Abstract
In this article, I explore the experiences of trans and nonbinary students at a Finnish vocational school and discuss the abilities of their teacher allies to support them. Drawing on recognition theory and interviews with trans and nonbinary students and their teachers, I find that unrecognition is a central experience in the lives of trans and nonbinary students. Their gender is often not recognized in the school environment where they encounter binary-gender language and structures, misgendering, assumptions about a binary-gender appearance, and a lack of representation in study courses. However, these experiences of unrecognition do not inevitably lead to their exclusion. Trans and nonbinary students resist their unrecognition both directly and indirectly, receive support from their teachers and classmates, and describe some exceptionally positive experiences and pockets of appreciation that they have found. Although the teacher allies offer some support, their support abilities are hindered by two misconceptions: an overly positive interpretation of trans visibility and the idealization of silence around gender diversity. I conclude that gender neutrality can be a problematic approach for supporting the inclusion of trans and nonbinary people and call for recognizing many genders and discussing them openly.
Introduction
Many of the organization scholars who have written on trans people’s experiences have focused on how they do (West and Zimmerman, 1987) or perform, gender (Butler, 1990) and whether they can challenge prevalent gender norms in organizations (Connell, 2010; Hennekam and Dumazert, 2023; Jeanes and Janes, 2021; Muhr et al., 2016; Muhr and Sullivan, 2013; Schilt and Connell, 2007; Thanem and Wallenberg, 2016). This salient body of work demonstrates that trans people need to negotiate their gender identities and expressions in most organizational contexts, although there are opportunities for resisting gender norms as well. In this article, however, I turn the focus away from the question of whether trans people can contest prevalent gender norms to the question of how they experience that they are (not) recognized in relational interactions within organizations. With this subtle turn, I hope to shift the burden of negotiation work from trans people to others, such as their allies.
Recognition can mean, for instance, that one is recognized as the gender in which one wishes to live, as a bright student, or a valued friend and fellow student. These experiences can positively impact one’s self-perception. In my understanding of recognition, I draw on Judith Butler, who defines recognition as positive and necessary but also as partial, conditional, and constrained by prevalent frames of recognition (Butler, 2004, 2009, 2021; Butler and Athanasiou, 2013). By “unrecognition,” I do not only mean that trans and nonbinary persons are not always recognized as the gender in which they wish to live, but also that their gender (particularly in case of nonbinary students), or transitions that they had to make to arrive to their gender, are not recognized at a more general level in language, cultural expectations and organizational structures. This lack of representation is often coupled with negative stereotypes and transphobic discourse (Muñoz, 1999; Namaste, 2000; O’Shea, 2018, 2019a, 2019b). Misrecognition, such as negative stereotypes, is thus the noisy side of the coin on which the other side is silent unrecognition—both sides exacerbate each other. Both misrecognition and unrecognition can also lead to a failure to recognize a person as human, or as a human whose life is livable (Butler, 2004). This means that, when I discuss the unrecognition of some genders, I also discuss how this may lead to unrecognition of humanity or personhood of the person whose gender is not recognized.
I use the term “nonbinary” to refer to people who do not identify unambiguously as men or women but as something between, or outside of, these categories. Some people identify simply as nonbinary, but common nonbinary terms also include agender, genderqueer, neutrois (Dolan and Garvey, 2024) and, in Finland—where this study is conducted, “other-gender” (muunsukupuolinen). In the case of binary gender identities, I refer to those trans and cis persons who identify as either men or women. The difference between these two is that, while cis people have always been legally registered as the gender they identify as, trans people do not identify as the sex with which they were registered at birth. While the terms “trans” and “transgender” can be used as an inclusive word for all individuals whose sense of their gender and sex does not correspond with the sex assigned at birth (see, e.g. Shuster and Lamont, 2019), I use the longer version of the umbrella term—“trans and nonbinary people”—to emphasize that the article focuses not only on binary trans people—trans women and men—but also on nonbinary trans people (Suhomlinova et al., 2024). Despite the growing amount of research on trans persons’ experiences, there is a lack of research that recognizes specific gender identities under the trans umbrella and nonbinary experiences have received little dedicated attention (Benato et al., 2024; Hennekam and Köllen, 2025; Suhomlinova et al., 2024). I therefore find it important to emphasize that this study also discusses nonbinary people. As the discussion on improving trans and nonbinary people’s inclusion often focuses on binary-gendered pronouns (Benato et al., 2024), I also find it important to study language environments in which pronouns are not gendered. The Finnish language does not separate pronouns for “he” and “she,” thus offering such a context.
By ally, I refer to a person who supports trans and nonbinary persons in some concrete ways. Becoming an ally is often a journey (Odland, 2025: 87) and one can be considered an ally even though one is still learning how to support trans people. I find that also discussing allies’ views is important because allies can play a significant role in advancing the inclusion of trans and nonbinary people (Fletcher and Marvell, 2023; Fletcher and Swierczynski, 2025). While previous research focuses on trans persons’ perceptions of allies (Fletcher and Swierczynski, 2025; Hennekam and Köllen, 2025) and the challenges that diversity and inclusion practitioners (who should aim to be allies) encounter in improving trans-inclusivity (Odland, 2025; Ozturk et al., 2025), we still lack research that discusses allies’ and trans persons’ views of the same organization. Discussing teacher allies is especially relevant in the context of vocational education, as teachers hold a particular role in recognizing their students.
This article is based on a group interview with four students—two trans men and two nonbinary students—and three group/pair interviews with five of their teachers. In addition, I reflect on my own position as an insider and outsider researcher, that is, someone who partially belongs to the group to which their research participants also belong (Hayfield and Huxley, 2015; Rodriguez and Ridgway, 2023). I recognize some gender fluidity in myself but mostly identify as a cisgender woman. The analysis is inspired by feminist grounded theory (Wuest, 2007), which emphasizes sensitivity to feminist theory and reflexivity regarding the relationship between a researcher and research participants, and combines these with grounded theory methodology (Wuest, 2007; Wuest and Merritt-Gray, 2001). This version of grounded theory is critical, constructivist, and particularly suitable for exploring the experiences of marginalized groups.
This study makes three contributions to research on the experiences and allyship relations of trans and nonbinary people. First, I demonstrate that unrecognition is a central experience in the lives of trans and nonbinary people, but that it can be resisted in many direct and indirect ways and through allies’ support. Second, I show that allies’ abilities to support trans and nonbinary people can be limited by the constraining frames of recognition, which may create misconceptions, such as an overly positive interpretation of trans visibility and the idealization of silence around gender diversity. Third, I argue that gender neutrality can be a problematic approach for supporting the recognition and inclusion of trans and nonbinary persons. For instance, I find that the general use of a gender-neutral pronoun does not necessarily advance the inclusion of trans and nonbinary people. Instead of aiming for gender neutrality, I call for recognizing many genders and discussing them openly.
