Inclusive Support for Transgender and Non-binary Students with Vanessa Ford and Rebecca Kling
Transgender and non-binary students often do not find inclusive experiences in schools and many teachers do not know where to turn in finding resources and supports. Scott Lee shares a conversation with Vanessa Ford and Rebecca Kling who discuss their book The Advocate Educator’s Handbook: Creating Schools Where Transgender and Non-Binary Students Thrive who discuss issues surrounding supporting students who are struggling with gender inclusion.
The Advocate Educator’s Handbook publisher page
Vanessa Ford’s other book Calvin (mentioned in podcast)
Better World Collaborative co-founded by Rebecca Kling
Episode Transcript
Scott Lee: Greetings friends and colleagues, welcome to The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast the professional educator’s thought partner-a service of Oncourse Education Solutions and our partner SEL Resource. I am Scott Lee. In today’s episode I’ll share a conversation with Vanessa Ford and Rebecca Kling co-authors of the recently released book The Advocate Educator’s Handbook: Creating Schools Where Transgender and Non-Binary Students Thrive.
Vanessa (she/her) is an award-winning educator and author. Her children's book, Calvin, won the 2022 Lambda Literary Award for Best Children’s Book. She was a classroom teacher in the DC Public Schools and her advocacy has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, and NPR among others. She was a founding member of the Parents for Transgender Equality Council for The Human Rights Campaign and served on the board of the National Center for Transgender Equality.
Rebecca Kling (she/her) is a nationally-known transgender activist and advocate for equal rights. She is the co-owner of the social impact consulting firm Better World Collaborative and previously served as the Education Programming Director at the National Center for Transgender Equality. Rebecca is also currently on the leadership team of Harbor Camps, a camp for transgender and gender variant youth, and she has taught middle and high school theater. Her advocacy has been featured in the Washington Post, the Guardian, and other media outlets. We’ll start our conversation with each sharing a little more about their backgrounds, the first of the guests you’ll hear is Vanessa
Scott Lee: Welcome Vanessa and Rebecca to The Thoughtful Teacher podcast.
Vanessa Ford: Thanks for having us.
Rebecca Kling: Glad to be here.
Scott Lee: So, first off, just, tell us a little bit about your current roles, with schools and in education.
Vanessa Ford: I'll start. This is Vanessa.
She, her, and I was a teacher in D. C. public schools for 14 years and then director of education for a nonprofit, but have spent the last five years actually working in higher education. In the realm of mentorship, but working with schools now as the parent of a transgender child, and as a former teacher, I often interface with schools around training and lots of meetings about how to support kids.
So, while I'm not a classroom teacher anymore, it's my heart is always going to be a classroom teacher.
Scott Lee: And, what about you, Rebecca?
Rebecca Kling: I am Rebecca Kling, she, her, so glad to be here. And I have a number of different connections to education. I'm the child of educators, one at the grade school and one at the higher ed level.
And then have worked with young people really my entire professional career. So I was a theater teacher and director for middle and high school after school programming. I've worked with harbor camps, camp for trans and non binary youngsters for more than a decade. Most recently I am the co founder of Better World Collaborative, a social impact consulting firm that works a lot to help respond to anti trans legislation, which often involves working with families and trans youth.
Most recently excited to be the co-author of the Advocate Educators Handbook with Vanessa.
Scott Lee: So we'll talk about specifics, in just a minute, could each of you share just a little bit about why specifically you all decided to write this book or why you wanted to write it?
Vanessa Ford: So trying to think about where to even begin. When my child transitioned, they were four years old. And there were not a lot of resources out in 2015 about supporting trans youth. Luckily, that has changed over time, but my learning curve as a parent was really informed by the work that I was also doing with folks at like the Human Rights Campaign and the National Center for Transgender Equality, and they really helped me understand what advocacy was all about.
looking like as the parent of a trans kid. So fast forward, my husband and I actually wrote a children's book called Calvin, based on our child's story. And, after Calvin came out, we actually got contacted by the publisher, Wiley Jossie Bass, who said, we know you're a former teacher. We know you're a parent of a trans child and you've done all of this work.
Might you write a book for teachers about supporting. trans youth And I said, absolutely. And I don't want to write it without a trans identified co-author. And I don't want to write it without Rebecca Kling. Because the real story here is that Rebecca has been central to all of the storytelling and advocacy that my family has done over the last eight years.
