Translating Transgender Analysis of Different Though the Sexes Are, They Inter-Mix
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“Our Translating Transgender analysis of Different though the sexes are, they inter-mix. In every human being a vacillation from one sex to the other the available takes place, and often it is only the clothes that keep the male and female likeness, while underneath the research sex is the very opposite of what it is above. —Virginia Woolf, Orlando suggests that between t was one of those odd coincidences—just as I began doing research for this issue of Just in Time, the Itheme of which is “transgender,” I also started reading a recent and much-lauded Canadian novel: 20 percent Annabel, by Kathleen Winter. The hero/heroine of Annabel is Wayne, who is born a hermaphrodite in a and small coastal town in Labrador. Wayne’s parents decide to raise him as a boy, thus launching him on a difficult and dangerous path of life. As Wayne grows up, he struggles to truly belong in the über- 40 percent of masculine hunting and trapping world of his father. Beneath the surface is his other self, Annabel, who all homeless in the end will not be denied. This fine and sensitive novel accomplishes what fine and sensitive art does—it invites the reader youth [in to explore in a profound the US] way the experiences of another. In other words, identify as it gives shape to life. lesbian, gay, Our society is obsessed bisexual or with naming and classifying, with drawing transgender.” neat lines and tidy —National Gay categories. But this messy, and Lesbian complicated world does not bend easily to this tendency Task Force, and to our desire for easy, Lesbian, Gay, either–or explanations. Binary Bisexual and systems—meaning composed Transgender of two parts—infuse math, science and computing. We are Youth: An sure that they are indispensable Epidemic of to certain understandings of the Homelessness, world, but the notion of binaries 2006 is a little more problematic when it comes to human beings. Traditionally gender has been thought of as a perfect binary— Winner of the Golden Leaf you are either a boy or a girl, a he Award of Excellence for or a she. However, as the famous overall print publication, Gershwin tune goes, “it ain’t from the Canadian necessarily so.” In fact, we now Education Press know that when it comes to human Association, 2011 sexual identity, there are many gradations of shades between the Member of Canadian Educational Press Association pink and blue poles. Association canadienne de la presse éducationnelle www.teachers.ab.ca January 2011 Volume 7, Issue 1 click on For Members/Professional Development Replace Judgment with Curiosity: How Teachers Can Deal with Sexual Difference in the Classroom by Karen Virag Imagine that among your students is 13-year-old Dying to Fit In Kimberly; she is large for her age and somewhat The spate of highly publicized teen suicides caused androgynous in appearance, and she favours jeans by homophobia and intolerance across the continent and loose shirts over skirts and tops. Kimberly in the last few months is ample evidence of the says that she has few friends but defiantly adds need for more workshops like this. In one case, in that this does not matter because she “doesn’t need the US, a young man committed suicide after his anybody.” Kimberly likes music and poetry, roommates posted on the Internet a video of his though at a parent–teacher interview, her mother same-sex encounter. In Canada, in January 2008, expressed concern that her poetry was depressing in Ajax, Ontario, 14-year-old Shaquille Wisdom and focused on death. You also know that she has hanged himself as a result of homophobic needed stitches for cutting herself; one of these cyberbullying. One study, conducted by the New cutting incidents occurred at school after Kimberly York–based Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education read her poem describing a female same-sex love Network (GLSEN) found that, in the US, lesbian, relationship aloud in English class, and classmates gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) students are began bullying her and calling her “butch” and three times as likely as non-LGBT students to say “dyke” in the hallway and in the cafeteria. that they do not feel safe at school (22 per cent vs What would you do? 7 per cent); 90 per cent of LGBT students have This was just one of the scenarios in a workshop been harassed or assaulted during the past year on gender and sexual identity in youth that I (GLSEN 2006). Furthermore, 62 per cent of attended on October 22, in Nisku. Put on by homeless LGBT youth will attempt suicide at least the Crisis and Trauma Resource Institute, a once—more than two times as many as their Winnipeg-based company that provides training heterosexual peers (Van Leeuwen et al 2005). and