Queer and Trans at School: Gay-Straight Alliances and the Politics of Inclusion PDF

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16 Queer and Trans at School: Gay- Straight Alliances and the Politics of Inclusion Cameron Greensmith and Adam Davies LEARNING OBJECTIVES To understand what Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) are—their possibilities and potentials To identify and explain the differences between cissexism and heterosexism To understand how the larger structure of schooling can contribute to the oppression of questioning, queer, and trans youth To examine how questioning, queer, and trans youth resist oppression and engage in action/activism To address some of the tensions that exist within GSAs and among GSA members GSAs alone are not likely to change the heterosexist discourses that pervade schools. —Young, 2010, p. 466 Copyright © 2018. Canadian Scholars. All rights reserved. The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada, edited by Xiaobei Chen, et al., Canadian Scholars, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/concordiaab-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6282142. Created from concordiaab-ebooks on 2024-09-03 15:54:30.  Chapter 16 Queer and Trans at School 315 INTRODUCTION For many lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, questioning, two-spirited, and intersex (LGBTQ2SI) youth, school can feel incredibly isolating and unsafe (Taylor & Peter, 2011).1 Experiences of oppression for LGBTQ2SI youth typically result from a school- ing environment (e.g., teacher/student relations, peer cultures, curriculum design, class- room practice, and policy) that continually normalizes and reproduces heterosexism and cissexism (Toomey, 2016). Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) provide all young peo- ple with the capacity and agency to challenge heterosexism and cissexism within their school environments. Agency, an important element of youth activism, can be under- stood as “assuming strategic perspectives and/or taking strategic actions towards goals that matter” (O’Meara, 2013, p. 2). For the purposes of this chapter, heterosexism is defined as the cultural logic that presumes heterosexuality to be normal, natural, and su- perior to that of other sexualities (Alden & Parker, 2005; Herek, 2004; Smith, Oades, & McCarthy, 2012). For example, within the biology classroom, youth will learn through their curriculum content that heterosexuality is the only natural way of existing in the world (Bazzul & Sykes, 2011). Cissexism can be defined as the privileging and nor- malization of cisgender experience through the constant regulation and devaluation of trans people and their experiences (Enke, 2012; Serano, 2007; Taylor, 2010). For exam- ple, cissexism is entrenched within schooling environments by the usage of gendered washrooms, which reinforces and limits youth’s gendered possibilities to a male/female imaginary (Ingrey, 2012). While we highlight the gendered and sexual oppression that LGBTQ2SI youth experience, within this chapter we specifically home in on and speak to the experiences and lived realities of questioning, queer, and trans youth at school (refer to the glossary for a more comprehensive explanation of these terms). Thus, we utilize questioning, queer, and trans as an umbrella category, with the understanding that two-spirited youth and intersex youth experience their marginalization differently, and often with a greater degree of silencing than other identities in the LGBTQ2SI acronym. We argue that it would be inappropriate to merely include two-spirited and intersex youth within this chapter, given its scope and the particular contexts in which these youth live. Therefore, for questioning, queer, and trans youth, we ask, How can questioning, queer, and trans Copyright © 2018. Canadian Scholars. All rights reserved. youth work towards fostering more inclusive spaces in their schools, thus advocating for themselves and challenging systemic forms of inequality and oppression? And how might they work against oppressive structures to ensure that their identities and experi- ences are celebrated rather than erased or denigrated? Although questioning, queer, and trans youth still experience clear forms of het- erosexism and cissexism in schools today (Taylor & Peter, 2011), such challenges are often downplayed by narratives of progress and inclusion. Oppression can be overlooked due to dominant “post-gay” discourses that produce the realities of heterosexism and cissexism as things of the past (Lapointe, 2016; Nash, 2013). The term post-gay was first The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada, edited by Xiaobei Chen, et al., Canadian Scholars, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/concordiaab-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6282142. Created from concordiaab-ebooks on 2024-09-03 15:54:30.  316 SECTION III INEQUALITIES AND INTERSECTIONS coined by British journalist Paul Burston in 1994 (Collard, 1998). Post-gay can refer to a shift in LGBTQ2SI communities and politics, whereby sexual and gendered differences are framed—both individually and within the larger culture—as no longer impacting or impeding upon their day-to-day interactions with the heterosexual majority. Notably, in Canada, gays and lesbians have achieved same-sex marriage, adoption rights, and access to military enlistment (Tremblay & Paternotte, 2015). Furthermore, in 2016, gender identity was included in the Canadian Human Rights Act, allowing trans people to have rights and legally address any discrimination they face (Haig, 2016). While the above are all important and crucial interventions into the Canadian landscape for gay, lesbian, and, increasingly, trans people, the challenging lived realities of ques- tioning, queer, and trans youth remain a constant. Questioning, queer, and trans youth still experience strife and innumerable obstacles, such as homelessness (Abramovich, 2013; Ferguson & Maccio, 2015; Whitbeck, 2009), physical and emotional abuse (Peter, Taylor, & Edkins, 2016), bullying and harassment at school (GLSEN & Harris Interactive, 2008), and