[Intro Music]

00:00:08:27 – 00:01:01:05
Hannah
Welcome to the Diverse Ed podcast. Diverse Educators is an intersectional community of educators who are passionate about diversity, equity and inclusion. Our vision: everyone is celebrated in every classroom in every school. Our mission: a collaborative community that celebrates the successes and amplifies the stories of diverse people. Our values: promoting acceptance, increasing visibility, encouraging celebration, creating belonging and enabling learning. In series two of the Diverse Educators podcast, we have ten episodes. In each episode, our co-hosts, Mahlon Evan-Sinclair and Jess Boyd, will interview one contributor from each of the ten chapters of Diverse Educators: A Manifesto. Each conversation will reflect on how they have found and used their voice, discuss how identity shapes them as an educator, share the challenges they’ve had to navigate on their journey and identify the changes they would like to see in the school system.

00:01:05:05 – 00:01:19:00
Jess
Hello and welcome to series two of the Diverse Ed podcast. I’m Jess Boyd and I’m a former head of music and currently writing my PhD in culturally relevant pedagogy. I work in initial teacher training and I also run an open access community music project.

00:01:19:28 – 00:01:39:20
Mahlon
And my name is Mahlon Evan-Sinclair, and I’m the founder of Educating While Black podcast, and I’m currently the director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at a girl focused school in Toronto, Canada. In this episode, we’ll be talking to Matthew Savage from the gender reassignment chapter. So, Matthew, can you introduce yourself to the audience in one sentence or so?

00:01:40:18 – 00:01:57:09
Matthew
My name is Matthew. My pronouns are he / him. For many years I was a school leader in the UK and internationally, and now I’m a consultant, trainer, speaker and coach and also critically for this conversation, the proud parent of two trans adult children. It’s a pleasure to be with you.

00:01:57:29 – 00:02:12:27
Jess
It’s great to have you. Okay. So to kick us off in our chat, can you tell us a bit more? You alluded to some, but could you tell us a bit more about the intersections of your identity and how that kind of contributed to what you wanted to write in this chapter?

00:02:13:24 – 00:03:05:08
Matthew
Well, that’s not going to be an easy answer either, is it? Because when one delves into intersectionality, it’s a complex ocean. I’m a wheelchair user myself. I have a disability, which means I’m unable to walk and probably won’t anymore. And my wife and children are of mixed heritage. Both of my kids are queer, trans and neurodivergent, so I think our family’s something of an intersectional soup really. I now lead DEIJ coaching and training to schools across the world through the lenses of disability and gender identity. I wrote the chapter itself as the parent of then one trans child and as a school leader who had tried and often failed to lead a trans-inclusive school. So that was what led me to write the chapter for the book in the first place.

00:03:06:06 – 00:03:35:22
Jess
I think that’s probably the most human definition of intersectionality I’ve ever heard. That was gorgeous. And I just tried to write some notes that intersectionality is an ocean of complexity. I really appreciate that. Thank you for painting that picture. I think intersectionality as a word is still quite new to people, and it sometimes sounds so like, you know, academic or it’s like a term that you. Yeah, Yeah. Thank you for framing like that.

