English literature has faced homosexuality in a progressive manner though it has been through a struggling history. That is why a lot of writers of English literature have expressed and enjoyed themselves in their own ways. This paper addresses a few famous writers whose approaches in this regard have been homosexual in type. After looking at the…

One of the most common responses from pre- and in-service teachers related to addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) topics in elementary school is a concern about parents' responses. This article explores these concerns by examining two elementary school teachers' interactions with parents in relation to their…

This article proposes a reflective process to increase awareness of heteronormativity in student-teacher and student-student interactions. I used 3 theoretical lenses -- queer, feminist, and intersectional -- to identify and analyze how gender, sex, and sexuality norms influenced interactions in an after-school reading club. This research site was…

In this article, the author seeks to assemble moments--scholarly, popular, and aesthetic--in order to explore the possibilities that emerge as moments collect in education's encounters with the needs, struggles, and possibilities of transgender lives and practices. Assembling moments, the author argues, illustrates the value of "moments"…

LGBTQ representations in media and novels, especially in young adult (YA) literature, have become more recurrent and reliable in recent years. While little research exists on youth and transgender stories, existing LGBTQ texts predominantly deal with men, chiefly White gay men (Cart & Jenkins, 2006; Garcia, 2013). To address this imbalanced…

This essay will describe one activity that the author uses in her human sexuality course to illustrate how patriarchal systems have affected the experiences of females and males across the sexual lifespan. Through this fairly simple and straightforward activity students are able to utilize common experiences and knowledge of real-world issues and…

Over the past several decades, the shifting social climate has led to a steady increase in legal rights, social acceptance, and visibility for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. However, there are still marked individual differences in levels of sexual prejudice as well as varying levels of comfort and exposure to the LGBT…

Essays within this forum grapple with the multilevel ways that anti-LGBT bullying manifests within educational spaces. The essays for this forum provide a clear articulation of the wicked problem of LGBT bullying while also offering clear pedagogical advice for how instructors can change themselves, their institutions, and society to be more…

Tensions and contradictions in my personal practice and in the extant research prompted this study of preservice teachers' responses to trans-themed young adult literature. I adopted a self-study methodology to identify and address the shortcomings in my practice of including trans-themed literature in a Literature for Adolescents course. Through…

This paper explores notions of (hetero)sexuality circulating in elementary school classrooms through an analysis of students' own talk and interactions. Data collected during a multi-site ethnography in a diverse set of elementary schools demonstrate that while curricular silences and teachers contribute to heteronormative classroom environments,…

What are the limits of queer pedagogy's thought [Britzman, D. (1995). Is there a queer pedagogy or stop reading straight. "Educational Theory," 45(2), 151-165]? This question is considered in relation to how queer pedagogy unfolds in a first-year university course entitled "Learning Sexualities." Examples of how queer pedagogy…

In this study I suggest ways of thinking through issues of intimacy that have emerged in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries in the USA. I propose a state of intimaphobia in education. However, I move beyond exposing this state of intimaphobia to offer particular readings of two philosophers of intimacy: Michel Foucault and the…

This paper is based on research that is concerned to provide insight into the pedagogical potential for interrupting heteronormativity and addressing the politics of gender expression/embodiment in the elementary school classroom. It is informed by an engagement with queer and trans theoretical literature that raises questions about restrictive…

From 2006 to 2008 UK-based primary school teachers in the "No Outsiders" project explored possibilities for addressing sexualities equality in their classrooms. What all teachers had in common was a resource pack that included 27 children's books exploring themes of gender and sexuality diversity either directly or indirectly (i.e. by…

Framed by a queer theoretical perspective on the problem of heteronormativity in schools, this qualitative case study traces one teacher's journey of cultivating and enacting commitments to affirming gender and sexual diversity as she moved across contexts of teacher preparation and in-service teaching. Data informing analysis were collected over…