Elizabethe C. Payne and Melissa J. Smith
Elementary Schools, Transgender Kids, and Educator Freak-outs
Posted: 08/31/2012 5:05 pm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabethe-c-payne/elementary-schools-transgender-kids-and-educator-freak-outs_b_1847451.htmlFor seasoned education professionals who have "seen it all," the new school year usually brings little cause for alarm. But for the past few years, we at QuERI have had an increasing number of elementary schools contact us in the beginning of the school year with reports that their teachers and school staff were "freaking out." The cause for alarm? The new enrollment of a transgender child or the gender transition of an already-enrolled student. Administrators, faculty, and staff expressed high levels of fear and anxiety over trans kids in their elementary schools and have wanted us to come in and "fix" the situation for them.
When this first began to happen several years ago, we weren't sure how to respond and were a little taken aback by the volume and force of fearful reaction to these young students. As researchers we wanted to better understand their reported "panic," and we began to study the experiences of elementary educators with transgender students in an effort to better respond to their reactions and help these schools support transgender kids. For most of the school professionals we interviewed, the initial reaction to finding out a transgender elementary student would be in their school was fear. The words they most frequently used to talk about it were "freak out," "panic," "crisis," "fear," and "unprepared." So we wanted to know what exactly they were so afraid of. Here's how their fears broke down:
