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'Everything They Think They Know, They Should Forget': How Trans School Workers Respond to Transphobic Discourses

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Title: 'Everything They Think They Know, They Should Forget': How Trans School Workers Respond to Transphobic Discourses
Language: English
Authors: Lee Iskander (ORCID 0000-0002-7806-5344), Harper Keenan (ORCID 0000-0002-1355-3451), Mollie McQuillan (ORCID 0000-0002-2522-3871), Mario Suarez (ORCID 0000-0001-6008-1664), Bishop Owis (ORCID 0000-0001-7975-6238), Christina Cook, Daniel Gallardo
Source: Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. 2025 46(4):536-549.
Availability: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 14
Publication Date: 2025
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Early Childhood Education
Preschool Education
Elementary Secondary Education
Descriptors: Transgender People, Resilience (Psychology), Barriers, Social Bias, Individual Characteristics, Experience, Preschool Education, Elementary Secondary Education, Foreign Countries, LGBTQ People, Teacher Characteristics, Teachers, Self Concept, Work Environment, School Personnel, Social Attitudes
Geographic Terms: Canada, United States
DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2024.2431026
ISSN: 0159-6306
1469-3739
Abstract: This article explores how trans school employees redeploy, trouble, challenge, and refuse prevalent discourses about transness and education. Drawing from interviews with 100 school workers in Canada and the United States, we employ Coleman's (2023) concept of 'narrative repair' to consider participants' responses to an interview question asking what they would like the public to know about their workplace experiences. We show that workers in our study primarily drew from four overarching narratives about the relationship between their transness and their work in schools: 1) trans school workers face increased difficulty; 2) trans school workers have unique strengths; 3) trans school workers are no different from other school workers; and 4) the experiences of trans school workers defy narrativization. Our findings deepen understandings of how broader cultural discourses influence how teachers narrativize their professional experiences.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2025
Accession Number: EJ1485950
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0186989532;54j01aug.25;2025Jul31.04:03;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0186989532-1">'Everything they think they know, they should forget': how trans school workers respond to transphobic discourses </title> <p>This article explores how trans school employees redeploy, trouble, challenge, and refuse prevalent discourses about transness and education. Drawing from interviews with 100 school workers in Canada and the United States, we employ Coleman's (2023) concept of 'narrative repair' to consider participants' responses to an interview question asking what they would like the public to know about their workplace experiences. We show that workers in our study primarily drew from four overarching narratives about the relationship between their transness and their work in schools: 1) trans school workers face increased difficulty; 2) trans school workers have unique strengths; 3) trans school workers are no different from other school workers; and 4) the experiences of trans school workers defy narrativization. Our findings deepen understandings of how broader cultural discourses influence how teachers narrativize their professional experiences.</p> <p>Keywords: Transgender teachers; transphobia; PK – 12; discourse; schooling; narrative repair</p> <hd id="AN0186989532-2">Introduction</hd> <p>Between July 2021 and August 2022, we interviewed 100 trans[<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref1">1</reflink>] school employees across Canada and the United States. It was not an ordinary time. The COVID-19 pandemic had disrupted schools across the continent: many were negotiating hasty transitions to online schooling, constantly shifting public health mandates and dramatic employee turnover. At the same time, an anti-trans backlash gained traction in the United States, United Kingdom, and other parts of the world (Butler, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref2">11</reflink>]; Graff & Korolczuk, [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref3">18</reflink>]). Many proponents of anti-trans bills introduced in U.S. state legislatures drew upon the rhetoric of 'protecting children,' drawing on old stigmas that construct trans people as a threat – to women, children, society, and even feminism and gay liberation (Bassi & LaFleur, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref4">4</reflink>]; Burke, Kazyak, Oliver, & Valkr, [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref5">8</reflink>]; Rawlings & Loveday, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref6">41</reflink>]). While trans employees are protected from discrimination under the U.S.'s Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Canadian Human Rights Act, trans school workers we interviewed on both sides of the border were nonetheless aware of and affected by these anti-trans discourses.</p> <p>This paper draws on interviews with trans school employees in Canada and the United States conducted as part of the Trans Workers[<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref7">2</reflink>] in Schools Project (TWISP). In addition to our teams' deep connections to trans communities and networks of trans educators in these countries, situating our study in Canada and the United States allowed us to compare findings across locations that were culturally relatively similar yet differing in trans-related policy and general working conditions for teachers. We identify four overarching ways these trans workers responded to anti-trans discourses: highlighting difficulty, framing transness as positive, normalizing, and refusing narrativization. Our findings deepen understandings of how broader cultural discourses influence how teachers narrativize their professional experiences.