The concept of recognition and its relation to gender norms
The concept of recognition has attracted widespread interest in social and political thought (Ikäheimo et al., 2021), including organization studies (Dobusch, 2021; Visser, 2024). One reason for the popularity of the concept might be that virtually everyone can relate to the experience of depending on others in one’s relation to oneself; the concept of recognition shows how others are involved in shaping our lives and self-perceptions through recognizing or not recognizing us (Ikäheimo et al., 2021). Experiences of being ignored by fellow students or receiving praise from a teacher are examples of (un)recognition that are easy to relate to. While there are various interpretations of the concept, its roots often lead to the work of the German philosopher Georg Hegel (1770–1831). While some authors, such as Charles Taylor and Axel Honneth, define recognition mostly positively—as a condition that enables freedom (Visser, 2024)—Judith Butler conceptualizes recognition more critically. Butler’s understanding of the concept runs from Hegel through Kojève, Althusser, and Foucault, and conceptualizes recognition as partial and conditional—as a condition that both enables and constrains freedom (Ikäheimo et al., 2021; Visser, 2024). However, though Butler sees recognition as partial, they do not argue that recognition is always false or always only misrecognition (Butler, 2021). This understanding of recognition enables us to discuss unrecognition—a failure of recognition—which would not make sense if all recognition were understood as misrecognition.
Following Butler, I see recognition as partial, conditional, and constrained by prevalent frames of recognition (Butler, 2004, 2009: 4–13, 138–141; 2021; Butler and Athanasiou, 2013). For Butler, norms are connected to the experiences of recognition, misrecognition, and not being recognized (unrecognition). While Butler discusses various norms, this study focuses on the gender norm that Butler has described in their early work in particular (Butler, 1990, 1993), where they call it the heterosexual matrix. The matrix allows the recognition of only two sexes (man and woman), binding them to two corresponding genders and gender expressions (feminine and masculine) and recognizing only heterosexual desire for the so-called opposite sex (Butler, 1990: 5, 151). This gender norm is either contested or confirmed through iteration, such as speech acts like “it’s a girl” upon the birth of a new baby. Butler (1993: 225–226) argues that recognition is not only conferred on a subject but forms that subject, and that the discursive condition of social recognition both recedes and conditions the formation of the subject. After these early works (Butler, 1990, 1993), Butler continues to refer to gender norms as one example of a norm that constrains recognition. If one does not fit into the binary-gender norm, one is not recognizable as an intelligible person in contexts that rest on this norm (Butler, 2004, 2021: 36–41, 2024). While virtually everyone has some kind of experience of not being recognized appropriately by others, some people experience this more often than others and the binary-gender norm is one of the norms that explains this.
Butler’s early work on gender norms and performativity (Butler, 1990, 1993) has received critique on how it uses trans people’s, such as some drag artists’, lives as allegories and illustrative examples of contestation of norms at the cost of not capturing their lived experiences (Namaste, 2000; O’Shea, 2020a). Butler agrees with at least some of the critique (Butler, 2024: 23), and their understanding of gender norms has evolved. Their early work thus needs to be interpreted with this in mind. I find it particularly important to realize that the main reason for trans persons’ gender performances is usually not a contestation of norms, but rather “an expression of their gender and how they feel” (O’Shea, 2020a). Furthermore, Butler’s later work on frames of recognition does not continue to treat trans people as illustrations of breaking norms, as the focus is on what makes certain groups of people more recognizable as human beings than others (Butler, 2009: 138–141, 2021: 36). It may also be relevant to note that, today, Butler prefers to use the pronouns they/them and explains that they “enter into that [nonbinary] category,” although they do not describe it as their identity (Butler and Halberstam, 2025). Though Butler’s style of writing often does not make the author’s subject clear, their texts nevertheless have an author who has personhood and who has been affected by their life, friends, and communities they are involved in, as Butler reminds readers in the foreword of later editions of Gender Trouble (Butler, 2006: 27).
While Butler critically defines recognition as ambivalent, they find it meaningful to discuss how positive recognition could happen, and what it might mean for marginalized groups. Butler (2015) calls for collective assembly for recognition, meaning that we should join together to achieve change, such as the recognition of certain groups of people as people (Butler, 2015: 3–4). In this article, I am inspired by this positive view and offer some ideas on how school organizations and teacher allies could improve trans students’ studying conditions.
Theorizing trans people’s experiences in organization studies
Many organization scholars have been interested in how trans people do (West and Zimmerman, 1987) or perform (Butler, 1990) gender and whether they can challenge gender norms in organizations. As described in critiques of Butler’s early works (Namaste, 2000; O’Shea, 2020a), these questions can be problematic: asking them might mean that trans persons’ lives are used as illustrative examples of the contestation of norms. However, the empirical studies asking these questions have nuanced our understanding of trans persons’ lives, and do not use them only as allegories. The studies describe trans people’s gender performances as diverse (Jeanes and Janes, 2021) and context-specific (Muhr et al., 2016), and demonstrate that they need to negotiate their gender identities and expressions in work contexts (Connell, 2010; Hennekam and Dumazert, 2023; Jeanes and Janes, 2021; Schilt and Connell, 2007; Thanem and Wallenberg, 2016). In this article, I build on the work of these organization scholars, who write about trans persons’ experiences and use Butler’s theories, but I do not focus on the question of trans people’s capacity to challenge norms.
There is one scholar in particular whose approach stands out in the literature for the way in which it draws on trans people’s experiences. O’Shea (2018, 2019a, 2019b, 2020a, 2020b, 2022) has written several autoethnographies in which they analyze how gender is organized in society based on their experiences as a nonbinary person in various everyday contexts in the United Kingdom. O’Shea’s focus is not on how trans people do or perform gender, but on the dominant binary-gender norm that often makes the lives of nonbinary people unlivable. Instead of doing gender, O’Shea describes themself as “working at gender” (O’Shea, 2020b), emphasizing the laboriousness of managing the erasure of one’s gender as a nonbinary person. For O’Shea (2020a), their nonbinary gender performance is not a simple contestation of norms but a need to balance a complicated and dynamic contradiction that both does and undoes them in a heteronormative world. Many of O’Shea’s articles highlight the violence and threat of violence that nonbinary people experience when they have to face talk, practices, and structures that dehumanize them (O’Shea, 2020a) or erase them from organizations and society (O’Shea, 2019b, 2020b). For instance, O’Shea explains that the demand to “pass” as either a man or a woman—a demand that is often imposed on trans persons and others who are interpreted as transgender—“marginalises, invalidates and erases” nonbinary persons who have no wish to pass (O’Shea, 2019b: 2). Nonbinary people are also erased by the medical transitioning process, which often demands that they choose between two binary-gender options (O’Shea, 2019a, 2022). I find O’Shea’s writings on managing their erasure as a nonbinary person very relevant for this study; I see erasure and exclusion as potential consequences of unrecognition and misrecognition.