And over that we've become such dear friends that I knew it could be a really fun endeavor. So we were one of the lucky ones, Scott, where a publisher reached out to us. And then, we'll get into the four principles, but the question was how would we frame it? And I have ADHD and like many people with ADHD need to bucket information and organize and categorize things.
And so I've been using this framework for inclusive schools at trainings that I've been doing, which was just all these resources bucketed. We decided that the framework for the book would be Educate, Affirm, Include, and Disrupt, which was the framework I'd been using for a few years, but then, with all the interviews we did.
It was pretty exciting, pretty exciting stuff, a nice friendship story that we've gotten to do this together, and also really important because the publisher didn't have any books at the time about supporting trans youth.
Rebecca Kling: And I'm coming from a perspective of both a trans adult who remembers being a trans young person when there was even less support than there is today, as well as an adult who works with trans and non-binary young people and so sees from that end the lack of knowledge and resources.
And so my desire to write this book, in addition to always excited to work more with my dear friend Vanessa, was from a young, from a former young person. I am no longer a young person, alas, but as a former young person who came out in the, in the 90s, in a period where there were lots of people saying, we're not going to reject trans folks, but not as many people or organizations saying we know how to actively support trans folks.
And so I, a number of times, as I tried to come out and explore my own identity, would encounter adults who said, That's great. I'm not against you being trans, but I sort of don't know what to do now that you've come out to me as trans. And now that I've been in the opposite role as an adult working with young people who are trans and non binary, that a lot of the information, even as there are more books and conferences and resources and camps and TV shows and webinars and all sorts of material, A lot of it still boils down to word of mouth or networking or brainstorming with other folks in the area and a lot less of being able to say here is a resource that I can point to here's a book that I can point to here's a guide that I can point to and a lot of what.
What went into this book was a combination of all of those things that Vanessa and I have learned from our own experiences as well as a real excitement and desire to speak with more than 50 experts, both trans folks and allies and educators and researchers and parents and trans youth, to really be able to help uplift things that we'd heard anecdotally, but have research to back them.
Or things we'd heard through the grapevine, that now we could put a name and a face on, and really to not only elevate and share out our own perspectives and experiences, but using it as an opportunity to elevate and share out so much of the expertise that exists in the community, but that isn't always highlighted or easy to find.
Vanessa Ford: Thank you for pointing that out, because The other question was, what form does the book take? Is it a guide? Is it a handbook? Is it a research book? Right? And we read a lot of the books that are out there, that are part of the canon of trans literature that is starting to exist and grow, to inform our book, yeah?
Rebecca Kling: And many of those books are great. There are some fantastic books that are already out there
Vanessa Ford: Yes, exactly. So, we wanted to honor the expertise of others in our book. So along with those 50 interviews, we have all of these other authors who've done some of this work, and we were able to.
interview some of them for the book. Dr. Mangan from Rutgers has an amazing book about transgender students in elementary school and it was a study that she did. So she's interviewed in the book. So we're not saying we're the only book, but we are certainly, adding to what exists and we wrote it explicitly in a way that has personal reflection questions, ways for.
Our I guess our adult students who are reading the book, to engage with the content.
Scott Lee: One of the things that I noticed, when I started reading the book, one of the, first things you said, and this is a quote directly out of it is perhaps the most foundational thing you can do, to support trans and non-binary youth is educate the adults.
One of the things, that I've found, and I'm sure you all, see this as well, working with teachers, is that there oftentimes is a lot of information out there, but trying to find it so that I can, As a teacher that I can make it useful, is something, that's very important, to point out that this is specifically designed for educators.
Is that right?
Vanessa Ford: Yes, educators and, we say that as the umbrella term, so we can imagine superintendents utilizing it to evaluate, their district to a para professional. Who may be trying to support an individual trans student.
We really wanted to make sure that if you're serving students, this handbook would help you
Rebecca Kling: do that better. And one of the things that we know, both anecdotally from our own experiences and from from friends and community members, as well as the research that that does back this up based on surveys and studies and conversations, is that lots of.
Folks across the United States either don't know if they've ever met an out trans person or think they haven't, don't know out trans people in their lives, and having that education is not a guarantee that they're going to be able to better support trans and non-binary people, but it's really, really hard to do without that level of knowledge.
