Trans Teacher Experiences and the Failure of Visibility

Abstract

This chapter draws on one case study of a trans* male-identifying teacher in an urban high school in Melbourne, Australia. As a counter-discourse to contemporary popular notions of more inclusive and anti-homophobic schools, this chapter proposes that trans* teacher experiences are still an under-researched and sometimes controversial ‘final frontier’ for even ‘safe’ schools that strive to engage with LGBTQ-inclusive discourses and practices. Drawing out Halberstam’s focus on ‘the bathroom problem in trans* experience and scholarship (1998), and extending his notion of productive failure (2011), we argue more broadly that some current mainstreaming of diverse sexualities education and anti-bullying attention to LGBTQ students do not extend inclusivity to care of teachers — most especially trans teachers — nor do they acknowledge the particularity of trans subjectivities.

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