00:03:36:11 – 00:06:03:11
Mahlon
No, I agree. I think there’s a level of, intersectionality is typically looked at as just a list of things that I am versus how what I am interacts with where I am and who I am at different contextual points. And I think by even just how you introduce yourself, your own identities, the identities of the family that you have, and then also the identities that you’ve had in the context of the work that you’ve done. Like I feel like hopefully people are now starting to, with this season, percolate the ideas that intersectionality isn’t static. Some things are far more globally understood as a similar experience, regardless of where you are, but some things are a bit more, they range in terms of that, the context of where you’re at. And I think one of the things that kind of stood out to me from that, the chapter and perhaps the way how you went about writing the chapter, two intersections stood out to me was obviously one was around gender and the other one was around age. And I guess age sometimes can be looked at differently within intersectionality as ageism against those who are older. But I guess I was looking at it from the idea of what are the responsibilities of those who are power holders, right? So there’s an age range at which we have the most power around those around us. And it was interesting to think about what age was allowing you to do, where your children were concerned or the child you wrote about specifically in the chapter and what freedoms, what doors you opened up, what opportunities you, in the power that you had with regards to age, was able to advocate and ally and support them in. And then now I’m thinking about what the age conversation might look like now that they are of age as well to do legally some things that the law says that, you know, adults are allowed to do and younger people can’t. And what that looks like when the younger person knows who they are, and the age limitation, that’s kind of where intersectionality comes in. Where, how is age preventing me from showing up how I want to show up. So thinking about the roles that you’ve had as a headteacher in some of those schools as well, I wonder how all of those sorts of experiences and interactions and exchanges meant for the sort of strand in the chapter at large, the actual focus that you wanted to write about and the things that you wanted to bring out. Could you speak a bit more about what do you think was missing or what did you want to highlight with regards to what you wrote about in your chapter?

00:06:04:15 – 00:09:18:17
Matthew
Wow, that’s quite a question. I’ll do my best with that one. I think so much of the area of DEIJ is about power isn’t it and it’s about where does the power reside, why has the power resided there, for how long has it resided there and what can we do about it? Right. And I think certainly as parents of gender nonconforming children, we didn’t get that right. We, I think, clung on or tried to cling on to the power that we had as parents and tried to protect our children from having too much power themselves in forging their own identities. So I think certainly there was an interesting function of age in establishing and maintaining those power dynamics. And I think as a school leader, I think school leaders worldwide would like very much, if they are honest, to retain the power, not necessarily through any tyrannical urge, but in order to control the outcomes of that institution, in order to maybe even protect, safeguard that institution and everyone within it from things that might harm them. And so I think there is definitely a power dynamic there as a leader of a school, that I’m the adult and I’m the adult most in charge, and I want to kind of retain my power to protect you from the things that might happen to you. And forgetting that some of the things that might happen to me as a child in that school need to happen to me as part of my assertion of my own power and my own destiny, I don’t know if that answers what you were alluding to there. But I think there absolutely were power systems and structures that I didn’t challenge until later on in my journey as the parent of trans kids and as a leader of schools whose leadership has to be informed by what I’ve learned from parenting as well. So, yeah, definitely been aware of that. And as I see my own kids now, I mean, they’ll always be kids to me, right? And they’ll always need me and love me and there will always be that close bond. But they’re adults now. And, you know, as as any parent of a 20, 21, 22, 23 year old will say, there is a struggle for me in allowing them to make their own mistakes, too, for their own identities in case they get it wrong. So even now, I’m constantly wrestling with how to occupy a benign position in terms of them wresting control over their their own destiny. And I think as a school leader, absolutely, that was a journey on which I was very, I was unconsciously on and then consciously on, the more I found out about all of these things. Does that answer your question to some extent?

00:09:19:07 – 00:09:48:02
Jess
It does. It does. It really does. And again, respond to the just the ocean of intersectionality. Your chapter contribution is very much based on the story of your son, but not based on the story of son. And you were quite clear around that at the beginning and it was fascinating. Can you tell us a bit more about the frustrations around this protected characteristic that you wanted to focus on as you were writing.

00:09:50:01 – 00:11:13:13
Matthew
Absolutely. I mean, the frustrations of this particular characteristic are enormous. And I think it’s fascinating and also depressing to me how much things have changed since I wrote that chapter, certainly within the UK, how much things have got worse for anyone who’s exploring a divergent gender identity or questioning their gender. You know, the climate is so much less safe now. It’s so much scarier. It’s so much more oppressive, so much more filled with hate. So I think the challenges are more, it seems, every day, every week, every month, and every year. I suppose what I was trying to explore and I think what everyone in that section was trying to explore is the idea of gender or a gender binary being a deconstructable construct, and that being an essential fact with which for us to wrestle, I think we were all writing also about what inclusivity actually means. And I often say that a school that is not inclusive of every single human inside that gate is inclusive of none of them. So the idea of unconditional inclusivity, I think, was something we were all trying to explore…

00:11:13:22 – 00:11:21:25
Jess
Matthew, you’re dropping bomb after bomb after bomb every sentence. And I’m trying to write notes. Can we just backtrack? That was epic.