And so trying to help, particularly when Many folks who want to be allies can feel nervous of, Oh, I don't have this information. I'm not sure how to do it right. And so hoping to have more support and to bolster up those folks who want to be allies, but are maybe nervous about it or unsure about it or who want to be able to have that concrete knowledge , I sort of think about it as a force multiplier, that a parent or an educator or an adult in a school community can bring in allies and start to educate others, and then that can really have a positive cascading effect Whereas there are more adults who can support and do that advocacy, more adults come out willing to do that support and advocacy.
Vanessa Ford: And GLSEN has shown this direct correlation between affirming adults in schools and student absenteeism and reported sense of safety. The more adults in the school, the better, obviously a magic number is 11. 11 is the real significant. Shift that we see in students, self-reported behaviors and how they're feeling.
Scott Lee: And you're talking about 11 being 11 staff members
Vanessa Ford: or 11 staff members. Although one has also been shown to save lives. So honestly, we want to get to all, but when we're looking in staff buildings, this, this book could be used in book clubs. I remember. Someone said, I'm going back to my school and we're going to do operation, get to 11.
Right. Like who can we get on board quickly? And then hopefully go above that because there's a whole lot more than 11 people who work at a school.
Scott Lee: So, what are some of the big misconceptions that, you find that you need to address? Early on, when working with, groups of educators, I'm sure there are plenty, but what are the big ones that people who may be listening really ought to think about?
As sort of their starting point, because one of the issues, as you've mentioned is that, we certainly all come in contact with trans kids. You can't not have, if you've worked for any amount of time in a school, but a lot of times you may not even know. And so, where do you start with the misconceptions that you feel like you need to work with, when you're working with educators, when you're working with people that are working with kids?
Vanessa Ford: One of the places we often start is with the gender journey with the folks with whom we're working, basically bringing it to the level of everybody has a gender, right? So as we are talking about transgender children and non-binary youth, this is not necessarily an other experience. That you too have a gender and it has interacted in interesting ways whether it's you identify as a Cisgender woman and when you were little your mom made you wear dresses and you hated dresses, but that was the expectation Right, so we get people thinking About how gender has impacted their lives and what it must be like if that gender isn't congruent with how people see you in the world I think that's one of the misconceptions the other that I would go with Is that folks say in elementary school, we don't have any trans kids or non-binary kids.
That happens in middle. Oh, in middle school, we don't have any. That happens in high school. There's not a switch that turns on at a certain time. There are these kids everywhere, and there's no right way or right time to transition. So there are always going to be trans and non-binary students in your class, whether they are out, whether they are on that journey, or whether you know it or not.
So, being prepared is really A lens that we took with this book
Rebecca Kling: One misconception that can come up is that everything about educating a trans or non-binary student needs to be somehow different. And, and one of the things that we heard a number of times and that we try to really reassure folks is by working with young people, by working with students, by working with any youth, Hopefully you're learning how to work with a diverse population who come from different backgrounds and have different priorities, and family structures, and education needs, and learning styles, and all of those things are true for trans kids too.
Fundamentally, intervening if there's a bullying situation doesn't necessarily look that different, even if maybe the language is different. Fundamentally, making sure a curriculum is representative of a diverse student body doesn't look significantly different for, approaching it with trans identity or non-binary identity than approaching with different identities.
And so trying to reassure adults in school communities, educators and others, that hopefully, We've already been thinking a lot about what it means to support our students or to support the young people we work with, and that trans and non-binary folks. There may be a different layer to add onto that, but it's not inherently different.
And so maybe easing some folks worries or, or getting some folks to, to relax a little bit into. Wait, I know how to do this. I, I know how to work with young people and this is an extension of that. The one other thing I would say that, can be helpful to talk about is the difference between language and lived experience.
And what I mean by that is it is absolutely true that the language around trans and non-binary identity is relatively new. About a century old for words like transsexual or transgender, and then not even that old for terms like non binary. So the language is new, but the experience is not new.
And you have the Hijra community in India and South Asia, which goes back hundreds if not thousands of years. You have two spirit populations in North American Indigenous communities who have their own terms and their own languages, and that goes back hundreds and thousands of years. You have Jewish theologians from the 1st and 2nd century talking about five or six different physical sexes.
