Creating Spaces of Belonging - A Conversation with Dr Emily Meadows

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

And so the idea behind this is not to simplify the nuance of people's identities and their intersectional identities, but really to provide a starting off point to look at some of these hierarchical systems of access to safety and belonging so that we can really analyze how's this playing out in our schools.

Hi everyone, my name is Tim Logan and the podcast is brought to you in partnership with Notosh. I'm sure few people would disagree with the idea that schools should be places of safety and belonging for young people. However, it's an important question to consider whether this belonging is something that is a scarce resource where more for some means less for others. Dr. Emily Meadows is doing an amazing job of bringing up these questions for many educators and leaders, in particular thinking about LGBTQ young people. It was fascinating to be able to discuss these topics with Emily on the podcast this this week, and once again, for me, it's vital that we are able to have honest and open discussions about such topics. Otherwise, our institutional habits and biases persist unchallenged. Emily is an LGBTQ+ consultant and published author specializing in international schools. She also teaches for the George Washington University graduate program in LGBT health policy and practice. Thank you for joining, Emily. I've been having some really interesting conversations recently with folks. I know you know Kevin Simpson, you've done some work with him, but I've just, it's been really important to me to delve into some topics that contain quite a lot of discomfort for a lot of international educators and educators globally, the people that listen to the podcast. And I think it's really important that we are able to have conversations about some of those things. And obviously, you know, with your work with LGBTQ young people and educators and leaders, it's more familiar territory for people that they are quite comfortable with. But I think like white supremacy culture with Kevin, the conversation I had with him, there are still parts of it, perhaps the transgender piece, which we'll get on to. There are still areas where people clench up a little bit and are a bit nervous and are treading on eggshells sometimes. And I just, I feel it's really important to kind of create some spaces where we can have some of those honest and open conversations to really get to the heart of the work in terms of creating more spaces of belonging and safety for our young people and inclusive education, but also being able to express our values and our beliefs around what it means to be an educator and those things. So yeah, firstly, thank you so much for joining. I really appreciate meeting you and looking forward to the conversation.

It's my pleasure. Thank you for hosting.

Perhaps we can start off with the broader context in which you do the work. So obviously you're doing a lot of work with individual schools and groups and systems around creating spaces of belonging and safety. But one of the things I heard you talk about is about the systemic inequity in the water that we drink, right? And again, this is something I spoke to Kevin about as well, that idea of just some of these biases are built into the system in which we're working and that we're perhaps not even aware of. Maybe we can start there. If you just talk a little bit about how do you think and talk about that kind of context firstly, in which we're working, before we get into some of the more specifics.

Sure. So inequity is systemic. Of course, it can happen on an individual and interpersonal level, but that's all driven by the bigger systemic matters. And you mentioned earlier discomfort, and I think there is discomfort in acknowledging one's own participation in systems of inequity because we know they're wrong. We can objectively say that they're wrong, and we don't like to think of ourselves as part of something that is harmful and oppressive. And I think that's where a lot of the discomfort can come in, is that little sort of mini identity crisis. We think of ourselves in general as good people. Yeah, on an individual level. So to position ourselves within such close proximity, or even embedded in harmful systems of inequity, it is like a little mini identity crisis. However, I think acknowledging that and knowing that is where the liberation presents itself, because if we can see this as a bigger systemic issue and not something that any one individual today has created, then we have the option to divest as an individual and we can move ourselves closer to our own values and our own beliefs. Of who we are as that, you know, quote unquote, good person, to simplify it. And there, that can be uncomfortable. But on the other side of that, or through that path, is actually— that's where we can find liberation, which is, I think, a worthwhile way to spend our time and our effort and our energy, even if it's hard at times.

Yeah, yeah. No, I appreciate that. And I think even some of the words you've already used, like liberation or inequity, or, you know, there are conversations happening around those kinds of words and what that actually means in practice and in cultural context and different, you know, with other factors, which hopefully we can get onto. But I think, yeah, there's an important need to examine what those things really mean. Because I think sometimes I feel like there's a, there are some words we use because they're part of the discourse, but we're not necessarily really going deeper into what does that actually mean? And actually that's perhaps where it becomes more and more I'm seeing people talking about it as an ideology. This whole, these whole conversations around equity as some kind of an, some kind of a strange oppressive ideology that's being imposed on them, which I, I find a, a really strange pushback narrative. But at the same time, I can also see that there are kind of certain signifiers and words like liberation and equity that we are using, but perhaps not everybody's using them maybe quite in the same way. And maybe some people are using them without really going deep into, well, what does that really mean? I'm working with a young person in a classroom, what am I really talking about? It sounds great, but what does it actually mean in a relationship that I'm building in a school, you know?

Yes. I wanna comment on that idea of DEIJ work or, or, you know, there's lots of acronyms and lots of ways to describe it, but as an ideology and the word you didn't say, but that I thought of as you were describing the pushback. Yeah. Is indoctrination.