</p> <hd id="AN0186989532-3">Experiences of trans educators</hd> <p>Research suggests LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer) educators often experience challenges because LGBTQ identities clash with discourses of childhood innocence and hetero/asexuality (Blount, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref8">6</reflink>]; Kahn & Gorski, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref9">30</reflink>]; Llewellyn, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref10">35</reflink>]) and because dominant discourses associate teachers' professionalism with heterosexuality and gender conformity (Anderson, [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref11">3</reflink>]; Connell, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref12">15</reflink>]; Iskander, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref13">28</reflink>]). Trans teachers may face additional barriers if they transition on the job (Anderson, [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref14">3</reflink>]; Harris & Jones, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref15">23</reflink>]; Hicks, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref16">25</reflink>]; Khayatt & Iskander, [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref17">32</reflink>]), and being trans tends to be more stigmatized than being LGB (Lewis et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref18">34</reflink>]). Trans educators may be discursively constructed as controversial or disruptive to educational environments (Cavanagh, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref19">13</reflink>]; Hart & Hart, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref20">24</reflink>]) or as unexpected, needing to be accommodated, or unworthy of consideration (Hicks, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref21">25</reflink>]; Jourian, Simmons, & Devaney, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref22">29</reflink>]). In extreme examples, trans teachers have been subjected to sensationalized media accounts that position their transitions as psychologically harmful to students (Gupta, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref23">21</reflink>]).</p> <p>Trans educators creatively negotiate and sometimes challenge transphobic discourses and cisnormative environments. Harris and Jones ([<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref24">23</reflink>]) describe how Ned, a trans man and Australian secondary school teacher, deconstructed and challenged neoliberal discourses calling teachers to be 'neutral' and emotionally distant from their students. Wells ([<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref25">48</reflink>]) shows how three Canadian trans women who transitioned as teachers in different decades each developed counternarratives to dominant discourses that positioned them as 'unknowable' and even 'monstrous' (p. 1554). Suárez ([<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref26">43</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref27">44</reflink>]), a Latinx trans man and former Texas teacher, and Buterman ([<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref28">10</reflink>]), a white trans man who had been dismissed from an Alberta Catholic school board, each asserted narrative control by writing and publishing their analyses of the discrimination they experienced upon transitioning at work.</p> <p>Importantly, trans people are not equally subject to harmful narratives. Several scholars have noted a recent recuperation of specific versions of trans identity into the mainstream – what LeBlanc ([<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref29">33</reflink>]) calls 'transnormativity.' For example, Halberstam ([<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref30">22</reflink>]) argues that in the last several decades, white, middle-class trans children have come to represent the social tolerance of the liberal state. Like these trans children, some trans teachers may be more palatable to the general public and granted easier access to employment because of their whiteness, class privilege, or gender expression (Keenan, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref31">31</reflink>]). These teachers may be called upon to be role models or seen by employers as desirable because their presence suggests the progressiveness of the school (Hart & Hart, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref32">24</reflink>]; Iskander, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref33">27</reflink>]). Importantly, as Ullman ([<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref34">47</reflink>]) describes, in schools shaped by cisheteronormative discourses and in which 'gender diverse knowledges are positioned as inappropriate or dangerous for students, the most "successful," intelligible gender diverse educator is one who can render this diversity invisible' (p. 13).</p> <p>Several studies investigate how LGBTQ teachers are positioned or position themselves within cultural narratives about queerness, transness, diversity, and schooling. The British LGBTQ teachers interviewed by Llewellyn and Reynolds ([<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref35">36</reflink>]) responded in three main ways: masking or deflecting attention from their LGBTQ identity to protect themselves, attempting to find ways to feel authentic in their work or be visible as 'role models' while negotiating risks, and trying to disrupt discourses that position cisgender and heterosexual as ideals. In a recent study with U.S. and Canadian trans educators, McEntarfer and Rice ([<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref36">39</reflink>]) showed that members of schools adhered to various 'storylines' about trans people that then shaped the experiences of the trans and non-binary people employed there. These included storylines which affirm trans identities and see them as worthy of respect, cisnormative storylines that ignore or delegitimize trans identities, and anti-trans storylines that position trans people as suspect and potentially harmful. McEntarfer and Rice also found that of the teachers they interviewed, teachers of color and non-binary teachers experienced a greater degree of marginalization compared to white teachers and those who were trans men or women.</p> <hd id="AN0186989532-4">Narrative repair and trans teacher identity</hd> <p>Coleman ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref37">14</reflink>]) theorizes that because queer teachers have been historically subject to stigma, moral panic, and systemic attempts to purge them from the profession (see also Blount, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref38">5</reflink>]; Graves, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref39">19</reflink>]; Marshall, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref40">37</reflink>]), these painful histories and their associated negative affect 'stick' (Ahmed, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref41">1</reflink>]) to queer teachers and their stories. Bad feelings do not emerge from inside subjects but are produced 'as effects of circulation' (p. 8). These feelings then become associated with or attached to particular groups in ways that produce and reinforce dominant power relations. This stickiness, combined with a predominant focus on risk and harm in LGBTQ educational research, produces what Coleman ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref42">14</reflink>]) calls a '"damaged" queer teacher identity' (p. 2). To remedy this, Coleman engaged a group of queer educators in a process called 'narrative repair.' This process has three phases: '1) storying your pain, 2) composing alternative feelings through speculative storytelling, and 3) processing repair' (p. 4). Educators are asked to tell a story about their pain and then think about how that story might be reimagined or told differently, expanding the range of meanings and affects the story might evoke. While Coleman does not emphasize joy specifically, this move toward repair and speculative narratives resonates with broader calls within queer and trans studies to move toward reparation (Marshall, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref43">37</reflink>]), joy (Duran & Coloma, [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref44">17</reflink>]), and thriving (Greteman, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref45">20</reflink>]) in queer and trans educational scholarship.