consulting services for organizations working with issues of crisis and trauma, the workshop What Can Classroom Teachers Do? posed a number of such scenarios to participants 1. When you are faced with matters of students’ who ranged from counsellors in private practice to sexual identity, first and foremost show teachers to therapists. The one thing all these sensitivity. The teenage years are hard enough people had in common was that they work with for most kids; for kids who are questioning young people who are questioning, troubled or their sexual identity, they can be agony. You even tortured about their sexual identity. The should also be aware of your own biases and phrase sexual identity refers to how people should strive to replace judgment with curiosity. 2. Pay attention to your language. Given that about understand and express their sexuality as part of one out of 10 students is non-heterosexual, their identity. It is different from sexual you can be pretty sure there are LGBT youth orientation, which refers to one’s attraction to in all your classes. Use the words lesbian, others on the male/female continuum. Counsellors gay, bisexual and transgender as part of your use another phrase—gender identity—to refer regular classroom vocabulary. Use inclusive to a person’s deepest sense of who they are and language that allows for LGBT possibilities where they fit into the concepts of maleness and (for example, use the word partner instead of femaleness. Gender identity is separate from the girlfriend or boyfriend). gender roles that society assigns and monitors. 3. Ensure that your classroom is a place where We are taught from a very early age to internalize diversity is valued. Get a Safe Spaces sticker ideas about gender and gender roles and to and poster and display them prominently. You consider them in black-and-white ways so that can download Safe Spaces material from this they become naturalized and normalized. But link: www.teachers.ab.ca/For%20Members/ what about shades of grey? What if you can’t Professional%20Development/Diversity%20 identify with the gender role assigned to you? and%20Human%20Rights/Sexual%20 What if you don’t fit neatly into society’s binary Orientation/Safe%20Spaces%20Initiative/Pages/ 2 systems? Index.aspx#view-the-safe-spaces-materials January 2011 Volume 7, Issue 1 4. Challenge unkind What Happened to jokes or remarks. Create an atmosphere Kimberly? in which students can So what about Kimberly, comfortably talk about whose story is recounted discrimination and above? The first thing all stereotypes. workshop participants 5. Develop inclusive agreed on is the importance What else can material. Identify the Sexual Orientation of not making any outcomes related to and Gender Identity assumptions about Kimberly. teachers do? the knowledge, skills Do not automatically assume Book an and attitudes in your Educational that she is gay or that she Alberta subject area that Resources Online suffers from a poor self- address LGBT issues. image. These might be true, Teachers’ 6. Stand up for youth— Refer to the ATA website but it is important that LGBT and straight— Kimberly identify her own Association who are bullied. for the following: issues herself. As one “Respect for Volunteer to help form counsellor said, “We need to Diversity” a gay/straight alliance Answers to frequently asked questions replace judgment with or support group for ~ curiosity about others.” workshop. LGBT and question- Professional development Kimberly needs a safe place More ing youth. workshops and resources and a safe person with whom 7. Develop a broad base ~ she can talk about her own information of support among Information for school counsellors problems. She needs an adult can be found students, teachers, ~ to trust. And in the lives of a at www. administrators and Safe spaces initiative lot of children and youth, parents. Find people ~ that person is a teacher. teachers.ab.ca who can help you locate and access Gay–straight student alliances school- and ~ References community-based Research articles, guide books Gay, Lesbian and Straight LGBT information and teacher narratives Education Network (GLSEN). and resources. ~ 2006. From Teasing to 8. Write a poem or an Provincial, national, and Torment. Available online at article for your school international resource listings www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/ newspaper. Show a ~ all/library/record/1859.html? film or documentary state=research&type=research. Multimedia features (accessed December 21, 2010). about transgender ~ Van Leeuwen, J M, S Boyle, rights or make one of Research tools your own. S Salomonsen-Sautel, 9. Set up an activist D Nico Baker, J T Garcia, A Hoffman, C J Christian. e-mail network or start Go to www.teachers.ab.ca, 2005. “Lesbian, Gay, and an e-mail petition. click on Bisexual Homeless Youth: 10.