Gender Nonconforming Students Research Articles

Searching for Home: Transgender Students and Experiences with Residential Housing

This study examines the residential life experiences of transgender and gender non-conforming students. As more transgender students self-identify to residential life staff, some higher education institutions have developed practices that are more inclusive of transgender students (Krum, Davis, & Galupa, 2013). However, despite increased visibility and awareness of transgender and gender non-conforming students, limited research exists to assist our understanding of their experiences within these campus environments (Beemyn, 2013; Renn, 2010). This case study explores how transgender students at several different universities in the United States negotiate relationships with roommates, residence hall peers, staff, and administrators. Utilizing in-depth interviews, four themes emerged: navigating gender expression, consequences of genderism, coping and carrying on, and institutional genderism. Transgender students’ experiences varied across institutions, but all highlight how heterogendered institutions, policies, and interactions systematically discriminate against these students.

‘I don’t care what’s under your clothes’: the discursive positioning of educators working with trans and gender-nonconforming students

This paper examines the meanings educators produce about their experiences working with trans and gender-nonconforming students, and the effects of this discursive process. In this paper, I draw on 62 interviews with school staff conducted in British Columbia to examine how educators understand their role in an institutional context (a school) that is shaped by systems of power that legitimise and enforce sexual and gender conformity. By drawing on the dominant narratives available to them, educators recounted their experiences through discursive resources that tend to distance them from the institutional systems of power they were operating within. Four specific discursive resources through which the educators’ experiences became intelligible are described: (1) relying on bullying discourses, (2) framing themselves as open-minded individuals, (3) emphasising external institutional obstacles and (4) acknowledging their complicity in systems of power. Through these discursive framings, the role that educators themselves play in shaping the field of legibility and legitimacy in schools is downplayed, thus limiting the potential to resist and displace existing systems of power and generate systemic transformations.

Making the Grade? Classroom Climate for LGBTQ Students Across Gender Conformity

Using data from the 2010 State of Higher Education for LGBT People (Rankin, Weber, Blumenfeld, & Frazer), this study examines campus climate perceptions for LGBTQ undergraduate students across gender conformity and the extent to which relevant variables influence perceptions of classroom climate. Findings reveal more positive classroom climate perceptions for gender conforming students than gender non-conforming students and show significant relationships between classroom climate perceptions and outness, LGBTQ inclusive curricula, institutional support, and resource use.

Understanding teachers' responses to enactments of sexual and gender stigma at school

Although teachers may be in a position to address enactments of sexual and gender stigma among their students, little is known about their motivations to intervene in such situations. We surveyed secondary school teachers in the Netherlands, assessing how beliefs, norms, and self-efficacy were related to their intentions to intervene in two hypothetical situations that involved bullying of lesbian/gay or gender non-conforming students. We found significantly stronger intentions to intervene among teachers who were more confident in their abilities to intervene successfully and who had stronger beliefs that intervening in the situation would produce a positive outcome.

Recommendations of transgender students, staff, and faculty in the USA for improving college campuses

Research indicates that transgender individuals frequently experience marginalisation and interpersonal victimisation within college and university settings. Missing from the literature is a discussion of what can be done to address such patterns in higher education, based upon empirical data gathered from transgender and gender non-conforming students, staff, and faculty. The present study aimed to fill this gap by reporting on solutions offered by a sample of 30 individuals in one US state while integrating a lens of intersectionality. Five resulting themes include (a) offer education, campus programming, and support for trans individuals; (b) improve university systems and procedures for recording one's name and gender; (c) encourage greater inclusivity and recruitment of diverse groups; (d) make physical changes to facilities; and (e) hold people accountable. These findings suggest institutional actions and policy changes for higher education administrators and others committed to improving campuses for transgender and gender non-conforming people.

Patterns of Bullying in Single-Sex Schools

This study explores how the relationship between students’ risk of being bullied and their gender conformity differs depending on whether they attend single-sex or coeducational high schools. Findings indicate that gender nonconforming students, and students who vary from their dominant school gender norms, are most likely to experience bullying regardless of school context. Single-sex schools emerge as a protective factor for gender nonconforming females, possibly due to a privileged position female masculinity holds in a single-sex female context. These findings contribute to a complicated terrain emerging in the research literature on single-sex schools.

An Intake Template for Transgender, Transsexual, Genderqueer, Gender Nonconforming, and Gender Variant College Students Seeking Mental Health Services

As more students identify as transgender and genderqueer, it is essential that staff at college counseling centers are knowledgeable about gender diversity. This article provides a template for intake and initial assessment with transgender, transsexual, genderqueer, and gender nonconforming students. It familiarizes clinicians with gender-affirming language and offers a list of questions to ask. Topics covered include: gender history, coming out, self-injury, suicide, sexual orientation, binding, transition trajectories, options for gender expression, issues with diagnosis and recordkeeping, and interdisciplinary approaches to treatment. The intake is an opportunity to provide comfort and support for students of all genders.

