Lee Airton
Biographic Data
| ID | 93039 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lee Airton |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lee |
| FAMILY NAME | Airton |
| SIGNATURE | AIRTON L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Queen's University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3747-2859 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 41 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 16 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Presumed foreign, homophobic, transphobic and oppressed
This critical qualitative, phenomenologically informed study examined Muslim teacher candidates’ (TC’) experiences at the micro level of their teacher education program: interactions with peers, professors, associate teachers, K-12 students, and program administrative staff. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted with Muslim TCs at three Ontario universities. The study engaged the concepts of Islamophobia, Orientalism, and the…
Development and validation of the Safe (Socially Ascribed intersectional identities For Equity) questionnaire
Traditional questionnaires do not capture the complexity of how people are viewed by others and grouped into categories on the basis of what is inferred (or not) about them. This is critical in applying an intersectionality framework in research because people are negatively impacted because of "who they are" but also based on "how others see them." The purpose of this project was to develop and validate a questionnaire, grounded in intersectiona…
Thriving on Campus
Welcoming gender diversity in the early years
This research takes up the challenge of interpreting the two newest grounds of human rights protection across Canada – gender identity and gender expression – for professional practice in early childhood education. To date, no human rights tribunal ruling on these grounds has engaged early childhood education, and while the legal duty remains for early childhood educators to provide an environment free of gender-identity and gender-expression dis…
You don’t know me
Canadian public school authorities are busily producing gender diversity policies in order to meet their new legal responsibility to provide an environment free from gender identity and gender expression discrimination. These policies tend to offer specific guidance about how administrators and educators should respond to the needs of particular students: those who are (currently legible to school actors as) somehow transgender. Leveraging Claudi…
Toby Goes to Catholic School
In this article, we share findings from an analysis of Ontario Catholic school board policy documents (N = 179) containing Canada’s newest human rights grounds: gender expression and gender identity. Our major finding may be unsurprising—that Ontario Catholic boards are generally not responding to Toby’s Act (passed in 2012) at the level of policy, as few boards have added these grounds in a way that enacts the spirit of that legislation. While t…
How Teacher Education Mundanely Yet Profoundly Fails Transgender and/or Gender Nonconforming Candidates
In this commentary, the authors show that teacher education’s mundane—ordinary and unremarkable—demands of all teacher candidates may require transgender and/or gender nonconforming candidates to harm themselves through “non-decisions”: acts of harm to one’s self that would be unthinkable as explicit requests from program faculty or staff, but that these candidates nevertheless undertake, driven to believe they are necessary to become a teacher. …
Towards an engaged linguistics
The papers in this special issue address themes from They, Hirself, Em, and YOU 2019 (THEY 2019), a conference that brought together researchers working on topics relating to nonbinary gender in language, particularly in pronouns. The papers collected in this special issue provide an overview of the current state of research and practice on nonbinary pronouns as they are currently used in English, as well as connecting the current practices in En…
Operationalization of intersectionality in physical activity and sport research
Participation in and opportunities for physical activity (PA) and sports (PA inclusively hereafter) are known to vary across individuals with different social positions. Intersectionality theory may help us to better understand the complex processes of multiple interlocking systems of oppression and privilege shaped by intersections of individuals' social categories. The objectives of this systematic scoping review were (1) to summarize the findi…
The chalice (or, how to occult yourself, gender-wise)
This paper is an experimental effort to look and feel over our shoulder at a fairly traditional “gender diversity curriculum” that we assembled together over 2 years (Woolley & Airton, 2020). The b
The Aftermath of Human Rights Protections
Between 2002 and 2017, Canadian lawmakers sought to redress the pervasive levels of discrimination, harassment, and violence experienced by transgender and/or non-binary people by adding the terms “gender identity” and/or “gender expression” to federal, provincial, and territorial human rights instruments. This paper tracks the complex, iterative ways in which antidiscrimination protections are brought to life outside courts and tribunals. Using …
How to hit a moving target
Mapping transgender policyscapes