Right.

And I've been hearing that word being used a lot more, that DEIJ work is indoctrination. And I want to just address that really head on because that, you know, that is a scary idea that we are indoctrinating children, right? Because we work in education. So our work is with young people in their developmental years. So that is really scary. And if I were— I am a parent. And if I were a parent worried about my child being indoctrinated, I would also sort of be asking some hard questions. And my response to that is excellent. Please ask those questions because DEIJ work is not indoctrination, because indoctrination is when we teach something and ask children to believe it uncritically, ask children to just swallow it whole and not ask the questions.

Yeah.

And right now in my work, which, you know, I specialize in LGBTQ matters, The way that I experienced this hidden gender and sexual curriculum in schools and the way that many children still are, that looks a lot more to me like indoctrination. It is an unquestioned narrative of what it means to be a girl or a boy and what it means to be in a relationship, a romantic or a sexual relationship, and what versions of that are seen as valid or acceptable. And that is being taught in schools right now. Without critical thinking and questioning behind it. So DEIJ work is actually teaching kids to say, wait, does that, does that make sense for me? Does that align with my values? Does that align with what I, the way I want to show up in this world? So it's really the opposite of indoctrination.

And I really appreciate that because I think it's a, I find it a slightly lazy pushback because it's not self-reflective of the kind of false neutrality that some of these universals that have been kind of shared around the world in all sorts of ways, right? Over the last couple of hundred years through, you know, colonialism and all sorts of things, right? There, there's a great phrase by, um, an anthropologist called Krujo, um, from Guyana. He talks about North Atlantic universals, which I really appreciate because I think it's like they are very specifically culturally situated ideas and values. But they have been shared around the world as universal ideas.

And maybe imposed. Imposed.

Yeah. Shared.

Sometimes with violence.

Yeah. Good. Shared is a very generous, overly generous verb to use. Yeah, no, you're right. Imposed in a lot of situations, right? But also shared in other ways, right? Through science and all sorts of ways, which has been really generative. But for me, the work of education is to enable young people to take a step back from those things and say, well, hold on a minute. What's going on here, not to say therefore everything's about power because there's other dynamics as well, but, but there is an important piece for educators to enable young people, yeah, to, to critically reflect on what does it, what does it even mean to be a universal idea? I mean, you know, so there's, there's a lot of big ideas floating around this area, but, and I, I personally completely agree with you that, that actually what the DEIJ work is doing is bringing more lenses of criticality onto some of the things that have just been taken for granted.

The water we were drinking and the air we— There it is.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that's lovely because then I think that also segues with your idea of scarcity and abundant views of belonging, because I wonder whether, so I'd love you to speak to what that means, but I wonder whether the idea, that kind of scarcity mindset around belonging, that more for you is less for me or whatever. Somehow feeds into some of that defensiveness or pushback against these ideas. Cause like, well, if I share more of this, this thing called belonging, I'm gonna have less. And actually, I, I think you bring a really interesting perspective on how that doesn't have to be the case.

Well, and I, I stand on the shoulders of lots of people have come before me.

Yeah.

Have established these concepts, but that, that one in particular, the scarcity and abundance mindset. Really resonates for me. You know, this is part of why I engage, for example, in anti-racism work as a white person. I'm really careful about how I do it. I work really hard to support the efforts of folks of color doing this work and to center those needs. And I see a role for white people in anti-racism work. Yeah, we're big part of the problem. We should be putting in overtime to overturn these systems. And I would be disingenuous if I said all of that work is done sort of in service of folks of color. For me, I truly believe that my liberation is also bound up in the liberation of my, my colleagues and my friends and my community of color. So I don't see it as a conflict of interest with my own white privilege. I really do believe that these systems are harmful to all of us, even though some of us benefit in some ways and are harmed less than others. And the, the idea of belonging not being a pie, you know, we can have unlimited belonging. And what a better world to live in rather than trying to fight over scraps of one pie, what if we put in a little bit of work to bake more pies? And, and you know what, pies of different flavors and gluten-free pies and vegan pies and pies that take into consideration people's allergies. And you know what, somebody else might just not be into sugar. And so we're going to do for them like a quiche or like this. I realize I'm taking this metaphor a bit too far, but, but wouldn't you rather eat at that table?

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. But that, that table also contains by definition people with different tastes for different pies, right? And, and some of the work I think is about like, how do we hold space for that curiosity or trying to understand difference? Because this is not about dissolving difference and for everyone to be the same and everyone to be as kind of universally accepting and in this kind of strange mediocre soup of everyone's the same because they're not. The difference is what's so important and valuable, I think, um, at a very deep level actually, I think. But it is how do you, how do you enable opportunities for that to be done in a really positive and generative way, held together, you know, people to be sitting together at that table together, chatting and eating together all the different pies together in a way that actually they really maybe fundamentally disagree about some pretty profound things, but that's okay.

