Cover of Unmanageable Subjects

Unmanageable Subjects

Trans Childhoods and the Challenge of Self-Determination in School

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Unmanageable Subjects

By: Harper B. Keenan
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An invitation to engage meaningfully with the experiences of trans and gender non-conforming children by reconsidering the organization of schools and classroom life

In recent years, there have been increasing political attacks on transgender young people and LGBT-affirming education in public schools. These attacks reflect a strong backlash to the fragile political gains made toward trans-affirming public education during the early 2000s.

Educator and researcher Harper B. Keenan comes to this research as a white transgender adult who grew up as a gender non-conforming kid in a small, conservative, rural community on the border of Maryland and West Virginia. In this book, Keenan argues that trans people are positioned as unmanageable subjects within the context of K-12 schools. This phrase has an intentional double meaning, referencing:
  • the treatment of transgender existence as a taboo topic
  • the challenges trans and gender non-conforming children pose to the institutional and social regulation of gender.

  • Keenan presents historical research, contemporary policy analysis, and data drawn from five kindergarten and first grade classrooms and one after school program in a large urban school district in Northern California. These case studies offer a vision of what is possible in educational environments that actively support LGBT children, families, and educators.

    Instead of providing another neat-and-tidy “Trans 101” that prompts us to tinker with existing administrative and pedagogical structures, this book invites readers to engage meaningfully with the experiences of gender non-conforming children toward reconsidering the organization of schools and classroom life. Through evidence-based insights into the history of restrictive gender regulation in schools, Keenan showcases what can be done to cultivate greater gender freedom for all children at school.
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