11/5, Christensen

 I am going to talk about names, because that's one of the activities Christensen brings to the forefront. 

I've previously mentioned I hate the activity (which many teachers adore) involving "My Name," making meaning out of your name, and sharing it. Reason 1: The first time I did it (DirecTrack), I was a closeted trans woman still picking a new name and had to talk about this thing I hate in a way that didn't just out me because this was day one and I didn't know these people. Reason 2: The second time I did it (observing a professional development session), I shared with a practicing teacher the joy I get from my actual name, and she asked me what my "birth name" was. I acknowledge that this is an activity with strong backing for usage with a wide span of diverse groups, but I haven't yet figured out how to fix it for trans* kids.

Let's try to do that again, then. Problem 1: Closeted trans* students often have understood and identified discomforts with their names which they cannot reasonably feel safe sharing in a get-to-know-you activity. Problem 2: It's such a vulnerable activity for out trans* students and makes harm easy to enact upon them. Problem 2 is an easy solve, I think. Christensen's protocol does so. Don't do this activity in small groups. Large group allows the teacher to monitor the conversation more effectively and address ignorant questions themselves. The benefit of small groups in activities like these is that the other members of the groups get to introduce each member's name and I think that students should be the final voice on their own names anyways. Problem 1 is harder. Problem 1 is inherent to making meaning out of your name and sharing it. You also are unlikely to get the opportunity to differentiate it. One decent technique, one which Abby did, is just saying "you can use different kinds of names." For example, if this was done in my first experience, I could've talked about being surnamed "Brickman" or a nickname instead of "They're taking the hobbits to Isengard" (my deadname) (real). I think this could be decent if you give a mentor text for it: show students what this activity looks like when it's not your first name. Not giving a relevant mentor text deincentivizes it, making students who go for that option worried they'll stand out for it and make themselves a target (probably an unreasonable concern?). I think you could theoretically just not have them share it out, but I think that would destroy the point of the activity. I think the ideal way to fix this is to simply have a space where students can talk about being closeted trans* folks without judgement, but that's not actionable (especially not within the first weeks of class). 

I feel passionately about this because we (society, education, teachers) enact so much incidental harm on closeted trans* kids, whether or not they're aware of their trans*-ness or this harm. I learned and had to unlearn so much of how human beings "should" be treated based on how I was treated before I understood how that deviated from others. I wish I had resources to point to for harm reduction or prevention, but I don't. Trans* people as a bloc are (justly) too busy fighting for their right to exist at all to write about pedagogical harm prevention. My favorite transfeminist needs to beg on Twitter to pay rent. 

Anyways, deviation from the norm today regarding my resources. Instead of some essay, I'll actually recommend a book! To read in a class! Beetle and the Hollowbones is one of my wife's favorite graphic novels. It's about the rich demolishing someone's home. It also has lesbians. Good book, read it.