Privacy for all students? Talking about and around trans students in “public”

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper places under examination the arguments used to fight against school policies and legislation intended to guarantee and protect the rights of trans students. That is, the paper's central investigation works to uncover the regimes of truth about children, gender, race and privacy implicit in the methods employed by activists who seek to counter the expansion of rights for trans students. Using critical discourse and document analyses influenced by queer theories and Critical Race Theory, this paper examines the group Privacy for All Students and the arguments it makes in campaign documents against California State Assembly Bill 1266 – the statewide trans students’ right law passed in 2013. First, this paper unpacks the intertwined constructions of children before moving to an examination of how notions of innocence are founded by gendered, sexual, and racial regimes of truth. Then, it explores how the foundational logics of the public sphere make possible for PFAS to address their arguments about children and innocence to “the public” and suggest why close, critical readings of the seemingly implicit ways of knowing and thinking about gender, race, and privacy in their documents are important towards ensuring trans students have a place in school.