societal discrimination (Unks, 2003). While intervention is nec- essary for all questioning, queer, and trans youth, it is imperative that we acknowledge the multiple systems of oppression that questioning, queer, and trans youth of colour; disabled questioning, queer, and trans youth; poor questioning, queer, and trans youth; gender nonconforming questioning, queer, and trans youth; and otherwise marginalized questioning, queer, and trans youth experience. In an effort to combat the pervasive oppression questioning, queer, and trans youth face, Dan Savage (2010) launched the It Gets Better Project, in the US, which has had international success as an intervention to interrupt homophobic bullying, in light of the suicides of many gay and lesbian youth. Numerous public figures, includ- ing Ellen DeGeneres, Adam Lambert, and Barack Obama, have created YouTube videos urging youth to deal with the conditions of schooling and to encourage them that life will in fact get better. Rick Mercer (2011), a prominent Canadian public figure and comedian, urged the public to consider the immediacy of queer youth suicides and suggested that “it’s no longer okay to tell kids that it is going to get better, we need to make it better now.” This immediacy can be addressed through the implementation of GSAs in pri- vate and public elementary and secondary schools. GSAs are typically understood Copyright © 2018. Canadian Scholars. All rights reserved. as school clubs where straight, questioning, queer, and trans youth can connect, form alliances, educate one another and the larger schooling community, and take action to end heterosexism and cissexism. As such, GSAs provide necessary spaces for questioning, queer, and trans youth to connect over similar lived experiences, while simultaneously being supported by the administration and teachers at school (Lapointe & Kassen, 2013). In order to address the potentials and possibilities of GSAs, this chapter provides an overview into the heterosexist and cissexist climate of schooling. First, we provide the theoretical framework through which we engage with GSAs, and then situate GSAs The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada, edited by Xiaobei Chen, et al., Canadian Scholars, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/concordiaab-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6282142. Created from concordiaab-ebooks on 2024-09-03 15:54:30.  Chapter 16 Queer and Trans at School 317 within the contemporary school environment. Next, we contextualize GSAs as sites where questioning, queer, and trans youth can engage in action and activism. We con- clude by asking some critical questions of GSAs, including how the heterosexist and cissexist realities of schooling might be ruptured. In its entirety, this chapter works to centralize questioning, queer, and trans youth within and beyond schools, so that when we envision queer and trans politics and activism in Canada, we do not erase the press- ing needs of children and youth and their advocacy efforts. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Within this chapter, theories and concepts are derived from the sociology of edu- cation, schooling, and peer cultures scholarship. The fields of critical sociology, the sociology of childhood and youth, and interdisciplinary social sciences pose ques- tions about how individuals make meaning within their social world and look to how histories, cultures, and geographies can directly shape identity and our relationships with one another. More specifically, the sociology of education considers how mean- ing is made within the institution of schooling by analyzing the various “structures, processes, and practices” (Saha, 2011, p. 300) at play, and the multiple actors (e.g. teachers, youth, administrators) that make up and exist within schools. Sociological theories and paradigms are utilized here to understand the links between education and the larger culture in which schooling is produced on individual, discursive, and structural levels. In conjunction with sociological literatures, we employ queer theory as our theoretical framework in order to disrupt and critique the entrenched gendered and sexual binaries that are produced, reproduced, and maintained (Butler, 1990; Foucault, 1979) within schools. Queer theory provides the necessary theoretical lens to examine the various and complex ways GSAs are enacted within schools and the identities youth produce within them. While we acknowledge and strive to work against the normalizing tendencies of queer theory (Duggan, 2003) as it is deeply seated in whiteness (Morgensen, 2011; Puar, 2007), we nonetheless find the theoretical premise useful as one way to deconstruct and disrupt the ways heterosexism and cissexism continue to be normalized in the lives Copyright © 2018. Canadian Scholars. All rights reserved. of questioning, queer, and trans youth. We evoke Helen Hok-Sze Leung (2008), who suggests that a queer theoretical perspective “theorize[s] what escapes, exceeds, and re- sists normative formations” (p. 3), and Kath Browne and Catherine Nash (2010), who argue that queer “can and should be redeployed, fucked with and used in resistant and transgressive ways” (p. 9). Our utilization of queer theory, as a disruption of the norma- tive, provides an opportunity to consider how and under what conditions GSAs work to challenge structures of oppression in schools, and address the divergent ways young questioning, queer, and trans people are working against hetero- and cis-normalcy in their lives, schools, and communities. The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada, edited by Xiaobei Chen, et al., Canadian Scholars, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/concordiaab-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6282142. Created from concordiaab-ebooks on 2024-09-03 15:54:30.  