You have Roman fables from, before the Common Era, talking about the gods getting drunk and swapping people's genitals. So even if the way that we're talking about this is new, And I want to be honest that the way we're talking about it is different than the way it was talked about a hundred years ago, or five hundred years ago, or a thousand years ago.
But to say that the experience is new, or the, the part of humanity is new, is simply not true. And that can be something that can be helpful, too, to remind educators or adults that, yes, the language is different, and the language we use today, Isn't what we necessarily grew up using. And that language wasn't necessarily what was used 50 years before that, but the experiences, the identities, the, the humanity is not new.
And that can be a misconception that this must be something new when it's not.
Vanessa Ford: And to add on to the newness is the sense that it's basically multiplying. Right. So there are folks who are saying. And there are no trans kids in my school and there are other folks saying all I'm reading about are trans kids everywhere, right?
And we know that this rising generation identifies as LBGTQ much more than older generations. But, Rebecca always likes to talk about the left handed study. So do you want to speak to that, Becca?
Rebecca Kling: Sure, very briefly, there is this really powerful graph of left handedness in the United States. And if you look at it from around 1900 to around 1950, it's just going up and up and up and up and up and up.
And if you were someone living in 1945 or 1950 looking at that graph, you might say, Oh my God, everyone's going to be left handed soon. No one was left handed 50 years ago, and now everyone's left handed. And what actually happened, and the researchers have looked into this, is around the turn of the 20th century, schools and religious institutions started to really crack down on left handedness.
So around 1900, you had very, very, very few people who identified or said they were left handed because they knew they would get their knuckles wrapped in school. As the first half of the 20th century progressed, that loosened and lessened. And so by around 1950, you had around 10 or 11 percent of the population being left handed because it wasn't being quite literally beaten out of them anymore.
And then it did this thing that human experience and diversity tends to do, it plateaued. And so looking at the graph from around 1950 to today, it hasn't changed a ton. It stayed at around 12 percent, and it seems like that's probably around how many people, are sort of naturally left handed, predisposed to be left handed.
Now, this isn't a perfect analogy. Who knows the exact number of, of percentage of trans and non-binary students, but the reality is that it's not that this was never a thing and now is a thing, it's that There were all of these reasons that it wouldn't and couldn't be talked about, and as those are lessening, yeah, more kids, more adults are identifying this way, but it doesn't mean that it's a fake trend or that it's a trend that will go on forever, it means that as there's more freedom and ability to live authentically, those numbers may go up a little, and that of course they're going to plateau, because of course there is sort of a natural human balance, And in the same way that it would have been silly in 1945 or 1950 to say, Oh my God, everyone's going to be left handed.
They must all be faking it. It's silly today to say, Oh my God, everyone's going to be trans. It must be a trend. No, it's just when, when you give kids more freedom to be themselves, then they're more likely to be themselves.
Scott Lee: You also included a section in the book about, intersectionality. Could you tell us a little bit about that and why it's important, to discuss, intersectionality as well?
Vanessa Ford: So, as the parent of a trans child who has multiple identities, my child is trans non binary, my child, identifies as black African American, although they are biracial, I am their mother, and I, know that their experiences.
Are going to be influenced by the various identities that they have, whether it's their own experience in the world, or how the world will treat them because of those identities. And so we have a section of the book really called supporting diverse student bodies, right? Which is really critical.
And I think Rebecca talked a little bit about it already. But we dug into race and racism, physical disabilities, neurodiversity, economic class, family structure, and dynamics. We tried to really interview people at the crux and the corners of this work. So Rebecca Coakley is head of disability at the Ford Foundation, and we really highlight her work here, really talking about.
Is being trans a disability? Is it not a disability? How does this look? How can schools implement disability frameworks to better support, trans youth? So for me, having a child with multiple intersecting identities that influence how they show up in the world and how the world shows up to them was really critical to be represented in the book.
Rebecca Kling: And a lot of the ways that we talk about identity and, and the way that we experience identity is you're only allowed to be one thing. You can be trans, or you can be disabled, or you can be, neurodivergent, or you can be poor, or you can come from a different family structure, whatever that is, and that the reality is that people are multiple things, and so a lot of what we talk about with the intersectionality, is to remind folks that if a student is trans and POC, or and disabled, or and neurodivergent, or and has a different economic experience, or any of these other things, That the way that student is going to show up in the classroom is going to be impacted by all of those things, and that as educators, we want to at least be mindful and aware, and ideally then custom tailoring how we support that student to support, and I suspect a lot of folks have heard this before, to support The whole student.