00:11:21:25 – 00:11:22:11
Matthew
Sorry.

00:11:23:02 – 00:11:31:16
Jess
I love that. Tell me again what you just said about, oh, say that phrase. If we’re not inclusive of everyone, we’re not inclusive of anyone. Love it.

00:11:33:01 – 00:15:09:00
Matthew
It’s unconditionality. And that came up a lot in the chapter, I think, and I talk about a lot of this in my work, the idea of love. I don’t think we talk about love enough in our role as teachers and in schools and just as our kids in our schools need to know that they are loved unconditionally, that they have value and worth that is not contingent on anything. So as a parent, that’s fundamentally my belief that I cannot love my wife or my children if there are conditions attached to that love. And I think we found this a very, very painful kind of learning through the experience we had with my mother and her relationship with my son. That when Jack had come out, it was very difficult learning experience for my mother, and in the end she decided she wouldn’t learn. And she said to my son on one occasion, as long as you pretend that this is who you are, no one will ever love you or ever find you attractive as long as you live. And it seemed to me that that was the epitome of conditional love. Right. I do love you, but as long as you’re this or as long as you’re that. And I think one of the things I was trying to communicate in the chapter in my wider work is we have to remove conditionality from the equation, be that in terms of gender identity, but also in terms of any characteristic and in terms of any child in our schools, we’ve got to remove that conditionality. And that was something I wanted to get across in the chapter, certainly. The challenges that trans and non-binary kids face today, well, settings and curricula are remarkably cis normative, and that’s a massive challenge that they’re faced with. They’re overwhelmed with this this wave of cis normativity the whole time. And that’s a massive challenge because it’s constantly othering them, it’s constantly stamping them down and saying you’re not normal. They’re faced with the ubiquity of gender binary, again, almost insidious everywhere. It’s saying that there is this binary, you’re not this, you’re not that, you must be that and vice versa. And I think since the book was, since the chapters were written, the book was published, I think the specter of a new Section 28 looms ever larger. And with, you know, I shared in my own networks recently that the troubling kind of juxtaposition of a relatively small number of people signing a petition saying that schools should be able to teach about LGBTQ+ identities in schools and the massive number of people who signed a petition saying that they shouldn’t. I know this is just people signing petitions and it doesn’t necessarily reflect wider society, but I fear the imminent resurgence of a new Section 28. And I think kids growing up in the UK today certainly fear that. So I think those are probably the main challenges that a child inhabiting this characteristic would feel today.

