Hypervisibility and erasure: parents’ accounts of transgender children in early childhood education and care and primary schools

Abstract

While much is known about transgender students’ experiences of high school, less research has explored their experiences in primary/pre-schooling settings. This paper presents an analysis of parents’ (N = 15) recounts of their transgender children’s (N = 12) experiences in Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) and primary schools. The research is situated in a trans-emancipatory theoretical framework that recognises the impact of cisnormativity in educational spaces. We find that the early years play-based approach contrasts with primary school settings, where children are regularly organized by binary gender categories. Whilst early childhood settings are child centred and often celebrate transgender children’s individuality using a trans-accommodative approach, they can simultaneously reinforce cisnormativity through enforcing binary gendered norms. Binary norms erase transgender identities while, paradoxically, making the transgender child hypervisible. Findings can inform a whole-of-school approach to the inclusion of transgender identities and the wellbeing of trans children in ECEC and primary schools.

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