In this paper we draw on Mettler’s concept of the policyscape and apply it to an examination of policy-making processes and events as they pertain specifically to an analysis of transgender inclusivity and gender diversity in the Ontario context. We employ Ball’s focus on policy as text and policy ensembles alongside Bailey’s employment of policy dispositifs to map key events that characterize important legislative developments that define the On…
The de/politicization of pronouns
Accommodating non-binary transgender people, many of whom use gender-neutral pronouns, poses a unique challenge to schools and universities, even in contexts with legal protections for transgender rights. This article explores a recent Canadian controversy around gender-neutral pronouns, and assembles a theoretical framework to analyze the argument that legal protection for transgender peoples’ pronouns poses a threat to ‘free speech.’ The framew…
Transgender and Gender-Creative Students in PK–12 Schools
Context A growing body of work refects the ways in which gender-creative and transgender students are ill-served by current social climates in the vast majority of public schools. Few studies have explored this topic from an educator's perspective. Purpose This study was designed to develop a conception of the barriers and supports that exist for educators working to create learning environments that affirm transgender and gender-creative student…
Leave “Those Kids” Alone
In this article I make a conceptual intervention in the idea that queer children and youth have needs that differ from those of other children and youth on the basis of their gender or sexuality alone, and that doing well by them requires adults to act on the basis of this difference. Namely, I examine the conflation of “fighting school homophobia” and “helping young queers.” I argue that making space for queerness in education is not the same as…
Leave “Those Kids” Alone
In this article I make a conceptual intervention in the idea that queer children and youth have needs that differ from those of other children and youth on the basis of their gender or sexuality alone, and that doing well by them requires adults to act on the basis of this difference. Namely, I examine the conflation of “fighting school homophobia” and “helping young queers.” I argue that making space for queerness in education is not the same as…
How to hit a moving target
The de/politicization of pronouns
Accommodating non-binary transgender people, many of whom use gender-neutral pronouns, poses a unique challenge to schools and universities, even in contexts with legal protections for transgender rights. This article explores a recent Canadian controversy around gender-neutral pronouns, and assembles a theoretical framework to analyze the argument that legal protection for transgender peoples’ pronouns poses a threat to ‘free speech.’ The framew…
Mapping transgender policyscapes
In this paper we draw on Mettler’s concept of the policyscape and apply it to an examination of policy-making processes and events as they pertain specifically to an analysis of transgender inclusivity and gender diversity in the Ontario context. We employ Ball’s focus on policy as text and policy ensembles alongside Bailey’s employment of policy dispositifs to map key events that characterize important legislative developments that define the On…
You don’t know me
Canadian public school authorities are busily producing gender diversity policies in order to meet their new legal responsibility to provide an environment free from gender identity and gender expression discrimination. These policies tend to offer specific guidance about how administrators and educators should respond to the needs of particular students: those who are (currently legible to school actors as) somehow transgender. Leveraging Claudi…
The Aftermath of Human Rights Protections
Between 2002 and 2017, Canadian lawmakers sought to redress the pervasive levels of discrimination, harassment, and violence experienced by transgender and/or non-binary people by adding the terms “gender identity” and/or “gender expression” to federal, provincial, and territorial human rights instruments. This paper tracks the complex, iterative ways in which antidiscrimination protections are brought to life outside courts and tribunals. Using …
Leave “Those Kids” Alone
In this article I make a conceptual intervention in the idea that queer children and youth have needs that differ from those of other children and youth on the basis of their gender or sexuality alone, and that doing well by them requires adults to act on the basis of this difference. Namely, I examine the conflation of “fighting school homophobia” and “helping young queers.” I argue that making space for queerness in education is not the same as…
Transgender and Gender-Creative Students in PK–12 Schools
Context A growing body of work refects the ways in which gender-creative and transgender students are ill-served by current social climates in the vast majority of public schools. Few studies have explored this topic from an educator's perspective. Purpose This study was designed to develop a conception of the barriers and supports that exist for educators working to create learning environments that affirm transgender and gender-creative student…
The de/politicization of pronouns
Accommodating non-binary transgender people, many of whom use gender-neutral pronouns, poses a unique challenge to schools and universities, even in contexts with legal protections for transgender rights. This article explores a recent Canadian controversy around gender-neutral pronouns, and assembles a theoretical framework to analyze the argument that legal protection for transgender peoples’ pronouns poses a threat to ‘free speech.’ The framew…