There are a few other organization scholars whose work is particularly relevant for this study. Tyler and Vachhani (2021) discuss organizational commitments to trans inclusion, drawing on Butler’s recognition theory. Recognition and inclusion are closely related concepts: recognition can be seen as a central component of inclusion (Dobusch, 2021; Tyler, 2019). However, similarly to recognition, Tyler and Vachhani (2021) do not view inclusion as always positive. Inclusion can be partial and conditional, which is what they refer to as “over-inclusion.” They argue that the twin strategies of over-inclusion and exclusion both reify difference and thus undermine commitments to organizational inclusion. In an example of over-inclusion, they explain how a multinational company—Primark—introduced a range of Pride-themed clothes and accessories, thus absorbing those differences that were most easily co-opted and made profitable. (Tyler and Vachhani, 2021). Although Tyler and Vachhani (2021) emphasize relationality in the concept of recognition, stating that recognition provides a mechanism through which we can relate to one another, their study is based on analyzing court cases and other written documents, which limit their possibilities for examining people’s relations.
Hennekam and Köllen (2025) draw on Butler’s theories of the heterosexual matrix (1990) in their study, which focuses on the ways employees who are going through a gender transitioning process perceive their employers’ readiness and willingness to support them. One of their conclusions is that nonbinary, or in other ways gender nonconforming, employees receive less support and acceptance from human resources (HR) managers in comparison to binary trans employees, as HR managers struggle to support employees who fall outside the heterosexual matrix. They suggest that the ideal, albeit utopian, state of HR would be de-sexed and de-gendered, and that HR managers should aim to be allies. (Hennekam and Köllen, 2025). Although I find their focus on gender norms and the relations that trans persons have with other organization members interesting, I find their suggestion of de-gendered HR practices problematic. De-gendering is difficult to accomplish in deeply gendered societies and thus the efforts toward de-gendering might mean silencing discussion on the problems that trans and nonbinary people encounter. I will return to this argument in the discussion section, where I discuss teacher allies’ misconceptions that hinder their abilities to support trans and nonbinary students. Next, I will introduce the research design of this study.
Research design
Context: Finnish vocational education
In Finland, the Gender Equality Act (Finlex, 1986) states that employers, public authorities, and education providers are obliged to take pre-emptive action against discrimination based on gender identity or gender expression. The legislation thus protects all gender identities and gender expressions, without limiting the protection to certain genders. Also, Finnish trans people reportedly experience somewhat less discrimination in education in comparison to the European average. According to the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights in 2020, in Europe as whole, 33% of trans people experienced discrimination in education during the prior year, while in Finland this number was 21% (FRA, 2020). However, Finnish school surveys show that most nonbinary students do not feel safe in vocational education (National Union of Vocational Students in Finland, 2024) and that trans men in particular are not satisfied with their lives (Sares-Jäske et al., 2024). Furthermore, research on Finnish trans people shows that societal attitudes related to gender diversity influence trans people’s educational and occupational choices (Lehtonen, 2016), and they particularly avoid cis men-dominated sectors for fear of discrimination (Saloheimo, 2021)—a phenomenon also observed in other countries (Corlett et al., 2024; Ozturk and Tatli, 2016). Also, in Finland, gender neutrality is often emphasized rhetorically, even though this does not necessarily mean that gender would not matter in practice (Korvajärvi, 2011; McKie and Hearn, 2004). The false belief that one’s own workplace is “gender-neutral,” that is, that gender is not an issue there, and that there are no gender inequality problems, can prevent addressing gender inequalities.
This study focuses on three study programs—dressmaking, photography, and game design—in a vocational upper-secondary school located in Helsinki, Finland. Of these, dressmaking is women-dominated. Media studies, which includes both photography and game design, is fairly gender-balanced overall; however, in game design, women tend to concentrate on artwork and men on programming. Based on survey data (National Union of Vocational Students in Finland, 2024), approximately 2% of vocational school students identify as other-gender, while in media studies, this applies to 11%, and in dressmaking to 5% of students, implying that these are rather popular programs among nonbinary students.
Student and teacher interviewees, and my positionality in relation to them
In this article, I draw on one group interview with four students—two trans men and two nonbinary students—and three group/pair interviews with five of their cisgender (non-trans) teachers. In addition, I reflect on my position as an insider and outsider in relation to my research participants and research topic (Hayfield and Huxley, 2015; Rodriguez and Ridgway, 2023). I analyze my positionality and its impact on my research in my research diary. For instance, I consciously reflect on my feelings and the memories that the students’ experiences brought to my mind and analyze how they impacted my interpretations. The reason for conducting group interviews was to aim to create an interview situation that is close to everyday communication within the groups. In addition, I wanted to make the interviews more meaningful for the participants and to enhance community creation at the school. Before explaining my methodology in more detail, I will discuss my student and teacher interviewees and reflect on my positionality in relation to them.
I mostly identify as a cisgender woman, but I recognize some gender fluidity in myself, and some of my friendships are with trans men or nonbinary persons. At the beginning of the group interview with the students, I described my gender identity by confessing that, although I would currently categorize myself as a ciswoman, I have identified differently in the past. I also explained that “I take my cue from the gender of my partners: I identify as homosexual/pansexual, I always feel the same gender as my partner, and I’m flexible in my identification.” This is not a simple identification, but the students supported me to find the words to express myself, in the same way as they supported each other. As an interviewer and researcher, I had a position that was close to that of an insider researcher (Hayfield and Huxley, 2015; Rodriguez and Ridgway, 2023). This positionality helped me connect with the students during the interview. However, I also had similarities with the teachers, as I was closer to them in age and could see myself joining the organization as a teacher rather than a student. I will now introduce my interviewees using pseudonyms.