Troubling gender binaries in schools: from sumptuary law to sartorial agency

This article derives from a larger study on gender fluidity to focus primarily on the sartorial aspects of gender. Secondary school students were interviewed to investigate how they speak about gender expression, performance and fluidity in their school. Using a Foucaultian analytic of subjectivation through regulated surveillance and Butler's theory of gender performativity and the abject, as well as queer theorists such as Wilchins, my aim is to draw attention to the need to de-naturalize the notion of a gender binary. Furthermore, I draw on Garber's analytic framework of sumptuary law to provide insight into the limitations of gender expression and the potential for sartorial agency. The educational significance lies in the need to disrupt the heteronormative education system to resist the exclusion of gender non-conforming students.

Gender-Inclusive Housing Preferences: A Survey of College-Aged Transgender Students

Traditional on-campus housing assignments at colleges and universities are made on the basis of legal sex, where students are housed only with other students of the same legal sex. This method is problematic for transgender and gender-nonconforming students, who may not identify with the gender assigned to them at birth. Recently, some institutions have begun to offer gender-inclusive housing to better serve the needs of transgender and gender-nonconforming students. Colleges and universities take a variety of approaches in incorporating this housing option, with varying results. The present research asked traditionally college-aged transgender and gender-nonconforming people which types of housing they would most prefer when considering living on a college campus. In all, 103 college-aged adults participated in the survey and revealed that apartment-style housing and self-contained singles were the most preferred among five housing options currently in use at various colleges and universities across the country. Implications for the various options are discussed, as well as support policies to consider when instituting a gender-inclusive housing community.

An Invaluable Resource for Supporting Transgender, Transsexual, and Gender-Nonconforming Students in School Communities: A Review of Supporting Transgender and Transsexual Students in K–12 Schools

This essay provides a review of a resource guide written by Kristopher Wells, Gayle Roberts, and Carol Allan (2012) titled Supporting Transgender and Transsexual Students in K–12 Schools: A Guide for Educators. The guide is an invaluable resource for educators in schools and teacher education programs.

Is This the Right Elementary School for My Gender Nonconforming Child?

This article describes what followed after a mother wondered if the school in her neighborhood was the right elementary school for her gender nonconforming young child. It includes collective and individual narratives from four key players: the mom and teacher educator (Slesaransky-Poe), the school's guidance counselor (Ruzzi), the principal (DiMedio), and the consultant who led the initial professional development (Stanley). It documents and reflects on the work done over five years to transform a great school into a welcoming and inclusive one for gender nonconforming and transgender students.

Reimagining gender through policy development: the case of a ‘single-sex’ educational organisation

In 2005, a feminist educational organisation in the USA for young women, ages 14–21, adopted a policy in order to clarify their target constituency of girls and young women. The policy defined ‘girls and young women’ not as a designation associated with fixed biological sex, but instead as a self-determined identity label creating an explicit policy of inclusion to gender non-conforming students, including transgender youth, who self-identified as ‘girls’ or ‘young women’. This article traces the series of influences that prompted the development of the policy, as well as the learning curves for this feminist educational all-girls’ community, and the discussions that led to both the unanimous adoption of the policy and a subsequent larger cultural shift within the organisation. This analysis seeks to add to an understanding and exploration of policies that address the de facto exclusion of gender non-conforming, intersex, and transgender youth from gender-based educational settings.

The Experiences and Needs of Transgender Community College Students

The experiences and needs of college students who identify on the transgender spectrum (androgynous, gender nonconforming, genderqueer, transfeminine, transmaculine, transgender, etc.) have begun to be explored in recent years, but this work has largely been limited to four-year colleges and universities. Virtually no research has considered the lives of transgender students at community colleges. Yet, transgender and gender nonconforming students may be more likely to attend two-year institutions because of gender-identity-based prejudice and discrimination in education and employment. After describing the problems often faced by transgender community college students and the ways in which their campuses largely fail to meet their needs, the article offers suggestions for making community colleges more transgender inclusive and supportive.

Achieving Competency with Transgender Youth: School Counselors as Collaborative Advocates

The article applies the American Counseling Association Competencies for Counseling with Transgender Clients to transgender and gender nonconforming students, thereby assisting school counselors in understanding how to apply the competencies to their school setting. Drawing upon their experience as educators, feminists, and safe schools activists, the authors provide collaboration-specific strategies school counselors can use to advocate with students, parents, school personnel, community members, and other stakeholders on behalf of transgender youth across grade levels. Guided by feminist and social justice perspectives, the school counselor strategies described in this article apply the ACA Transgender Competencies through the framework of the community collaboration and systems advocacy domains outlined in the American Counseling Association Advocacy Competencies.

Understanding the Marginalization of Gay and Gender Non-Conforming Black Male Students

Understanding the Marginalization of Gay and Gender Non-Conforming Black Male Students