</p> <p>Coleman's paper was not yet published when we designed our study, so we were unaware of this framework and did not guide participants to engage in this process. However, during our analysis, we noticed that a question posed toward the interview's end – 'What do you want the general public to know about what it is like to be a trans educator?' – prompted them to transform their experience into a response to transphobic discourses, a process similar to Coleman's concept of narrative repair. Our interview protocol reflected our interest in improving working conditions, so we explicitly asked what was challenging about being a trans educator. In response, we heard painful stories from many, though not all, of our participants. By ending with a message for the public, participants could re-frame their experiences in a healing or empowering way. This involved a speculative element – participants could begin to imagine a future in which the public understood transness and trans educators differently than they do now and imagine their stories as part of bringing that future into being. Their responses represent a broader range of emotions than the frustration and hurt in the narrations of challenging experiences. Further, while we did not prompt participants to process their experience of the interviews with us, we did create space for them to reflect or share more at the end of the interview or email additional thoughts. This created space for processing, thus approximating the third phase of 'narrative repair.' Only some participants took us up on this offer: the lack of explicit emphasis on healing is a crucial difference between our approach and Coleman's framework. Nonetheless, Coleman's framework helped us think more deeply about how participants responded to harmful narratives as they took up our prompt.</p> <hd id="AN0186989532-5">Methodology</hd> <p>The TWISP began as a quantitative survey about working conditions, job satisfaction, and well-being. We sought to use our connections to the Trans Educators Network, an email list and professional networking organization for trans PK – 12 teachers, and our access to the academy to conduct research that might assist efforts to improve material conditions for trans school workers. We recruited participants from the Trans Educators Network and through social media advertising in 2020. To be eligible, participants had to identify as trans (broadly defined) and have worked in a PK – 12 school in Canada or the United States within the last five years. We ended up with a sample of 296 survey respondents. Survey respondents ranged in age from 21 to 65, with a mean age of 32.35 years (Suarez et al., [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref46">45</reflink>]).</p> <p>In addition to the quantitative data analyses, some of which are published elsewhere (Suarez et al., [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref47">45</reflink>]), the study included qualitative interviews to further explore participants' workplace experiences. The interview protocol featured nineteen questions and prompts that aimed to explore the worker's professional context and background (e.g. 'What led you to pursue a career in education?' and 'Tell me about the school/educational environment where you work.'), general current working conditions (e.g. 'Can you walk me through a typical day for you at your workplace?'), and trans-specific working conditions (e.g. 'What kinds of supports and challenges do you experience as a trans employee?'). We concluded by asking each participant, 'What do you want the general public to know about what it is like to be a trans educator?'.</p> <p>We emailed all survey respondents who had consented to further contact and invited them to be interviewed, prioritizing trans women and trans people of color by emailing them first as these groups were underrepresented in the survey. Despite this prioritization, the participants largely reflect both the predominantly White racial demographics of the teaching profession in North America, as well as the sub-groups within transgender communities that tend to have relatively more economic advantage (Human Rights Campaign, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref48">26</reflink>]). This suggests that the combined phenomena of racism and transmisogyny may shape the demographics of trans educators and, in turn, our participant pool. We interviewed the first 100 people who consented to participate, the demographics of which are represented in Table 1. Interviews lasted from 30 minutes to 2 hours, and we provided each participant with a $40 CAD gift card for their time. This study received approval from the Behavioral Research Ethics Board at the University of British Columbia (ethics ID: H20-00443).</p> <p>Table 1. Interview participant demographics.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="bottom"><tr><td /><td /><td>Number</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Race</td><td /></tr><tr><td /><td>White</td><td char=".">85</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Latinx</td><td char=".">2</td></tr><tr><td /><td>East Asian</td><td char=".">5</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Black</td><td char=".">1</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Indigenous</td><td char=".">1</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Mixed (or more than one racial category selected)</td><td char=".">6</td></tr><tr><td>Gender (several participants used words in more than one of these categories)</td><td /></tr><tr><td /><td>Trans man, transmasculine, demi-guy, man of trans experience, or transsexual man</td><td char=".">34</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Trans woman, transfeminine, or tranny dyke</td><td char=".">13</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Nonbinary, genderfluid, genderqueer, agender, butch, androgynous, gender nonconforming, or AMAB nonbinary</td><td char=".">60</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Two-spirit</td><td