Schooling and practices of freedom of 'out' queer youth on Prince Edward Island

This MEd thesis is the first to explore PEI schooling experiences from the perspectives of Generation Queer (Wells, 2012). Deploying various tools of Foucault (1983), I suggest research participants – two out youth and their mothers - demonstrated "practices of freedom" to challenge the pedagogical and relational negation they encountered in hetero-centric schooling environments. To illustrate today being "a day like every other, or much more a day which is never like another" (p. 359), I position 1965 as yesterday and conduct two brief genealogies of criminal, medico-legal and socio-cultural discourses pertaining to sexual orientation. These genealogies identify both developments and stagnations in thought with regards to categorizations of sex, gender and desire. I then compare and contrast participants‘ reports of schooling experiences with findings from contemporary North American school climate research (Grace & Wells, 2009; Kosciw et al., 2012; Taylor et al., 2011). I conclude by suggesting that the relationships being forged by and amongst Generation Queer represent useful examples for all those legislators, policy-makers, educators, parents and students committed to realizing the goal that all students feel free to be who they are at school (McGuinty, 2011)

Minimizing oppression and discrimination faced by gay and lesbian youth in Northern British Columbia.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender questioning (LGBTQ) youth are at high risk of not receiving necessary care as a function of marginalization anti-LGBTQ violence and abuse and, social exclusion. This study explores the subjective experiences of gay men and lesbians in Northern British Columbia (B.C.) who self-identified as having difficulties in accessing health care services. An in-depth face to face interview and a critical hermeneutic phenomenological approach were used to share their subjective experience of oppression, and recommendations for future improvements of health-care services delivered to LGBTQ youth in Northern B.C. five main themes emerged from these interviews: no support for LGBTQ youth, lack of a desire to access health-care services, professional skills, challenges, and services delivery. While these themes overlap and reinforce each other, lack of respect from health care professionals was an overwhelming and ongoing concern presented by participants. In addition, I examined thirteen sub-themes in the daily experience of LGBTQ youth: not enough health-care professionals, nowhere to socialize, discrimination and denial of health-care services, fear and internalized homophobia, lack of education on LGBTQ issues, not enough services, no need to access healthcare services, lack of psycho-education program for health-care professionals, equal treatment for everyone, questions and harassment, isolation and depression, lack of support and advocacy services for LGBTQ. These themes offer insight into the everyday effects of multiple forms of oppression and marginalization, and the possibilities for innovative forms of health-care services that could be delivered to LGBTQ youth. The findings from this research can increase understanding for health-care professionals in servicing LGBTQ youth. The findings can also be applied to enhance community outreach, develop services for LGBTQ youth, and improve relationships within and among marginalized communities. --P. i.The original print copy of this thesis may be available here: http://wizard.unbc.ca/record=b173776

Exploring the Competencies of Educators who Serve Transgender Learners in Secondary School

The majority of transgender youth have learning experiences in school that are less than optimal; however, there is a paucity of research on the competencies of educators of transgender learners that could ameliorate the comorbidities and adversities they endure in secondary school. The purpose of this study was to explore what knowledge, attitudes, and skills educators apply to serve transgender learners in secondary school. The conceptual framework of servant leadership was used in this inquiry. A single case study design was used to examine a secondary school participating in the Alberta Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Educator Network that serves all students, including transgender learners. Seven educators from various disciplines and roles participated in a staged collection of data sources, including (a) a document, (b) a questionnaire, and (c) an interview. Data were analyzed using a priori coding, followed by pattern coding. Results showed that educators applied an interrelated and mutual standard of knowledge conventions, attitudinal compassions, and skillful collaborations through various dimensions of servant leadership unique to transgender learners. Educators collectively (a) drew from knowledge largely based on professional experience and grounded in what students had experienced; (b) drew upon attitudes largely based on a shared level of agreement for their thoughts, positions, and feelings and grounded in acceptance, empathy, and focus on the student; and (c) demonstrated skills largely based on their individual roles and grounded in backing students. The findings of this study contribute to positive social change by informing the paradigms, perceptions, and practices of professionals who serve this marginalized group of learners in secondary education

(Dis)Appearing Subjects: Managing Violence Through the Discourse of Bullying

In the early 2000’s, “bullying” became the new center of LGBTQ justice organizing. As part of this development a bullied subject emerged. This bullied person on whose behalf liberation was being sought took various forms from the bullied school shooter, to the cyberbullying victim, to the bullied suicidal queer. As the subtitle of my dissertation suggests, I focus on “managing violence through the discourse of bullying.” This marks a two part process: how the discourse of bullying manages to do violence and how it manages populations biopolitically. This study tackles one of the core paradoxes that inform the formation of these bullied subjects—that is, the terms by which experiences of harassment, assault, and oppression are objected to are often routed through structures of racialized gendered and sexual violence. The grammars that govern the intelligibility of the bullied subject’s victimization, I argue rest on normative logics of differential valuation where racialized gender and sexuality work to afford some bullied subjects recognition of their victimization through rendering queer of color existence disposable, girls worse bullies than those that sexually assault them, justice conditioned on state-sanctioned racial and heteronormative violence, and the very possibility of queer futurity requiring our collective complicity in queer disposability and elimination in the present. By offering three case studies—the bullied school shooter, the cyberbullying victim, and the bullied suicidal queer—this study reveals what happens when forms of violence are offered recognition as “bullying” and toward what end