Kristopher Wells

Using Freirean Pedagogy of Just IRE to Inform Critical Social Learning in Arts-Informed Community Education for Sexual Minorities

The authors work in the intersection of theorizing, experience, and research in this article as they explore a critical social model that they created to guide an informal, arts-informed, community education project for sexual-minority youth and young adults. As they consider the influence of arts-informed education and Freirean pedagogy of indignation or just ire in framing this model, the authors consider possibilities for informing and transforming adult education as a field of study and practice.

The Marc Hall Prom Predicament: Queer Individual Rights v. Institutional Church Rights in Canadian Public Education

In 2002 Marc Hall’s principal denied him permission to take his boyfriend to his Catholic high‐school prom. In examining the politicization of the ensuing prom predicament, we critique Catholicized education and what we perceive to be the Catholic Church’s efforts to privatize queerness as it segregates being religious from being sexual. We situate this privatization as the failure of the Catholic Church to treat vulnerable queer Catholic youth with dignity and integrity as the church sets untenable limits to queer. Examining Canadian case law regarding individual rights, we argue for the importance of upholding the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the name of democratic principles. Keywords: queer youth, individual rights, institutional church rights, Catholic Church, Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Supreme Court of Canada, Court judgments En 2002, le directeur de l’ecole catholique que frequentait Marc Hall lui a interdit d’etre accompagne de son petit ami au bal des finissants. En analysant le debat politique qu’a declenche cette decision, les auteurs critiquent la catholicisation de l’education et ce qu’ils considerent comme la tentative de l’Eglise catholique de privatiser l’allosexualite (« queerness ») en separant la religion de la sexualite. Selon eux, cette privatisation temoigne de l’incapacite de l’Eglise catholique de traiter avec dignite de jeunes catholiques homosexuels vulnerables en leur imposant des restrictions insoutenables. En etudiant la jurisprudence canadienne touchant aux droits de la personne, les auteurs plaident en faveur de l’importance de respecter la Charte canadienne des droits et libertes au nom des principes democratiques. Mots cles : jeunes homosexuels, droits de la personne, droits des Eglises, Eglise catholique, Charte canadienne des droits et libertes, Cour supreme du Canada, jugements de la cour.

Gay and bisexual male youth as educator activists and cultural workers: the queer critical praxis of three Canadian high‐school students

This paper considers how three Canadian high‐school students—Ryan, Jeremy, and Bruce—engaged in queer critical praxis intended to free lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans‐identified, and queer (LGBTQ) students from the silence, exclusion, and symbolic and physical violence that heterosexism and homophobia provoke in schools. We, the authors, construct the students’ biographical ethnographies to help us explore their lived and learned experiences in relation to the cultures of the schools and communities that contextualize these experiences. In this exploration, we describe their educational activism and cultural work through which they problematize queer‐exclusive educational policies and practices, enhance communication and strategic action in the intersection of the moral and the political, and monitor the state of the struggle, the extent of transformation, and the need for further social and cultural action in schools. We position this work as queer critical praxis to advance LGBTQ inclusion. In delving into this praxis, we examine the contextual, relational, and dispositional complexities of three facets of Ryan, Jeremy, and Bruce’s work for cultural change and social transformation: the impetus that drove their praxis, the supports that enabled them to keep going, and their ensuing educational activism and cultural work.

The ICF and Male-to-Female Transsexual Communication

ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to describe the assessment and treatment of communication in male-to-female transsexual individuals, within the context of the World Health Organizations International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health (ICF) framework. Structural and functional impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions specific to male-to-female transsexual communication are discussed, as well as environmental and personal factors that facilitate or prevent communicative success. Further, assessment and treatment of communication in transsexual individuals is described within the ICF framework, and the merits and unique considerations of using the ICF with this population is described.

