Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

9-2025

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Program

Liberal Studies

Advisor

Jean Halley

Subject Categories

Curriculum and Social Inquiry | Disability Studies | Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies | Queer Studies | Social Justice

Keywords

Trans Childhood, Queer Childhood, LGBTQ Childhood, Queer Studies in Education, Trans Studies in Education, Curriculum Theory

Abstract

In this thesis, I turn toward the study of educational experience, defined broadly to include lived experiences both within and outside of formal schooling institutions. I approach curriculum as an ongoing project of self-understanding in which one becomes mobilized for engaged pedagogical action alongside others in the pursuit social justice. I am guided by the following question, foundational to the field of curriculum studies: for those of us who work alongside LGBTQ children, what knowledge is of most worth? Critically reflecting on ways of working alongside LGBTQ children in the pursuit of social justice, I formulate a mad/crip of color critique of dominant forms of research and advocacy carried out on in their name. I argue that this research and advocacy—work that informs K-12 education policy responses, curricular interventions within schools, and the practices of the helping professions—are too narrowly focused on individualistic approaches. I aim to both make sense of and challenge the psy complex’s (psychiatry, psychology, psychoanalysis) pathologization of LGBTQ childhoods in order to decouple interpretations of and responses to their experiences with emotional pain and mental distress from a psychiatric biomedical model. Examining my own lived experience, including my queer childhood and time as a 5th grade classroom teacher, I develop my analysis in the form of self-reflexive autoethnographic writing. I also draw upon contemporary texts, including short documentary films and speculative fiction, that center the voices and experiences of LGBTQ children. Situating my thesis in the context of an ascendant fascist movement in the United States, I argue that a mad/crip of color critique of dominant forms of research and advocacy on behalf of LGBTQ children demonstrates the need for a move towards a curriculum of radical care—an approach to working alongside LGBTQ children that emphasizes cultivating their transformative knowledge and critical agency with which they can engage in the collective project of challenging transphobia, homophobia, racism, and other forms of structural oppression.

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