Well, to a certain extent, yes. So in my work with schools, I enter into it with a goal of building safety and belonging for all school community members.

Yeah.

And my purpose there is to be effective. And so I do think we have to create some boundaries around discussions as well so that there is actual safety for everyone. So I would not— can I take this pie metaphor a little bit further? I'm just Maybe I'm just hungry, but—

Go with it.

I'm not interested in a table where we are discussing whether or not someone is entitled to eat at the table. Someone might believe fundamentally that another human being is less worthy to be at the table than them. That might be their belief, but I don't think schools need to platform that conversation. I don't think schools need to provide opportunities for debate about people's humanity. And so yes, people might come in with that. And we're going to— I recommend that schools take a firm stance and say this table's for everyone, everyone gets pie. Now, that being said, we are not shaming and judging people for the water that they were given to drink and the air that they were given to breathe. Going back to another metaphor, we are inviting people into conversation and supporting them to process some of their thinking., but not at the expense, like someone's learning opportunity should not come at the expense of another person's safety or belonging.

Yeah. No, I think that's really valuable. I, I heard somebody, Marie Baptiste, who's coming on the podcast soon, Indigenous scholar. She talks about epistemic exploitation that there's like someone's actually, yes, using, exploiting someone else for their own learning opportunity. And that's kind of what you're speaking about there, I think, which is, is really an interesting, yeah, I agree. And actually that's one of the things I really appreciated about learning about your work is starting with the safety. Because I think when you then talk about the precursors to belonging, safety is the primary one, right? Yes, we'll get in, there's some other things which are important, but nothing happens without that first step of safety, right? Could perhaps you could say more about what that, what that means? What does safety actually mean in that sense?

It's the absolute lowest bar that we need to set for ourselves. If we are welcoming children, someone's most precious, loved little person in the world, into our care, the very lowest bar that we need to set for ourselves is just basic safety. And that means physical safety and emotional safety. And we know that emotional trauma can sometimes be at least as hard, if not harder, to heal from than physical trauma. So we need to take that seriously and in my work with schools, I actually spend a lot of time with safeguarding teams, designated safeguarding leads, and those working in the safeguarding space, because the damage and the harm that can be done from emotional abuse and trauma, it needs to be taken just as seriously as all the other safeguarding precautions that we've got in our handbooks. So that is something that, that has been overlooked, and it more and more is becoming understood as an important part of school's basic responsibilities.

And if I could then, from what I've understood also about your work is that that's the role, or that's partially the role for policy and the idea that the policy should actually, it transcends individuals' own perspectives and actually institutionalizes some things which are just You know, non-negotiable.

You really did read my work.

I really did.

I'm very impressed. Yes, precisely. So this ties back to two other things that you've already sort of asked. One, again, to link back to the comfort. While this work can be uncomfortable, and I acknowledge that, that's not the point for me, but I just, I always normalize that for my clients that might come up. Yeah, I also tried to reframe it in the sense of if this feels uncomfortable for you as a, let's say, school administrator or a professional educator, an adult who is trained and is paid to be here, if it's uncomfortable for you to look at and to start to engage with in the hopes of changing think how extraordinarily uncomfortable it is for the children who are trying to navigate a system that was built to exclude them. And I think that can help when people start to feel that discomfort bubble up, is sure, it's real, and I don't want to take away from that. We can acknowledge it, we can see it, we can, we can even talk to it. And if that is the experience of a head of school, for example, just think of that 12-year-old trans kid trying to navigate the bathrooms, right? So much more discomfort. So it really is our responsibility as the adults in the building to say, what do we need to do so that that child can feel safe and a sense of belonging every day on our campus? And so that goes into the policy and practices, which is, you know, when we talk about liberation, It's a big concept. You could probably do a multi-part series of podcasts on just what it means, and you might get 100 different answers if you interview 100 different people. Yeah. When I work with schools, I am also looking at very practical, applied, concrete means of building safety, belonging, and liberation for the school. And one of those that I do really leverage is this idea of policy. Because international schools, we have high turnover.

It's true.

