vix.ing · top · new · best · stats · spec

Trans and nonbinary students’ accounts of schooling: on epistemic witnessing, trans livability and the <i>failure</i> of the school <i>cistem</i>

2024/11/01 by Wayne Martino, Jenny Kassen, Kenan Omercajic · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Critical Race Theory in Education #Religious Education and Schools #Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies

paper · doi:10.1080/01596306.2024.2426300

Abstract

In this paper, we draw on accounts of trans and nonbinary youth we interviewed as part of a larger study on supporting gender diversity in schools. Our study is informed by an approach to epistemic witnessing which we conceive of as a praxis that is informed by a commitment to trans de-subjugation, testimonial justice and a transfeminist methodology with its critical focus on cissexist analytic pitfalls in research and refusal of objectification and overgeneralization of trans people. Our approach to analyzing interview data which refused the methodological constraints of forcing meaning into overdetermined and prescriptive thematic categories was also facilitative of this praxis. Overall, we provide testimonial accounts of trans youth navigating cisnormative school spaces and the tensions that arise around desires for trans (in)visibility which expose the cistemic forces at play in the education system in its failure to provide supportive conditions of trans livability and racial justice.

Discussions

Related