Power, Emotion, and Privilege: Using "Discomfort" to Resist Transgender Student Affirmation

• In Event: 66.087 - MTCC Roundtable Session 30
  In Roundtable Session: 66.087-8 - Interrogating Power Across Educational Contexts

Abstract

This research contributes to a growing body of scholarship on the experiences of transgender and gender-fluid students in elementary school spaces by exploring a single rural school district’s process for accommodating and including a transgender child. In this paper, we explore how the frequently discussed emotion of discomfort is used as a mechanism for maintaining the status quo. Educators’ stories of working with a transgender student included their perspectives on administrative resistance through expressions of “discomfort” as they sought to facilitate a “successful” gender transition within a public elementary school context. This case study lends insight to how educators navigate tensions between transgender stigma and their professional obligations to secure safety and provide optimal learning environments for all students.

Authors

• Elizabethe Payne, Queering Education Research Institute (QuERI)

• Melissa J. Smith, University of Central Arkansas