Pretreatment Acoustic Predictors of Gender, Femininity, and Naturalness Ratings in Individuals With Male-to-Female Gender Identity

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to describe the pretreatment acoustic characteristics of individuals with male-to-female gender identity (IMtFGI) and investigate the ability of the acoustic measures to predict ratings of gender, femininity, and vocal naturalness. METHOD This retrospective descriptive study included 2 groups of participants. Speakers were IMtFGI who had not previously received communication feminization treatment (N = 25). Listeners were members of the lay community (N = 30). Acoustic data were retrospectively obtained from pretreatment recordings, and pretreatment recordings also served as stimuli for 3 perceptual rating tasks (completed by listeners). RESULTS Acoustic data generally were within normal limits for male speakers. All but 2 speakers were perceived to be male, limiting information about the relationship between acoustic measures and gender perception. Fundamental frequency (reading) significantly predicted femininity ratings (p = .000). A total of 3 stepwise regression models indicated that minimum frequency (range task), second vowel formant (sustained vowel), and shimmer percentage (sustained vowel) together significantly predicted naturalness ratings (p = .005, p = .003, and p = .002, respectively). CONCLUSIONS Study aims were achieved with the exception of acoustic predictors of gender perception, which could be described for only 2 speakers. Future research should investigate measures of prosody, voice quality, and other aspects of communication as predictors of gender, femininity, and naturalness.

Ecstasy, legal highs and designer drug use: A Canadian perspective

Recreational drug use in Canada is not uncommon, but as with most societies, illegal drug use carries harsh penalties resulting in a criminal record when an individual is successfully prosecuted. Popular drugs of use in Canada include ecstasy, cannabis (including some synthetic cannabinoids sold as ‘Spice’ and ‘Incense’) and several emerging psychoactive ‘legal highs’. Surprisingly, Canada is a major manufacturer and exporter of the popular club drug ecstasy, with criminal gangs organising the synthesis and distribution of this club drug worldwide. Over the last 18 months, there has been much interest in and use of alternatives to ecstasy due to contamination of ecstasy during synthesis. One particular contaminant, paramethoxymethamphetamine (PMMA), has resulted in several deaths. Other alternatives include piperazines and mephedrone analogues. With regard to cannabis, some is home grown within people’s properties, but there is also large-scale cultivation in British Columbia where the climate is more temperate. With the introduction of corporate drug screening, there is increasing use of synthetic cannabinoids to avoid detection of marijuana use. This article discusses the problems and trends of synthetic drug use in Canada and reflects on the limited education available to youth in this regard.

Researchers' Positionalities and Experiences Mediating Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans-identified and Queer Research as a Personal and Cultural Practice

In presenting an example of reflexive autoethnographic research, this paper investigates researchers’ positionalities and how researchers mediate LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-identified and queer) research as a situated research practice. It uses narratives of four co-researchers’ identity positions and experiences to explore each researcher’s self-reflexive personal, which is a term we use to name our engagement with issues of presence, place, acting, trust, rapport, authority and authenticity in the narrative-inquiry process. In taking up Rosaldo’s (1989; 1993) theme the researcher as the researched, the paper challenges researchers to scrutinize contexts, relationships, dispositions, constructs and affiliations that limit research to the parameters of heteronormative assumptions. Here the paper examines issues of researcher legitimacy in relation to researchers’ identity positions, experiences and relationships, and the social responsibility of researchers in relation to situated LGBTQ research. As well, the paper considers the political and professional ramifications of challenges, possibilities and risks associated with mediating LGBTQ research in the intersection of the personal and the cultural.

Transgender Teachers: The Personal, Pedagogical, and Political

ABSTRACT This empirical research study examines the experiences of three male-to-female transgender teachers who transitioned genders, in three different decades (1980s, 1990s, 2000s) while actively teaching within Canadian K–12 public schools. I utilize poststructural storylines to explore how these transgender teachers navigated the personal, pedagogical, and political and the survival and transition strategies they developed to become intelligible within their schools. Their storylines illustrate how they developed counternarratives to challenge traditional discourses of trans invisibility, silence, shame, and fear.

Sexual Minority Teachers as Activist-Educators for Social Justice.

ABSTRACT This empirical research explores the conditions, challenges, and lived experiences of how four diverse Canadian educators transcended heteronormative and gender-normative educational environments to become activist-educators for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer inclusion in their K–12 schools and communities. The co-creation of queer ethnographic counter narratives reveal the impetus and conditions that drove these teachers to become activist-educators in their K–12 schools, their motivations for coming out in heteronormative and gender-normative educational environments, the ensuing backlash they experienced during their efforts at promoting educational and cultural change, their individual processes in becoming critical change agents, and the educational strategies and tactics they developed from years of activist work within their schools.