Indigiqueer

2SLGBTQ+ Expansive Education and Indigiqueering Education

The phrasing 2SLGBTQ+-expansive education emerged during the course of our research and was conceived as a way to push beyond mere inclusive or assimilationist approaches and to acknowledge that anti-oppression needs to work to transform education and normative discourses regarding sexuality and gender and other forms of oppression. The 2SLGBTQ+-expansive language we employ affirms that there are different approaches that need to be mutually supportive in order to create safer schools for 2SLGBTQ+ students—from anti-homophobia/biphobia/transphobia interventions, to inclusive ones that seek to increase representation and visibility, to queering ones that seek to transform schools and understandings about teaching, learning, and sexual and gender diversity. In many ways, the 2SLGBTQ+-expansive approach takes an anti-oppressive queering of education as its objective, seeking to address multiple marginalization and queer notions regarding what teacher education and 2SLGBTQ+ content might involve. At the outset of the RISE Project, the research team identified key areas in previous research that should take prominence in the project and respond to this more expansive approach, including the importance Indigenous Two-Spirit knowledge; addressing the experiences of trans, nonbinary, and gender diverse persons; addressing formal and informal resistance to 2SLGBTQ+ content within school systems; and opportunities and challenges in working within various religious, geographic, and cultural educational contexts.

Indigiqueering approaches to education, an early objective for the RISE Project, emerged from the work and insights of Dr. Alex Wilson and began to be articulated in this form during our research work.

While still in the process of being developed within and alongside the RISE Project, Indigiqueering approaches foreground Indigenous knowledges and understandings of sexuality and gender within the context of education and as being related to the traditions of Indigenous cultures, lands, spiritualities, communities and relationships, and the interconnectedness of them.

Some content is included throughout the curriculum framework on this site, but there is also a dedicated Indigiqueer portal being developed for Indigenous people to add education-related content, share knowledge or understandings, and/or take up questions related to Indigiqueering education. In recognition of the diverse knowledges, understandings, and approaches that may be used by various Indigenous peoples across nations and groups, the Indigiqueer web portal was proposed as a way to amplify the voices, approaches, perspectives, and expertise of Indigenous educators, communities, and 2S and Indigenous LGBTQ+ people. Non-Indigenous educators and allies are welcome to access this content to develop their understanding, learn from the expertise of Indigenous peoples, and to find out more about Indigiqueering education approaches.