char=".">1</td></tr><tr><td>Location</td><td /><td /></tr><tr><td /><td>Atlantic Canada</td><td char=".">1</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Central Canada</td><td char=".">6</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Canadian Prairies</td><td char=".">9</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Western Canada</td><td char=".">8</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Northeastern United States</td><td char=".">20</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Midwestern United States</td><td char=".">4</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Southern United States</td><td char=".">17</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Western United States</td><td char=".">34</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Multiple regions</td><td char=".">1</td></tr><tr><td>Role</td><td /></tr><tr><td /><td>Classroom teacher</td><td char=".">69</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Substitute teacher</td><td char=".">6</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Student teacher</td><td char=".">3</td></tr><tr><td /><td>Other role (e.g. administrator, paraprofessional, social worker, after-school program facilitator)</td><td char=".">22</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>The interviews were conducted over Zoom. All interviewers are trans, and several research team members are also racialized. We attempted to strengthen rapport by matching the interviewees with interviewers sharing some characteristics or geographical contexts where possible.[<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref49">3</reflink>] Immediately following an interview, each interviewer wrote analytic memos (Deterding & Waters, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref50">16</reflink>]) about their impressions. We also wrote memos about trends we noticed and met regularly to discuss our observations. The lead author listened to all interviews to familiarize themself with the complete data set. The interviews were professionally transcribed, and transcripts checked by research assistants.</p> <p>The research team coded the interview transcripts in NVivo following Deterding and Waters's ([<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref51">16</reflink>]) 'flexible coding' approach, as this method is particularly well-suited to studies with many interviews and multiple coders. Our first round of coding (referred to as 'index coding') collated the data by the topics addressed in the interview protocol. Once index codes were assigned, Author 1 engaged in analytic coding under the index code 'public_message,' which encompassed responses to our question about what participants wanted the general public to know. Through iterative rounds of analytic coding and consultation with the other authors, Author 1 eventually generated four themes.</p> <hd id="AN0186989532-6">Findings</hd> <p>We identified four different narratives participants constructed for an imagined public audience about the relationship between their transness and their work in schools: 1) trans school workers face increased difficulty; 2) trans school workers have unique strengths; 3) trans school workers are no different from other school workers; and 4) the experiences of trans school workers defy narrativization. While most participants' responses best fit one of these narratives, many drew on several in their responses. A matrix query in NVIVO showed that the most overlap occurred between responses coded as difficulty and strengths narratives, with twenty-four participants drawing on both in their responses. All other combinations of the four narratives had seven or fewer participants drawing on both in their responses.</p> <hd id="AN0186989532-7">'It's scary having people be scared of you': narratives of difficulty</hd> <p>The most common response to our question of what they wanted the general public to know was to express a desire for the public to be aware of the difficulties they face as trans school workers. Many emphasized that being trans in the current political climate made an already difficult job even more challenging. For example, Jessica,[<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref52">4</reflink>] a white trans woman and professional staff in the U.S. South, explained that she felt she was in 'the crosshairs really badly right now because people are really starting to seem to hate trans people right now, and people are really starting to seem to hate teachers all of a sudden right now, too.' Caleb, a white nonbinary trans teacher in the Western United States, described the emotional cost of being a trans educator as an 'invisible burden.' They explained: 'Overall, people don't understand what educators actually do, the amount of literal and emotional and mental work that the job entails. And I think most cis people generally don't understand the impact of transphobia on the day-to-day, hour-by-hour level.'</p> <p>Several participants explained that having a stigmatized gender identity made it difficult to be authentic and, thus, to live their values as educators. Wes, a white nonbinary transmasculine teacher in the Northeastern United States, explained that trans educators have to balance exposing students to queer, trans and other progressive perspectives and 'watching our own backs' because parents or colleagues could complain. For Wes, 'being an educator means you have to bring your whole self to everything you do, and that's not always possible when who you are isn't seen as age-appropriate.' This response references right-wing discourses that position the mere presence or mention of trans life as a violation of children's presumed innocence (Butler, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref53">11</reflink>]). Such discourses have historically been weaponized against queer, trans and gender nonconforming educators in K-12 schools (Blount, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref54">6</reflink>]; Kahn & Gorski, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref55">30</reflink>]). Theo, a white transmasculine Catholic school teacher in Canada, noted that being a trans educator was made difficult because of others' ignorance. Theo explained: 'I feel like there's still a lot of fear around trans people and our existence. You hear all the time, especially about bathrooms, how there are concerns about trans people in bathrooms or in changing rooms and locker rooms. It's scary having people be scared of you.'