At the time of the group interview with the students, the students were 17–21 years old. Lou studied dressmaking and identified as nonbinary, and more specifically as agender and “other-gender” (in Finnish muunsukupuolinen): “I am ‘other-gender’ or I do not identify with any binary gender. If you want to use terms, I could be agender.” Despite their gender identification, Lou was mostly perceived as a woman by their classmates and teachers. Lou explained that they felt shy about sharing their gender identity with other people due to previous negative experiences and a lack of support in their childhood home. Adrian studied game design and identified as nonbinary, and more specifically also as agender and “other-gender”: “I am. . . well. . . [makes a hand gesture indicating that they do not know] I am an ‘other-gender’, genderless person. I haven’t had the energy to think about that a lot.” After Lou introduced the term “agender,” Adrian added that they identified with that too. Despite their gender identification, Adrian was mostly perceived as a man by their classmates. Adrian explained that at the beginning of their studies, they had identified as a trans man, and their gender expression was rather masculine. Most of their classmates still held on to their first impression of them as a man, although Adrian later identified as nonbinary and began to express their gender in more androgynous and feminine ways. Adrian did not wish to share their nonbinary identity with their classmates for fear of violence. Oliver and Kaitsu studied photography. They both identified as (trans) men—or, as Oliver put it, “transgender but I am a man.” They were mostly perceived as men by their classmates and teachers. I did not ask specific questions about the stage of their transition, as I did not want to medicalize our discussions. Additionally, I need to note here that I do not aim to compare the experiences of trans men and nonbinary persons but rather find that, because all the interviewed students experienced inequalities due to binary-gender norms, I can illustrate the variety of these experiences by including both trans men and nonbinary persons.
Of the teachers I interviewed, three identified as (cis) women (Minna, Tiina, and Anttu) and two as (cis) men (Heikki and Carl). The teachers were aged 35–62 years. Minna, Tiina, and Carl taught dressmaking, Anttu taught photography, and Heikki taught game design. The teacher interviewees can be seen as trans allies or at least organization members who are already somewhat “on board” to become allies (Odland, 2025: 87). Although all teachers are required to follow Finnish legislation—which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity or gender expression—the work to promote gender equality is often divided, with some organization members working more diligently to achieve equality than others. I would place the interviewed teachers in the category of “doing more than others,” although I also observe that they and the school organization are not doing enough to protect trans and nonbinary students from violence and discrimination.
Methodology
This study is inspired by a feminist grounded theory approach (Wuest, 2007; Wuest and Merritt-Gray, 2001). While there are various grounded theory approaches, some of which have even been interpreted as positivist (Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2018: 91), feminist grounded theory is constructivist and critical (Wuest, 2007: 265–266). Feminist grounded theory is based on the original grounded theory by Glaser and Strauss (1967) but emphasizes epistemological features common to the critical feminist approaches: participants are considered the experts about their experience, reflexivity in the research process is emphasized, knowledge is understood as contextual and relational, and dichotomies are precluded (Wuest, 1997). I applied these epistemological features in this research. For instance, I enhanced reflexivity by using my research diary to analyze how my positionality influences my research and my relationships with students and teachers interviewed. Some of those reflections are included in this article. In relation to the interviewees, I also followed the ethical principles of research with human participants (The Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK, 2019), which require informed consent, confidentiality, and integrity.
I used purposive and snowball sampling strategies to recruit the trans and nonbinary student interviewees. The reason for choosing this recruitment method was ethical; I did not want to approach trans and nonbinary students via their teachers, nor did I want to advertise the interview at the school, because both these methods risked creating unsafe situations for the students. The group interview with the students took about an hour and a half and followed a semi-structured interview guide consisting of open-ended questions on four themes. The first theme was self-identification, and it contained only a question on gender identification. The second theme was the practices that are problematic for trans and nonbinary students. I started with an open question of what it is like to study as a trans/nonbinary person. After the students had named problematic practices, I asked follow-up questions and asked about their positive experiences too. While I had a previous understanding of what these problematic practices might be, I was careful not to impose my ideas on the students and instead waited for them to explain their studying experiences in their own words. The two remaining themes were students’ reasons for choosing their specific programs, and students’ experiences of work-based learning periods (henceforth internships). However, most of the interview time was spent on the second theme of problematic practices. I conducted the interviews in Finnish and translated the extracts used in this article into English.
I recruited the teachers through e-mail invitations, which were sent out to all the teachers on the three chosen study programs via their headteachers. I interviewed teachers in three sets of group/pair interviews: Minna and Carl participated in the first interview, Anttu and Heikki in the second, and Tiina in the third interview—which also included two teachers from the health and social sector. This article draws only on interviews with the teachers who taught the subjects that the student interviewees were studying. The teacher interviews took about an hour and a half each. They followed a semi-structured interview guide consisting of open-ended questions that focused on their ideas of students’ educational choices and gender equality and diversity, including some specific questions on trans and nonbinary students—such as how gender diversity is visible in the school and how the inclusion of nonbinary students can be improved.
I manually analyzed the interview transcripts through coding and categorizing codes with the inspiration of grounded theory coding families, which help to identify relationships between codes and categories (Wuest, 2007: 254–255). For instance, some codes described practices that students experienced as problematic, while others described how students reacted to these problematic situations or how they received support. Some codes described teachers’ misconceptions regarding how they can support their trans and nonbinary students, and some defined norms and traditions. I further analyzed these categories and their relationships by writing about them in my memos (Wuest, 2007: 256–257) and created the concept of “unrecognition”; I realized that all the problematic practices defined incidents in which trans or nonbinary persons were not recognized appropriately. Table 1 shows the categories and codes that explain how trans and nonbinary students experience unrecognition.
Trans and nonbinary students’ experiences of unrecognition.
Next, I elaborate on students’ experiences of unrecognition, illuminate how they resisted their unrecognition, and discuss their experiences of getting support as well as their teachers’ misconceptions that hindered support. Norms and traditions are not discussed as a separate section, but discussion on them is intertwined with discussions on other categories and also continues in the discussion section.
Findings
Experiencing unrecognition
When I asked the students whether it was easy to study as a trans or nonbinary person, all of them immediately answered “no”—although one of the trans men, Kaitsu, softened the answer to “no, I suppose [not].” The students then went on to identify many situations in which they had experienced difficulties during their studies. The common feature in all these incidents was the experience of not being recognized as nonbinary or, in the case of trans men, as men. Instead, trans and nonbinary students were often left unrecognized. In some instances, their existence was not noticed because binary-gender language created a discourse of absence. Lou’s experience illustrates this: I don’t identify with any gender, so I have to grit my teeth and listen to the teachers. [. . .] Our main teacher said, right when school first began, the teacher said this transphobic comment [putting on a voice]: “There are only girls and boys. We received guidance from above to only address you using gender-neutral terms, but that is nonsense. There is no such thing as neutral gender or nonbinary gender.” I was like. . . I squirmed in my seat.
In the above extract, unrecognition did not only mean that nonbinary persons were not mentioned, but that their existence was denied by the teacher. Butler explains that, to be called unreal or impossible is a specific form of violence that denies one’s humanity, and may result in other violence against the group not being recognized or taken seriously (Butler, 2004: 30). In this case, the teacher seems to be unaware of the violence caused by denial of the existence of nonbinary people. The teacher also effectively destroyed the whole purpose of the guidance, which was to make the school more trans-inclusive.
