Don’t Ignore My Voice: A Call to Action by and for Gender-Expansive Youth

Item

Title

Don’t Ignore My Voice: A Call to Action by and for Gender-Expansive Youth

Abstract/Description

Gender-expansive youth are regularly discriminated against because they do not fit into the socially constructed gender binaries of the schools they attend. Nor, typically, do they have a general sense of personal safety, often feeling socially and academically excluded from their dominant heteronormative school culture. This youth participatory action research mixed method study advocates for the academic success of gender-expansive youth by documenting how gender expansive young people embody damaging educational experiences and to what extent these experiences can also lead to solidarity, resilience, and perseverance. The research findings include that gender expansive youth feel tolerated but not supported by the institution of school, or by key members in their learning institutions. It is also apparent that peers wish to stand in solidarity with gender expansive youth in order to improve the educational experiences for all youth. This study suggests a multi-layered “Economy of Borderland Performance” that showcases the interrelation of gender performances between the student, administration and larger societal conditioning around gender. In part what is highlighted is young people’s ever-present performativity of “Borderland Solidarity” that is based on them choosing to leave the arena of performance and enter into solidarity with one another. This study culminates with the author’s self-reflections of the ways that this research was guided by radical love.

Author/creator

Hoyo, Sam

Date

2021

Institution

University of Massachusetts Boston

Committee

Krueger-Henney, Patricia

Zakharia, Zeena

Tang, Shirley S.

Resource type

en Research/Scholarly Media

Resource status/form

en Thesis/Dissertation

Scholarship genre

en Empirical

Keywords

educational experiences

gender-expansive youth

heteronormative

IRE Approach/Concept

Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR)

Language

English

Open access/full-text available

en Yes

Peer reviewed

en No

ISBN

9798516084942

URL

Official Dissertation Webpage (via ProQuest Dissertations)

Open Access Dissertation PDF (via ProQuest Dissertations)

Open Access Dissertation (UMass Boston ScholarWorks)

Citation

Hoyo, S. (2021). Don’t Ignore My Voice: A Call to Action by and for Gender-Expansive Youth [Ph.D., University of Massachusetts Boston]. https://www.proquest.com/dissertations/docview/2545608770/abstract/B8F006AC8B446CBPQ/32

Place

United States -- Massachusetts

Rights

Database copyright ProQuest LLC; ProQuest does not claim copyright in the individual underlying works.

Type

Ph.D.

Item sets

Open Access Resource (IRE)

IRE Theses and Dissertations

Dissertation

20220707 IRE Dissertations

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