Kerry Robinson

‘Difficult citizenship’: The precarious relationships between childhood, sexuality and access to knowledge

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Date: 06-2012

DOI: 10.1177/1363460712436469

Abstract: In this discussion children’s difficult citizenship is examined within the contentious context of children being considered sexual citizens. The relationship of childhood to sexuality is fraught with difficulties, controversies, and complexities it is one openly and officially based on exclusion, with children constituted as requiring protection from sexuality, considered an ‘adults’ only’ domain, dangerous to children. Hegemonic discourses of childhood and innocence are examined in the ways in which they have been utilized to strictly regulate children’s access to knowledge of sexuality and to deny their relevance and access to sexual citizenship. Utilizing a Foucaultian theoretical framework, it is argued that the regulation of children’s access to knowledge of sexuality is primarily linked to the ways in which childhood and innocence are utilized as a means through which the ‘good’ heteronormative adult citizenship subject is constituted and governed. Children’s education is foundational in the development of the heteronormative good future citizen and sexual citizen subject. Through institutions such as schooling, adults have heavily regulated children’s education and access to information, strictly defining what knowledge children should and should not be privy to. A focus is given to Australian primary schooling and pre-school education. Moral panic is regularly mobilized to reinforce this regulation when the boundaries of what is perceived to be ‘appropriate’ knowledge for children are transgressed. It is argued that this regulation has critical implications for children’s early education, their increased vulnerabilities, and for their health and well-being, not just in their childhood but throughout their lives.

Children’s Gendered and Sexual Cultures: Desiring and Regulating Recognition through Life Markers of Marriage, Love and Relationships

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK

Date: 2015

DOI: 10.1057/9781137353399_11

Gender diversity among ‘boys’ in Papua New Guinea: Memories of sameness and difference in early childhood

Publisher: Wiley

Date: 20-07-2020

DOI: 10.1111/CHSO.12408

Reinforcing or Disrupting Gender Affirmation: The Impact of Cancer on Transgender Embodiment and Identity

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 23-01-2023

DOI: 10.1007/S10508-023-02530-9

Abstract: There is a pressing need for greater understanding and focus on cancer survivorship and informal cancer caring of trans people (binary and non-binary), across tumor types, to inform culturally safe trans inclusive cancer information and care. This qualitative study, part of the mixed methods Out with Cancer project, examined experiences of trans embodiment and identity after cancer diagnosis and treatment. We drew on open-ended survey responses from 63 trans cancer survivors and 23 trans cancer carers, as well as interviews and a photo-elicitation activity with a subset of 22 participants (15 cancer survivors, 7 cancer carers). Reflexive thematic analysis identified three themes: Cancer enhances trans embodiment, through experiences of gender euphoria following cancer treatment, and acceleration of decisions about gender affirmation cancer erases or inhibits gender affirmation trans embodiment is invisible or pathologized in cancer care. These findings demonstrate that trans embodiment and identity, as well as the process of gender affirmation, may be disrupted by cancer or informal cancer caring. Conversely, cancer and cancer treatment can positively impact the embodied identity and lives of trans people, despite the anxiety and strain of negotiating medical procedures. However, if healthcare professionals operate within a cis-heteronormative framework and do not understand the meaning of embodied change following cancer treatment for trans in iduals, these positive benefits may not be realized.

Rethinking School Violence

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK

Date: 2012

DOI: 10.1057/9781137015211

Docile Bodies and Heteronormative Moral Subjects: Constructing the Child and Sexual Knowledge in Schooling

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Date: 02-10-2008

DOI: 10.1007/S12119-008-9037-7

'What are We Doing this For?' Dealing with Lesbian and Gay Issues in Teacher Education

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 03-2001

DOI: 10.1080/01425690020030828

Reinforcing hegemonic masculinities through sexual harassment: issues of identity, power and popularity in secondary schools

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 03-2005

DOI: 10.1080/0954025042000301285

Reconceptualising Family: Negotiating Sexuality in a Governmental Climate of Neoliberalism

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Date: 03-2013

DOI: 10.2304/CIEC.2014.14.1.39

Abstract: Based on qualitative research, this article examines the complex kinship relations involved in constructing queer families. The discussion focuses on the heterogeneity of queer families the difficulties encountered in association with processes of recognition and how this is negotiated across different contexts within queer families, extended families, and bureaucracies how sexual subjectivities are articulated within the context of ‘family’ and concerns raised by queer families in relation to children's early schooling. Of particular importance to this discussion is awareness that in a governmental climate of neoliberalism, there are contradictory and competing discourses about queer subjectivities, the child, and constructions of family. The queer subject is frequently and increasingly positioned as a targeted consumer and this consumption extends to accessing foster care, adoption, reproductive technologies, the healthcare system, and education. However, despite the invitation to queer families to be consumers in these contexts, the normative family is still viewed as heterosexual, with queer families continuing to be excluded and rendered invisible in representations of family. Taking up Jonathan Silin's earlier call to educators of young children, the authors argue that children's early education needs to include difficult knowledge and subjugated knowledges. Early education should include knowledge about different kinds of kinship relations including queer families, non-biological formations of family, including fostering and adoption, and alternative reproductive practices and technologies through which many young children are now conceived. Currently, most early childhood education and primary school curricula in Australia do not reflect the reality of many young children's lives. Educating all children and youth about alternative families and sexuality is critical to children becoming socially informed citizens and politically active members of their communities who can participate in creating alternative and more equitable futures.

