The purpose of this qualitative study was to better understand how transgender and gender expansive (TGE) former college marching band members navigated their band membership. Transgender and gender expansive college students often experience greater levels of harassment, isolation, and discrimination than their cisgender peers (James et al., 2016; Thompson et al., 2021). TGE students are more likely to benefit from positive interactions with peers, staff, and faculty through “high-impact” practices such as extracurricular and social activities (Renn, 2020). Marching bands are often the most visible musical, social, and cultural organizations on college campuses (Healey, 2016; Madsen et al., 2007) and may be attractive potential sites of welcome, affirmation, and community (Matthews, 2017) for TGE college musicians. However, the marching band medium may also reinforce traditionally gendered social, musical, and cultural practices (Disney, 2018; Marshall, 2009).
In this dissertation, I utilized the metaphor of wayfinding (Page-Reeves et al., 2019) to craft individual narratives around each participant’s experiences, and then employed collective case study to build within-case and cross-case analyses. Primary themes that emerged in the cross-case analysis included: impact of high school band directors, visibility and collective action, impact of staff, social connectivity, leadership as empowerment, self-confidence, and representation. Participant narratives focused heavily on their journeys of coming out and living their gender identities within the social and musical norms and contexts of their respective programs. Although the concept of the safe space has arisen in scholarly literature, Siegel (2019) argued that there are many spaces on college campuses which offer varying levels of safety and affirmation. Likewise, participants in this study found various structures, practices, and people to be supportive of or antagonistic to their band membership. Through the data and results of this dissertation, my aim is to encourage thoughtful and genuine reflection and discussion among music educators around issues related to transgender and gender expansive individuals. Rather than being tolerated and forced to create their own spaces of affirmation and courage, educators may instead partner with TGE students to build a more caring and compassionate musical experience.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/44261 |
| Date | 20 April 2022 |
| Creators | McManus, Justin C. |
| Contributors | Carter, Bruce Allen |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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