And so again, it's not fundamentally a different approach. It's a reminder of, oh yeah, this thing I've already been told and already hopefully I'm implementing in my classroom or in my school environment also applies here.
Scott Lee: Yeah, because everybody has multiple identities. I mean, you know, we, we all have intersectionality, no matter, how Traditionally mainstream that might be or not.
Vanessa Ford: We also want to think about there's a quote in the book about if you're doing, I think it's from Timon West. If you focus on the most marginalized in your classroom, you are going to do great by everybody else. Right? So a lot of times, you're Those with these intersecting identities are the most marginalized.
They see themselves the least represented in curriculum. The systems and structures are literally fighting their existences, at the ballot box, right? And yet they're showing up for sixth grade math. So how do we make sure that they feel heard and seen and can be a collaborative part of their little sixth grade math group?
While all these big things are happening.
Scott Lee: So, let's talk, about part two of the book, where you discuss your four principles of advocacy, which are, educate, affirm, include, and disrupt. Let's just work through them and tell us a little bit about each of those, if you could just tell us, a little bit about, why you chose each of these principles
Vanessa Ford: So these principles again came out of My need to organize resources that existed in the world from organizations, experts, students, and I was being asked to do trainings.
And I thought if I was a teacher, I'd want something that was palatable that I could remember. And that made sense. And. As I almost used like a qualitative method style, where does this resource fit? And how does this resource fit? These four kind of bubbled up. And very briefly, it's educate. So you want to educate your community, your staff, your students.
You want to affirm through policy and practice. include through representation in curriculum and in the media that is consumed by the school community. And then you want to disrupt whether that is an individual bully situation with a student all the way up to what some are calling legislative bullying, which are the attacks on trans youth that we're seeing at many state levels.
And we can dig into more, about each of those if you want.
Scott Lee: Include and disrupt, I think is, is the the areas or the principles that I think , a lot of educators are going to be concerned or just what do I do?
What advice would you offer, particularly around including. And particularly disrupt, because yeah, the individually disrupt, that's pretty easy, see a bullying situation, that's pretty easy, but once we move away from that, it can really, can really get into a gray area and get harder for people to, understand or even think about.
For include
Rebecca Kling: What we are encouraging folks to do is think about how do I as an individual, how do we as a school or a district or a community accurately and honestly reflect the diversity that exists. We talk about, the pre-existing concept, which many folks may be familiar with, of windows and mirrors.
The idea being that students should have mirrors so they can learn about and better understand themselves, and windows so that they can get even exposure and learn about the experiences of others. And that, that is absolutely true for trans and non-binary identities as well as anything else. And so, for the Include, It's not pushing or promoting identities or experiences, it is acknowledging the reality of human diversity and then representing that honestly in the classroom in age appropriate ways.
And so thinking about whether it's in elementary school, what books are going to showcase folks who are experiencing their genders or their gender expressions or their identities differently. Some of that at young ages may be as simple as a book with two moms or two dads or with a boy who wears a dress or a girl who wants to get a short haircut.
And as students are getting older, what that include is going to look like can become a little more nuanced and sophisticated. Similarly, One of the things we heard a number of times as we were working on the include section, is that this is what the highest standards of teaching are already talking about.
So we spoke with, folks from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and BETF and Dr. Kristen Hamilton, who is the Vice President of standards and assessments there talked about. They're already expecting for teachers to be committed to students and to understand those students and custom craft how they're teaching them and to learn from their communities of students as much as they're trying to teach those communities of students.
Another example would be. When we spoke about creating classroom curricula and so thinking about, the gender inclusive biology folks, which is an organization, a group of biology teachers who came together and said, hey, teaching that all humans are either XX or XY. is just incorrect, like that's just scientifically and biologically not true.
