This article recounts my experience serving as an expert witness at a Human Rights Tribunal. In 2018-2019, a grade six trans girl, known only as AB, sued the Ontario provincial government in Canada for revoking a progressive sex education curriculum that addressed gender and sexual identity. While working as an advocate for AB, I wrestled with my…

The need to make higher education curricula gender-inclusive is increasingly pressing as student cohorts diversify. We adopted a student-staff partnership approach to design, integrate, and evaluate a module that taught first-year science students the difference between biological sex, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation in…

Based on interviews, focus groups, and observations for the duration of a 6-week high school summer enrichment program, this article considers the ways that having a visible trans faculty member shaped other teachers' understandings of and pedagogical approaches to the concept of gender. Using Judith Butler's concept of "losing…

The Nordic countries have often been depicted as progressive societies regarding sexual diversity and gender equality. These progressive changes in sexual minority issues, however, have not brought about radical changes in educational policies in addressing gender and sexual equality in schools. Both compulsory and upper secondary education often…

This article presents a framework for Gender Facilitative Schools advocating safe schools for transgender, gender expansive, and questioning children. This framework was constructed on the bases of a qualitative study of a transgender student with experiences in both gender restrictive and gender facilitative elementary schools and supporting…

Mass protests across Europe against marriage equality, reproductive rights, gender mainstreaming and sexual education have centralised in the past few years around so-called "gender theory." This theory is explained as a new threat to the "traditional family" and "natural masculinity and femininity," as it allegedly…

This paper draws on findings from a two-year study of gender and gender transgression among school children and youth in rural Ontario, Canada conducted while running gender equity workshops for students aged 8-18 years, in which I asked participants to document what gender looked and felt like. Through writing prompts, pictures, discussion and…

Existing research has illustrated that both Black as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth often face unique challenges at school related to their marginalized identities. For example, previous studies indicate that Black youth experience harassment and discrimination at school related to their race, resulting in…

Existing research has illustrated that Hispanic and Latino/Latina/Latinx youth (in this report, inclusively referred to as Latinx) as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth often face unique challenges at school related to their marginalized identities. In addition to anti-immigrant rhetoric that is often directed at…

Existing research has illustrated that both Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth often face unique issues in school related to their marginalized identities. For instance, AAPI youth are also challenged with the model minority stereotype that all AAPI students are…

Existing research has illustrated that Native American, American Indian, and Alaska Native youth (referred to, henceforth, as Native and Indigenous youth in this report) as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth often face unique challenges at school related to their marginalized identities. A long history of violence…

One strategy used to teach about diverse populations is to edit their curricular representations to minimize their transgressive nature in an effort to gain more acceptance among students. This article explores the implications of these assimilationist narratives when used in educator preparation programs to represent LGBTQ people. It examines the…

Much media attention has recently focused on gender expansive students in schools. Whether arguing over bathroom rights or wardrobe freedoms, many educators feel caught in a crossfire between protecting their students and maintaining the status quo of an extremely binary educational system. After reviewing the history of the pathologization of…

Research shows that teachers' and educators' responses to gender diversity issues in schools either improves or limits the experiences of students. The school counsellor has an important role to play in this process by working closely with other stakeholders to advocate for transgender, intersex and genderqueer (TIG) students. Following a review…

As many gender teachers know, distinctions between and among complex terms in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans (gender or sexual), queer (LGBTQ) group are often difficult for students to articulate and identify. In fact, terms like "sex" and "gender" are often conflated in public discourse, and terms like…