This research is driven by the need to change the current reality of
schools leaving queer youth behind. The researcher worked as a teacher in
an alternative school and realiz d that hate and discrimination against queer
people existed in alternative ...
This research is driven by the need to change the current reality of
schools leaving queer youth behind. The researcher worked as a teacher in
an alternative school and realiz d that hate and discrimination against queer
people existed in alternative schools as well. However, in this chapter, queer
youth did not exist in passive roles as victims of oppression, but as actors,
creating dynamics that transformed the school and its members. Through the
dynamics created by queer youth, this researcher sought to raise concerns
and questions about what changes should be made in Korean society and
schools.
This study used qualitative research methods to conduct in-depth
interviews with 15 queer youth who had attended alternative schools in their
adolescence and 5 non-queer members who had attended schools with queer
people. We also conducted focus group interviews with two teams who had
co-created queer practices and movements through queer meetings in
alternative schools.
Queer youth experienced microaggressions due to the norms created by
alternative schools. Most of the alternative schools that the study participants
attended created norms and standards that centered on able-bodied,
cisgender, heterosexual people in the community, and queer people were
missing from that framework. Norms were codified in community culture,
and without personal space, queer youth experienced microaggressions,
particularly masculinity constructed by male peers. Microaggressions against
queer people were met with accusatory glances, judgmental attitudes, and
rude questions. Due to members exercising “the power of ignorance(Jeon,
2021: 324)”, queer youth have been forced to repeatedly speak out and
validate the microaggressions they experience. This reveals that queer youth
are positioned as strangers to school members, rather than as members of
the community, even when they find themselves in the same space as queer
youth.
Even within the norms created by alternative schools, queer youth have
found cracks and gaps to transform their schools. In alternative schools,
which were also spaces of activism, queer youth were able to connect with
peers who were actively engaged in the movement and practice of diversity.
By connecting with Alai, who was struggling with her life together, and
other queer youth who were struggling with similar issues, queer youth
gained strategies from their elders and teachers to organiz a queer
movement on campus.
Queer youth have begun to disrupt school domains such as education,
space, and school culture with strategies of active invisibility and visibility.
The dynamics of queer youth began to transform schools and their
constituents, and because of that dynamic, schools began to become
increasingly comfortable spaces for queer youth. Seeing the potential of this
dynamic, queer youth expanded the movement into society. Through various
activities, they connected with queer youth in other locations. Making
documentaries and submitting them to film festivals, organizing youth queer
culture festivals, and running a booth at the Seoul Queer Culture Festival
revealed the presence of queer youth in society. These attempts convey to
society as a whole that queer youth are capable of bringing about change
not only in schools but also in society.
The negative feelings that cling to their bodies as they experience the
absence of their queer identity are actually connected to new relationships
(Sara Ahmed, 2023). They connect with allies who will speak out against
hate and discrimination. It conveys to society the belief that the connections
made in isolation, the lives that lead to resistance and activism, will create
new communities and relationships that leave no one behind.
[Keywords] Queer, Queer youth, LGBTQ youth, Alternative schools,
Alternative education, Civil society movements, Dynamics, Queer politics,
Queer movements, Minority movements