</p> <p>A prominent theme throughout our study and referenced frequently in participants' responses to this question was the difficulties caused by external and sometimes internal pressure to perform what Ahmed ([<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref56">2</reflink>]) calls 'diversity work.' Erica, an East Asian genderfluid teacher in Canada, explained: 'When you're the one person who is trans in a workplace, when you're the one person who is a person of colour, when you are the one person who is whatever, you become the go-to person for that thing' and are asked to do 'a lot of emotional labour' to advance the institution's diversity goals. Similarly, Sean, a white nonbinary trans man and teacher from the Western United States, described stress from 'constant scrutiny,' feeling dehumanized, and 'being called upon to constantly teach' about transness. Because they are visibly gender nonconforming, they experience this 'extra pressure that I never get a break from on top of the already extremely demanding job of being a teacher.'</p> <p>Several participants said they wanted to share a celebratory message but felt they first needed the public to understand the difficulties. Drew, a white nonbinary professional staff in Canada, said they were unsure how to answer the question because their immediate thought was 'not looking at the proactive piece but looking at the reactive piece.' They felt in the position 'of almost having to tell people about the difficulties of it so that they start to get it, which is valuable and valid, except that in my role, I'm forever trying to do the more celebratory piece, so that kids have a sense of possible positive outcomes for their lives.' This resonates with Laverne Cox's idea of 'possibility models' (Staley, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref57">42</reflink>]) – people who do not model an idealized 'role' but rather make a particular way of life conceivable – as well as recent calls for an emphasis on 'trans joy' as a means to counter conservative narratives about gender diversity (Branstetter, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref58">7</reflink>]; Burns, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref59">9</reflink>]; Duran & Coloma, [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref60">17</reflink>]). Yet, for Drew, their desire to tell joyful and celebratory stories about transness clashed with their need for others to understand their pain.</p> <hd id="AN0186989532-8">'Some kid is happy I'm their teacher': strengths narratives</hd> <p>Strengths narratives included descriptions of the unique contributions of trans educators and what was meaningful about being a trans educator. Bellamy, a white nonbinary trans teacher in the U.S. South, saw trans educators as having particular strengths: 'We're good explorers. We've had to explore ourselves, we've had to explore our interactions with our world, with each other, and with everything, and so we're good at questioning a lot.' For Bellamy, this could translate into student support: 'we're a good resource for figuring out how to address someone not getting what they need, because we're constantly having to do that. We're having to constantly navigate how to make the world fit for us or work for us.' Kai, a white genderqueer paraprofessional from the Western United States, explained that there 'is probably going to be some really interesting critical thinking happening' in any trans educator's classroom.</p> <p>Many participants felt being self-actualized allowed for deeper connections with others. Carson, a white trans man facilitating workshops in Canadian schools, explained: 'My experiences and my transness and my relationship to my own identity shapes my relationship to others, to community, and it's such a gift.' For Carson, this message was necessary given how transness is framed as distracting from rather than contributing to education: 'It is frustrating to be seen as like this is a thing that needs to be dealt with [...] like, "oh, the trans teacher is asking for this again."' Elijah, a Black trans man and school social worker in Canada, similarly responded to negative discourses by highlighting positive contributions: 'My trans identity certainly doesn't make me a threat to students or a threat to the system. It actually enhances what I bring to the work I do. It enhances my understanding of otherness [...] and my ability to connect with students and colleagues who may have other marginalized identities.'</p> <p>Some participants emphasized trans educators' capacity to be a resource to trans youth or improve the trans competency of educational institutions. Unlike narratives that framed such labor as a difficulty, these celebratory narratives described it as fulfilling. Jan, an Indigenous and white nonbinary teacher in Canada, talked about how it was rewarding 'to help youth in ways that you didn't have when you were a youth.' Other participants spoke of how having a trans teacher might make all students more understanding. Ryan, a white trans man and school administrator in the Western United States, suggested that having a trans educator 'demystifies being trans.'</p> <p>Some participants wanted people to know how rewarding it was to be a trans educator and how special and enriching it could be for students to have a trans teacher. Emily, a white nonbinary teacher in Canada, explained: 'Sometimes people say to me, "Your life is going to be hard because you're queer." And it makes me want to say, "It's not. Actually, I'm having a lovely time."' Adding that while some people experience difficulties, Emily described that they and all their students – queer or not – care for one another and engage in a joyful process of learning and growing. Emily explained: 'Kids are going to learn from every adult in their life. So some kid is happy that I'm their teacher, I think.'</p> <hd id="AN0186989532-9">'There's nothing spooky happening in my classroom': normalizing narratives</hd> <p>Another way participants responded to our question was by emphasizing that trans teachers are not different from other teachers. Jamie, a white genderfluid student teacher in the Western United States, asserted that being a trans educator was 'no different.' Jamie explained that this message was important to get across 'because I'm sure some people are so worried that if you're a trans educator, you're just going to only talk about trans issues or let that take up all the space in the classroom. I always thought educators should be the least important person in the room.' Tamsin, a white agender teacher in Canada, similarly expressed that their gender was not a significant part of who they are as a teacher: 'That's such a small part of who I am. I am an educator and there first and foremost to educate your child.'</p> <p>Several participants' responses referenced discourses that suggest trans teachers have an 'agenda' or want to convert children to be trans. Often, participants responded by asserting they were merely teaching the subject matter one would expect them to teach. For example, Colin, a white trans man teaching in the U.S. South, said, 'The thing that I was always worried about was people thinking that I was trying to teach their kids to be trans, and that's not at all what I was doing. I was trying to teach your kids the cell cycle.' Similarly, Briar, a white agender teacher from the Western United States, asserted: 'I have no agenda other than to teach your kid how to use commas correctly.' Briar explained that 'it feels like there is this idea of you're so different,' but they are 'just another human being' with whom others might find much in common. Several other participants also referred to themselves as 'human beings' in their responses, which suggests they felt dehumanized by transphobic discourses.