The next example illustrates how binary-gender language can also cause an experience of unrecognition through incidents of misgendering. The example comes from Adrian, who identified as nonbinary but presented as a man to their classmates: Every time someone [for instance, a visiting teacher] said, “Hey, you girl over there” or “she” [when addressing me], I thought that people in my class would drag me round the corner and kill me [because they would learn I was not unambiguously a man]. During the first year, I experienced this fear of death every time it happened.
In this example, Adrian’s main worry was not their unrecognition as nonbinary, nor even their occasional misrecognition as a woman. Instead, their main worry was that they were afraid of how their classmates would react if they heard them being called a woman. Luckily, according to Adrian, none of their classmates ever reacted in these situations and Adrian gradually became more relaxed. The reason why Adrian wanted to “pass” as a man was their fear of violence. Passing in this context thus means passing as a person who experiences less violence rather than expressing one’s gender according to one’s gender identity (for further critique of the concept of passing, see O’Shea, 2019b, 2020b).
The Finnish language does not have separate pronouns for “he” and “she.” In Adrian’s example, the pronoun “she” is mentioned as the game design program was partly taught in English. The occasional use of the English language was not the main reason for problems, though. Students provided many examples of the problematic use of gendered Finnish names and words, such as “girl” and “woman.” These examples make it clear that, despite the use of the gender-neutral pronoun, other binary-gendered words in Finnish cause problems similar to those experienced in English-speaking environments (Benato et al., 2024). In my research diary, I discuss my experiences of Finnish language environments: Previously (before being a parent), I did not get much feedback on my gender in Finland. Pronouns are gender-neutral, and people rarely use titles such as “Sir” or “Madam.” One might think gender is less important here. However, Finns still categorize people as men and women in their mind—not getting feedback on my gender just means that others have been able to categorize me with ease. How can I challenge something that is not even voiced?
As stated in my research diary, not getting feedback on one’s gender applies only to some situations and also depends on one’s appearance. The gender-neutral pronoun does not necessarily mean that people do not assume binary-gender appearances. Oliver explains that when his appearance challenged the binary-gender norm, other students did not always know how to react to him: Before I was on testosterone, if, for example, I worked with people from other student groups, and I looked like this [masculine appearance] but sounded like Minnie Mouse. . . They made this face [changes his voice], “Who are you, what are you, what’s wrong with you?”
In Oliver’s example, the expressions on his fellow students’ faces revealed that they did not accept him or know how to react to him. Previous research has found that trans people with binary-gender appearance are perceived as more legitimately trans and receive more support from others (Hennekam and Köllen, 2025; Muhr et al., 2016). This was true for Oliver, too: his problem was solved once he started taking testosterone, which changed his voice to “match” his masculine looks and sense of gender. Another example of the assumption about binary-gender appearance comes from Adrian, who recalled how their teacher had reacted on seeing them for the first time.
Adrian: The first thing that happened to me when I applied to this school and was interviewed as part of the application process was that the teacher doing the interviews asked, even before introducing herself or anything, she looked at me for a long time and then asked: “Are you a boy or a girl?” [. . .] Me: How did it go then, after this bad beginning? Adrian: I just laughed uneasily, and the teacher laughed uneasily. And they [teachers] were like, “We are very bothered because we don’t know what’s in your pants,” and I was like, “I am very bothered because I think I’m in danger.” Nevertheless, it [the interview] went well.
The question of whether one is “a boy or a girl” reveals the binary-gender norm: one is assumed to be either a boy or a girl. When the person in question is seen as ambiguous, they are seen as impossible; they are left unrecognized as a human because they fall outside the frames of recognition (Butler, 2009: 4–13, 138–141). This is emphasized in the above example, in which the teacher could not even introduce herself before asking about Adrian’s gender. For Adrian, the situation was threatening and scary, but they managed to get through the interview and were accepted into the program. Adrian also had another similar but more negative experience from a job interview for an internship. They recalled that the interviewer did not even open their portfolio after seeing their nonbinary appearance.
Some experiences of unrecognition related to binary-gender structures, such as those incorporated in information systems or the design of study programs. In the student administration system, there was a gender marker that allowed only two options—a man or a woman—and it was also difficult to change any personal information in the system. Oliver explained that, although he had had his current name as his official name for almost 2 years, he still had to sign into the school computers with the name given to him at birth and the system flagged him as a woman. Another trans man, Kaitsu, had been able to change his name and gender in the student administration system, but it had not been an easy process. Kaitsu recalled an experience of unrecognition where his birth name was still in the system and his teacher circulated a printed list of names in class: I would sit in a corner as if I were not there. I did the exercises but. . . There was my whole name, including the middle name, and the teacher would circulate the name list in class, and all I could do was think that now everybody sees my whole name.
Kaitsu had not spoken out in this situation but sat in the corner, trying to act as if he were not there at all. In this way, the experience of not having his name and gender recognized also created a desire to remain completely unrecognized—to disappear from the situation unseen.
Binary-gender structures were also incorporated in study programs, of which dressmaking is the most illustrative case. In dressmaking, the binary-gender norm was confirmed through organizing the education into two separate programs: one for learning to produce men’s clothing and one for learning to produce women’s and children’s clothing. While Lou said they understood the need for separate programs, they argued that it is possible that this division reinforced essentialist views of sex and gender in their profession: I don’t know if it is because we constantly discuss the differences between women’s and men’s bodies and clothing that. . . perhaps that has stuck in dressmakers’ minds, and then the body becomes gender. [. . .] And then teachers constantly refer to us as “boys and girls” or “men and women.”
According to Lou, discussing the differences in women’s and men’s bodies can influence how genders are seen in the dressmakers’ profession; when the body becomes gender, it suddenly includes assumptions that go beyond having a certain type of body. While Lou did not oppose the separation of programs (a binary-gender structure), they argued that it was related to their experience of being unrecognized; according to Lou, it reinforced teachers’ binary-gender understanding, which in turn made teachers refer to their students with binary-gender words. This illustrates that different forms of unrecognition can reinforce one another.
One reason for the experiences of unrecognition was a lack of representation in study courses. Trans and nonbinary people were mentioned only once in the official curriculum—in a compulsory course on health education. This made them feel unrecognized and marginalized, especially when the study courses otherwise mostly confirmed the binary-gender norm. This is illustrated by Adrian’s experiences in game design studies: I am annoyed that in gaming in general, the game characters are so damned gendered, and tits all over the place. That titty armor does not protect anyone! However, our current project leader doesn’t listen to anyone’s complaints about this, even though our game is almost full of these titty girls.
