Education Commons^™

Institutionalized Erasure: The Influence Of Binarism On Nonbinary College Students, Max Cordes Galbraith

The Vermont Connection

The narratives and experiences of nonbinary people and nonbinary college students are still infrequent in scholarship and are viewed as abnormal, niche experiences. Normative ideals are further enforced by the severe lack of nonbinary scholars and researchers. In this paper, I name the challenges of normativity and use the existing literature to explore current obstacles to nonbinary students’ senses of liberation, safety, and belonging at their institutions of higher education. I use normativity, specifically transnormativity, and binarism frameworks to explore barriers to nonbinary students’ liberation and full engagement in higher education, and the uniqueness of nonbinary students’ experiences compared to …

Mic Check? Mic Check! Amplifying Our Voices, Kirsty Nicole Bocado

The Vermont Connection

Content Warning: discrimination, suicidal ideation, violence

When I write about mental illness, I use the terms: disability, identity, and relationship. However, no word captures what mental illness means to me. Mental illness is somehow both a part of me and a separate, intangible entity. Every day is an exhausting struggle to live with and understand it, and during my first year of graduate school, I experienced covert ableism. This harm caused a long and tedious recovery process on top of ongoing unlearning and healing. Through recovery, I adopted the practice of “embracing the whole” of emotions, feelings, symptoms, and triggers. …