</p> <p>Several participants used the term 'indoctrinating' to describe public fears they would like to dispel. Forest, a white nonbinary teacher in the U.S. South, stated:</p> <p>My students often just don't care that I'm trans [....] Even the trans kids – and I thought the trans kids would be so excited to meet me. They do not give a fuck about my existence. And so, to the parents who thought I was indoctrinating their children that they had to pull them out of my class: kids do not care. If you don't care, the kids don't care. So, you know, being a trans educator, there's nothing spooky happening in my classroom.</p> <p>Here, Forest turns the pain that might have resulted from discovering that trans children 'do not give a fuck' about their trans teacher into a powerful rebuttal to the parents who had pulled their children out of Forest's class for fear of indoctrination – another undoubtedly painful experience.</p> <p>Some participants wanted the public to know that being trans was 'normal,' 'common,' or 'ordinary.' Taylor, a white agender teacher in the Northeastern United States, wanted the public to know that 'being a trans teacher is actually super common' and that they know many other trans educators in their region. Likewise, Helen, a white nonbinary trans woman teaching in the U.S. South, referenced 'a feeling among the public [...] that there's something shameful, something deviant about being trans' and people questioning the appropriateness of trans people working with children. Helen's message was that being trans is 'a perfectly ordinary way to be a gendered human being, that we have a gender like everyone else, and we're allowed to live our gender like everyone else is.' Helen recalled being treated as suspect, inappropriate, and unreasonable by the school administration when attempting to negotiate her transition on the job. In this message, Helen situates her experience of gender within the realm of the ordinary.</p> <p>Amy, an East Asian and white agender, nonbinary teacher in Canada, responded to the idea that trans people want special treatment. Amy explained: 'I'm not looking for them to throw me a party every June' for Pride month. Instead, Amy expressed wanting queerness and transness to be treated 'like a default of life. Like sometimes it's sunny and sometimes it's rainy and in springtime there's flowers and queer people around.'</p> <hd id="AN0186989532-10">'I'd rather just do my job without all the national politics': refusing narrativization</hd> <p>The final and least common way participants responded to our question was by refusing the idea that it is possible or desirable to illuminate for the general public what it is like to be a trans educator. This included assertions that, because there is such a diversity of experience within the trans community, it is impossible to determine how trans educators as a group should be supported. Jay, a white nonbinary teacher from the Western United States, shared: 'There's no one size fits all. What is supportive for one trans person may not be supportive for another trans person.' Fern, a white genderqueer and butch afterschool program worker in the Western United States, also expressed that there is no universal approach to supporting trans people, adding that 'gender is a massively contextual and culturally fluid thing.' Further, the terminology used to describe gender changes rapidly. For Fern, 'there is no ultimate way to learn it. And I think that can be hard, especially for people in education, who have very prescriptive views of language or etiquette.'</p> <p>Some participants explained that not only is there no one way to support trans people, but it is also not possible to determine whether someone is trans by their appearance. Jackson, a non-binary, genderqueer, East Asian, and white extracurricular coordinator from the Northeastern United States, wanted the public to know:</p> <p>... that we are members of their community, that we are people who are active in the community, that people see us on a day-to-day basis and don't always know that we're a trans person. And that they don't have to know that to really respect us and understand us.</p> <p>Jackson's assertion that trans people are already part of their broader communities pushes back against transphobic narratives positioning them as radicals working against communities' interests.</p> <p>Several participants expressed hope not for a new cultural narrative about trans people but for existing narratives to disappear. Devon, a white trans man and teacher from the Midwestern United States, explained that one of the 'don't say gay or whatever bills' was proposed in their state, 'and so I've just spent part of my dinner reading comments on one of those posts. And now I'm like, I want the general public to just shut the fuck up.' They expressed frustration that trans people have a history and culture that is not considered in public debates that frame transness as a new phenomenon. Jonah, a white trans man teaching in the Northeastern United States, similarly responded, 'I'd rather they forgot that we existed, and I can just do my job without all the national politics.'</p> <p>Azul, a mixed-race agender, non-binary and two-spirit leadership staff from the Western United States, wanted the public to know:</p> <p>... that everything they think they know about being trans and being an educator, they should forget because the story about trans people that's told in popular culture is not the stories that we tell about ourselves, especially amongst one another. [...] These stories that we've been told that trans means this one thing? That needs to go out the window.</p> <p>Rather than replace harmful narratives with new ones, Azul wants to get rid of the idea that being trans could ever have a single meaning. For Azul, any way trans people experience and understand their genders is legitimate. Importantly, Azul asserts that, in the service of trans liberation, everything that the public thinks they know about being an educator must be forgotten. This point resonates with Martino's ([<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref61">38</reflink>]) argument that trans thought offers ways of thinking about gender beyond cisgender logics of intelligibility and a subversive/normative binary, instead honoring the complexity and infinite variability of gender's meanings within and beyond trans communities.