(Book Review) Fierce, Fabulous and Fluid: How Trans High School Students Work at Gender Nonconformity
Year: 2026
Type: book-review
Abstract: As my colleague Dr. Sabine Lebel often laments, "shit is dire."This lamentation proves correct as we look at the world around us (see for example: increasing genocides, ecocides, and fascism), and it is also true in the context of Canadian schools.Disturbingly, trans and gender-nonconforming young people have been the focus of transphobic policy making in Canadian schools.In Alberta, policies emerging in 2024 include requiring parents to opt students into any lessons on sex education, sexual orientation, or gender identity, while also restricting youth under 17 from accessing gender-affirming healthcare (Bellefontaine, 2024).In Saskatchewan, students under 16 now need parental consent before teachers and schools can use their chosen names and pronouns (Quon & Warwick, 2023).In New Brunswick, former-Premier Blaine Higgs' Conservative government has left a damaging legacy of queerphobic and gender-based violence, including the rollback of critical protections for 2SLGBTQIA+ students, such as weakening Policy 713, which had previously upheld the rights and safety of these students in the public school system (see also: Burkholder & Keehn, 2024).Structural problems abound, and yet gender-nonconforming young people like the youth featured in LJ Slovin's Fierce, Fabulous and Fluid resist categorization, fight back, act up, write "gaymances" (p.1), withdraw, make memes, make their own spaces, and even find joy even in Canadian high
Author: Casey Burkholder
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7146996389
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