sj Miller
580 California St., Suite 400
San Francisco, CA, 94104
Embedding the complexities of gender identity and youth
2018, B. Guzzetti. JD, Bean, & T. Bean (Eds.), Literacies, sexualities, and gender: Understanding identities from preschool to adulthood
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Abstract
People in the United States are born into a culture still fastened to historical policing of gender and gender identities. While social and political movements have helped galvanize and afford some material, social, and economic gains about gender and gender identities, schools and many other institutions providing youth services remain as inheritors of gender norms and their subsequent attributions. Unfortunately, such changes have yet to be systemically addressed and rooted across or studied over time. Such gaps have left educators and those working with youth ill-prepared and ill-equipped to sufficiently address gender identity topics through coursework, curriculum, and pedagogy (Kosciw, Greytak, Diaz, & Bartkiewicz, 2016; Miller, 2016a. Schools have become a type of prison that mirror social, cultural, and economic modes of reproduction. Seen in this way, some bodies are instantiated with multiple forms of cultural capital or social currency while others have diminished capital. Specifically, some youth are vulnerable to experiencing gender identity insecurities that manifest as disproportionate rates of bullying, dropping out, truancy, lowered grade point averages (GPAs), mental health and substance issues ; pushout into the juvenile processing system ; homelessness presence in foster care and/or group homes; and suicidal ideation. The numbers of these incidents are much higher for youth of color . In addition, suspensions result in exclusion from classroom instruction and the school community. When these students are not present in school, everyone has diminished opportunities to learn and grow. These microaggressions and forms of gender identity-based violence could be disrupted if the schooling system and other youth-serving agencies were to embrace policies and procedures that shifted beliefs and practices about gender identity. Recognizing the
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