Queer and Trans Youth, Relational Subjectivity, and Uncertain Possibilities: Challenging Research in Complicated Contexts

Abstract

This article addresses complications to how different disciplines define, study, and theorize sexuality, gender, gender identity, and other intersecting categories of subjectivity, like age, race, class, ethnicity, and so on. Categories that seem to get stabilized in empirical work are destabilized in theoretical and narrative research. These differences in key definitions and even refusal to make definitions mark how different disciplines approach research on gender identities and expression and sexualities. The contingency, relationality, and space-related aspects of gender and sexual identity, so key to humanities-based work and qualitative research, may not be amenable to measurement by some research methods. In trying to sort out methodological quandaries in quantitative work, complex subjectivities become a problem to work around, not focus on. What subjectivities mean to those who are developing them or grappling with their limitations may not get the same attention as more measurable things. This article advocates for thinking more capaciously about what counts as research, pushing for recognition of the work queer communities and theorists have been doing for generations and for the work that gender and sexual minority youth continue do now. Complexity, instability, and relationality have been queer practices for a long time, stimulating and responding to generative perversities.

Large-Scale Estimates of LGBQ-Heterosexual Disparities in the Presence of Potentially Mischievous Responders: A Preregistered Replication and Comparison of Methods

“…In the vein of the theoretical critiques in the recent special issue of Educational Researcher (see, e.g., Brockenbrough, 2017; Cimpian, 2017; Love, 2017; Mayo, 2017), this article also challenges—empirically—the assumptions implicit in much quantitative education research on LGBQ youth (see also, Robinson-Cimpian, 2014). Yet, this work pushes the empirical work a step further by providing direct comparisons of methods used for assessing data validity, and in doing so, illustrates that even seemingly similar work intended to reduce bias can lead to different conclusions based on the assumptions the researchers make throughout the analysis stage.…”

“…For instance, Wimberly (2015aWimberly ( , 2015bWimberly & Battle, 2015) calls for more quantitative research on LGBQ students. Thus, it is noteworthy that there have been several recent critiques from across methodological perspectives regarding how quantitative research chooses to categorize LGBQ youth in education research, yet it is valued by the education research community (Brockenbrough, 2017;Cimpian, 2017;Mayo, 2017). Indeed, if we are experiencing an increasing quantification of LGBQ research in education, we must ensure that the research is valid and not valued simply because it is quantitative.…”

Transgender and gender expansive education research, policy and practice: reflecting on epistemological and ontological possibilities of bodily becoming

“…field which addresses how questions of trans informed gender justice are being understood, grappled with and enacted (Bartholomaeus and Riggs 2017;Forhard-Dourlent 2018;Human Rights Campaign and Gender Spectrum 2014;Ingrey 2012;Jones 2016;Martino and Cumming-Potvin 2017;Mayo 2017;Meyer and Leonardi 2018;Robinson et al 2014;Schindel 2008;Sinclair and Gilbert 2018;Smith and Payne 2016;Stiegler 2016;Ullman 2017). However, while acknowledging the necessity of the space that we have opened up for generating trans informed knowledge generation and insights into the enactment of gender democratization at both the policy and practice level, we are conscious of the limits of our efforts.…”

Toward Queer Potentialities in Child and Youth Care

“…It must also be noted that many, but not all, of the authors of critical ECE histories and the queer scholars centered here are predominantly White or are from Euro-Western, Global North contexts. Queer of color scholars have critiqued queer studies and the domination of White queer theoretical engagements in their field and are pushing scholars and researchers to see how race and Western-centrism shapes the categories of sex and gender (Ferguson, 2003;Mayo, 2017). A queering of developmentalism in CYC through queer of color engagements in conjunction with Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer scholars has the potential to further the work of decentering White domination.…”