Supporting Students (Outside the Binary)

This workshop will provide a venue for cisgender or gender normative individuals to reflect on how their own scripts and narratives shape their gender socialization and impact their treatment of transand/or non-binary accessibility.

Transgender and nonbinary people too often carry the burden of using their research or lived experiences to teach the cis world about gender identity and expression while the diversity of cisgender experiences and socializations go uninterrogated. This workshop will offer gender normative or cisgender individuals an opportunity to identify influences or moments in their gender socialization that may contribute to their cisgender identity. Through exercises and dialogue, participants will consider the complex relationships and experiences that scaffold and perpetuate an individual’s gender identity. By broadening our understanding of the sources and biases we cisgender people carry and perpetuate, we can begin to disrupt the cis/trans gender binary.

Learning Outcomes

By partcipating in this session, attendees will be able to:

• identify the impact of cisnormativity on individuals’ everyday lives;
• create a gender autobiography that describes how our gender identities are shaped by cultural and social norms; and
• establish common vocabulary with which to discuss contemporary issues around gender identity and expression.