00:15:10:15 – 00:19:42:02
Mahlon
There’s a lot there, there’s a lot there, and I really want to respect how much you drew from personal story to spotlight to exemplify. You also spoke a lot about, you know, other people’s kids and the idea of when other people’s kids are in your care. You know, the unconditional love that is often just reserved for parents, a kid of biological standing. But what you’re also suggesting here is, I might not be your biological parent, but in this space, the unconditional love that you need in this space is still something that I’ve signed up to give you. When I signed up to teach. And I think that that’s really important to keep bringing home because it’s one thing to talk about safeguarding and it’s one thing to talk about wellbeing, and it’s one thing to talk about these sorts of terms and the actions with it. But I go back to your point, you said before about power and who holds it. You have the power as the adults in that space to be unconditional with how you choose to go about demonstrating love for all in your school. And if that love is because the safeguarding safety net means that I have to demonstrate a level of compliance, or if the wellbeing thing means that I have to demonstrate a level of interest, they’re not the same as unconditional, they’re conditional on the facts of not getting caught out here and also demonstrating just enough that you’re doing something here. So I think from what I’m picking up, from what you’re saying, it’s the idea of where is the balance of the scales, where does it need to be reset so that those who are in a position to enact and do act versus those who are in a position to receive, they’re at the best chance of receiving positive affirmation versus conditional on the grounds of as long as you tow the line of whatever the space is, we will give you space. And it’s interesting now I work in mono sex school, which is fascinating, I call it, I say that I work in a girl focused school because not everyone in the school identifies as female. Not everyone in the school identifies with a gender, for that matter. And I think it’s, you know, what you just said about like the the binary that exists. It is also fascinating seeing it in a school which nominally doesn’t have the other, quote unquote binary gender within it, how it still can fall victim to the tropes of what a good young girl should be and how a good young girl should act, and those sorts of attitudes. And I think one of the things that’s fascinating to me when we intersect that, for example, with another identity, you call it race and perhaps call it disability, perhaps call it socioeconomic status. It’s also interesting what things are put on young girls in a school like mine to perform femininity, to perform, conform to gender ideals. What that is asking of them. And then you add on the learning that a school is supposed to give them. It’s like what actually is the lesson here is it English or is it how I’m supposed to be dressing, is it physical education or is it how I’m supposed to be performing, I don’t know how it’s supposed to run in a feminine, but not masculine, but in a performing but like it’s very discombobulating. So from everything that you’re saying, I can fully understand why it’s hard for a kid in school to try to make sense of themselves within the confines that the school gives them. While at the same time, as you said, those of us who come through the system and don’t understand ourselves or others as much, they are the ones that are perhaps recreating a sense of, because difference is so difficult, I actually just wanted to go back to being black and white and binary. So the specter of a renewed section 28 that you speak of is on account of perhaps some of us not getting the message that trans people exist, people exist, people don’t exist in one way or the other. They arrive in all different spaces. And us in education, our job is to give them the full extent of range of them to be themselves versus shutting it down and saying it can only be this or this. So, sorry, it really personally hit me as much as professionally in terms of what you were saying. And I think the importance of that really just needs to be highlighted.

00:19:42:21 – 00:20:35:13
Matthew
Well, you’ve used words like conforming and performing, and I do think we send lots of mixed messages to kids. We want them to conform. We want them to be uniform. We want them to be the same as others. We want them to turn down the volume or the lights on anything about them that makes them different. But at the same time, we want them to perform. We want them to do better than their peers, better than last year, than they were yesterday, etc. And that’s a massively mixed message as well. In the academic domain, I talk a lot about the tyranny of performance and performativity and the importance that any of us, adult or child, should be able to know, say and believe each day I am enough. And I think that is missed out so often too often, including with kids who are questioning their gender identity. So I would totally agree with you without a doubt.

00:20:36:17 – 00:23:26:00
Mahlon
Thanks for that. There’s, in the chapter, you give like a page, you said it’s like a handful of tips, but in fact, you give a page of great tips. And I wanted to pull out some of them to talk about with regards to where a person listening to this, you might be in an educational setting. Some of the ones that stood out to me as examples of key takeaways that they can enact with the power that they may have in their schools. So one was around the idea of, the best schools have a board completely aligned with their guiding statements. So I get that not everyone has access to their board or choosing their board or assigning some of their selves to the board. So I’m going to add that to one of the other tips where you say set aside meaningful time for expert training. And in this particular setting, it’s talking about gender and sexuality. But I also want to bring that broader inclusive of gender and sexuality. So sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression and how that is showing up in your school with regards to other things. So for example, are we using gendered language? We had a, we were talking to someone the other day on this podcast around the notion that I need a couple of strong boys to help me move tables or ones that I’ve heard myself, which is, you know, your handwriting is very neat for a boy, I’m quite surprised. Or your uniform should be a bit more tidy for a girl verses, you know, your shoes are very scuffed. Were you playing football? Like there’s a certain things that we just throw out there that we believe are innocuous. But they have ricochet effects on the kids that we’re supposed to be in charge of. And I’m thinking that, you know, those on the board who may have ingrained, board of governors, who may have ingrained, entrenched, very different experiences, maybe in the places that they work, this might not be something that’s obvious to them. That flippant language that you use in your boardroom or in your setting at work actually will have an impact for younger, more impressionable people. And that was one tip and then the other one that came through was around the idea of, as you’ve already alluded to, language that we use and that we use to learn and teach, read, communicate those are still systemically gendered. Silent semiotics of cis normativity abound throughout both campus and curriculum. And I think again, it’s things like you know, your toilets, boys toilets, girls toilets, ladies, gents, those sorts of language that we just use. What does it do to not use them? It’s not a big ask. It’s actually quite easy to find the different word, like the function of the kid in the school is a student. So you could just say students instead of boys and girls. How will be able to move beyond some of the perhaps binary ways that we find ourselves to be? And so I was wondering if those two takeaways or any others like what would the importance of sharing some of these tips with the reader of that particular essay.