And so how do we do something, how do we build a classroom that, one, is also more supportive and inclusive of trans and non-binary folks, but as a result is, two, just more accurate and reflective of the world that students actually live in. And so a lot of that includes section Again, can feel scary, particularly around areas like health and sex ed, or particularly in places, which we'll talk about in Disrupt, where there is real pushback against acknowledging these realities, I'm thinking about, we spoke with, Armante Butler from, Advocates for Youth in D.
C., and that organization talks about the three R's of students have a right And, To factual and accurate information, adults owe students that respect, and adults have a responsibility to present that information and to help those students understand it, and that leaving out trans and non-binary identities, putting aside the politics, putting aside the, the cultural environment, Is just not as accurate.
It's not honestly representing humanity or the communities that schools are in and so that's a lot of what we talk about in the include section is how do we think about this as as connecting to the fundamental pedagogy of uplifting good education. And how does that connect to talking about trans and non-binary students, not how do we shoehorn this in or how do we force this in, because that's not really helpful for anyone.
And
Vanessa Ford: that takes us right into disrupt. So everything Rebecca is saying is absolutely spot on. And then you have groups like Moms for Liberty who are coming in and looking to ban our books, right? I, my husband and I wrote a book that is banned in a number of places. And, we wanted to find ways to give people an in to disrupt at different levels.
Right? So we want to respond to students. How do you respond to students when you hear words or things that are not, appropriate? Right? Or that are hurtful? Or
Rebecca Kling: right, are not. Go ahead. Sorry, I cut you off. Responding to students that aren't being respectful and aren't treating each other with, again, the same expectations that we have for all students.
This is not a different level or a different expectation.
Vanessa Ford: I actually wanted to find our steps for talking to, upset parents and others. This is a little snippet. I won't read the whole thing, but one of the, pieces that we looked at is what do you do when you have an angry parent?
Maybe you have decided that you're going to include the book Calvin in your study about, different family structures in kindergarten. What do you do? So we suggest you slow things down. You appreciate the sharing. And the questioning and the concern that they have, you try to understand where they're coming from, bring your own expertise as an educator to the table, return to shared beliefs.
We all want our children to be safe in this school. We all want our children to thrive and really lean into your school's mission and vision. We it's very rare that a school has a mission or a vision statement that doesn't say something like all students. And just to remind folks that All students does mean all the other thing that's a little bit separate from this is that we say you don't need to go this alone.
There are organizations on the ground from grassroots all the way up to national ones like the A. C. L. U. Who are supporting teachers and educators who are disrupting at a much Higher level and taking some personal risk to do so. But we even have a section in the book about really evaluating your own risk because we interviewed people who said, Oh, without question, if I was teaching in Florida right now, I would be disrupting all the laws.
I would be reading those books. I would be teaching about these issues and I'd be putting my job at risk. And we have other said, yeah. I wouldn't necessarily do that because I have a family and I need to pay my rent and how else could I disrupt. So we include things like, oh, I'm a public school teacher.
Well, I held an event at the local library because the library was allowed to have this. And all the teachers came to the library versus holding it at the school. There's lots of little ways to show your allyship.
Scott Lee: Last season, I had a, guest on who's a librarian who ran into the same problem. She had to cancel a lesson because the book she was reading to the kids was called Mother Bruce, which I don't know if you're familiar with the book, but it shocked me because. book I've read to my grandkids. She goes through all of those issues.
And what it was is this male bear raises a group of geese rather than eat them, is the whole story. And somehow our local Moms for Liberty group decided to make that a rallying cry.
Rebecca Kling: And I think expanding on something that Vanessa said about these book bans, they really are trying to ban these identities. They're trying to ban these experiences and the ability to talk about these experiences. You know, I think about bans for And Tango Makes Three, which is the factual story of gay penguins who were given an egg.
Like, that is a thing that actually happened. And so when we're talking about a book ban, we're trying to also not allow people to talk about those experiences. I heard a fabulous interview with Jerry Craft, who's the author of the, unfortunately sometimes banned graphic novel, New Kid, who talked about, and this is a, both a piece in that book, as well as something that he talks about in interviews, of explaining the experiences and hardship of racism and having an adult say, well, you're just trying to be disruptive.
We don't need to talk about such divisive things. And him saying, I'm literally just trying to explain something that happened to me in real life. And that when we talk about book bans, on the surface, sometimes they are, about the quote unquote content in the book, but much, much more fundamentally, they're about an unwillingness to engage with the fact that the world is complex, and their world is diverse, and that not everyone is going to fit into the Moms for Liberty or, Alliance Defending Freedom or any of the other nonsense , three groups that are out there.