318 SECTION III INEQUALITIES AND INTERSECTIONS In order to address such normalizing tendencies, we ground our analysis of GSAs within the contemporary climate of schooling. Schools are sites of surveillance, where youth learn that heterosexuality and a two-gender binary system are normal and natural. For example, in chapter 15, Raby and Pomerantz note that girls’ sexuality is continually scrutinized and policed through the implementation of school dress code policies. Such theorizations of youth’s experiences of surveillance can be drawn from the seminal work of French philosopher Michel Foucault (1979). Foucault’s theorization of the panop- ticon engaged with the particular architectural design of British philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon prison, which allowed for a single prison guard in the centre of a prison to watch and surveil all of the prisoners. Consequently, prisoners would regulate themselves even when the guard was not present; in this sense, the guard was always watching. Foucault’s work on surveillance can be applied to the context of schooling, where youth will regulate themselves and one another, as they fear they are always being watched (Taylor, 2013). Thus, within schools, the gendered and sexual cultures of youth are policed not only by adults, but also within their peer cultures (Renold, 2005; Warrington & Younger, 2011). Through the act of policing and surveillance, youth, in turn, monitor their peers’ gendered and sexual behaviours as one way to reify and naturalize heterosexuality. If contemporary schooling reproduces the normativity of heterosexism and cissexism, and youth self-surveil due to potential ridicule or punishment, then GSAs, as sites of resis- tance, become ever so important. Below, we examine the ways heterosexism and cissex- ism are maintained within contemporary schooling, and how these are experienced in the lives of questioning, queer, and trans youth. GAY-STRAIGHT ALLIANCES: RESISTING THE NORMATIVE LOGICS OF HETEROSEXISM AND CISSEXISM Recent research on questioning, queer, and trans youth has shown that GSAs can dis- rupt the pervasiveness of oppression within their school environments. It has been well documented that children and youth experience extraordinary amounts of oppression just by virtue of their age (Wall, 2013). In conjunction with youth’s experiences of child- Copyright © 2018. Canadian Scholars. All rights reserved. ism, or oppression based on being a child or youth (Young-Bruehl, 2013), many ques- tioning, queer, and trans youth experience oppression, discrimination, and prejudice at school through verbal and physical harassment and bullying of all forms (Grace & Wells, 2015; Taylor & Peter, 2011). Within the recent study Every Class in Every School, Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everyday (Egale) found that 70 percent of all students who participated in their study— regardless of their sexual or gender identity—had overheard blatantly homophobic and transphobic comments at school, with 10 percent stating that they had heard such com- ments from educators and administrators at school (Taylor & Peter, 2011). Homophobia The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada, edited by Xiaobei Chen, et al., Canadian Scholars, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/concordiaab-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6282142. Created from concordiaab-ebooks on 2024-09-03 15:54:30.  Chapter 16 Queer and Trans at School 319 and transphobia are made possible within broader school climates of heterosexism and cissexism, where all youth are routinely assumed to be straight and cisgender. Consequently, we must interrogate the ways heterosexism and cissexism are normalized and maintained within schools, and the ways that youth in GSAs are working against these issues and related oppressive structures. GSAs provide a venue for youth to actively challenge homophobia and transphobia, and to disrupt heterosexism and cissexism in their school communities, while encouraging them to become active leaders and activists at school and in their communities at large (Lapointe, 2015). GSAs have proliferated throughout Canada and the United States as a means of disrupting homophobia and heterosexism within school climates since the late twen- tieth and early twenty-first centuries (Collin, 2013; Wells, 2006). The first GSA was founded in an American high school in 1988 in Concord, Massachusetts (Collin, 2013), and the first Canadian GSA was founded in 2000 in Coquitlam, British Columbia (Wells, 2006). While GSAs are becoming increasingly common in Canada, especially with the advent of Ontario’s 2012 Accepting Schools Act (Bill 13), various groups, including religious leaders, school administrators, parents, and teachers, still oppose GSAs in school settings (Clarke & MacDougall, 2012). In Ontario, despite some backlash, the Accepting Schools Act maintains that all students are guaranteed the right to formulate a GSA in any publicly funded school (Broten, 2012), so long as there exists both student desire and teacher supervision. Alberta (Jansen, 2015) and Manitoba (Allen, 2013) have similar legislation that ensures that youth who wish to form a GSA are provided with the resources (e.g. space, administrative support) to do so. Such legal measures are enacted to produce schools that are safe and supporting of questioning, queer, and trans youth, and are one attempt to work against the normal- ization of heterosexism and cissexism in schools. While individual school climates may not be as supportive of GSAs as one would hope, the activism of young GSA participants is a testament to what can be done when youth’s identities and experiences are affirmed. Questioning, queer, and trans youth, alongside straight members2 of GSAs, are resisting normativity that contributes to their oppression by (1) challenging the ways homophobia and transphobia are perpetuated in schools; and (2) generating spaces where diversity around gender and sexuality can be celebrated. To evoke Michel Foucault (1979) once more, youth regulate themselves Copyright © 2018. Canadian Scholars. All rights reserved. within the school setting on an everyday basis, whether it is in terms of the clothes that they wear, the music and media that they engage with, or the peer groups they belong to. For example, Meyer and Stader’s (2009) research shows that questioning, queer, and trans youth often feel as though they need to act straight due to the pervasiveness of heterosexism and cissexism in school. Thus, GSAs provide a space where question- ing, queer, and trans youth are able to break gendered and sexual norms by fostering a sense of overall well-being and community. Within GSAs, youth are able to break the panoptic gaze of school hallways, classrooms, bathrooms, and change rooms in a safe environment that supports their sense of self and community development. The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada, edited by Xiaobei Chen, et al., Canadian Scholars, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/concordiaab-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6282142. Created from concordiaab-ebooks on 2024-09-03 15:54:30.  