A Case Study of Political Participation in District-Level LGBTQ-Inclusive Policymaking

Abstract

This dissertation draws on a comparative case study framework (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2016) to examine one Arizona school district’s efforts to update their sex education policy to be comprehensive in nature, and inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ+) identities and experiences, prior to and following the 2019 repeal of Arizona’s “no promotion of homosexuality” (NPH) law. Specifically, I examine how wide-ranging individuals including youth activists, parents, educators, medical professionals, religious leaders, and self-identified Hispanic/Latino, and Latina/Latinx community members, with differing views of sex education lobbied for and against the proposed adoption of a set of proposed curriculum updates to change from abstinence-only sex education to more comprehensive, inclusive, and research-based curriculum in support of youth. Utilizing a policy as discourse lens (Ball, 1993; Bacchi, 2009), I analyze how these policy actors framed youth risk and well-being, as well as the gender and sexuality of young people, in their arguments for and against comprehensive and inclusive sex education, and examine the rhetoric and problem representations put forth by individuals in opposition to Comprehensive Sex Education, or CSE. I also trace how the school district public forums, meant to solicit public comments and feedback on the curricular updates, became highly contested spaces through the outside involvement of an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group that organized a coordinated disinformation campaign in opposition to LGBTQ-inclusive policymaking efforts. I further examine how those discourses put forward by those in opposition were used to construct a political spectacle (Edelman, 1988; Smith et al., 2004), marked by emotionally charged language, illusions of rationality, essentializing claims of community, and efforts to plot the work of the school district as directly working against district constituents, to appear as a unified false majority against the curriculum. Considering the comments of those in support of the curriculum updates, I also document how adult allies of LGBTQ+ youth used research and personal testimonies, and leveraged in-place district-level anti-discrimination policies, to reject toxic claims challenging the validity and dignity of LGBTQ+ peoples, and reclaimed space in support of proposed curricular updates and LGBTQ+ youth well-being. Attending to young peoples’ roles as policy actors who are impacted by policy decisions around inclusivity within school districts, I also analyze young people’s efforts to advocate on behalf of much-needed sex education curricular updates. Centering youth comments in school board meetings, the dissertation shows how youth policy actors drove the district to realize the need to update their sex education curriculum in 2015 and 2016, and how their voices provided clarity in the midst of the disinformation and hateful rhetoric put forward by speakers opposed to the curriculum updates in 2019. As a whole, the dissertation underscores the importance of listening to youth voices in important policy moments to shed light on real-world impacts of moving through abstinence-only education in lieu of comprehensive sex education, and the lived realities of LGBTQ+ students in K-12 schools. In a time marked by anti-transgender rhetoric and policy efforts across the United States, the dissertation also highlights the deeply personal experiences of transgender youth activists and their families. The dissertation also raises important questions regarding how school districts can guide decision-making processes surrounding LGBTQ-inclusivity in school districts, individual schools, and community settings, particularly in the contexts of well-organized groups opposed to comprehensive and inclusive sex education with international influence.