2SLGBTQ+ Youth Resisting Anti-Queer and Trans Policy in Education: Mapping Queer Ancestors, Futures, and the Queer Joy of Always

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 9:50 am Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Queer Perspectives on Educational Policy and Leadership (Table 4)

Abstract

This paper considers queer, disability, and BIPOC futurities in a climate of rising anti-2SLGBTQ+ hate by drawing on findings from the Queer Joy! Project. This project is engaging a diverse group of 2SLGBTQ+ youth in Alberta, Canada in participatory visual arts-based methodologies to examine queer joy as a resistive strategy to anti-2SLGBTQ+ educational policies and associated hateful public discourse. The study has found that 2SLGBTQ+ youth are experiencing elevated shame, fear, and overwhelm, yet they are also carving out spaces to celebrate queerness by connecting with queer ancestry, land, and community. The presentation shares finding from this arts-based project that aims to creates space for dreaming of alternative worlds and futures rooted in anti-oppression and collective liberation.

Author

• JJ Wright, MacEwan University