ALL-WAYS in Transition: De-sensationalizing Beliefs About Trans Identities in Schooling Through Participatory Action Research.

This thesis considers what happens when student teachers are invited to learn about trans and gender diverse (GD) identities through a creative exploration of their own relationship to identity+change. Each participant came to a similar understanding that; in order to actively queer space in their own schools, they would need a) the opportunity to engage in a much slower process of personal inquiry about the topic, and b) the assurance that their colleagues would support and encourage them in this process. In short: they came to believe in the imperative of this work, but were exposed to a supportive collegial community so briefly that they did not yet feel comfortable addressing it in their own classroom teaching. Participants also clarified that they felt unprepared mainly due to a discomfort with the complexity of their own feelings about gender, and not because they were lacking in factual understanding about the topic.M.A