Today is National Coming Out Day. For some, today is an opportunity to share with others parts of our identity. And for some, it's a day of personal recognition and acceptance. Coming into yourself as our identities shift is a powerful practice, and one we continually do as queer, trans, and gender-diverse folks. Not everyone needs access to parts of you that you are still grappling with. So whether today is a day of celebration, public declaration, personal recognition or a moment of questioning, you are seen and supported unconditionally. 

You can watch videos of our families talking about coming out in schools here, and find resources that might be helpful here. 

If you are a trans person working in education, please consider completing this survey! 

This project is spearheaded by our incredible colleague Dr. Harper Keenan  (University of British Columbia) as well as Dr. Mario Suarez (Utah State University) and Dr. Mollie McQuillian (University of Wisconsin-Madison). They are looking for Canadian trans educators to complete their survey, to give a better insight into the workplace experiences of PK-12 trans school workers.  

The survey link is: tinyurl.com/ya4xnq5s
Password: TWISP2020

Artwork by Jess Bird (@blessthemessy on Instagram) 

 A huge congratulations to Kate Reid for successfully defending their doctoral dissertation entitled "Music to Our Ears: Using a Queer Folk Song Pedagogy to do Gender and Sexuality Education."

Kate's research explored how educators can use a queer folk song pedagogy as a way to approach gender and sexuality education. Using music from their album, Queer Across Canada, Kate's research joins a lively and growing conversation of the role music and sound plays in creating equitable spaces and classrooms for LGBTQ+ youth. 

Kate's music is also featured in our verbatim-theatre piece Out At School which you can read more about here. 

Congrats Kate, we can't wait to see what the future holds for you! 

International Day of Pink was created in 2007 after two high school students in Nova Scotia wore a pink shirt in solidarity with a student who was bullied for wearing pink. It has since spawned into an international day for supporting for LGBTQ+ youth in schools. Pink Day is often framed in schools as combating bullying and gender stereotypes, and more broadly homophobia.  

Our work on the LGBTQ Families Speak Out project has shown both the potential benefits and neglect that initiatives like Pink Day can create. Our families have talked about posters and singular days that promote equality, diversity and inclusivity often do very little to challenge the compulsory nature of cis-heteronormativity in schools (Victoria, Garrett) While these days can also create a sense community and solidarity in school settings, it also relies on students to take action and call out violence and prejudice, rather than changing school norms, policies and culture.

We think, that part of celebrating and observing International Day of Pink every year needs to involve a bigger discussion about the school culture, how educators are critically engaging their students in conversations about LGBTQ identities throughout the year, while focusing less on the “phobias” associated with doing anti-homophobia and anti-transphobia work. We need to keep challenging discrimination, violence and oppression, while also celebrating, uplifting and empowering LGBTQ+ youth and families.  

How can you take up the goal of International Day of Pink throughout the year? What are some ways you can begin to talk about more than homophobia in schools? How you start changing the culture of the school you are in?

This month the first member of our research team, Pam Baer, successfully defended her thesis study Queer isn’t a Choice! Queer is my Family! Collaborative Performance as Affective Pedagogy.  

The study documents an applied theatre workshop for youth aged 10-13 and had two points of focus: the first was how young people and artist-educators collaboratively used theatre to learn about themselves, each other, and the world around them; and the second was about how young people from LGBTQ2S+ families used theatre and performance as a form of advocacy by sharing their stories and experiences through their artwork. 

Working alongside youth participants, this research attuned to the relational aspects of theatre creation by drawing on affective encounters through aesthetic learning. Youth and artist-educators, including artists on our research team benjamin lee hicks and Kate Reid, shared stories, wrote songs, choreographed movement, played with puppets, and made books. The applied theatre work was self-revelatory, deeply personal, and created a powerful space for the youth to understand their everyday experiences on their own terms. It is an exciting thesis study which will be available on T-Space, the University of Toronto's online repository soon.  

The research team held a virtual celebration of Pam's successful exam defense at our last research meeting on March 27, 2020.  We are all very proud of Dr. Pam Baer's work!  Below is a picture of Pam and supervisor Tara Goldstein right after the defense.  Congratulations Dr. Pam Baer!

In this week’s blog, we want to highlight the importance of considering intersectionality in discussions of queer identities in schooling and education. Taking an intersectional approach to our teaching means making students aware of the multiple forms of oppression and privilege individuals face and how they interact with one another. ​

In our interview study, we had the opportunity to discuss Victoria Mason’s experience navigating the education system as a racialized, queer women within a predominately white school. She highlights the importance of educators to understand intersectionality as something to be taught and expected in the curriculum.