</p> <hd id="AN0186989532-11">Discussion and conclusion</hd> <p>While a substantial body of literature explores how LGBTQ teachers negotiate their identities (e.g. Connell, [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref62">15</reflink>]; Llewellyn & Reynolds, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref63">36</reflink>]), only a few studies (e.g. Harris & Jones, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref64">23</reflink>]; Kahn & Gorski, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref65">30</reflink>]; McEntarfer & Rice, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref66">39</reflink>]) have explicitly focused on trans teachers' experiences at the intersection of cultural narratives about gender and teachers' working conditions. Our study contributes to this emerging literature by highlighting nuanced and specific ways cisnormative cultural discourses influence how trans school workers narrativize their professional experiences. Importantly, our analysis does so in a way that highlights trans workers' strengths and their agency in responding to the current climate of fear and backlash surrounding trans people in education. By highlighting narrative repair in response to discourses that would position trans educators as damaged, deficient, or suspect, we contribute to efforts aimed at integrating repair, joy, and thriving into educational discourse about queer and trans people. While other studies have included trans educators' stories of difficulty (Ullman, [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref67">47</reflink>]), strength (Harris & Jones, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref68">23</reflink>]), and attempts to blend in (Wells, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref69">48</reflink>]), our study introduces a fourth response – refusing narrativization – that we have not seen in previous accounts of trans school worker experiences.</p> <p>Our study also has implications for considering how individuals narrativize their experiences in response to oppressive cultural discourses. Responding to our invitation to provide a public message, participants often directly referenced the cultural narratives that shaped how they imagined the general public saw them. For example, Theo perceived 'a lot of fear around trans people and our existence,' and Helen referenced the pervasive idea that 'there's something shameful, something deviant about being trans.' This shows that trans school workers are aware and often have sophisticated analyses of these discourses. Further, they respond in varied and creative ways. Some participants drew on dominant discourses about teaching – for example, Jamie's assertion that 'educators should be the least important person in the room' – and used these to counter stereotypes of trans educators as self-absorbed or having an alternative agenda. Others responded to negative cultural narratives of transness by making a case for the opposite – for example, Elijah asserted his trans identity 'actually enhances' his work. Some took the opportunity to turn their pain into defiance, such as when Forest turned their surprise at trans students' lack of interest in them into a powerful assertion that both they and their students 'don't care.'</p> <p>Our findings show trans school workers navigate K-12 schools in diverse ways. In response to increased political hostility, some trans workers may feel the need to articulate more 'transnormative' narratives about their work in a bid for acceptance, while others reject the often-restrictive terms of acceptance altogether. Yet, each of the four themes – narratives of difficulty, narratives of strengths, normalizing narratives, and refusing narrativization – are forms of narrative repair. Each responds to painful and dehumanizing narratives of trans educators by asserting, respectively, that trans school workers: 1) have pain that deserves to be acknowledged and alleviated, 2) have unique gifts to offer education, 3) have a right to an ordinary life, and 4) deserve the dignity of being approached with curiosity rather than as if who one is and what one wants is already known. This last narrative is a powerful reminder of Nestle's ([<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref70">40</reflink>]) claim that 'curiosity is not trivial; it is the respect one life pays to another' (p. 140).</p> <hd id="AN0186989532-12">Disclosure statement</hd> <p>No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).</p> <ref id="AN0186989532-13"> <title> Notes </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref1" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> In this paper, we use the word 'trans' rather than 'transgender' as we feel it is more expansive. In our recruitment materials for this study, we defined trans broadly as 'anyone who does not exclusively identify as the sex they were assigned at birth.'</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref7" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> We chose the word 'workers' rather than 'educators' or 'employees' because our study was inclusive of all people who consider themselves to be trans and work with students in PK–12 schools. This includes not only classroom teachers but also administrators, school social workers, educational assistants, and people who work for organizations that are contracted by schools to provide workshops or activities. In this paper, we use 'educators' when referring specifically to people with jobs that involve educating young people and 'workers' when referring more generally to people who work in schools.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib3" idref="ref11" type="bt">3</bibl> <bibtext> For example, most Canadian participants were interviewed by a Canadian researcher. Authors 5 and 6 joined the research team after approximately half of the interviews had been conducted. 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  Data: 'Everything They Think They Know, They Should Forget': How Trans School Workers Respond to Transphobic Discourses
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  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Lee+Iskander%22">Lee Iskander</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7806-5344">0000-0002-7806-5344</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Harper+Keenan%22">Harper Keenan</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1355-3451">0000-0002-1355-3451</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Mollie+McQuillan%22">Mollie McQuillan</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2522-3871">0000-0002-2522-3871</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Mario+Suarez%22">Mario Suarez</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6008-1664">0000-0001-6008-1664</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Bishop+Owis%22">Bishop Owis</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7975-6238">0000-0001-7975-6238</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Christina+Cook%22">Christina Cook</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Daniel+Gallardo%22">Daniel Gallardo</searchLink>