In the above extract, Adrian explains how game design can be gendered in a very stereotypical way, which made them angry and frustrated. These feelings of anger and frustration were fortified by their view that changing the situation was impossible.
The students also argued that there was a lack of representation of trans and nonbinary teachers. Adrian explained that “if teachers are trans or nonbinary, they don’t say that out loud, hell no.” The students guessed that some of their teachers were gay, but even that was not discussed openly by the teachers. This atmosphere created a lack of representation and sent a message to students that differences should be hidden.
I have now illustrated through examples the kinds of experiences of unrecognition trans and nonbinary students encountered at their school, and next, I will analyze how they resisted this unrecognition.
Resisting unrecognition
On many occasions, trans and nonbinary students resisted their unrecognition indirectly, by providing suggestions of disagreement but not speaking up. For instance, in the first example in which Lou’s teacher denied the existence of nonbinary people, Lou resisted in silence: they “ground their teeth” and “squirmed” but did not speak. One of the main reasons for resisting only indirectly was the fear of negative consequences. For example, Adrian expressed that they were afraid of physical violence or other types of bullying by their classmates. Lou explained that, although they did not have so many negative experiences with their classmates, they had other negative previous experiences, which made them shy and reserved in sharing their gender identity with others. Oliver, on the other hand, expressed that he was sometimes content to resist transphobia only in his mind: Sometimes, when somebody voices a transphobic comment, I just sit there and laugh inside my head that what an ironic and funny situation this is, because you don’t know that I am a trans man.
Oliver’s expression that he was silently laughing implies that he is not afraid or ashamed in the above kind of situations. He knows it is others, not him, who would need to feel shame. There are thus multiple reasons for silence as a reaction to unrecognition, ranging from fear of physical violence to being content with the situation. I consider all these incidents as indirect resistance because the students nevertheless resisted in some ways—resisting the unrecognition and shaming of trans people in their minds. However, indirect resistance is not very effective in stopping recurring unrecognition.
There are also examples of direct resistance in the interview. For instance, Adrian explains that they did not listen to their classmates’ transphobic comments silently: Our class was very transphobic [at the beginning]. In addition to me, we have two other persons who are not cisgender, and there has always been a loud quarrel between those who are against trans people and those who are not. [. . .] It is not as bad as at the beginning anymore, but just yesterday I heard a transphobic joke. [. . .] On the other hand, nobody complained to me when I came to school in a dress today. I put on the dress expecting that I could then shout to my classmates [who would comment on me in derogatory ways], but no, that did not happen.
Adrian’s description shows that trans issues were a significant topic of discussion in their class. The jokes and negative comments are a way of trying to shame and silence. However, Adrian did not let this happen but resisted both through “shouting back” and varying their gender presentation. In some situations, Lou resisted directly as well: I remember this forever. Our teacher was picking up on me all the time, and once, the teacher called me by my birth name in the classroom [despite knowing that I don’t use that name]. Our whole class went like. . . it felt like hell froze, and everybody turned towards the teacher, asking: “What did you say?” Also, I said, “Excuse me?” Then the teacher addressed me as [Lou]. [. . .] I always tell new teachers immediately in the beginning that I want to be called [Lou], and I can forgive a few mistakes, but not if it’s intentional.
The above example shows that classmates’ support can make a difference and encourage individual students to resist their teachers. Next, I will continue discussing how students experienced support and recognition.
Getting support
In addition to experiencing unrecognition, trans and nonbinary students also experienced recognition and received support at their school, and it is in this context that they could better resist their unrecognition. Adrian, Oliver, and Kaitsu experienced that their teachers were trying to recognize them appropriately. As Oliver phrased it, “they try to respect what we’ve told them.” Additionally, Lou expressed that they were happy that most of their teachers called them Lou despite it not being their official name. All the students also got some support from their classmates. For instance, Kaitsu said that his classmates had reassured him when he had told them about an incident in which he was misgendered. The students also described their school environment as generally supportive and better than in many other schools. For instance, the students argued that it was good that, in the compulsory course in health education, everybody had to write an essay about gender diversity; this signaled to all their classmates that trans and nonbinary people truly existed and could not be dismissed.
The students could also recall some very positive incidents. One such example came from Adrian, who explained that once a visiting teacher had given the class an assignment in which they had to create a character and its opposite. The teacher had emphasized that pairs comprising a woman and a man would not be accepted as opposites, and that there were more genders than just those two. Adrian had found the assignment very inspiring, saying that they “drew genderless gay porn throughout the whole course.” The assignment had thus given Adrian more courage to challenge stereotypes during the rest of the course taught by this teacher.
The students had also found pockets of appreciation. For instance, Lou explained that, in their internship placement, they had “the most wonderful and open-minded boss ever.” The boss and her work as a costume maker had inspired Lou for a long time: Since I was little, I’ve been fascinated by. . . When I saw [a music video by a rock band], I knew immediately that this is what I want to do. [. . .] Through a friend, I got to know the person who created the costumes used in that video. We walked there [to the costume maker’s studio] to meet her on one summer’s day, and I asked if I could do an internship there because she’s a source of inspiration for me. She just screamed with excitement, shouting, “Did you hear that? I’ve done something good in my life.” And I got to do an internship.
Lou’s story illustrates how an interest in queer subcultures can help with one’s professional advancement. Lou had found their place within the profession. They had also learned that their special skills were their professional strength. Lou explained that they were able to think about bodies and genders without further assumptions about the connections between them, which helped them to measure different kinds of bodies without judgment and made them sensitive to the body anxieties held by many people.
The teacher interviewees also described some occasions where they had encouraged the recognition of trans and nonbinary persons, particularly after the students had taken the initiative. For example, a photography teacher, Anttu, explained that her students had presented trans topics in their photographic work and argued that “it’s important to show that it’s acceptable.” However, interviews with teachers also revealed misconceptions that hindered teachers’ abilities to support their trans and nonbinary students.
Teacher allies’ misconceptions hindering support
Despite their positive attitude toward supporting their trans and nonbinary students, the teacher allies struggled in finding concrete examples of what more they could do. In particular, two misconceptions hindered their support abilities: they interpreted the visibility of trans and nonbinary students in an overly positive way, and they idealized silence around gender diversity. The following conversation with Anttu (photography teacher) and Heikki (game design teacher) illustrates the misconceptions.
Me: How is gender diversity visible here? Anttu: I think it is visible in such a way that nobody makes a fuss about it. There are all kinds of people here. We don’t have to make it an issue. Heikki: Mm. . . [. . .] You have had, and I think we have one nonbinary gender student in each class, one or more. [. . .] Me: How could you improve equality from the perspective of trans and nonbinary gender students? Heikki: We don’t have a problem, really, because when we don’t pay attention to that [gender], I think equality is achieved rather well. [. . .] We are in our own bubble here.