320 SECTION III INEQUALITIES AND INTERSECTIONS QUEER AND TRANS YOUTH RESISTANCE Youth activism within schools plays an integral part in the formation of safe school cli- mates and the development and integration of social justice in the lives of youth (Noguera, Cammarota, & Ginwright, 2006). In 2002, Azmi Jubran, who was subjected to years of homophobic bullying, won a harassment complaint against his school board in British Columbia. This case puts emphasis on the ways youth can advocate for themselves and work against the oppressive conditions (e.g. homophobic bullying) of schooling (Meyer & Stader, 2009). Within GSAs, questioning, queer, and trans youth can develop and hone their advocacy skills while working with straight youth to create school communities that are more engaged with and informed about queer and trans topics and lived experiences (Lapointe, 2015; Young, 2010). Moreover, in Calgary, Alberta, young GSA members, particularly trans youth, have successfully petitioned their school administration to include a gender-inclusive bathroom for trans, genderqueer, and gender nonconforming youth— this despite parental backlash (CBC News, 2015). Questioning, queer, and trans youth are speaking back and working against oppression by seeking to employ inclusive initiatives addressing inequities through gender-neutral bathrooms, LGBTQ2SI-specific Valentine’s Day greeting cards, and even queer proms. Through the kinds of youth activism highlighted within “Snakes and Ladders,” GSAs provide youth with a space for self-advocacy, which highlights both their agen- cy and visibility within their school communities. Through GSAs, youth are able to exert their agency as activists while resisting ingrained heterosexism, cissexism, ho- mophobia, and transphobia within their schools (Marx & Kettrey, 2016; Poteat, Calzo, & Yoshikawa, 2016; Walls, Kane, & Wisneski, 2010). In addition to explicitly taking action against the oppression that youth experience, GSAs can foster individual and collective empowerment within schools. This empowerment is fuelled by a sense of be- longing as straight, questioning, queer, and trans youth co-construct a space to share experiences, create meaningful change in their communities and peer groups, and affect policy making (Mayberry, 2012). In other words, participation in GSAs (which become woven into the everyday fabric of the schooling structure) provides questioning, queer, and trans youth with a sense of collectivity and pride in their identities (Flanagan, 2004). While heterosexuality is overtly naturalized, (re)produced, and reified within Copyright © 2018. Canadian Scholars. All rights reserved. school curricula, youth’s peer cultures, and interactions with teachers, GSAs can pro- vide a subversive space for questioning, queer, and trans youth to queer and unsettle heterosexism (Pascoe, 2007) and cissexism. Alicia Lapointe’s (2015) writings on GSAs articulate how GSAs can encourage student bonding, a sense of safety, and youth activ- ism, but that GSAs also formulate “pedagogic sites for interrupting heteronormativity” (p. 150). Thus, GSAs not only benefit questioning, queer, and trans youth, but also cultivate positive environments for the whole school. Ultimately, GSAs, which emerge out of the activism of questioning, queer, and trans youth, unsettle the normalization and omnipresence of heterosexism and cissexism, while opening up new possibilities and imaginings for all youth. The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada, edited by Xiaobei Chen, et al., Canadian Scholars, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/concordiaab-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6282142. Created from concordiaab-ebooks on 2024-09-03 15:54:30.  Chapter 16 Queer and Trans at School 321 Box 16.1: Snakes and Ladders: A Performed Ethnography Questioning, queer, and trans youth can congregate together to formulate collec- tive activist groups, such as GSAs, as a means of exerting their agency. By join- ing together, straight, questioning, queer, and trans youth can use their power to address inequities within their school climate (Mayo, 2009; Lapointe, 2015). This kind of activism is exemplified in Tara Goldstein’s (2010) performed ethnography “Snakes and Ladders.” Below is a dramatized exchange among GSA members and their teacher-supervisor on what kinds of activist initiatives GSAs might take on during an event called “Gay Pride Day.” Anne [Teacher]: Mr. Rodriguez, why don’t you tell us the ideas you and Ms. Davis have come up with for Gay Pride Day.… Roberto [Rodriguez (Student)]: Okay. We talked about inviting a group called T.E.A.C.H. to come and do an anti-homophobia workshop with us. T.E.A.C.H. stands for Teens Educating and Confronting Homophobia. The members of T.E.A.C.H. identify as LGBTQ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer] and straight. Helen [Student]: Are they all white? Roberto: No. The group is mixed. And as part of the workshop they tell their coming-out stories, of when they first knew they might not be or weren’t heterosexual.