Scott Lee: So, let's, let's talk a little bit more about disruption, but, in a specific way. I'm very interested in this. Everybody who listens knows that, my home is in Tennessee, and, in Tennessee. Right now, much that we're talking about are happening here. There's a huge amount of legislation, not that's even being considered, but that has passed regarding, trans and non-binary youth. Regarding, the larger group of LGBTQ plus youth, and teachers really do have their hands tied. You mentioned, using a library, using a space away from school.
Are there other suggestions, that you have for educators, to, help with that, particularly in a place like where I live.
Rebecca Kling: I think first we want to encourage folks to reflect and you don't need to make any written and stone firm concrete decisions, but at least reflect on what your comfort is with risk and what your comfort is with putting your neck out and potentially being public. The first thing externally we would encourage folks to do is find allies.
Whether it's other teachers, whether it's parents, whether it's a teacher's union, or an LGBT group, or an advocacy group that is fighting against these so-called CRT bans, or fighting against other parts of book censorship. So finding those allies. Both interpersonally and sort of organizationally. And so just, that gives you an idea of where you stand.
Are there other teachers in this school who will have my back if I stick my neck out? Why or why not? Can the union support me? Why or why not? In some states, there are unfortunately restrictions on, on union actions that may impact how willing to take a risk folks are. And then, once you have a better sense of sort of where things are in your community or your state, thinking about, well, what might I be comfortable doing?
We've heard about, out of school book exchanges. There was one in Florida that talked about bringing together dozens and dozens of different teachers from across the states to exchange books and resources outside of official channels. Similarly, there was just an article on NPR about a secret library in Texas that a teacher had set up, and that the article was very intentionally not using, locations or last names because it was a teacher who Knowing that this was now, against policy in Texas was having a library that was, you know, behind another bookshelf and was sort of being spread through word of mouth.
as Vanessa said, we heard a range of opinions from adults. We heard some adults say, you really need to be careful and evaluate how much you can risk. And we heard some adults say, no, as an educator, your job is to put it on the line for students. I sort of go back from day to day on where I am, and know that it's really easy for me, a person in Chicago who doesn't have dependents.
It's really easy for me to say folks in Tennessee or Florida or Texas or wherever should be taking more risks. At the same time, I, I want folks to be in the movement for the long term, and so I don't want people to do things that are too much and then immediately burn out. What I come back to is that everyone can find something to do.
Even if none of us can do everything.
Scott Lee: Yes, that that everybody can do something.
Vanessa Ford: We all have levity. Scott, we included, some quotes throughout the book of trans joy, because a lot of times this can get quite heavy as we're talking about disruption and legislative action and statistics around mental health and all of these struggles.
So we have trans joy sprinkled throughout and this quote under disrupt is from 12 year old Griffin. She her all the trans non binary kids will someday be voters who will vote for trans affirming candidates. And that gives me hope. So the 12 year old, they're going to be voters eventually. And that's the other thing we always say.
And I hear Rebecca say all the time is what can you do? You can vote.
Scott Lee: Absolutely. As the former civics teacher that I am. Vote, vote, vote
Rebecca Kling: And I would say connected to that, teachers can certainly encourage students to write their elected officials as a teacher. Maybe you don't tell them what to write about or what the topics are, but you can certainly talk about that as a teacher, you can connect the lesson plans where.
Students have gone to the Supreme Court to talk about freedom of speech, or you can connect to historical points where there were certain moments where different things could or couldn't be taught in certain classrooms around the world. We had people we interviewed who spoke about the history of race and racism in the United States and how that's impacted education and making implicit or explicit connections to what's happening today so that hopefully there are ways that Any educator in any classroom in the country can make clear their support for trans and non-binary students, even if in some places it is harder and, to be totally honest, scarier to do.
Scott Lee: So one other thing I'd like to do, I'd like to ask you, to share, can you tell us a story about a student, who's been impacted by your work and what has happened to them and, why it's important to that student that you do what you do.
