Cisgenderism and Certitude: Parents of Transgender Children Negotiating Educational Contexts

Abstract

In accounting for their experiences of having a transgender child, cisgender parents often make recourse to a trope of loss to account for their journeys. A focus on loss is also evident in guides for parents and academic writing. In this article, the authors seek to produce an alternative account of loss, one that shifts the focus away from transgender children themselves and onto the broader context in which parents and their transgender children live, with a particular focus on schools. Specifically, the authors consider how cisgenderism produces a loss of certitude for parents, in that parents lose the invisible privileges that accrue to those who occupy an unmarked place within the cisgender norm. To do this, the authors draw on survey data from sixty Australian cisgender parents of transgender children, exploring specifically how they spoke about experiences with schools, both negative and positive.