… Chris [Student]: What about a queer talent night? And a drag contest? Diane [Student]: What’s drag? Helen: It’s when guys dress up like girls and girls dress up like guys. Chris: Or maybe we could put on an “Ask Dr. Ruth” show with questions and an- swers about queer sex. (Goldstein, 2010, pp. 90–91) Although a dramatization, this exchange outlines the possibilities that GSAs hold for questioning, queer, and trans youth. Roberto’s comment on T.E.A.C.H. being ra- cially diverse addresses the realities of questioning, queer, and trans youth of colour who are seeking out mentors and looking to see themselves represented in queer and trans activism. This conversation between some GSA participants highlights the Copyright © 2018. Canadian Scholars. All rights reserved. strength and determination of questioning, queer, and trans youth, especially with regard to the kinds of queerness they need within such spaces like GSAs and “Gay Pride Day.” Moreover, here youth’s activism emerges from their own lived experi- ences to sketch out a space where they can feel safer and that they truly belong. Simultaneously, Goldstein’s excerpt highlights how questioning, queer, and trans youth are seeking out experts who may have more experience or knowledge in the area of anti-homophobic education. Seeking out knowledgeable figures, for some questioning, queer, and trans youth, can alleviate some pressure to be experts regard- ing their own respective identities, especially in school climates that are unsupportive. The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada, edited by Xiaobei Chen, et al., Canadian Scholars, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/concordiaab-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6282142. Created from concordiaab-ebooks on 2024-09-03 15:54:30.  322 SECTION III INEQUALITIES AND INTERSECTIONS ARE GAY-STRAIGHT ALLIANCES ENOUGH? This chapter has attempted to provide a comprehensive review of the everyday reali- ties of heterosexism and cissexism in school for questioning, queer, and trans youth. Drawing from the sociological literatures on education and adolescence, we demonstrate how questioning, queer, and trans youth experience strife, everyday violence, and era- sure. We illustrate how GSAs provide an opportunity for questioning, queer, and trans youth to engage in activism as one way to challenge the pervasiveness of heterosexism, cissexism, homophobia, and transphobia within and beyond schools. As such, GSAs provide a means to disrupt the heterosexist and cissexist school climates (and the larger culture) for youth while fostering and uplifting their agency and activism—developing an accepting, safer, and open environment for their overall well-being. Moreover, GSAs encourage questioning, queer, and trans youth to engage in activism—although through the guidance of an adult figure and anti-oppressive school policy—to develop a sense of self-advocacy and awareness of social justice issues. While GSAs are beneficial for youth in attendance, it is worth posing the question, Which youth, in particular, benefit from GSAs? Mollie Blackburn and Lance McCready (2009) have questioned the nature and benefits of GSAs for questioning, queer, and trans youth of colour as GSAs can easily reproduce and normalize particular versions of queerness while rejecting others entirely. David, a Black gay youth, called the GSA group in his school “a select group of White girls … just teatime for a few lesbians and their friends … I went two consecutive weeks and then I stopped going because it wasn’t doing anything for me. There’s nothing there for me” (Blackburn & McCready, 2009, p. 227). 3 GSAs can indeed reflect the larger culture of queer communities in Canada by placing whiteness at the centre and limiting dialogue surrounding other intersecting identities and multiple experiences of race, class, disability, and nation, among others. For example, returning to Goldstein’s (2010) “Snakes and Ladders,” the kinds of queer and trans activism that questioning, queer, and trans youth imagine can reproduce nor- mative articulations of queer politics such as a “Gay Pride Day” that might be exclusion- ary. Or questioning, queer, and trans youth might mimic representations of queer and trans youth in the media, such as in Out Magazine, which typically consolidates queer and trans representation into images of wealthy white gay men who typically embody Copyright © 2018. Canadian Scholars. All rights reserved. hegemonic masculinities. Moreover, Giwa and Greensmith (2012) explain how the seemingly imagined Toronto LGBTQ community frames its narrative in whiteness, and how events, such as Pride Toronto, that focus on cohesiveness and inclusion function through exclusion. The imagined cohesive community attempts to assimilate all questioning, queer, and trans individuals under a “colourblind” approach that fails to recognize racial marginaliza- tion and upholds white supremacy. In this example, we can see how LGBTQ2SI activ- ism—within and outside of schools—can normalize the whiteness of queerness, leaving racialized youth further “Othered” and excluded (Blackburn & McCready, 2009). The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada, edited by Xiaobei Chen, et al., Canadian Scholars, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/concordiaab-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6282142. Created from concordiaab-ebooks on 2024-09-03 15:54:30.  Chapter 16 Queer and Trans at School 323 Gendered oppression is another means through which questioning, queer, and trans youth can experience oppression, even within their respective inclusive communities. For example, effeminate men can experience femmephobia within gay men’s commu- nities (Bergling, 2002) and transwomen have lamented the gender discrimination they experience as women (Serano, 2007). Therefore, it is important for GSAs to embrace the tenets of intersectionality. Intersectionality, a concept that emerged out of the writing and activism of Black feminists, examines individuals’ multiple intersecting and over- lapping social identities, such as race, class, and gender. Intersectionality can be utilized within GSAs to acknowledge and value the various identities and experiences that make up questioning, queer, and trans youth’s lives. Additionally, to push conversations beyond race, gender, and whiteness, how might our Western conceptions of queerness hold negative ramifications for Indigenous peo- ples (Morgensen, 