Articulating sissy boy queerness within and against discourses of tolerance and pride

Over the past fifteen years, significant developments have been made in Australian schools in relation to gender and sexuality education describable as a pedagogical discourse of homophobia. This pedagogical discourse has evolved through research and through educational policy, teaching resources, and training. Young men and boys who do not conform to standards of gender (whom we tragically and rhetorically refer to as sissy boys) participate in research focused on homophobia through processes of interview, analysis, and interpretation. The experience of "sissy boys" is potentially queer/ing. We will explore what is made of this queer potential when sissy boy experience is understood/shaped/accounted for within the discourse of homophobia. Reworking ideas of "normal", this pedagogical discourse arrests the disruptive possibilities of gender nonconformity and, instead, strives for ontological certainty, a central component to the formation of masculinity.