Pedagogies That Trans-gress: A Queer and Trans Ethic of Care in Action

• In Event: Queering Pedagogy, Professionalism, and Care: Learning From Queer and Trans Educators Across Contexts

Abstract

Objectives
This study explores how three queer, trans, Black, Indigenous and otherwise racialized (QTBIPOC) teachers practice radical forms of care that take up the call for a “queer and trans ethic of care” in K-12 schools. I unearth the community-based, racialized, queered and trans-gressive practices of care that sustain QTBIPOC within a system that does not and cannot in its current form provide life-affirming, joyful and thriving futures for QTBIPOC.

Theoretical Framework
This study is informed by a queer and trans ethic of care (Author 3, 2022) that centers on the principles and practices of care by and for queer, trans, racialized communities. This work draws from several areas of research including care work (Rose, 2021; Fink, 2021; Lakshimi Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2018; Malatino, 2020; Chatzidakis et al., 2020) futurity, world building, thriving (Munoz, 2009; Darling-Hammond, 2020; Love, 2019; Greteman, 2018) anti-coloniality work (Wilson, 2008; Kimmerer, 2020) and gender and sexuality studies in education (Author 3 et al., 2022; Author 3, 2021; McCready, 2013; Brockenbrough, 2016).

Data sources
In July 2021, I interviewed three QTBIPOC educators working in Ontario, Canada over Zoom. Teachers were recruited over social media, and all identify as somewhere on the 2SLGBTQIA+ spectrum. Two teachers are transgender, non-binary and/or gender-nonconforming, and all were racialized. I interviewed each teacher twice for two hours each, the first interview following a semi-structured format and the second a more informal interview that made space for community building, solidarity, and support.

Analysis
I conducted rounds of coding using the theoretical framework of a queer and trans ethic of care (Authour 3, 2022) and an adaptation of Robin Kelley’s (2002) writing in Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. I read through and indexed the transcripts according to the research question and identified several themes. I looked across the themes for how educators “dream and care” for their students; dreaming begins the process by asking and analyzing how educators are imagining and conceptualizing what a queer and trans ethic of care looks like.

Substantiated conclusions
This study illustrates that care, as it exists in schools right now, is inherently white, colonial and violent and has forced QTBIPOC educators to imagine new care practices. These disruptive practices include creating (1) authentic, fluid, mutually vulnerable relationships with students (2) explicitly anti-colonial, antiracist moments in their teaching and interactions with students and (3) space for affirmation and recognition as moments of collective healing. Together, these disruptive and transgressive practices create space for mutual healing for both queer and trans racialized students and teachers and pave the way for queer futurity (Munoz, 2009) and thriving (Darling Hammond, 2020; Love, 2019).

Scholarly significance of the study
The practices of QTBIPOC teachers present a necessary challenge to the embeddedness of white supremacy, settler-colonialism and colonialism within the educational system as they work to care for themselves and their students. While this research explicitly focuses on the individual, community-level understandings and practices of QTBIPOC teachers, this work must be translated into systemic forms of change to be sustainable in the long term.

Author

• Bishop Owis, University of British Columbia
  Presenting Author