Trans Youth in Education

Offering both practical advice for teachers, counsellors, and administrators, and provocative essays on the politics of gender in schools, this collection brings together established and emerging scholars of trans issues in education.

As more young people identify as trans, or outside normative gender categories, schools must find ways to support their educational success. The authors in this volume explore the diverse experiences of trans youth in schools and insist on understanding trans experiences intersectionally. The chapters grapple with policies, procedures, curricula, and administrative practices that too often neglect the needs of trans students; but also present stories about the ordinary challenges and pleasures that trans youth experience in adolescence.

This volume will be of interest to all inclusivity-minded educators and scholars of trans youth. This book was originally published as a special issue of Sex Education.

Jen Gilbert is Associate Professor of Education at York University in Toronto, Canada, doing research which focuses on gender and sexuality in schools, especially controversies surrounding sexuality education. Recent work includes Sexuality in School: The Limits of Education (2014), winner of the AERA Outstanding Book Award (Division B: Curriculum).

Julia Sinclair-Palm is an Instructor in Childhood and Youth Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. In her research, she examines how trans youth forge new identities, imagine futures, and navigate structural inequalities in the midst of these larger, and sometimes restrictive, narratives about trans lives.