Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7028-0891
Abstract
In 1995 Weston articulated an oft recited story where queers move from persecutory rural geographies to the more accepting city. While Weston interrogated this spatial binary and demonstrated failed promise of the metropolis to deliver, particularly across intersections of gender, the urban flight narrative persists. Jack Halberstam (2005) used the term ‘metronormativity’ to illustrate the power of this narrative that influences a research focus on urban queers. This study contributes insights on how queer youth who live in remote Canadian geographies navigate and express gender and sexuality. Eight participants (12 – 24) attended an informal educational space, a genderplay workshop, and were interviewed onsite. It is within white settler heteropatriarchy that youth in this study negotiated binary gender, and many youths did not claim an identity. While masculine youth felt that the isolation contributed to a neighbourly acceptance, trans feminine youth who could not pass articulated their hometown as dangerous. The workshop results demonstrate the need for educators to move beyond accommodations approaches, where small changes are made for individual youth who are recognizably out, and to contend with their own cisheteronormativity and create cultural change and safer schools.
Methodological Approach
Qualitative
DOI
https://doi.org/10.60808/ry6p-3151
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Litwiller, F. (2026). Rural Geographies, Queer Youth and Metronormativity. Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.60808/ry6p-3151
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Included in
Education Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons
