Unmanageable Subjects: Trans Childhoods and the Challenge of Self-Determination in School

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.