paper seeks to address.

Modes of inquiry; theoretical framework; Data sources:

This paper explores these issues through queer autoethnography and a queer literacy framework (Author A, 2015). This paper’s queer autoethnography is based the author’s—a queer-identifying lesbian—and a participant’s—who is a trans*-identifying woman—experiences as they grew up and attended school together in a rural Southeastern school 5th-12th grades. Queer autoethnography opens “definitional boundaries” and makes “the politics of knowledge and experience central to what autoethnography is and does” (Jones & Adams, 2010, p. 199). The methodology works to “refuse received notions” of scholarship (p. 197) and to challenge norms related to personal and to cultural understandings that involve gender and sexuality. Through autoethnography, this paper explores how personal experiences contribute to broader conversations on how schools often silence especially trans* discourses (Blackburn, 2012), and the possibilities of breaking those silences (Britzman, 1998).

Substantiated conclusions:
The QLF provides a means of both examining school contexts and curricula (Author A, 2015). This paper considers the ways that the QLF encourages teachers to explore personal assumptions and the ways that schools often reinforce stereotypical understandings of gender. Particularly in a region where educators may be prohibited by state laws to address trans* topics in schools (GLSEN, 2012a). The paper concludes by exploring how teachers who work in the rural South risk livelihood and even safety in advocating for, understanding, and supporting trans* students and emphasizing that “no one personhood is of any more or less value than any other” (Author A, 2015, p. 38). Teachers’ words, actions, and lessons have the power to demonstrate that trans* identities are not only valuable but validated, as demonstrated through the autoethnographies informing this paper and by current research. There are risks in this work, but the resistance and resiliency make efforts both possible and imperative. This is important work that literally has the power to save lives and to shift ways of thinking to provide different ways of being in our schools.

Author

• Stephanie Anne Shelton, University of Georgia