1. Teaching Transgender
Talking about the Silent
“T”
Morgan Ray
maray@student.umass.edu

2. Section 2 - Gender
Introduction
Provides various documents
listing identity words and
definitions
Basic information on how to be
an Ally
Basic information about the
state of trans youth

3. Section 3 - Student
Resources
Resources for questioning youth
Resources for youth’s friends
Resources for youth’s families
Resources for youth considering
transition

4. Section 4 - Teacher
Resources
Contextualizing homophobia in
schools
Concrete ideas for improving the
classroom, school, and school system
Models and suggestions for
implementing a Safe Schools program
or policy, a Gay/Straight Alliance, and
creating your own inclusive
curriculum

5. Section 5 - English
Talking Back
Targeting Transgender
Oh Baby
Diary of a Drag Queen
Crossing

6. Section 5 - Science
Of Genes and Gender
Dueling Dualisms
Toward a Theory of
Gender
Trapped in the Body of a
Man

7. Section 5 - Social
Studies
 Romancing Kinship
 On Locations
 The Semiotics of Transgendered
Sexual Identity
 The Third Sex
 Passing in India
 Bhartia Hijro Ka Dharma
 As Repression Eases, More Iranians
Change Their Sex
 The Birth of Hate Crimes

8. Section 5 - History
An Aztec Two-Spirit Cosmology
The Manly Woman
A History of Gender Variance in
Pre-20th Century
The Third Gender in 20th Century
America
Jack’s Last Years
1960’s Revisited
Christine Jorgensen, 62, is Dead

9. Section 5 - Current
Events
2 Guilty of the Murder in Death of a
Transgender Teenager
A Victory for Boston’s Transgender
Population
Transsexuals in Women’s Prisons
An Employee Hired as a Man, Became
a Woman
Firm Offers Transgender Protections
Sexuality, Drugs and the Ideal of
Sport

10. Section 6 - Tool
Kits
Offer various organizations
ideas for working with
students
Provides extended further
reading lists
Addresses a variety of
classroom concerns

11. Section 7 - Gallery
 Letters written by past and present high
school students who did or do identify
as transgender
 Place the letters up around the room,
allow participants to wander and take
them in
 Not ideal for students, however, can be
a powerful site of personal reflection or
education of other teachers

12. What makes effective
supplemental curriculum?
•
What pronouns are used to described the transgender or gender variant person? Are
these the same pronouns the person would chose to use for his/her/hirself?
•
Does the material eroticize the transgender person or identity?
•
Does the material pathologize the transgender person or identity?
•
Does the material exoticize cultures that are accepting of transgender and gender
variant identities?
•
Does the material normalize gender variance?
•
What assumptions are presented by the material about the transgender or gender
variant person?
•
What assumptions are your students likely to make about transgender or gender
variant person based on the material? For example:
o That all transpeople are white?
o That all transpeople are middle class?
o That all transpeople are transitioning?
o That all transpeople are unhappy?
•
Does the literature evoke a pity response towards the transgender or gender variant
person?
•
In what context are you presenting the material?
•
Are you prepared to answer questions your students may have about transgender or
•
gender variant issues, or direct them to the appropriate resources?