The above conversation shows that teachers idealized the situation in which they did not pay attention to the gender diversity of their students, and no problems were raised. The reference to an “own bubble” emphasizes that the teachers really believed that their trans and nonbinary students did not experience any severe problems or bullying at school. Furthermore, in teachers’ talk, the very existence of some trans and nonbinary students seemed to prove that the class was trans-inclusive. Later in the interview, Heikki praised his students as “broad-minded” and able to “avoid stereotypes” and “design interesting games.” In this praise, Heikki did not acknowledge any differences between his students’ abilities to question gender stereotypes, nor his own role in supporting them to learn to do that. Similarly to Heikki, Minna (dressmaking teacher) praised all her students as “liberal”: If you look at our students, we have a rather liberal attitude towards that traditional division [of teaching the making of men’s and women’s clothes separately]. We have some students who do not necessarily identify with either [gender].
For teachers, the existence of nonbinary students thus seemed to imply that all their students were open-minded regarding gender diversity, even if this was not discussed. Minna explained that she was consciously “aware of how I talk about that topic [gender] and some other topics, such as one’s weight.” While being aware that gender is a sensitive topic might indeed be necessary, it seems that teachers’ avoidance of discussing gender was rather broad. For instance, Minna and Anttu wondered, in two separate interviews, whether they could still talk about gender statistics. This shows that it can be difficult for teachers to distinguish situations that are very problematic for trans students from situations that are not very problematic. Gender statistics can easily be discussed without creating an unsafe environment for trans students by including a disclaimer if the used statistics are binary-gendered; and some statistics include more than two genders.
Teachers’ claims that there were no problems were in sharp contradiction with the students’ experiences. I wrote the following reflection on this conflict in my research diary: I’ve been listening and relistening to the conversation I had with the students. They are so strong and witty in expressing their experiences! However, I know that coping with those experiences and describing them in such a humorous and witty way takes skill and energy. I’ve seen how so many people get depressed after a while, and just living becomes a struggle. [. . .] Yet I can understand the teachers, too. They might not see the vulnerability of the witty students. When I was interviewing the teachers, I felt an urge to join them in believing that their school was inclusive. However, that kind of thinking only protects us adults from seeing the violence that young people continue to experience.
In my reflection, I suggest that believing in the inclusivity of organizations might protect us from acknowledging inequalities and exclusion when they do not directly concern us. The combination of a supportive attitude and inaction is typical in Finnish discussions on gender equality. There is a tension between the simultaneous culture of denial and acceptance of the significance of gender at work: people often do not perceive gender inequalities in their own workplace, even though they can identify them at the societal level (Korvajärvi, 2011: 231). Teachers’ discussions on trans-inclusivity resemble the discussion on gender equality; trans-inclusivity is seen as important, but not much needs to be done to improve it.
Discussion
In this article, I explored trans and nonbinary students’ experiences at a Finnish vocational school and discussed their teacher allies’ abilities to support them. The study makes three contributions to research on the experiences and allyship relations of trans and nonbinary people within organizations. First, drawing on Butler’s conceptualization of recognition (Butler, 2004, 2009, 2021; Butler and Athanasiou, 2013), I demonstrate that unrecognition is a central experience in the lives of trans and nonbinary people, but that it can be resisted in many direct and indirect ways and through allies’ support. I demonstrate the centrality of the experience of unrecognition in the lives of trans and nonbinary persons through showing how trans and nonbinary students experienced unrecognition when they faced binary-gendered language, misgendering, assumptions of binary-gender appearance, binary-gender structures, and a lack of representation in study courses. These examples show how frames of recognition operate in practice, creating experiences of unrecognition or (partial, conditional, and constrained) recognition for trans and nonbinary students. However, I also illustrate that unrecognition can be negotiated and resisted in many direct and indirect ways, and with allies’ support.
Previous research has noted that trans and nonbinary persons need to navigate and negotiate to survive in binary-gender society. For example, O’Shea (2020b) conceptualizes the work that they must do to navigate and manage their erasure as a nonbinary person as “working at gender.” For them, this work is daily. It is not about contesting gender norms, nor dressing up, and they do it because they must, even though it is laborious and difficult, or, as O’Shea puts it: “work is hell” (O’Shea, 2020b). O’Shea’s understanding and description of the reasons why nonbinary (and sometimes also binary trans) persons end up challenging the binary-gender norm are important as they remind us that expressing one’s trans or nonbinary gender is rarely about contesting norms per se; more often, it is about expressing one’s personhood and thus maintaining one’s mental health. Trans and nonbinary students’ experiences of encountering and resisting unrecognition at school also describe daily work, which does not involve glamorous dressing up, nor focus on contesting norms. Rather than describing this work as working at gender, I, however, want to emphasize the relationality of this work, which I do by drawing on recognition theory. In our experiences of recognition and unrecognition, we are dependent on others; and these others can and, in my opinion, should also work to recognize us more appropriately.
In another article, O’Shea (2020a) argues that their nonbinary gender performance demonstrates their need to balance a complicated and dynamic contradiction that both does and undoes them in a binary-gendered world. I find the notion of the significance of the contradiction fascinating. It seems that, despite the violence and ridicule that the contradictions often involve, for O’Shea (2020a), these contradictions are nevertheless crucial in doing them as nonbinary. Following O’Shea’s reading on Butler (O’Shea, 2020a), the main question is not whether individuals can undo gender through their gender performances, but how gender norms and the contradictions that they create for nonbinary persons can do and undo nonbinary individuals, which O’Shea experiences happening simultaneously. I understand that this means it is possible to experience some kind of recognition, even in situations in which this recognition draws on negative stereotypes of trans people, and that this partial recognition can feel preferable to complete unrecognition. In this study, Adrian wanted to put on a dress and “shout back” rather than suppress their nonbinary personhood—at least when their fear toward their classmates was somewhat reduced after studying with them for a few years. However, Adrian also hoped that their teachers would have supported them more by intervening with their classmates’ transphobic comments. So, even if partial recognition or negative misrecognition can sometimes be preferred to complete unrecognition, it does not mean that allies would not be welcome to ease the pain.
In addition to the easing of pain, allies can help in creating positive experiences. The few exceptionally positive incidents that the students described encouraged queer creativity in their respective fields: dressmaking, game design, and photography. In these situations, the students felt that their ability to take a queer perspective, such as seeing beyond gender binaries, became a strength. In contrast to O’Shea’s concept of working at gender (O’Shea, 2020b), in this study, managing unrecognition is also about experiencing support, such as when one finds pockets of appreciation in which queer creativity is appreciated. However, this queer creativity must still be understood in relation to unrecognition and misrecognition present in the surrounding binary-gender society; otherwise, queer would not be queer anymore (Parker, 2016) and its necessity for creating alternative realities would cease. In a situation in which one is otherwise surrounded by unrecognition, however, finding pockets of appreciation can have a tremendous positive impact on one’s (professional) identity, learning, and future career.