How to hit a moving target
Mapping transgender policyscapes
In this paper we draw on Mettler’s concept of the policyscape and apply it to an examination of policy-making processes and events as they pertain specifically to an analysis of transgender inclusivity and gender diversity in the Ontario context. We employ Ball’s focus on policy as text and policy ensembles alongside Bailey’s employment of policy dispositifs to map key events that characterize important legislative developments that define the On…
The Aftermath of Human Rights Protections
Between 2002 and 2017, Canadian lawmakers sought to redress the pervasive levels of discrimination, harassment, and violence experienced by transgender and/or non-binary people by adding the terms “gender identity” and/or “gender expression” to federal, provincial, and territorial human rights instruments. This paper tracks the complex, iterative ways in which antidiscrimination protections are brought to life outside courts and tribunals. Using …
Operationalization of intersectionality in physical activity and sport research
Participation in and opportunities for physical activity (PA) and sports (PA inclusively hereafter) are known to vary across individuals with different social positions. Intersectionality theory may help us to better understand the complex processes of multiple interlocking systems of oppression and privilege shaped by intersections of individuals' social categories. The objectives of this systematic scoping review were (1) to summarize the findi…
The chalice (or, how to occult yourself, gender-wise)
This paper is an experimental effort to look and feel over our shoulder at a fairly traditional “gender diversity curriculum” that we assembled together over 2 years (Woolley & Airton, 2020). The b
Toby Goes to Catholic School
In this article, we share findings from an analysis of Ontario Catholic school board policy documents (N = 179) containing Canada’s newest human rights grounds: gender expression and gender identity. Our major finding may be unsurprising—that Ontario Catholic boards are generally not responding to Toby’s Act (passed in 2012) at the level of policy, as few boards have added these grounds in a way that enacts the spirit of that legislation. While t…
How Teacher Education Mundanely Yet Profoundly Fails Transgender and/or Gender Nonconforming Candidates
In this commentary, the authors show that teacher education’s mundane—ordinary and unremarkable—demands of all teacher candidates may require transgender and/or gender nonconforming candidates to harm themselves through “non-decisions”: acts of harm to one’s self that would be unthinkable as explicit requests from program faculty or staff, but that these candidates nevertheless undertake, driven to believe they are necessary to become a teacher. …
Towards an engaged linguistics
The papers in this special issue address themes from They, Hirself, Em, and YOU 2019 (THEY 2019), a conference that brought together researchers working on topics relating to nonbinary gender in language, particularly in pronouns. The papers collected in this special issue provide an overview of the current state of research and practice on nonbinary pronouns as they are currently used in English, as well as connecting the current practices in En…
Welcoming gender diversity in the early years
This research takes up the challenge of interpreting the two newest grounds of human rights protection across Canada – gender identity and gender expression – for professional practice in early childhood education. To date, no human rights tribunal ruling on these grounds has engaged early childhood education, and while the legal duty remains for early childhood educators to provide an environment free of gender-identity and gender-expression dis…
You don’t know me
Canadian public school authorities are busily producing gender diversity policies in order to meet their new legal responsibility to provide an environment free from gender identity and gender expression discrimination. These policies tend to offer specific guidance about how administrators and educators should respond to the needs of particular students: those who are (currently legible to school actors as) somehow transgender. Leveraging Claudi…
Development and validation of the Safe (Socially Ascribed intersectional identities For Equity) questionnaire
Traditional questionnaires do not capture the complexity of how people are viewed by others and grouped into categories on the basis of what is inferred (or not) about them. This is critical in applying an intersectionality framework in research because people are negatively impacted because of "who they are" but also based on "how others see them." The purpose of this project was to develop and validate a questionnaire, grounded in intersectiona…
Thriving on Campus
Presumed foreign, homophobic, transphobic and oppressed
This critical qualitative, phenomenologically informed study examined Muslim teacher candidates’ (TC’) experiences at the micro level of their teacher education program: interactions with peers, professors, associate teachers, K-12 students, and program administrative staff. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted with Muslim TCs at three Ontario universities. The study engaged the concepts of Islamophobia, Orientalism, and the…
Sociology (13 works) · Gender Studies (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Transgender (8 works) · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy (7 works) · Pedagogy (7 works) · Gender Roles and Identity Studies (6 works) · Law (6 works)