And sometimes it's one individual DEIJ coordinator leading all the work. I know plenty who are really carrying that work almost alone in certain schools. And one, that's completely unfair, and two, it is not sustainable and it's not going to endure as soon as that person leaves. There's a very high risk that the work will just evaporate. And so it's temporary. So what I prefer to do is for the sake of all school community members to embed best practices into a non-negotiable policy. And the purpose of that, first and foremost, is safety and belonging for all people. With, in my field, LGBTQ people have historically been denied that access. So correcting that historical norm. And again, going back to this our liberation is bound up. That kind of work, I truly believe, benefits everybody in a school. So when we say, for example, at our school we protect the rights of all students to be in this community without experiencing harassment on the basis of— you can fill in a lot of things there, but let's go ahead with actual or perceived gender or sexual identity. This of course protects LGBTQ people explicitly, and there are a lot of straight kids who get teased for not fitting into a very narrow pink-blue binary. A lot of boys who are cisgender, they identify as a boy, they were assigned male at birth, and they might even be straight, and they still get teased or bullied or excluded for somehow not living up to a very narrow idea of masculinity. So when we say, look, we don't tolerate that at our school, at our school we believe in a range of gender identity and expression, and we wanna honor that and reflect that back positively to our community members, that benefits everyone. And when it's in policy, then the additional benefit is that a school is no longer placing the burden of the decision-making on one individual person's shoulders. I've worked with a lot of principals and heads of school who call me and go, this is on my desk right now. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. And whichever decision they make, it's really going to look like their personal decision. Yeah, that's a lot of pressure. It's not fair and it's not best practice. So we need to take that burden off of one or two people and make that an institutional responsibility and commitment. And then wherever possible, I know that legality prevents certain aspects of best practice in certain parts of the world, but wherever possible, make that transparent for your community. Sure, there might be some people who say that doesn't align with what I believe, but my faith in humanity tells me more and more people will be looking for this. And a school that says, here's what we do and here's what we value, is going to attract employees who also want to contribute to that kind of community. It's going to attract families who want to be part of that kind of community, and it's going to build something I think more beautiful than sort of trying to stay, take some sort of neutral stance, which is really just the main maintenance of the status quo.

Yeah. No, that's, that's interesting. There's a lot there that's really interesting. I mean, a lot of what you're talking to there is again, this kind of, if we adopt a scarcity view of what belonging is, then we, you know, there is only so much for everybody to go around. But actually if you take it in a more abundant sense, you are creating spaces, like you say, where people can show up in any number of nuanced ways because you're cre— you're creating a space that is saying, you know, humanity is diverse and abundant. And the way that we show up, that freedom of expression around, um, obviously there are protected characteristics, but it could be about anyth— anything. The way that we show up is encouraged, right? In those really nuanced ways so that you can be confident that you are safe and free from discrimination around any of those things. And so I think, yeah, so there's something there about the abundance, but also what you were saying, I'd love to go back to the precursors for belonging because you, as you embed the safety, like you say, it's the lowest bar, it's like the first step. And yes, totally. We need to embed that in a robust policy mechanism that transcends individuals, but that's still not belonging, right? In, in the way that you, I understand you framed it, it's like there's, there's safety and belonging and the belonging, like you say, the safety is one of the precursors too. Because then perhaps you could talk about what are those other precursors to get then towards a culture of belonging somehow, which is, which can't be mandated by policy, right?

Yeah, it cannot be mandated by policy, although we can put in some pretty specific measures to encourage that sense of safety. So to get to belonging, let's work it backward in a little chain. So belonging is the goal. Before we can feel as people that we belong, we need to feel a sense of connection to other people and a true sense of connection that they see me, my whole self, right? So international school kids— I grew up in international school, kids, I can speak from personal experience and I see it all the time— we're pretty good at fitting in, right? We have a lot of practice moving into new spaces that we might be unfamiliar with. Glancing around, figuring out what are the norms here and what do I need to do to make new friends or to, you know, just, just to fit in. And that's a— it can be a helpful skill. I think it's worth knowing how to do that in some situations. But to really feel a sense of belonging, it's not about fitting in. It's about being seen truly for who you are and feeling that deep sense of connection to other people. And who they truly are. That is like, that is the beauty of humanity. And in order to get to that connection, in order to let people see our whole selves, I'm taking the chain back. So we've got belonging, we're going backwards. To have belonging, to experience belonging, we need connection. Yeah. Before we can experience connection, let's take it back another link in the chain, which is vulnerability. If you're going to see my whole self and I'm going to feel deeply connected to you and who you are, we need to be able to be vulnerable. We need to be able to show our whole selves, all the parts. And that is extremely vulnerable because, well, of course, there are parts of us that we like less. There are parts of us that we're less proud of. There are parts of us that society has told us are less worthy. And so those are the ones when we're, we're working to fit in. Those are the ones we usually get really good at masking, so good that we might not even know we're doing it. So to get to that sense of connection, we first have to be able to take off the mask, masks, probably plural for many of us.

Yeah.

And actually be vulnerable with other people. And then going back one last link in the chain, anyway, the chain the way I think of it is back to that beginning piece, which is the safety. If we do not feel safe, then we will not allow ourselves to be vulnerable, nor should we. I mean, I'm not asking anyone to do it.

Right. No, exactly. I mean, that's high risk, right?

Yeah. High risk, you know, don't put yourself in that position if you don't want to. So we need the safety in order to feel vulnerable, to, to make ourselves vulnerable. And then only through that vulnerability can we experience the true human connection that, you know, we're, we're wired to want. And only with that connection then will we have the belonging. So I kind of like to hit both ends of that, that chain.

