Institutional Commitments to Unknowing Gender: Trans* and Gender Non-Conforming Educators’ Experiences in Higher Education

Abstract

ABSTRACT While there has been some research centering trans* and gender non-conforming (TGNC) faculty, more is needed to address how they navigate classroom spaces and students’ resistance to and about trans* bodies. The purpose of this study was to examine the resistance TGNC educators experienced from students, colleagues, as well as their larger higher education institutions. Findings from this study suggest that TGNC faculty simotaneously experinece hypervisibility and invisiblity both in their classrooms as well as on their campuses. Participants described types of student resistance, rooted within a dichotomous gender bianry. Participants also described increased labor and were often expected to do more emotional and pedagogical work due to their identities. Given these specific experineces, we discuss these faculty’s experiences as we call an instiuttional comitment to unknowing gender, an enviornment within higher education that serves reify the gender binary.