Presently, there is a political attack on LGBTQ+ individuals, especially in southern states. In 2022, six southern states (Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas) enacted laws that prohibit discussing LGBTQ+ students or issues within P-12 schools. These laws perpetuate heteronormativity and create intolerant and unsafe…

This manuscript examines the ways that a Queer Chicana teacher's multiple identities and perceptions of race, gender, and sexuality shape her efforts to disrupt colonial models of education in the United States. Through a self-narrativization research design, the authors explore three essential dimensions of educational expectations…

As teacher educators who teach a variety of courses that engage "difference," there comes a moment almost every semester where a reading or set of readings discusses sexuality in education as sexuality impacts student and teacher bodies, curricula, and educational policy. Invariably, such readings cause a student or two to raise any…

The paper seeks to demonstrate how societal constructions and gender policing inform male teachers' identities in the schooling context of Foundation phase teaching in South Africa. This is a phase that has been historically dominated by women and is often regarded as a 'women only' space. The study was conducted using a case study methodology and…

Every student in our public schools should have opportunities to learn about differences in gender and sexuality, just as they should learn about the world's differing cultural traditions, religious practices, and political systems. Such knowledge about human differences is, the authors argue, a basic requirement for active citizenship in a…

This paper examines lesbian and gay teachers' identities and experiences in schools in the context of school policies relating to homophobia and to sex and sexuality education. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 12 lesbian and gay teachers working in English and Welsh schools, and using the concept of 'policy enactment,' I analyse the ways…

Using the interlocking concepts of power, knowledge and discourse, this article focuses on how counter normative sexualities are discursively constructed in the sexuality education classroom and with what effects. Drawing on in-depth interviews with teachers and classroom observation, the evidence highlights the presence of specific discourses…

Informed largely by Affect theory (2004), this paper takes up "reflexivities of discomfort" to reflexively engage with my affective struggles as a Christian, heterosexual, mother, educator, undertaking a study on homosexuality, which is a thorny issue in Uganda. It a methodological prologue, reflecting my thoughts and struggles before I…

Teachers experience a range of situations in the primary school context where students talk about, share ideas and use words and actions that might be described as non-heteronormative in character. This article reports on teachers' experiences of the ways in which they respond to actions and events they see as non-heteronormative. It identifies…

The sensitive question of whether censorship is permissible in the classroom has not been effectively explored, nor has there been an exhaustive survey of all occurrences of public censorship in schools. Through tracking all public occurrences, this article seeks to understand whether censorship is ever justified in both the English classroom and…

The US school system is dominated by heteronormativity in the formal curriculum that gives preference to binary conceptions of sexuality. School leaders play a role in supporting or disrupting school policies facilitating or inhibiting curricular inclusion of queer content in course materials and an instructional pedagogy that promotes an…

Science classrooms--and science textbooks--are proving to be challenging spaces for education that contradicts abstinence-only-until-marriage (AOUM) sex education. However, science educators can teach against this knowledge in a way that is critical of oppressive language. In fact, having explicit dialogue about gender identities and sexual…

Transgender and gender diverse secondary students report routine social and curricular marginalisation at school, factors which have been linked to negative social and academic outcomes. This paper examines data from the "Free2Be?" project, which surveyed 704 same-sex attracted and gender-diverse Australian teenagers (aged 14-18), to…

There is a gap in queer theory and higher education literature, regarding how queer university teachers negotiate their sexuality in cross-cultural classrooms. This article moves to address this gap by examining the complex intersection between gay teacher identity and cross-cultural sensitivity, evident in the stories of two queer academics.…

In this article the author uses the term "conservative dancers" to describe dancers who live in communities or families that are socially, culturally, or religiously conservative with ideological consistency, adhering to traditional values that they deem to be moral (e.g., modest dress, clear gender roles and separation, purity, family…