No, I love that. It, it really tells a great story about the whole thing. But I think I would just to kind of repeat, I personally feel that those vulnerability, connection, and belonging almost by definition can't be mandated by policy. And that's where some of the conversation about ideology comes back in because they say, well, you are forcing me to be connected with this person that I don't know or don't like or whatever. But that's not what's going on. There is a, the policy is really important for holding spaces. Mm-hmm. For safety and then to enable a culture to develop that is around vulnerability, connection, and belonging. But that has to come from human relationship, right?

Right. All we can do as a school is set the stage, right? So we set the stage, and our work really lies in that safety. And so, you know, thinking specifically around LGBTQ matters, what can a school do? A school can't say, come and be vulnerable and connect, and then you'll belong. Exactly. You know, no one's going to do that just because someone has told them to. But what we can do is looking back to where that chain starts, we can address safety. And now we've got quite a robust body of research that tells us, first of all, that LGBTQ kids are not as safe as their cisgender heterosexual peers. That's really well established in the research. And LGBTQ kids are at much higher risk of a number of negative outcomes, including depression, anxiety, suicidality, self-harm, substance use and dependency, disordered eating. I mean, honestly, it goes on. And this is not one individual study. This is now over decades across geography, across religion, across race and culture. We can see this. And I like to make sure that I offer that in context by saying certainly not every LGBTQ child is going to experience these outcomes. It's not an inevitability. And of course, straight kids get depressed too. Yeah. However, what we can see is a significant discrepancy in the rate of these negative outcomes. And that's where I think it ties so closely to the safety aspect. You know, if— and what we also know, this is not— I don't know if this is a silver lining, but it's helpful to know is that we can see again in the research, ways to improve that rate of risk for queer children. So I use LGBTQ and queer sort of interchangeably. Queer is one syllable, so I quite like that. And also just the reclamation of the word. But we can see again from the research protective factors that we, we call them, that actually reduce those risks for queer kids. And the three groups that are most influential in bringing down those rates of risk are, are the peer group, especially after around age 11, 12, the peer group becomes really influential in risk. And then a second group that's very influential is parents and family. So an affirming family can dramatically reduce a child's, an LGBTQ child's risk of negative outcomes. And then the third one, of course, where, where we really focus is the schools and we can see specific protective factors. So it's not just a walking in with a you know, teachers who believe in their hearts that queer kids are great, that's not necessarily super helpful because it's so internal. I mean, you know, we need to be able to see it. But we can do things, for example, like I mentioned earlier, in terms of the safeguarding work. And we can also do things really specifically around access to gender-affirming spaces like bathrooms, change rooms, sports teams, uniforms. These kinds of things are not sort of superficial feel-good band-aids. These things can make an actual difference in a child's life.

Yeah.

And even save a child's life. And that, again, we have that in the research. So that's the kind of thing that I advocate for schools to embed in policy, these rights and protections that can really build up that safety piece so that then there is space for kids to make themselves vulnerable. Yeah. And experience full on.

Yeah. Fantastic. So I really appreciate that because I think one of the things that I feel like you're offering really powerfully are different ways of thinking about these complex questions, right? They are, they contain discomfort, all the things we've said for many people, but they're also, they're complex and in different, particularly in different cultural contexts in international schools, they're even more complex. And so for example, the ethical framework that you've published in the Teacher College Record I think is really useful with the different, the 4 lenses where you're, you know, inviting people to look at it from the professional, cultural, legal, and then safety, health and safety lens, which we've spoken about. So I'd say that was really useful framing. But then additionally, you've got this amazing wheel of safety and belonging that you've also, you know, again, drawing on other people's work, which is important to acknowledge, but that I know Matthew Savage, a great friend and previous podcast guest published it online recently. Again, just some commentary about it because it's, it's a really powerful tool in a way, framing that people can use to start some of these conversations around this. So perhaps could you just say a little bit about the Wheel of Safety and Belonging, how you feel that can be helpful? And one of the comments you made in your piece about it was that it supports complex reflection and conversation. And I think that's really important. To— I'd love to get onto that particular piece because I think it's not about the tool or the boxes on the tool, it's about the conversation that arises when you start inviting people to use the tool somehow.