2011)? For example, Pride festivals sometimes appropriate the cul- tures of Indigenous peoples—through costumes, for instance—which can produce overt forms of racism and sexism within these seemingly inclusive spaces (Greensmith & Giwa, 2013). Similarly, the initiatives that GSAs take on might mimic a normative queer politics that perpetuates and sustains the exclusion and erasure of Indigenous peoples who are questioning, queer, trans, and two-spirited. Thus, while it is important to highlight the productive possibility of GSAs for questioning, queer, and trans youth, it is necessary to consider who is left out and, more importantly, why. Another concern is that GSAs alone are not enough to challenge the pervasiveness of heterosexism and cissexism in schools. Thus, we firmly believe that GSAs must be utilized in a way that extends dialogue and action surrounding the heterosexist and cissexist realities of schooling for all youth. As C. J. Pascoe (2007) writes, “‘Making our schools safe for sissies’ (quoted from Rofes, 1995, p. 79) can make them safer places for all students: masculine girls, feminine boys, and all those in between” (p. 174). Yet, within our contemporary schooling climate, GSAs are typically offered as Band-Aid solutions, filling the gap where questioning, queer, and trans content is absent from schooling curricula and where there is little systemic change happening within schools as a whole. Further, if GSAs are produced as a site of queer and trans inclusion alone, there is potential for the reinforcement of the very binaries that GSAs are trying to resist and work at dismantling. For example, the title Gay-Straight Alliance can easily obscure Copyright © 2018. Canadian Scholars. All rights reserved. the diversity within queer and trans communities. Some youth within their local com- munities are thus changing the name of GSAs to Queer-Straight Alliances or Genders & Sexualities Alliances to signal inclusivity (Genders & Sexualities Alliance Network, n.d.). Thus, in accordance with Deborah Britzman (1998), if GSAs are only imagined as rel- evant at certain times, and for certain people, instead of being embedded into everyday learning, heterosexism and cissexism in schooling will not be altered. Beyond the name, and beyond the everyday workings of heterosexism in schools, we must consider the spaces and places where GSAs are enacted. Within smaller towns or rural communities, many questioning, queer, and trans youth feel heightened degrees of The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada, edited by Xiaobei Chen, et al., Canadian Scholars, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/concordiaab-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6282142. Created from concordiaab-ebooks on 2024-09-03 15:54:30.  324 SECTION III INEQUALITIES AND INTERSECTIONS isolation, as they often experience heterosexist and cissexist forms of oppression along- side fewer supports than in urban areas (Brown, 2012; St. John et al., 2014). While we speak to the importance of GSAs, especially for questioning, queer, and trans youth, it is equally important to consider the importance of GSAs within particular geograph- ical contexts (Fetner & Kush, 2008). We do so within the particular national context, whereby most provinces in Canada do not have GSA supportive legislation. To conclude, we want to highlight the resilience, activism, and agency of ques- tioning, queer, and trans youth. Their work, through GSAs and beyond, can prevent negative peer and self-surveillance in schools and can help shift heterosexist, cissexist, homophobic, and transphobic school climates. We want to challenge the cookie-cutter model of queer activism—within and outside of GSAs—by asking difficult questions, so that we can support and encourage youth in their work against heterosexism and cis- sexism, but also to see the relevance of understanding and addressing other intersecting forms of oppression in the lives of questioning, queer, and trans youth. Thus, we offer some final thoughts: What promises do GSAs offer in terms of dismantling structures of oppression beyond heterosexism and cissexism? And in what ways might GSAs (and the activism of youth) further normalize and naturalize some queer and trans identities and experiences, while making the others into “Others”? CHAPTER SUMMARY: Together, in this chapter, we Saw that while many questioning, queer, and trans youth can experience gen- dered and sexual oppression within their school environments, youth experi- ence such oppressions differently based on their multiple identities, experiences at school, peer groups, families, and work, among other contexts. Explored how GSAs provide an opportunity to subvert oppressive school cli- mates to formulate a safer school for questioning, queer, and trans youth. Investigated, through a lens that employs the sociology of education, child- hood, and queer theory, how GSAs can be sites that disrupt heterosexism and Copyright © 2018. Canadian Scholars. All rights reserved. cissexism. Learned that school climates can engender negative self-surveillance and peer monitoring as youth regulate themselves to fit the heteronormative and cisnor- mative codes ingrained within schools. Learned that GSAs are spaces where youth can develop into activists while building bridges between questioning, queer, and trans youth, teachers, and straight youth. Explored how youth’s activism in GSAs transpires from their own lived expe- riences and the sense of safety and acceptance they feel within GSAs. The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada, edited by Xiaobei Chen, et al., Canadian Scholars, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/concordiaab-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6282142. Created from concordiaab-ebooks on 2024-09-03 15:54:30.  Chapter 16 Queer and Trans at School 325 Acknowledged that GSAs still need to be expanded to provide safe climates for all questioning, queer, and trans youth. STUDY QUESTIONS 1. Outline how questioning, queer, and trans youth are resisting oppression. 2. Describe the differences between heterosexism and cissexism. 