Queer Youth as Teachers:

Dismantling Silence of Queer Issues

in a Teacher Preparation Program
Committed to Social Justice
Sam Stiegler

ABSTRACT. This interview-based essay explores how a teacher-training

program, while ostensibly dedicated to the idea of teaching for social justice, completely neglected issues of homophobia and heterosexism. How
did silence around queer issues leave a dedicated group of young, queer
teachers-in-training without the academic, intellectual, or psychological support? Without this support, how did these teachers establish for themselves
what it means to be a queer teacher and how did they navigate combating
homophobia (both on the individual and institutional levels), come out to
students and colleagues and serve as a role model and advocate for queer or
questioning students?

KEYWORDS. Anti-oppression education, coming out, queer, social justice, teacher education, teachers

During the 20062007 academic year, I completed a graduate teachertraining program and earned my Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT) from
an elite, private, Northeastern university. As soon as the intensity of student teaching and coursework ended, I immediately began to question
how the programs curriculum and pedagogy supported queer teachers and
Sam Stiegler recently completed his Masters of Arts in Teaching and currently
lives in Madison, WI (E-mail: scstiegler@gmail.com).

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Journal of LGBT Youth, Vol. 5(4), 2008

Available online at http://www.haworthpress.com


C 2008 by The Haworth Press. All rights reserved.
doi: 10.1080/19361650802223227

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addressed issues of homophobia and heterosexism in the classroom. My

queer classmates and I talked more about our teaching experiences. I grew
increasingly interested in exploring how young queer teachers were perceived by their students during their student-teaching practicum, how those
perceptions were filtered through other aspects of the teachers identities,
and that impact on their ability or desire to come out or to address homophobia in the classroom. What kind of curricular or advising assistance did
the teacher-training program provide these soon-to-be queer teachers?
In the summer of 2007, I interviewed three fellow out queer students
who completed the graduate program dedicated to the idea of teaching for
social justice. All of us entered the program immediately from our undergraduate institutions bringing with us extensive anti-oppression training
and social justice activism experience from our high school and college
careers. Matthew1 is a black man from California. Kevin, a Latino from
New York City, graduated from an Ivy League school. Leah is a White
woman from Washington, DC. I am also White and grew up in Wisconsin.
Leah and I went to college in the Northeastern United States. All of us
completed our student teaching in urban public high schools. Kevin and I
taught at separate small high schools within a large urban school district
in Massachusetts. Leah and Matthew taught at a large comprehensive high
school in a working-class urban rim district. All four of us were out in
our personal lives, and throughout the course of the year, came out to our
colleagues in the MAT program.
Kevin and Matthew expressed similar issues surrounding their identities
as queer men of color. Both spoke to the primacy of race over other aspects
of identity. Neither saw a need to come out as queer to their students.
Matthew explained how, as a working-class African American, institutions provided opportunities for professional advancement. Although those
can be largely homophobic and heteronormative, as a black man just starting my professional career, if I cant take advantage of the contacts through
my church or my fraternity, I lose opportunities. My being a homosexual
stands to potentially threaten those vital connections. Matthew carried
this self-silencing with him into his student-teaching practicum. He did
not come out to any of his students nor did he feel like he should or, to a
certain extent, could have:
I spent so much time in my classes and in my conversations with
students working on issues surrounding racism and classism in school
and society that it took up almost all of my time. When it came to
dealing with homophobia, of course, I would call students out for

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using anti-gay slurs. But to deal with it on the same level as the other
stuffI couldnt even get there.

Matthew has a long track record of anti-oppression work. At the end of

the teacher-training program, he received an award from the department
for his incorporating issues of social justice and active citizenship into
his teaching. Yet, he could not address homophobia in his classroom. Not
being able to get there was, in large part, due to not really knowing how
to do so or not being supported by his teacher-preparation program.
Kevin displays a miniature Cuban flag on his desk in his classroom.
He is proud to fly the flag of his fathers homeland; he would never put a
rainbow flag alongside it. Given his name and physical appearance, others
read his race in multiple ways, but his Cuban identity is not something
he can or would hide. Kevin believes, however, he can hide and control
the expression of his queerness. In principle, he was not against coming
out to his students, but only if it was in reference to someone he might
be dating, thereby narrowly defining his queer identity by his sex life. He
was decisively against coming out for the sake of doing so. When Kevin
did come out to his students, it was in confronting a students homophobic
language in the classroom: As a gay man, I take offense to your using gay
in place of stupid or corny and would appreciate you not using it that
way. Despite his fear, his students reacted positively to outing himself.
This, of course, was not how Kevin envisioned coming out and he had
received no support or resources for doing so from the teacher-training
program.
As the experiences of Matthew and Kevin illustrate, how others read
ones gender and sexual performance contributes to how much control
one has over sexual identity. Matthews students, who were predominately
Black and Latino, read him as a straight black man. This perception, according to Matthew, allowed him to call out students for using homophobic
language, without him being labeled as queer.
Kevin experienced a similar set of circumstances, but in a different way.
At a summer program where he taught prior to entering the teacher-training
program, two of his black male students got into a verbal disagreement. In
his presence, they argued about his suspected queerness: Hes gay! No,
hes not gay, hes just Latino! Each read his racial and sexual performance
differently. This incident left Kevin speechless but, as Donahue (2008)
argues, it also brought Kevins internal negotiation of his dual identities
as a teacher and a sexual minority to the foreground. When adding his

