Navigating Norms: Transgender and Non-Binary Teachers in Dutch Secondary Schools

Abstract

This thesis creates a narrative that discusses how school policies, interpersonal relations with teachers, students, and school leaders, the school’s spatial design, and the discourse around professionalism shape the everyday work experiences of these teachers. The results indicate that these teachers need to constantly balance between visibility and invisibility within institutionalized and normative expectations of gender and professionalism. Moreover, these teachers face pressures to adhere to cisheteronormative, homonormative, and transnormative expectations while simultaneously challenging and destabilizing norms through strategic visibility and using their teaching skills as meaningful pedagogical devices to redefine what it means to be a good teacher. Ultimately, the research shows that Dutch TGNB secondary teachers navigate their workplaces by constantly negotiating an intersection of cumulative normative expectations that structure gender and professional legibility.