3. Were there GSAs at your school? If so, did you participate? Why? If not, why didn’t you participate? 4. In what ways can adults (e.g. teachers, child and youth workers) better support ques- tioning, queer, and trans youth so that their identities are affirmed? 5. What are the limits of GSAs in their capacity to challenge heterosexism and cissexism? How can schools as a whole address these limits in conjunction with GSAs? SUGGESTED RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT In order to understand the complexities of genders and sexualities in the lives of children and youth, go to a local marketplace (e.g. bookstore, toy store) that children and youth attend. Pay attention to your surroundings and make sure you take notes: What do you see? How are children and youth being asked to participate in sexual and gendered cultures? What is normalized (e.g. colour, dress, body size)? Write a reflective piece on the ways youth are gendered and sexualized within the marketplace you have chosen. The goal of this assignment is to engage with the ever-growing marketplace that ques- tioning, queer, and trans youth participate in and to address the ways heterosexism and cissexism are being naturalized, subverted, and/or challenged. SUGGESTED FILMS/VIDEO CLIPS But I’m a Cheerleader (1999) Copyright © 2018. Canadian Scholars. All rights reserved. www.imdb.com/title/tt0179116/ Megan (Natasha Lyvonne), a high school cheerleader, is beginning to explore her sex- ual attraction to other women as she realizes that she is not attracted to her boyfriend. After suspecting her to be a lesbian, Megan’s family and friends provide her with an intervention, and send her to True Directions, a conversion therapy camp. While at the camp, Megan wrestles with her desire to appease her friends and family by conforming to heterosexual standards and her burgeoning love for Graham (Clea DuVall). Directed by Jamie Babbit. The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada, edited by Xiaobei Chen, et al., Canadian Scholars, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/concordiaab-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6282142. Created from concordiaab-ebooks on 2024-09-03 15:54:30.  326 SECTION III INEQUALITIES AND INTERSECTIONS C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005) www.imdb.com/title/tt0401085/ Zac (Michel Côté), the youngest son in a devout Roman Catholic family in Québec in the 1970s, experiences internal turmoil over his nonmasculine behaviours throughout his adolescence as his father struggles to accept him as gay. After having his same-sex desires discovered by his father, Zac is sent to conversion therapy to discuss his sexual desires. Following this, Zac embarks on a journey towards self-acceptance. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée. Fire Song (2015) www.imdb.com/title/tt4123506/ Shane (Andrew Martin), a gay Anishinaabe teenager, is left with a challenging decision as his sister commits suicide weeks before he is scheduled to leave his hometown to at- tend university. While trying to cope with the aftermath of his sister’s death and piecing his family back together, Shane is left to decide between supporting his family or his own future plans. Directed by Adam Garnet Jones. The Kids Are All Right (2010) www.imdb.com/title/tt0842926/ Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore), a married lesbian couple in Los An- geles who have had two children through artificial insemination, are forced to confront their son’s (Josh Hutcherson) questions regarding his donor father’s identity. Upon find- ing the donor father, Paul (Mark Ruffolo), Nic and Jules welcome Paul into their family’s life and begin a journey of self-discovery getting to know him while growing as a family. Directed by Lisa Cholodenko. SUGGESTED WEBSITES Egale egale.ca Egale Canada, or Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere, was founded in 1986 as Copyright © 2018. Canadian Scholars. All rights reserved. an organization to advocate for equality for LGBTQ2SI communities across Canada. Egale has advocated for equality causes within Canada, such as same-sex marriage, and continues to educate workplaces and educational institutions on LGBTQ2SI issues and advocacy. GSA Network gsanetwork.org GSA Network is an American organization founded by Carolyn Laub in the San Fran- cisco area in 1998. GSA Network started as Gay-Straight Alliance Network and was The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada, edited by Xiaobei Chen, et al., Canadian Scholars, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/concordiaab-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6282142. Created from concordiaab-ebooks on 2024-09-03 15:54:30.  Chapter 16 Queer and Trans at School 327 renamed to Genders and Sexualities Alliance Network in 2016 to reflect the increasing diversity in representation of genders and sexualities in North America. LGBT Youth Line www.youthline.ca LGBT Youth Line is an Ontario-based Canadian organization founded in 1993 in To- ronto to provide a means for queer, questioning, and trans youth in Ontario to be able to access phone counselling and guidance. The peer-based format of the phone line is utilized to decrease the loneliness that queer, questioning, and trans youth often face. MyGSA.ca www.mygsa.ca MyGSA.ca is an initiative run by Egale Canada to provide youth, educators, parents, and community members with information regarding GSAs and their importance in formulating safer school climates. MyGSA.ca provides educators and community mem- bers with detailed lesson plans, resources for starting a GSA, as well as community for queer, questioning, and trans youth. Native Youth Sexual Health Network nativeyouthsexualhealth.com The Native Youth Sexual Health Network (NYSHN) is a North American–based orga- nization that advocates for justice regarding sexual and reproductive health, specifically for Indigenous youth. This organization is run by Indigenous youth 30 years and under and works with Indigenous youth to ensure that they are provided with a sexuality edu- cation that is accessible for them. NOTES 1. Cameron and Adam would both like to thank all of the queer, trans, and questioning youth who have survived despite all of the odds against them. We especially want to thank Tara Goldstein, Rebecca Raby, and Shauna Pomerantz for inspiring us to think about and with Copyright © 2018. Canadian Scholars. All rights reserved. young people, and to engage with young people’s everyday encounters with homophobia and transphobia as activism. 