00:23:27:05 – 00:27:15:16
Matthew
I think when I refer to the silent semiotics of cis normativity, I think we need to interrogate our own thought and language. So the tendrils of that gendered language, which, you know, probably are infiltrating so many aspects of our thought and practice. And so I absolutely think that language is, it’s critical, sometimes it’s really simple things. You know, lots of schools will have some sort of democratic or quasi democratic system whereby there’s a school council or school government. And at the top of that will probably be two student leaders. Right. Do you call them head boy and head girl or do you just call them head students? Does it matter if they are both girls and cis girls, etc., etc.? You know, and simply changing from head girl head boy to head student is a tiny, tiny change with massive, massive impact. And I think if anything else, in terms of the tips, what I was trying to do is share tips that aren’t that difficult because sometimes this can seem such a complicated, heated domain. But I think that, you know, the tips that I was sharing came from my time as the head of a school in the Middle East where the socio cultural context was immensely complicated. And if I could do some of the things that we did in that school then any school in the UK could do this, right, the fact that we were able to introduce a non gendered uniform in a school where that was incredibly controversial, we didn’t do it with a fan fare and we didn’t announce right now look at our new non gendered uniform, right? We just reviewed the uniform and the new uniform wasn’t gendered and it was also really cool and comfortable and the kids liked it, right? So I think what I was trying to get across is that these things aren’t difficult, but they, they need intent and I think that’s critical. So much I said earlier of all of this is about power. The whole book is about power, where it resides, where it needs to be challenged. And there are centuries of that power and transgender identity challenges that power, right. So we can feel easily scared because we don’t feel comfortable when these centuries old power structures and dynamics are challenged and seem to be shifting because it’s insecure and it’s the unknown. But staff training then, as you alluded to, is absolutely critical because we don’t know what we don’t know. And there are so many adults working at schools, just they’ve not spoken to a trans person. They’ve not listened to a trans person’s story. They just don’t know what it feels like to live in this world as a trans and non-binary child. They just don’t know. So without training, how are they going to know? And so that training, I think, is so, so important. We can’t just assume that the adults will catch up. I think that when my son came out to us, he kind of assumed that we were just going to catch up. We wanted him to slow down so that we could catch up. Obviously, what we learned in the end was neither of those things were possible, right? So what we have to do is, we have to go and read. We have to go and listen. We have to go and learn and we have to find out the stuff that we didn’t know. So I think staff training is really critical in that regard as well. Definitely. So again, those would certainly rise to the top of the tips from my point of view as well.

00:27:16:24 – 00:27:43:04
Jess
And so if you had to drum a drum and call people to action further, what would an inclusive education system look like in yesterday, ten years time and yeah, what would you love to see different in schools to make things more inclusive by all that we’ve been talking about and your definition of inclusivity?

