2018 Gender Spectrum Professionals' Symposium

This workshop is for all professionals of all types and levels of experience. We focus on practices and research based in Early Childhood Education, but the effects of children’s earliest experiences of gender ripple through the rest of their lives. Understanding early brain development, common practices in Early Childhood learning environments, and the barriers that young gender expansive children face can inform how we all work with youth of all genders and ages. We cover the impacts of trauma on young brains, the flawed theories of gender development that have dominated the field for too long, patterns of silencing young expressions of gender expansiveness, and ways to disrupt all these patterns in ECE spaces. We will also guide participants in reflecting on how they can disrupt those patterns with the youth they work with at whatever ages and in whatever spaces they can.