– Name: TitleSource
  Label: Source
  Group: Src
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Discourse%3A+Studies+in+the+Cultural+Politics+of+Education%22"><i>Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education</i></searchLink>. 2025 46(4):536-549.
– Name: Avail
  Label: Availability
  Group: Avail
  Data: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
– Name: PeerReviewed
  Label: Peer Reviewed
  Group: SrcInfo
  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 14
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Audience
  Label: Education Level
  Group: Audnce
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Early+Childhood+Education%22">Early Childhood Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Preschool+Education%22">Preschool Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Elementary+Secondary+Education%22">Elementary Secondary Education</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Transgender+People%22">Transgender People</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Resilience+%28Psychology%29%22">Resilience (Psychology)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Barriers%22">Barriers</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Bias%22">Social Bias</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Individual+Characteristics%22">Individual Characteristics</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Experience%22">Experience</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Preschool+Education%22">Preschool Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Elementary+Secondary+Education%22">Elementary Secondary Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Foreign+Countries%22">Foreign Countries</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22LGBTQ+People%22">LGBTQ People</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Teacher+Characteristics%22">Teacher Characteristics</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Teachers%22">Teachers</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Self+Concept%22">Self Concept</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Work+Environment%22">Work Environment</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22School+Personnel%22">School Personnel</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Attitudes%22">Social Attitudes</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Geographic Terms
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Canada%22">Canada</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22United+States%22">United States</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1080/01596306.2024.2431026
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 0159-6306<br />1469-3739
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: This article explores how trans school employees redeploy, trouble, challenge, and refuse prevalent discourses about transness and education. Drawing from interviews with 100 school workers in Canada and the United States, we employ Coleman's (2023) concept of 'narrative repair' to consider participants' responses to an interview question asking what they would like the public to know about their workplace experiences. We show that workers in our study primarily drew from four overarching narratives about the relationship between their transness and their work in schools: 1) trans school workers face increased difficulty; 2) trans school workers have unique strengths; 3) trans school workers are no different from other school workers; and 4) the experiences of trans school workers defy narrativization. Our findings deepen understandings of how broader cultural discourses influence how teachers narrativize their professional experiences.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
  Group: Ab
  Data: As Provided
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1485950
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1485950
RecordInfo BibRecord:
  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1080/01596306.2024.2431026
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 14
        StartPage: 536
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Transgender People
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Resilience (Psychology)
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Barriers
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Social Bias
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Individual Characteristics
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Experience
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Preschool Education
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Elementary Secondary Education
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Foreign Countries
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: LGBTQ People
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Teacher Characteristics
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Teachers
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Self Concept
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Work Environment
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: School Personnel
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Social Attitudes
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Canada
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: United States
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: 'Everything They Think They Know, They Should Forget': How Trans School Workers Respond to Transphobic Discourses
        Type: main
  BibRelationships:
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            NameFull: Lee Iskander
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            NameFull: Harper Keenan
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            NameFull: Bishop Owis
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            NameFull: Christina Cook
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            NameFull: Daniel Gallardo
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          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 01
              Type: published
              Y: 2025
          Identifiers:
            – Type: issn-print
              Value: 0159-6306
            – Type: issn-electronic
              Value: 1469-3739
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            – Type: volume
              Value: 46
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              Value: 4
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            – TitleFull: Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education
              Type: main
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