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 …