2. As Sara Lewis-Bernstein Young (2010) illustrates, straight youth’s participation in GSAs helps to challenge the pervasive heterosexism experienced by questioning, queer, and trans youth in schools. Thus, the presence of straight youth within GSAs can allow for questioning, queer, and trans youth to join GSAs without the necessity of coming out. 3. While we find David’s narrative productive in highlighting the exclusion he faced within the particular local GSA he tried attending, we nonetheless find his illustration deeply sexist for those “lesbians and their friends.” Despite the tensions that exist, we wanted to highlight David’s The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada, edited by Xiaobei Chen, et al., Canadian Scholars, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/concordiaab-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6282142. Created from concordiaab-ebooks on 2024-09-03 15:54:30.  328 SECTION III INEQUALITIES AND INTERSECTIONS experience to showcase a very real representation of oppression many questioning, queer, and trans youth of colour may experience within queer spaces like GSAs. Highlighting David’s narra- tive also brings awareness to the messy contradictions that arise within inclusive initiatives, by showcasing the ways horizontal violence is normalized among youth who all experience forms of gendered and sexual oppression. REFERENCES Abramovich, A. I. (2013). No fixed address: Young, queer, and restless. In S. Gaetz, B. O’Grady, K. Buccieri, J. Karabanow, & A. Marsolais (Eds.), Youth homelessness in Canada: Implications for policy and practice (pp. 387–403). Toronto: Canadian Homelessness Research Network Press. Alden, H. L., & Parker, K. F. (2005). Gender role ideology, homophobia and hate crime: Linking attitudes to macro-level anti-gay and lesbian hate crimes. 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Grace, A. P., & Wells, K. (2015). Growing into resilience: Sexual and gender minority youth in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Greensmith, C., & Giwa, S. (2013). Challenging settler colonialism in contemporary queer politics: Settler homonationalism, Pride Toronto, and two-spirit subjectivities. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 37(2), 129–148. Haig, T. (2016, May 17). Canada moves forward with legislation to guarantee the rights of transgender people across the country. Radio Canada International. Retrieved from www.rcinet.ca/en/2016/05/17/ canada-moves-forward-with-legislation-to-guarantee-the-rights-of-transgender-people-across-the- country/ Herek, G. M. (2004). Beyond “homophobia”: Thinking about sexual prejudice and stigma in the twenty-first century. Sexuality Research & Social Policy, 1(2), 6–24. Ingrey, J. C. (2012). The public school washroom as analytic space for troubling gender: investigating the spatiality of gender through students’ self-knowledge. Gender and Education, 24(7), 799–817. Jansen, S. (2015). Bill 10: An act to amend the Alberta Bill of Rights to protect our children. Edmonton, Alberta, Copyright © 2018. Canadian Scholars. All rights reserved. Canada: Legislative Assembly of Alberta. Lapointe, A. (2015). Standing “straight” up to homophobia: Straight allies’ involvement in GSAs. Journal of LGBT Youth, 12(2), 144–169. Lapointe, A. (2016). Postgay. In E. Brockenbrough, J. Ingrey, W. Martino, & N. M Rodriguez (Eds.), Critical concepts in queer studies and education: An international guide for the twenty-first century (pp. 205–218). New York: Palgrave Macmillian. Lapointe, A., & Kassen, J. (2013). After the happily ever after: One year post-Bill 13, are Ontario Catholic schools supporting gay-straight alliance development? Education Canada, 53(4), 12–17. The Sociology of Childhood and Youth in Canada, edited by Xiaobei Chen, et al., Canadian Scholars, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/concordiaab-ebooks/detail.action?docID=6282142. Created from concordiaab-ebooks on 2024-09-03 15:54:30.  330 SECTION III INEQUALITIES AND INTERSECTIONS Leung, H. H. (2008). Undercurrents: Queer culture and postcolonial Hong Kong. Vancouver: UBC Press. Marx, R. A., & Kettrey, H. H. (2016). Gay-Straight Alliances are associated with lower levels of school- based victimization of LGBTQ+ youth: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 45(7), 1–14. Mayberry, M. (2012). Gay-straight alliances: Youth empowerment and working toward reducing stigma of LGBT youth. Humanity and Society, 37(1), 35–54. Mayo, J. B., Jr. (2009). Critical pedagogy enacted in the Gay-Straight Alliance: New possibilities for a third space in teacher development. Educational Researcher, 42(5), 266–275. Mercer, R. (2011). Rick Mercer Report: Rant: Teen suicide. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1OvtBa2FK8 Meyer, E. J., & Stader, D. (2009). Queer youth and the culture wars: From classroom to courtroom in Australia, Canada and the United States. Journal of LGBT Youth, 6(2/3), 135–154. Morgensen, S. L. (2011). The spaces between us: Queer settler colonialism and Indigenous decolonization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Nash, C. J. (2013). The age of the “post-mo”? Toronto’s gay village and a new generation. Geoforum, 49, 243–252. Noguera, P., Cammarota, J., & Ginwright, S. (Eds.). (2006). Beyond resistance! Youth activism and community change: New democratic possibilities for practice and policy for America’s youth. New York: Routledge. O’Meara, K. (2013). Advancing graduate student agency. Higher Education in Review, 10, 1–10. Pascoe, C. J. (2007). Dude, you’re a fag: Masculinity and sexuality in high school. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Peter, T., Taylor, C., & Edkins, T. (2016). Are the kids all right? The impact of school climate among stu-