Vanessa Ford: So I actually have, a fun story around a student because this student was in in the book. Armonte Butler, senior project manager, I believe, for Advocates for Youth, now in his late 20s, I believe, was my 6th grade student and. When I taught in DC, he became part of my family. I've been to his middle school graduation, his high school graduation, his college graduation, and his MPH graduation.
And now he's an expert in the field for whom we got to interview. Right? How cool is that? And while he is not trans, He definitely taught me over the course of, teaching him and then growing this relationship over the last 20 years, what it means to be inclusive for all and what he's dedicated his work to reproductive health, especially in marginalized LBGTQ communities.
He's really been an inspiration and it was. It's a real honor to have him on the book. And then the funny thing is when he graduated college, he wrote me a quote from Malala and I have it tattooed on my arm and his handwriting and it just says, let us remember one book, one pen, one child and one teacher can change the world.
And I constantly live with that belief. And I know there's advocate educators out there who are going to change the world with their students.
Rebecca Kling: I'm going to cheat and share two stories. One is the power that, that I've seen of, students, former students of mine following up and saying how valuable it was to have me as an out trans educator who worked with them. And so the, the value and power of students being, and this was teaching theater, this was not teaching anything specifically or explicitly related.
To gender or identity or sexuality, but I've had a number of students follow up with me now that they are from middle school to high school to college and some of them now young adults of Hey, I'm, I'm interacting now with a co-worker who's trans, and it was really powerful to have this normalizing experience when I was younger.
Or, now, a friend of mine has a kid who's trans, and from being a student of yours, I had a better idea how to respond positively and supportively. And so the reminder that I've had of The value Visibility is a double edged sword and I think the the political changes we've talked about and some of the pushback we've talked about is one of the Potential downsides of visibility; visibility is also incredibly powerful and being able to see young people who are now adults that I’ve worked with and the value of that visibility has been really powerful.
The other thing that's been really rewarding and that I want to highlight and uplift is when I've had the opportunity to work with young people more directly, one on one, to help them share their stories. So when I've helped, families like Vanessa's or other adults with trans youth to help them brainstorm and think through, how public do I want to be?
What parts of my story am I comfortable sharing publicly, and what parts do I want to say, actually this part is private, and to have some of those young people then go and, testify in front of the Texas legislature, or speak to reporters for national news stories, or, speak with their faith communities, and, and encourage faith communities to, more vocally support trans and non-binary young people, that having gone from a space where I didn't feel like I had a voice as a trans person to now uplifting and supporting other trans young people and helping them share their voices has been a just incredibly positive experience and really has, at its best, there are moments where it's really taken my breath away and made me feel very lucky to be able to do the work that I do.
Vanessa Ford: And the world may not know this, Scott, but, Rebecca's become kind of an auntie to my trans kid, right? They've formed their own relationship. And so when you ask, you know, tell me about a student, obviously my own child is my first student. And I would love to do as much as I can for them. And also as a thank you to the teachers who have made their experience such a positive one over the last eight years, too.
But, having Becca and other out trans adults in my child's life living and thriving and doing amazing things in the world, it's why “include” matters so much, and representation matters so much
Scott Lee: Well, thank you both, Vanessa and Rebecca. The book is the Advocate Educators Handbook Creating Schools Where Transgender and Non-Binary Students Thrive and it is out now. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Thoughtful Teacher Podcast.
Rebecca Kling: Thank you. Thank you. Great to be here and really appreciate the work you're doing.
Scott Lee: The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is brought to you as a service of Oncourse Education Solutions. If you would like to learn more about how we partner with schools and youth organizations strengthening learning cultures and developing more resilient youth, please visit our website at w w w dot oncoursesolutions dot net.
This has been episode 2 of the 2024 season. If you enjoy this podcast, please tell your friends and colleagues about us, in person and on social media. We also greatly appreciate positive reviews on your favorite podcast app. The Thoughtful Teacher Podcast is a production of Oncourse Education Solutions LLC, Scott Lee executive producer, in partnership with Chattanooga Podcast Studios. We encourage diverse opinions, however, opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of producer, partners or underwriters. Guests were not compensated for appearance, nor did guests pay to appear. Episode notes, links and transcripts are available at our website w w w dot thoughtfulteacherpodcast dot com. Theme music is composed and performed by Audio Coffee. Please follow me on social media, my handle on Instagram and Twitter is @drrscottlee and on Mastodon @drrscottlee@universedon.com
