“Basement Boys” in the All-Gender Bathroom: Investigating Student-Inspired Trans-Activism and White Cisgenderist Barriers to Supporting Trans Students in School
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background/Context: The experiences of trans students in all-gender bathrooms are largely underexplored, as is the trans-activism by students to procure these spaces. Additionally, the role of teachers in supporting the creation of these spaces is largely absent from research regarding bathroom spaces. Purpose: This article elucidates the impact of student-inspired trans-activism that was mobilized through a gender studies educator in an urban school and her class project to foster trans inclusivity that resulted in the creation of two all-gender bathrooms. Participants: Four participants were involved in this study: a gender studies teacher, and her three students who either contributed to the creation of the all-gender bathrooms or actively used them following their implementation. Research Design: This qualitative paradigmatic case study took place at one high school (Capital High) and employs thematic and trans-informed theoretical analysis to semi-structured interviews to elucidate the potentialities and limitations of student-led trans-activism and the barriers to bathroom access. Findings: Emergent from this research is the significance of supportive educators and trans-inclusive education that collectively contribute to the overall trans-inclusive climate. However, pervasive white cistems exposed white male gender entitlement and the forces of cisgenderism at play in the school system, which amounted to the colonization of the all-gender bathrooms at Capital High by the “Basement Boys.” Conclusion/Recommendations: The findings endorse the need to move beyond bathroom policy reform, and rely on a singular gender facilitative teacher to address the problem of cisgenderism. More gender-expansive commitments beyond one teacher’s classroom are required, such as system-level directives that support integrating trans-affirmative education across the curriculum and resources to foster ongoing professional development in schools.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.011 | 0.011 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.008 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".