Bank Street Releases Occasional Paper Series #37

A: I think educators and parents who do not identify as queer or LGBT can educate themselves about heteronormativity, gender normativity, and the privileges that accrue with those systems (heterosexism and cissexism). Reading about, talking to friends about, and trying to imagine living a different experience than one’s own can be a way for those who are privileged to begin to question their privileges, and to also then begin to question the structural powers that uphold those privileges. If we can advocate for LGBTQ youth in schools in a way that doesn’t treat non-heterosexuality or gender non-conformity as special cases, and without asking LGBTQ youth to be “just like everyone else,” and begin to advocate for dismantling the pervasive gender and sexuality norms in schools, we might get to some new places. Right now, so much of parent advocacy and educator advocacy is tinged with internalized shame about how abnormal and immoral sexuality and gender expression are, and there is often shame to even talk about them. One way to start this conversation might be to bring in outside experts to provide professional development for district personnel and parents. Getting to a place where adults have moved past their own shame would be a great advance.

Another thing adults can do is let kids lead. What do the students want? What do students say would be great to achieve and what would make this school so much more tolerable? Follow the lead of the students, take seriously the ideas of the students, and don’t dismiss their dreams as impossible. Make plans to achieve the goals that they set—even if you have to do it step by step.

A: Yes, I think teachers and other adult advocates who have relied on the law, court cases, and Office of Civil Rights guidance as ways to spur their districts, administrators, or communities to action will feel that this leverage is not as useful as it has been. When the political momentum for protecting groups of people who historically have been legally discriminated against, harassed, and rendered invisible is reversed, confidence that we have gained in the courts and in legislation is destroyed. Even without decisions against trans or queer kids in schools, the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear cases (such as the Gavin Grimm case that claimed that trans students are protected by Title IX) protects the status quo. This allows for discriminatory action against trans and queer kids, and drowns out their cries for protection within institutions that require their presence.

A: I would say that queer theory does ask us to look for unanticipated connections and directions and to avoid the usual pathways. In schools in particular, it would encourage us to de-track students, mixing them more in various kinds of classes—those considered academic and those considered vocational—and allowing students to follow their own interests and move from “track” to “track.” It might also suggest that we refuse binary categories such as academic and vocational and view all learning as valuable learning. If we follow this line of thinking, students could specialize themselves and also explore connections among ideas, interests, and disciplines. In similar ways to those mentioned previously, where we would give up organizing students using gender as a sorting property, queer theory would encourage us to not sort students according to a single set of abilities, such as literacy and math skills, and would allow for rearranging and reshuffling of groups throughout the years of schooling. Queering schools might create a place for students to be more fluid in all of their identities.

Q: What do you hope the reader takes away from Queering Education: Pedagogy, Curriculum, Policy?

A: Inspiration, challenge, joy—I want readers to feel astounded by the resources presented in these essays, the absolute multitude of ideas that can encourage them to make small changes in their own classrooms. There are many students looking for a place in school to express their gender or speak about their sexuality as a way of being completely present with all of their complexity in the most important social space in their lives. I hope readers read these essays and think, “I can do that.”