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racial identity to the negotiation, Kevin learned it was possible to hide his
queerness.
While to a queer eye, Kevins gender performance could be read as queer,
certain queer stereotypes are associated with heterosexual Latino men
exaggerated hand gestures and certain styles of dress, for example. This
ambiguity permitted different readings of his sexual and racial identities,
which he leveraged. Kevin could hide his sexuality while accentuating his
race.
Leah has been involved in queer and social justice activism since high
school. She began to self-identify as queer during college, but previous to
that only combated homophobia as a closeted woman. During her student
teaching, she addressed homophobia as she had done in the pastwithout
asserting her queerness. This resulted in her students perceptions of her as
straight, especially those of color. On a field trip, one Haitian male student
asked Leah why she was not carrying a purse. This student paused and then
said: Oh, I bet youre the kind of woman who doesnt carry a purseone
of those free white ladies. Her gender performance was attributed to her
whiteness and middle-class status.
Leah admitted aggravation over this confusion. Perceptions of her as
straight increased Leahs desire to come out to her students, especially
when addressing homophobia in the classroom. Yet, their construction of
her as straight left Leah more and more unable to come out as queer:
It was very clear to me that most students (and other teachers and
staff) didnt even consider the possibility that I might be queer. I often
wondered if I should take my class discussions of homophobia and
homophobic language a step further, and come out while addressing
it. But in reality, I didnt want to talk about my sex and dating life
with students. Also, I knew I would have to be particularly explicit
because everyone thought I was straight. So I never really found a
way to talk about this part of my identity in a way that would make
queerness a topic of discussion in a positive and productive way and
[also] not feel like I was divulging too much of my private life.
Leahs concern speaks to a major contradiction facing many queer teachers of my generation. While queer issues are more open for classroom
discussion and addressing homophobic comments less stigmatizing than a
decade or two ago, having a queer orientation continues to be equatedby
mainstream society and by young queer teacherswith talking about sex
and sexual acts.

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Without guidance from teacher educators, Leah continued struggling to

find some way to correct the misperceptions of her students and teacher
colleagues. These misperceptions were amplified when some students saw
Leah and Matthew at a movie together one weekend. The following week,
they asked Matthew if he and Leah were dating. He replied they were. Later
he claimed they were engaged. Leah was outraged at Matthews actions,
which not only shoved her further into the closet but also marked the first
time a lie was told in the process:
I understand that students pester teachers about their sex and dating
lives. . . . I just felt like I was sent a couple steps backwards in my
process of being out at the school. I had at least valued my sexual
ambiguitynothing that was known about me could have explicitly
pegged me as straightuntil all of a sudden my students thought I
was engaged to a man.
Why did Matthew take this step? I was never able to follow up with
Matthew about this story. He may have intended it as a joke. But, it is
impossible to ignore the possibility that his actions marked a submission,
on his part, to the heteronormative and homophobic institutions by which
he is surrounded, such as his school site and the teacher-training program.
Matthews false narrative, without Leahs consent, shows how heteronormative silencing can pit two queer allies against one another. Matthew
leveraged other forms of domination over Leah, namely his masculinity
and perceived heterosexuality, to claim her as his female partner without
her consent for his self-protection.
The engagement myth was eventually dispelled. Leah, however, never
found a way to come out to her students. Their teacher-training program
failed Leah and Matthew by its silence in addressing queer issues and
in supporting young queer teachers. It also failed the students at their
school by silencing the queerness of two passionate social justice educators,
which, in turn, may well have silenced queer high school students. While
earlier generations of queer teachers may well have engaged in fake dates
or arranged marriages, Leah and Matthew are no less trapped within the
homophobia and heteronormativity of school and society.
Unlike the others, I was always read as queer. Since the queer rights
movement and queer images in popular culture are dominated by rich,
White, queer men, I fit the mold of queerness with which most of my
working class, black and Latino students were familiar. When I began to
call students out on using homophobic language from the first week of

