Queering Children’s Rights. Reflections on a Systematic Literature Review

The present contribution aims to foster a pedagogical reflection on the results of a systematic literature review (Page et al., 2021) focused on the state of the art of understanding children's rights from a gender and sexuality perspective. This work critically explores the complex relationship between children's rights and dimensions of gender and sexuality. A key point of the analysis is to assess the implications and meanings that emerge and are reproduced in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 1989). While the Convention aims to establish an international framework for recognizing the rights of all children, its emphasis on universality often overlooks the diverse and multifaceted childhood experiences. The intent to provide a comprehensive rights framework paradoxically risks reinforcing a homogenous and idealized notion of childhood that transcends multiple systems of discrimination based on race, gender, sexuality, class, nationality, ethnicity, and culture (Linde, 2019). This perspective perpetuates the social construct of a universal childhood (De Graeve 2015; De Souza et al. 2021; Sreenivas 2010), obscuring important contexts of discrimination, marginalization, and exclusion. Two aspects left out of the UNCRC’s universality are gender and sexuality. The analysis reveals that the Convention employs a binary language (his/her), gender isn't mentioned, and sexuality is presented exclusively in a “negative light” (Joosten, 2024, p. 218). Consequently, the Convention reinforces the construction of childhood as innocent, a state of desexualization and unconsciousness about gender and sexuality (Bhana 2007; Gillett-Swan and Van Leent 2019). This positioning explains the protectionist approach to children that seeks to circumscribe the discussion of gender and sexuality away from children to preserve their innocence. In reality, this merely reproduces the binary system of sex/gender and heteronormativity, thereby creating inequalities between boys and girls and making invisible and stigmatising children's non-conforming subjectivities and bodies. However, to compensate for this lack the Committee on the Rights of the Child is beginning to give greater visibility to gender and sexuality issues through the instrument of general comments (UN, 2021-2024). Furthermore, critical reinterpretations and efforts to re-signify the UNCRC (Joosten, 2024; Sandberg, 2015) suggest that it may be the basis for recognising children's gender and sexuality rights, especially for girls and 2SLGBTQIA+ children. When understood through a queer and gender-sensitive lens grounded in the point of view of sexual minorities (including women as a political minority), the Convention has the potential to affirm children’s rights to non-heterosexual sexual orientation, gender self-determination, genital autonomy, bodily integrity, and sexual agency. These rights are essential for allowing children to discover and live as their authentic selves, free from heteronormativity and binary definitions of gender, sexes, and sexuality. In this context, education emerges as a fundamental instrument for promoting and implementing these rights (Gillet-Swan - Van Leent, 2019; Maunsell et al., 2023). Educational professionals have the potential – and the responsibility – to inform and educate children about the complexity of genders and sexualities and to design projects, curricula, experiences and safe spaces where children can explore and express their subjectivities without facing inequality or discrimination (Webb, 2019). In addition, educational practices and pedagogical theory can subvert binary gender norms and heteronormativity and open up possibilities for implementing gender and sexual rights for all bodies and subjectivities starting. The study followed PRISMA Statement 2020 guidelines (Page et al., 2021) to select the papers for the review. Searches were conducted in Scopus, EBSCO (Education Research Complete), and ProQuest (Educational Collection) databases. Keywords focused on concepts such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), children’s rights, gender, queer, and LGBTQIA+ bodies and subjectivities. The search was limited to peer-reviewed studies without language and year restrictions to maximize results. To ensure the relevance of the findings, inclusion criteria were established that required articles to examine children’s rights through the lens of gender and/or sexuality, explore related theories and practices, or reconsider these rights through such perspectives. Articles not directly addressing children’s rights or the UNCRC and gender and sexuality issues were excluded from the review. Following the article selection guidelines, 40 articles were selected for analysis. In conclusion, this review opens multiple avenues for reflection, enabling the exploration of how children's rights are interpreted and signified from the perspective of gender and sexuality. Conversely, it also facilitates the investigation of the complexities of gender and sexuality issues through a rights-based approach. In particular, this review highlights the difficulty and the risk of unequivocally framing the UNCRC, its fundamental principles, and the rights it enshrines when observed alongside issues of gender and sexuality. It emerges how certain rights or principles, such as the best interests of the child, are interpreted and implemented in sometimes opposing directions, as in the case of intersex children or trans* childhoods. In this sense, it is possible to reaffirm the centrality of pedagogical research in implementing pathways for knowledge production and the deconstruction and reconstruction of meanings through the direct participation of people under the age of 18, particularly 2SLGBTQIA+ children. This aims to subvert and transform the social constructs of childhood as universal and innocent that limit the space of existence for all bodies and subjectivities from early childhood onward. Anchoring the focus of educational research in the perspectives of underage individuals – particularly queer children/youth and girls – challenges binary thinking and heteronormativity. It fosters spaces, societies, and communities where rights are not a privilege of the few but a heritage for all.