Yeah, so the wheel is something that I designed out of my own sort of need. I think I wanted something that really reflected what I was seeing in international schools. So some of the other wheels that have been done before, which are really inspiring, definitely where I got my inspiration, were published in the context of that author and don't always translate to the international school community. While every international school will have its own nuanced cultural context, there are some universals that I think it's— I think we can acknowledge, and I think we need to acknowledge in order to correct them. Anti-Blackness is universal. Even in countries that are predominantly Black, and certainly in our international schools, because go to any international school in a country that is predominantly Black, you will not see the leadership and the people in charge are not going to reflect the local population. And that is a symptom of universal anti-Blackness in our schools. We need to be able to look at that and talk about that in order to correct it. Anti-LGBTQ sentiments are also universal. I live in the Netherlands. It is a country that has historically offered greater, relatively greater rights and protections for queer people. And there is still plenty of anti-LGBTQ sentiment in our schools here. So naming that and acknowledging that is unpleasant, of course, if, if it's new, if it's new to you. But in order to be part of the solution, we really have to be able to talk about it. And so the idea behind this tool is not, not to simplify the nuance of people's identities and their intersectional identities, right? But really to provide a platform or a starting off point to look at some of these universalisms or hierarchical systems of access to safety and belonging so that we can really analyze how is this playing out in our school and what can we do to be part of the solution? How can we divest from the systems that are creating this disparity in access. That's really my hope with this wheel, not to create division, but to create a shared sense of agency to move toward what we say we value. And I think, I think we do all deep down value that belonging for everyone. If we can move past the fear and that scarcity mindset, going back to the pies, it really is a nice— for all of us, right? It doesn't hurt me for my neighbor to also get a pie.

Yeah. So no, I, I, I'd really encourage people to look at it cuz I mean, just you obviously, there's a huge amount of nuance in the, the different characteristics that you've put around the wheel. One of the things that comes up for me around it is there's a question that Nora, I don't know if you know Nora Bateson's work, but I do some work with her and one of the questions she asks is, who can I be when I'm with you? Which I think is a really powerful question because there's something about, I mean, you said something earlier about, you know, your true self, your true, or, you know, the person who you are, right? And I sometimes struggle with that idea because who I am, who I can be when I'm with my, my mom, for example, is some, is not wholly different, but is somewhat different to who I can be when I'm with, when I'm with my own children or with, when I'm with my friends out in different contexts, or when, how I am professionally, there's an interesting movement and dynamic. There's something that's core, and then there's other parts which, which move in context. And, and I do wonder whether sometimes that's some of the pushback that people, it's like, I don't wanna be put into a particular box that I'm in that box all the time. Yes. Right. It's like, cuz actually, and, and obviously some of the characteristics here, like Passport, Right. My passport doesn't change depending on context. That's not that it can't change, cuz I'm hoping to get French citizenship soon. But my, my point, my point is that obviously some of them are more, yeah, some of them are more contextual and relational than others. And I think that's, I don't know, I think that's an important thing. And I think Matthew, some of Matthew's reflections were similar in, you know, in, in one context, even my, my skin color for some people of color that may be relative to other people you are around based on the context you are in.

Mm-hmm.

Whereas if you're in a, in a very white context, so I don't know, there's something there for me about, and that, that's why I appreciate what you said about complexity of the conversations that we then need to have, is that this is not about which box you're in now and forever somehow.

Well, and, and the, the characteristics that are portrayed on the wheel tend to be ones that are really rooted to the deep part of our identity. So it's not like sort of our hobbies and, you know, what—

no, sure.

It does tend to be characteristics that are very difficult, if not impossible, to change. That's the aspect of identity that I, I'm most interested in, and that those are the parts that I also think are, you know, when I feel really connected to someone, it's, it's because I've let them see all those parts of me.

Yeah.

And I agree with you what you're saying about— you didn't use this word, but the word that comes to mind is like salience. So when I walk into a room of like all men, my gender as a woman feels far more salient.

Right. Yeah. No, that's powerful. Yeah.

Right. So, and that is also when I start to ask myself those questions. Who can I be in this room?

Yeah.

What am I safe bringing into this room? How vulnerable can I be with regards to my gender? And, you know, what we'd really like is for kids to be able to feel that they can— not that they have to, you know, lay their heart out every single day, all day long at school, but that they feel that they have options. They feel that they have places to be their whole selves and to feel seen and to connect on that really deep level, because those are the relationships that— those are the relationships we want, right?

Yeah. No, absolutely. And I suppose The other question that comes to mind, which is that I really wanted to ask you about, because the, the conversation around supporting belonging for transgender young people in schools is, I think, one of the most challenging and sensitive. And one of the questions in relation to the wheel that that brings up for me is how— so if you take, you know, you put in the, the issue of gender-neutral bathrooms, that's often one that gets raised, right, in this context. And sometimes there is a a question around if one aspect of the wheel and another aspect of the wheel, or one aspect of the identity of some people in the community is actually, they feel less safe because of the conversations with one another aspect of another identity also in your community. And so that question of gender-neutral bathrooms, do the girls and women feel more vulnerable? So there's conversations around that, which I think make it I don't know whether you would agree, but I feel like that's one of the reasons why it's more of a challenging conversation to have for people because it becomes even more layered and nuanced. So yeah, I don't know. I mean, the broader question there is how are you supporting school leaders and schools around, with and for transgender young people?

Well, I can get specific. Should we talk about toilets for a minute?

Yeah, do it.

I love talking about toilets.

I'm sure it comes up a lot.