00:27:44:04 – 00:32:06:00
Matthew
Well, we as teachers need to be advocates and allies. In order to do that, we need to be informed, like I said before, the sort of mantra or mission of the work I do in consultancy is that every child has a right to be seen, be heard, be known and belong. Only if they can belong will they thrive. And that’s what we’re aiming for, thriving for all unconditionally, right. So the teachers as advocates and allies in the school, they need to learn themselves, they need to listen, they need to challenge, they need to advocate and they need to drive the change that’s necessary in the school. Now, in terms of what that school might look like, I’m an almost obsessive fan of the book Street Data by Safir and Dugan, which was published during the pandemic, and it’s looking at a system of equity transformation, as they call it. And what the two writers there talk about is how essential it is that we find and we choose the margins in our society and the society of our school. We find them. We choose those people who are inhabiting the margins of our community. Okay. And how do we do that? Well, I would argue you do that through what Nora Bateson would call warm data. You try and find as many different warm data points to find out who is on the margins, even if you didn’t necessarily realise that they were. And then with intentionality, you do something about that. And what I would advocate is and this would apply to any of the characteristics, to be honest with you, you apply that street data approach to listen. You apply nuanced and sophisticated ways, I’ve been working with a school in Stuttgart recently on listening circles and a really, really rich process of listening circles to get the stories of those kids on the margins. And when you do that, you find out that, with using design language, you find out what their spikes are, what are the things that are spiking them, what are the things that are pushing and keeping them on the margins. And what are the things we have been doing unintentionally but complicitly to push them to the margins? And then, this is where the real magic happens. Once you know where the spikes are, together you design the curb cuts. I deliberately choose a metaphor that applies to my own life in a wheelchair. You find ways of cutting that curb such that the marginalised group get a better and a happy life, but that everyone else benefits from it as well. I was at a school, one of my clients in the Middle East recently, and I was waiting to be met at the gates and there were steps and there was a ramp to get up to the main entrance. Obviously the ramp was there for people like me and the steps for everybody else. When I was sitting there in my chair watching, every single person who arrived at the school went up the ramp, right? We prefer a slope and we prefer a ramp. So curb cuts are creating those design features, adaptive, intentional design features that are going to enfranchise and demarginalise the marginalised, whilst ensuring everyone else wins too. Yeah, and that’s, Safir and Dugan talk about what they call the equity transformation cycle. So we find the spikes, we design the curb cut, and then we constantly iteratively review whether those same kids are remaining in the margins or whether we have brought them in. And I think it’s a system, it’s a process, but it’s not that complicated either. It just comes through. I want to hear your story. Right. And once I’ve heard your story, I want to find ways to make your life better. It’s as simple as that. And that’s what I think the you know, the truly inclusive school would be the one that finds and chooses the margins and then creates curb cuts to move the centre to the margins rather than constantly expecting those on the margins to find a way to get to our centre. I don’t know if that answers the question?

00:32:06:00 – 00:32:09:28
Jess
It solves the issue more than answers the question.

00:32:10:21 – 00:34:22:02
Mahlon
I was going to jump in, because literally like you say Jess said already there’s like gems that you are dropping. But I think the clarity of just your voice is important for people to be able to hear and rewind and listen to again and listen to again. And it’s yeah, you more than answered the question, put it that way. It’s also fascinating, you know, the whole idea that we’ve got these days, not these days, but how semantics and words can sometimes just reinvent the thing that’s already there. So universal design for learning. I’m not against it. I’m fully for it. And it’s exactly what you’re speaking about, right. The whole idea of the ramp versus the stairs, having a ramp does not take away anyone’s utility of using the stairs should they already have the need or wish or whatever else to have used those stairs in the first place? But what I hate, and this is the binary of which you’re speaking to, is by adding a ramp, now you have people complaining about, well, what is the point of the stairs if the ramp is now there the two can’t coexist. We have to have one or the other that like the sort of binary choice of by including more somehow some people are getting less. That is not what we’re talking about at all. By calling students in a nominally girl focused school like mine students does not take away their ability to choose the gender or affirm the gender or be affirmed in the gender that they have. It does not reduce any of those things. So sometimes the fight is one that people make up, but it’s a very strawman situation. So I think that example of what you just talked about, the ramp is a really visible example. The ramp helps everybody. It does not dissuade or take away from or reduce anyone’s, prior if they had the utility or the use or the need or the ability to use the stairs, go ahead and do what you were doing. But the ramp actually allows all of us to make use of this space in the way that the stairs was only allowing some of us to make use of this space before. So don’t begrudge the ramp by constantly talking about how the stairs were a feature of the building beforehand. It wasn’t a feature because I don’t know what’s inside a building because I couldn’t get in in the first place because of the blasted stairs.

