Cycles of Invisibility and Hypervisibility: Trans and Nonbinary Students’ Suggestions for Improving High School

• In Event: 30865 - Centering Child and Youth Perspectives: Young people as social thinkers and actors

Abstract

In this paper, we ask what can educational researchers learn from trans and nonbinary high school students about their experiences navigating high school? Few studies draw directly on the experiences of trans and nonbinary youth to gain their insights for increasing trans inclusion at school. This study draws on 22 in-depth interviews with trans and nonbinary students at a well-resourced, public school outside Boston, in a district that prides itself on its diversity, equity, and inclusion work. Nevertheless, we find that the trans and nonbinary students in this study are stuck in a painful cycle of invisibility and hypervisibility. The students seek to be institutionally visible as a group so that the burden of self-advocacy, which requires students to be hypervisible by constantly disclosing their gender identity and educating school staff is reduced. This would allow students more choice around managing their individual privacy. To address this, we detail suggestions made by trans and nonbinary students for individual-level gender-inclusive practices that increase feelings of belonging at school. We further argue that schools cannot solely rely on an “accommodations model.” To alleviate students’ burdens of disclosure and self-advocacy, school must adopt an intersectional approach to proactively include the existence of gender-diverse students in school systems.

Authors

• Cinzia D. Solari, University of Massachusetts Boston

• Skylar Rathvon