The second contribution of this study is that I show that allies’ abilities to support trans and nonbinary people can be limited by constraining frames of recognition, which impact the recognizability of different groups (Butler, 2004: 29–30, 2009: 138–141). Teacher allies interpreted trans students’ visibility overly positively and idealized silence around gender diversity. These misconceptions imply partial and conditional recognition and resemble a process that Tyler and Vachhani (2021) call “over-inclusion.” Over-inclusion might look like inclusion, but, when observed more carefully, only provides opportunities for conditional and partial recognition and reifies difference (Tyler and Vachhani, 2021). In this case, trans and nonbinary students were noticed but, instead of critically examining their studying conditions, the teachers reasoned that their existence proved their inclusion, thus interpreting their visible presence overly positively. I see this misconception as an example of over-inclusion that is further exacerbated by another misconception: the idealization of silence around gender diversity. While Tyler and Vachhani (2021) base their analysis on a company and view over-inclusion as a purposeful strategy that companies use to incorporate only profitable differences, this research shows that even well-meaning allies might contribute to over-inclusion rather than inclusion.
The third and final contribution of this study is that I argue that gender neutrality can be a problematic approach for supporting the recognition and inclusion of trans and nonbinary persons. I interpret the idealization of silence around gender diversity as a sign of unrecognition and exclusion of trans and nonbinary persons. The idealization of silence can even be understood as a form of silencing—because if students voiced any trans or nonbinary related issues, they broke the silence and risked becoming viewed as (gender) troublemakers. However, in teachers’ discussions, this silence was masked as inclusive: teachers argued that the school could be trans-inclusive without “making an issue” of gender diversity. This finding can be linked to Finnish research on gender equality, which has shown that this rhetoric of gender neutrality is typical in Finnish organizations and society and that it masks gender conflicts (Korvajärvi, 2011: 236; McKie and Hearn, 2004). I argue that this also occurs in this case; rather than advancing trans-inclusivity, the avoidance of talking about gender serves to hide problems. For this reason, I find Hennekam and Köllen’s (2025) suggestion of the de-gendered utopia to be problematic. In practice, de-gendering might only mean silencing discussion on gender diversity and the problems faced by trans and nonbinary people. Although de-gendered practices can sometimes be useful in protecting individuals in a hostile environment, de-gendered protection is far from an ideal situation.
Correspondingly, I find that the general use of a gender-neutral pronoun does not necessarily advance the inclusion of trans and nonbinary people. In the Finnish language, there are no separate pronouns for “he” and “she,” and gendered titles—such as “Madam” and “Sir” —are rarely used. Thus, one might get less feedback on one’s gender in comparison to many other language environments—at least if others can categorize one’s gender as either a man or a woman. As this research shows, when this does not happen, the feedback is often immediate and rude; they are stared at or asked whether they are “a boy or a girl.” This shows that the use of a gender-neutral pronoun does not mean that people would not categorize individuals into men and women in their minds. Finnish speakers often make and tolerate more “mistakes” with pronouns when they speak English, but this is not necessarily a sign of a more open-minded attitude toward gender categorizations. Thus, it is no surprise that the empirical examples in this article show that the problems faced by students in a Finnish language environment are similar to those faced by trans and nonbinary people in English language environments (Benato et al., 2024; O’Shea, 2020a, 2020b; Shuster and Lamont, 2019). Furthermore, the use of gender-neutral pronouns may even prevent discussing the possibility of having nonbinary persons in the group, as there are no rounds of introductions in which pronouns and gender identifications could be clarified. When pronouns are gender-neutral, we need other routines to recognize the existence of various gender identities.
This research emphasizes the role that other organization members have in recognizing and supporting trans and nonbinary persons. Future research could further explore how allies and other organization members support trans and nonbinary persons’ recognition, and how their views on the inclusivity of their organization might differ from those of trans and nonbinary persons. I believe that working for the inclusion of trans students is particularly important because, when one lives in an environment where one is mostly unrecognized, even small hints of recognition and support become significant and positive experiences can have a significant impact on trans and nonbinary students’ learning experiences and vocational and occupational paths. Future research could also explore what (un)recognition means and what consequences it has for other marginalized groups, and thus further strengthen our understanding of how recognition is related to inclusion and exclusion.
Suggestions for strengthening the support of trans and nonbinary students
What can teacher allies do to better support and recognize their trans and nonbinary students then? Based on this research, addressing violence and bullying—such as transphobic comments and jokes and intentional misgendering—is the first thing to do. It requires showing that violence and bullying are not accepted, and that there is help available in case they nevertheless happen. Addressing violence might also reduce the fear that often prevents trans and nonbinary students from speaking up and claiming their recognition. Openly trans or nonbinary teachers could also make a difference by creating representation and by showing that discussing one’s minority status is possible and acceptable. There are also many practices that can offer small signs of recognition, for example: offering the possibility to use one’s chosen name, not addressing groups of students as “boys and girls” or “women and men,” making it possible and smooth for students to change their gender markers and names in the student administration systems, and offering non-gendered restrooms. In addition, teachers could voice the fact that trans and nonbinary people exist in appropriate situations, such as when discussing gendered statistics or gendered traditions. However, although these practices are important, they are not enough.
The recognition of trans and nonbinary people also requires incorporating trans topics in the educational content and curricula. Students’ experiences offer some ideas of how this can be done. Students had found pockets of appreciation during those occasions in which the otherwise binary-gendered content of study courses was questioned. The students had designed and produced genderless, nonbinary, and transgender game characters, visual stories, and costumes, when there was space for it, either at school or during internships. The students presented these as rare and precious opportunities for challenging unrecognition and as sources of inspiration and meaning. In some of the best examples, teachers had required the whole class to broaden its understanding of gender. Such examples show how the broadening of frames of recognition can be done in practice.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my supervisor, Janne Tienari, and the editors and anonymous reviewers. Thank you for your valuable comments, which helped me shape the article to its final version! Also, I would like to thank Stephanie Clark for proofreading the manuscript, and the people with whom I have talked about this research at Hanken’s Gender Research Group meetings and the Gender Work and Organization Conference in 2023. Thank you for your encouragement, support, and constructive comments! Finally, I wish to thank the students interviewed for generously sharing their experiences.
Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Foundation for Economic Education in Finland (200289 and 190385), the European Social Fund (S20698), Marcus Wallenberg’s Foundation, and Ami Foundation.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.