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Transgender People at Four Big Ten Campuses: A Policy Discourse Analysis
- The Review of Higher Education
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 39, Number 3, Spring 2016
- pp. 371-393
- 10.1353/rhe.2016.0020
- Article
- Additional Information
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This article examines the language used to discuss transgender people on university campuses. This study asks how, despite seemingly benefitting transgender people, the discourses carried by the documents that discuss trans people may actually undermine the intended goals of policy initiatives. For example, a report on the status of transgender people may use language depicting them as vulnerable or as disabled, even as it strives to make the university more welcoming to trans individuals. Understanding how language has been used to describe transgender people on university campuses may help institutions reflect on how to reframe equity work to become more inclusive of trans people.