Abstract
This chapter brings together queer theories of time and emotion to think through parents’ accounts of how their trans and gender-diverse children are navigating their everyday lives. The accounts drawn on in this chapter arise from a qualitative study conducted in partnership with the Transgender Equality Network of Ireland (TENI). Semistructured interviews were conducted with 12 parents of trans and gender-diverse children (ages 5""13) and six educators in primary schools. The chapter explores how parents became affectively invested in linear temporal paths to gender normativity while simultaneously being reflexively aware of the cruelty of their own fantasies and the fluidity of gender expression. These parents’ accounts yielded a discussion of the ways in which happiness is bound up with gender normativity and what the concept of “happenstance,” instead of “happiness,” might offer for thinking anew about gender, childhood, and education.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Queer Studies and Education |
Subtitle of host publication | An International Reader |
Publisher | Oxford University Press |
Pages | 333-349 |
Number of pages | 17 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9780197687031 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780197687000 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2023 |
Keywords
- children
- emotion
- gender diverse
- happiness
- parents
- primary school
- queer
- temporality
- trans