2026 Theses Doctoral

(Trans)formative Spaces: An exploration of identity, policy and pedagogy in trans and gender-expansive choirs

Beede, Dillon E.

This qualitative study explored the tripartite themes of identity, policy, and pedagogy and the ways in which they manifested and interacted within six trans and gender-expansive (TGX) choirs. Situated within a sociopolitical climate marked by increasing visibility and contestation of TGX identities in the United States, the study investigated how TGX choral spaces mediate vocal and gender identity through policy and pedagogy.

Using an organizational ethnographic case-study design, the study utilized live and video-recorded observations, singer audio-reflections, individual singer and director interviews, and singer and director focus groups to explore TGX choirs. Grounded within a post-structuralist philosophical framing, largely informed by the work of Deleuze and Guattari, the study embraced transgender theory and trans-identity theory as theoretical frameworks. Additionally, bio-ecological systems theory was adopted and adapted to study the dynamics of identity, policy, and pedagogy in the TGX choral ecology.

The study reveals TGX choirs as dynamic choral ecologies which actively de/reconstruct the cisgender and heteronormative ideologies of traditional choral practice. Findings illuminate how vocal and gender identities are negotiated through what this study conceptualizes as identity technologies. These pedagogical and policy practices shape how singers inhabit, narrate, and perform identity within their ensemble contexts.

The study further demonstrates the importance of choral affinity spaces, like TGX choirs, for identity development of participants. The study also revealed the unique ways in which TGX choirs develop policy structures grounded in a relational ontology and with an ethics of care. These policies managed the choral infrastructure as well as the organizations’ responsiveness to external pressures.Pedagogical findings did not reveal novel technical approaches, rather, they revealed the techniques which TGX choral directors utilized to (re)frame and de/(re)code traditional pedagogical practices. Findings also underscore the inherent power wielded by TGX choral directors and the ethics of care which guided their operations. Finally, community was identified as an emergent theme and suggested that community within TGX choirs functioned not as a secondary benefit to participation, but as a central mechanism to its operation.

As a result of the analysis process of this study an extension of the bio-ecological systems theory model was developed. This toroidal model was created to account for the dynamic, simultaneous interactions of identity, policy, pedagogy, and community in the TGX choral ecology. Characterized by centripetal affective flows and centrifugal affective flows, the model supports a more accurate representation of the multiple and simultaneous entanglements of the themes throughout TGX choirs.