Hatching Babies and Stork Deliveries: Risk and Regulation in the Construction of Children's Sexual Knowledge

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Date: 2010

DOI: 10.2304/CIEC.2010.11.3.249

Abstract: Children's access to sexual knowledge has always been considered ‘risky’ and controversial due to the fraught relationship between childhood and sexuality. Based on focus groups with children and their parents, the authors explore the relationship between risk and regulation associated with providing children with accurate knowledge about sexuality. Two main issues are examined: parents' anxieties associated with educating their children about sexuality and how children actively build narratives around relationships and sexual knowledge based on the fragments of information available to them. The authors argue that dominant constructions of childhood and childhood innocence negate the effective education of children around sexuality, gender and ethical relationships. Additionally, they examine the tensions that exist for many parents around the discourse of child protection and the ways in which this impacts on their education of young children about sexual matters.

Transgender Parents: Negotiating Coming Out and Gender Affirmation with Children and Co-Parents.

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 03-02-2022

DOI: 10.1080/00918369.2021.2020542

Abstract: This study investigated how transgender parents negotiate "coming out" and pursuit of gender affirmation (GA) with their children and co-parents. Sixty-six open-ended survey responses and 38 one-on-one interviews conducted with Australian trans parents, aged 24-67 years, were analyzed using thematic analysis. The main themes were: (i) Anticipating their Response: "Coming Out" to co-parents and children (ii) "Having that talk"-Negotiating disclosure of trans identity with co-parents and children and (iii) Negotiating Gender Affirmation alongside Parenting. "Coming out" was experienced as both vital and a point of vulnerability, with GA necessitating communication and negotiation alongside parenting. Many participants reported significant anxiety before "coming out" to co-parents and children. Children's age was an influential factor in reaction to changes in parental gender identity, with younger and adult children reportedly being the most receptive. Results are discussed in terms of the reported benefits of pursuing GA for trans parents.

The transgender parent: Experiences and constructions of pregnancy and parenthood for transgender men in Australia

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 02-01-2018

DOI: 10.1080/15532739.2017.1399496

A Reflection of Resistance

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 15-10-2002

DOI: 10.1300/J041V14N02_05

‘SHE'S KICKIN’ ASS, THAT'S WHAT SHE'S DOING!’

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 09-2008

DOI: 10.1080/08164640802233294

Building Respectful Relationships Early: Educating Children on Gender Variance and Sexual Diversity. A Response to Damien Riggs

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Date: 03-2013

DOI: 10.2304/CIEC.2014.14.1.81

Abstract: This article, which is a response to Damien Riggs' article, ‘Heteronormativity in Online Information about Sex: A South Australian Case Study’, focuses on three main areas relevant to children's early education in this area. Firstly, it is important to increase parents’, educators’, and children's awareness of gender variance or gender ersity in children's and young people's lives. Gender variance is becoming increasingly visible, including in schooling, with some children and young people experiencing hostile reactions to their gender transgressions from their peers and also from some adults. Secondly, it is vital that the development of children's sexual citizenship and building respectful relationships starts early in children's lives through open and comprehensive sex and sexualities education in online, schooling, and family contexts. Attempts to include the development of knowledge and skills in building and maintaining respectful relationships and exploring the factors that influence gender and sexual identities in children's early education are hindered by discourses of childhood innocence. The third main area discussed is, in order to effectively address sex and sexualities education in children's lives, there is a need to address these issues in a collaborative manner between early childhood educators and families.

Responsibilities, tensions and ways forward: parents’ perspectives on children’s sexuality education

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 16-03-2017

DOI: 10.1080/14681811.2017.1301904

Class‐Room Discipline: power, resistance and gender. A look at teacher perspectives

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 1992

DOI: 10.1080/0954025920040306

Negotiating mental health amongst transgender parents in Australia

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 11-02-2021

DOI: 10.1080/26895269.2021.1875951

Playing it up, playing it down, playing it safe: Queering teacher education

Publisher: Elsevier BV

Date: 05-2008

DOI: 10.1016/J.TATE.2007.11.004

Innocence, Knowledge and the Construction of Childhood

Publisher: Routledge

Date: 02-05-2013

DOI: 10.4324/9780203117538

Making meaning out of objects: Self, connectedness and belonging among sexuality diverse men and transgender women in Papua New Guinea

Publisher: Routledge

Date: 05-01-2023

DOI: 10.4324/9781003142072-15

Western Sydney University

Location: Australia

View Organisation

Discovery Projects - Grant ID: DP110104431

Start Date: 2011

End Date: 06-2014

Amount: $197,550.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Linkage Projects - Grant ID: LP170100644

Start Date: 01-2019

End Date: 10-2022

Amount: $369,960.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Linkage Projects - Grant ID: LP0560538

Start Date: 05-2005

End Date: 05-2008

Amount: $161,699.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Discovery Projects - Grant ID: DP190102116

Start Date: 04-2019

End Date: 06-2023

Amount: $262,000.00

Funder: Australian Research Council