00:34:22:07 – 00:36:41:21
Matthew
The other caution I would add there though, I think what you see too often is the the ramp being designed because the able bodied person thinks that it would be a really good ramp, without actually asking the disabled person what the ramp needs to be like. I use as an example of this, if you go into an airport terminal. I go to lots of airports every month. You’ll see signs saying there’s an accessible bathroom. Yeah. And there never is. It’s like a mirage. It’s the cruelty of hope I think because you get there and whilst the bathroom inside may be completely accessible, the door itself is a heavy hinged handle door. And so every time I have to ask a member of the public, can I go to the toilet, which is something I shouldn’t think I should have to do. Right. So I think you’re absolutely right, like you’re saying. But in order to design that ramp, people need to ask the disabled person and in order to make our schools truly trans inclusive, we have to listen to the stories of the trans and non-binary kids in our school and beyond so that we can construct something that enables the centre to move to them. The other thing I thought of when you were talking, just then I suppose maybe bringing it to a close in a way, we haven’t taken some sort of Hippocratic oath saying we’re going to do no harm, right? But we sort of have like when we joined the teaching profession, we pretty much promised that we would do no harm. And also, you know, if you take safeguarding away from it being a tick box activity and people doing this course, etc., what is it? It’s protecting kids from harm. And I think sometimes the conversation around trans inclusivity in schools misses those two concepts. It misses the fact that at our very core, we need to do no harm to our trans and non-binary kids and we need to protect our trans and non-binary kids from as much harm as we possibly can. And I think when we look at it through that lens or that prism, if you like, it becomes simpler as well. I suppose it just doesn’t need to be as complicated as perhaps it’s made out to be. I think it’s far simpler than it would seem sometimes.

00:36:42:07 – 00:36:42:27
Mahlon
I love that.

00:36:43:10 – 00:37:01:04
Jess
I love it. Matthew, thank you so much. Your wisdom to be able to, like you said, make things not sound complicated is a true gift. So thank you for contributing to the book. Also, sharing with us and for the work you do. It’s very powerful. I’m excited to connect with you and quote you more often to people…

00:37:01:29 – 00:37:08:20
Matthew
Can I quote you saying I had wisdom. Can I tell my son later tonight that somebody said I was wise.

00:37:08:29 – 00:37:10:05
Jess
Tell him that another teacher said it.

00:37:10:05 – 00:37:11:03
Matthew
He doesn’t think I’m wise at all.

00:37:12:26 – 00:37:35:00
Jess
I think the wisest thing that, I mean there’s a bunch of notes I’ve taken, it’s the listening, isn’t it? It’s the listening to the stories and centring the stories. Like you said, asking the margins. And it is a pivot. It’s a huge pivot. And so, yes, you can tell your son I approve of your wisdom, but thanks so much for sharing.

00:37:35:13 – 00:37:44:14
Mahlon
We’ve been Mahlon Evans-Sinclair and Jess Boyd and Matthew Savage. The co-hosts and guest of Season two of the Diverse Ed podcast. See you next time. Bye

00:37:45:02 – 00:38:03:14
Hannah
[Outro Music] Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Diverse Ed podcast. Check out the show notes for the recommendations of today’s guest. We’d love to hear what you think, so do leave us a review. We’ll be back soon with another author from our book Diverse Educators: A Manifesto.