ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the emerging terminology of gender identityWOKE in conversation with the growing field of trans*+ and a pedagogy of refusal as a strategy for literacy practices across all grade levels and disciplines. Gender identity, then, situated within a trans*+ theory, as noted previously, is not static, and is always in perpetual construction and deconstruction. Gender identityWOKE is the self-awareness about one's gender identity that simultaneously questions its construction, the impacts of its social positioning, and its ties to ideological beliefs while staying engaged and ready to participate in its reinvention. Attention to gender identityWOKENESS is limited in practice and yet to be anchored across pedagogy, curriculum, and/or policy. The impact of their gender identityWOKENESS is spatializing change as they educate the peers and adults about the ways in which they self-identify. To stay gender identityWOKE, educators can remain open to the gender identities students narrate as well as to others in their lives and the surrounding world.