I think about bathrooms all the time. So the question that I do get, I think you're, you're saying, is, you know, if somebody, let's say because of their gender or their religion, doesn't want to go to the bathroom in a space next to a trans person, how do we ensure that we're respecting the identity of everyone and creating space for everyone? So I think there's a couple of different, you know, we can think about that big in terms of the water we're drinking and the air we're breathing. You've been taught that this aspect of a person is so different from you that even peeing next to them is unthinkable, right? So just that's a bigger mindset to overturn. And it happens in small ways day in, day out with extraordinary teachers in the classroom. A more practical, like, what are we going to do today kind of solution is ideally my favorite bathrooms are universal bathrooms that sort of like— think about the bathrooms that you use in your home or on an airplane. We don't sort of look around on the airplane for the women's restroom, we just, we just go to the bathroom because it's floor-to-ceiling privacy. It does not matter who is standing on the other side of that door. We're not concerned about their gender because they're not in there with us, right? And so universal bathrooms in unisex schools are fantastic because people of any gender can use any stall, so that eliminates, you know, the fear. They're also great for other reasons. So most people, when they go to the bathroom, really like to have privacy. And so there are a number of kids who are like, this is great, I can go to the bathroom. I mean, Tim Logan, you asked me about bathrooms. I'm gonna— so kids are like, I don't want anyone to hear me pooping. 'Right, I gotta poop at school. I don't want anyone to listen to this.' Yeah, floor-to-ceiling bathrooms, they can, you know, a little privacy while, while they poop. I think everyone likes that.

Absolutely.

I've heard from kids who pee standing up— this is— I'm going to talk about pooping for one more time. Kids who pee standing up have told me when they go into what has been marked as the boys' bathroom and they go into a stall instead of using the urinal, Also, there's sort of like, this is some, oh, what do you know, what's going on there? Why aren't you using the urinal? Like, there's a lot of stuff that we shouldn't— kids shouldn't have to worry about. They've got a lot of things on their plate. Why worry about this?

Yeah.

The other nice thing is certain bathroom spaces tend to be more crowded than others. If it's a universal bathroom, you just use the first available one. It doesn't matter if you're gender. And then the last— this is the, the last of my soapbox on these, but The last thing is if they are designed really well, what happens is they would be— the bathroom door itself could be very visible because again, you're not looking into it, and the common areas like the handwashing stations could be extremely visible. What that does is it takes away the closed-door spaces that currently, for safeguarding reasons, are not supervised. We don't have grown-ups going into the child's bathroom, and so what's happening in there? Bullying, smoking, vaping, sex. I don't know, we don't know, we're not in there. So when we make the universal design and handwashing stations are more visible, then you don't have kids sort of hiding out in these unsupervised spaces potentially getting hurt. Yeah, that's a big-term project, that is a renovation project. But in the meantime, to answer your question, for schools who are like, we need this today, we need something today, and we've got kids saying, I don't want to pee next to the trans kid. One, most kids are not saying they don't want to pee next to the trans kid. It's kids' parents who are saying, we're afraid of our kid peeing next to the trans kid. Most kids actually are fine with it. But if they're not and they really don't want to pee in the same space as a trans person, we do not other the trans person. We do not exclude them from gender-affirming spaces. We should have at least a few single stall bathrooms, even if your whole school isn't single stall. There should be some, a few single stall bathrooms that anyone can use, including trans kids, maybe like non-binary kids who don't actually want to pick like the boys or the girls. They might prefer that space. Or the kid who says, I can't bear the thought of peeing next to someone whose gender is somehow different than mine. They can go in there and they can pee in there, right? Rather than othering and excluding and isolating the child who is actually the most vulnerable in a bathroom, which is the trans child.

Yeah, thank you for that. I mean, it gets really specific, but I think that's, that's a really good example of— because we talked a lot about policy earlier, and you can't write policy too generally. I mean, it has to get pretty specific about certain things. So you have to do the work to think about these things. And that's why I think your role is so useful and important that you can advise people on what some of those things and the ideas that they haven't thought of. Because I, the other thing that comes up for me a lot in relation to quite a lot of issues around education and learning is the scale at which we've built these institutions. Because as you say, you bring it back to down to your house, you know, I'm not looking for the male bathroom or the female, you know, it's just where's the bathroom. And I, I, I think I've not, never thought about your example of a, the airplane. I think that's a really good one, but I think this, if we are more in community, in smaller communities, a lot of these kind of more divisive kind of problems of scale don't come up because they're just, you're living at much more of a human and relational level of scale in terms of, you know, a smaller community. That's, I'm not saying that that's a practical or realistic kind of description about how things actually are, cuz you've gotta work with the situation you're in and the, the reality of the size of the school that you've got and the buildings that you've got and the bathrooms that are already there as a legacy. But I see part of the problem, the need for policy comes when you are working at a scale at which it's much more difficult to just be relational in the way that you navigate. You've got to set some really important ground rules for the, for the bigger context.

Well, part of why it's not happening maybe on the same, the, the exclusion isn't happening on the same way, a smaller scale, is that people go, well, it's Tim, like, it's just Tim, right? Exactly. I'm not worried about where Tim goes to the bathroom. Like, it's just Tim. I'm not afraid of Tim. Tim is just going to the bathroom. So LGBTQ people, we have been really villainized, and there's a lot of fear sort of around the hypothetical queer person who's going to come into your bathroom or your change room or whatever and assault you. The research is showing us that that is absolutely not what's going on. But there is, it's a very longstanding historical narrative. And so we queer people, we look like, we don't look like real people because our stories have not been told in a human way. And so part of the change is, yeah, we're just gonna change the bathrooms. We need to do that. And we are working to help kids critically think about, is that person who, you know, teaches my class or is in my class or is the parent of someone in my class, are they actually scary because they're queer? Or, or maybe that's, maybe that's a myth that I've been indoctrinated with, right? And then the other thing about the big scale— harder, yes, also more impactful. So I see it as an opportunity, right? If we can do that, then we can really have an impact, a positive impact on so many more people. And that is why I really, I feel so grateful to be able to do this work in schools. Yeah. Schools are impactful and if we can, if we can make those big changes for kids, we're doing good work.

Amazing. Yeah, no, I completely agree. And that there's something there about humanizing and I've like been thinking about humanizing in lots of other contexts, but really who is the person that I'm engaging with? Not about categories and that, and again, I, I would reflect sometimes some of this dialogue around identity creates different categories, but it's still the conversation about categories and actually I'm not I really wanna get to the person, right? We want, we want context that allow people to get that connection and belonging that is about getting to the person and relating as people, as humans together in community. That's not to say that sometimes the categories and the labels aren't important to highlight and excavate some of the biases that have been in, are in the water where we started, right? And so I think, you know, there's a role for it, but I do think that's some of the The challenge around these conversations is ultimately really the abundance and all of the, the belonging stuff for me is about some really core human things about love and relationship and belonging between, you know, Emily and Tim and, you know, and others. It's not about which category are you in which, and how do I relate to your category? Because that's a depersonalizing, which somehow sometimes can create more barriers and myths. That don't necessarily create relational possibility.

If someone can't see my gender, or if they can't see my sexual identity, like if they can't see me as queer, I don't know that I can— like, there will always be a limit to how close I can feel to them.

Yeah, it's an interesting question, isn't it? Because it's like, I'm not sure. I mean, I can't comment from lived experience, but I think—

well, your categories, whatever.

No, no, no, I can, but in terms of queer experience. I can't comment from that place, but I, yeah. What are the grounds of connection? Like you talked about connection towards belonging, like what are the grounds of connection? Is it, I don't know, there's a, there's a kind of an acceptance of who you are and the way that you choose to be in this world and the things that you value that I can connect with, but, but doesn't necessarily mean I have to, I am not necessarily the same as you. I don't have to share all of those. Values and dispositions towards the world or ways of showing up in the world. I just, I don't know, there's something about how do I, where does the connection actually come from? Is it, I don't know, it's an interesting question.

Like you show me your ways, right? You show me your categories. I mean, of course we don't want to reduce humans to a collection of categories, but, but you, you let me see that. And, and if it's something we connect on and we're the same on, there's that connection is sometimes easier, but if it's something that's different, you making the time to help me see that part of you is also rich soil for deep connection.

Yeah, no, it's true. And I mean, shared experience is a, is a hugely powerful ground for connection, right? And that shared experience may be being part of the same sports team or part of the same school, or, you know, it doesn't, have to necessarily— it can be an experience of being together. It doesn't necessarily have to be an experience of who I am as a, as a person and who I identify as. Like, it can be those things, but it can also be shared context and shared experience.

And I still think like that those really deep parts of our identity are, are so critical in the true human connection. So maybe the shared experience is you're letting me see your whole self and I'm letting you see my whole self and we're sharing that experience, right? And maybe it happens while we're playing sports or it happens while we're— yeah, you know, we're not just sitting in a room doing that, but, but that, that seeing one's feeling safe enough to show one's whole self and then receiving someone else. That's, that's it, Tim. That's it. We figured it out. That's the meaning of life. What else is there?

I love it. And it comes back to what you were saying earlier about masks. And Matthew talks about masks and I think there's something, yeah, I mean, if we, we are in a space where we have to wear lots of masks to fit in, as you were talking about fitting in earlier, then clearly there's gonna be far too many barriers towards connection. And I, at, at the root of it, I really appreciate what you're saying that this is actually, these make for more generative human environments for everybody. Then it's not just about, you know, sharing more of the scarce amount of belonging, it's, there's a more human environment where everybody can show up in their nuanced fullness. So yeah, love it. Thank you so much. Really, really interesting conversation and I so appreciate all the work you're doing.

Thank you, Tim. I appreciate the really thoughtful questions and conversation and, and the work that you're doing to platform voices like Kevin Simpson and, and others who are also doing this work in our schools.

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