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school, any doubts as to my queerness were erased. I continued to address

homophobia in the classroom with the help of my cooperating teacher,
came out to students over the course of the year, restarted the schools
Gay-Straight Alliance and taught a class on LGBT studies.
Since my queerness is rarely doubted, I often pass the first hurdle of
coming out without notice. Before interviewing my classmates and writing
this essay, I had assumed all had come out in the classroom. Upon learning
of their self-silencing and, at times, denial of their queerness, and reflecting
further on my struggles throughout the year, I more fully appreciate the
gravity of omitting queer issues from our ostensibly progressive teachertraining program.
We taught for an entire year as student teachers while completing graduate coursework at night. The social justice curriculum almost solely focused on race and social class. We studied and discussed how racial and
socioeconomic factors largely affect educational access. Very rarely did the
cohort of teachers in training discuss other issues affecting our experience
in schools, including sexual orientation.
There was one exception in our MAT curriculum.2 In a class session
of one required course, we were given materials specifically dealing with
queer issues/homophobia in schools. These were combined with the readings on physical disabilities. This paring not only condensed two important
topics into one short class period but implied that queerness is a disability.
Nevertheless, I had been anticipating this class. During the first few
weeks at my practicum site, I had heard more homophobic slurs, including
many directed at me, than I had encountered in the previous seven years
living as an out queer man. I had hoped this specific class would help me
let off some steam and discuss what I had been going through. I remember
that evening sitting in class, having read all of the material and being very
eager to finally discuss queer issues. With each passing moment, I grew
more and more disillusioned.
During our previous class sessions we had discussed assigned reading materials, the professors shared typed-up quotes from those readings,
which sparked conversation. However, this time the three professors completely ignored not only the readings but also the subject matter they
covered.
One of the three professors, who I and many other students knew had
published on queer issues, did not teach during this class meeting. Rather,
for the first time all semester, she sat in the back of the room. The other
two professors led a discussion for the entire 90-minute class about the
pedagogical pros and cons of an activity from the previous class meeting.

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The slight of having queer issues on the syllabus but eerily left out
of all class discussion was more demoralizing than if they had not been
included at all. Queer students were told that day, that just like the readings, we would be totally disregarded. The ignored readings and the third
professors lowered status were never explained. Perhaps no explanation
was necessary as the message reinforced what every student and teacher
queer or straightknew: we are actively and intentionally silenced by our
teacher-training program.
Five minutes before the end of class, the professors brought Matthew up
to tell a story to the class. While the story dealt with issues of sexualityit
concerned a tragic experience of a lesbian friend of Matthews and marked
the first time he came out in front of the entire cohortit had nothing
to do with his experiences in school as a teacher or a student. Class had
ended by the time he finished and only a minor discussion followed. Leah
commented on our shared aggravation: That was our queer day!: one
10-minute personal story.
Without the institutional support from the teacher-training program to
develop effective ways to combat homophobia and to raise queer issues in
a positive and safe manner, I found myselfas time passed and the hateful
language continued despite my valiant attempts to thwart itturning a
blind eye to homophobic incidents in my classroom. I lost the will to stand
up and to fight. I was numb to the hegemonic homophobia around me.
Halfway through the year, I broke down in a staff meeting. I admitted,
on the verge of tears, to the entire staff that not only was the schools
institutional ignorance of homophobia harmful to the students but it had
left me reconsidering my decision to become a teacher. The combination
of the silence of my teacher-training program and the homophobia of
the school site had left me, a seasoned queer rights activist, disillusioned
and disempowered. I had only a limited and worn-out repertoire of how
to address the insistent homophobia in the classroom and the concurrent
painful effects those attacks had on my emotional and psychological wellbeing was debilitating. I can only imagine how much more difficult it might
be for a queer student teacher without an activist background or in a less
progressive teacher education program.
As in turned out, we educated and supported ourselves. In our cohort,
there were five out queer students and several ally students in a class of
only 30. Both Leah and Kevin spoke of their appreciation of our queer and
queer-friendly group. Leah said that had she been the only queer student,
the program wouldnt have been that helpful or powerful. Kevin shared
his great sense of relief in knowing that there were other students besides
him to bring up queer issues during class, relieving him of the responsibility

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of being the token queera role he played at his student-teaching site

where he was the only queer adult in the building.
That queer issues never once came from the institutional level, despite
the programs focus on social justice, signifies a dramatic gap in the curricula. The teacher-training program left Leah, Matthew, Kevin, and me,
as queer teachers committed to teaching for social justice, stifled and defenseless. While we all had different comfort levels with coming out to our
students, all of us made concerted efforts to halt homophobic language in
our classrooms, as we did with other forms of hate speech. We were committed to standing up for our marginalized students. But, as queer teachers
in training, who would stand up for us?
Although each of us had long-standing history for challenging oppression as students, we were given little institutional support from our graduate
teacher-training program to navigate the intricacies surrounding being a
queer teacher. In discussing why he often places queer student teachers
with queer mentors, Donahue (in press) explains that while queer student
teachers are attracted to the notion of working in anti-oppressive ways,
they are also discomforted by the uncertainty of teaching and particularly
the uncertainties surrounding coming out in K-12 classrooms.
By defining race and class as the exclusive province of social justice,
the program left its queer students vulnerable to attack and disillusionment
while silencing queer issues. Queer and straight teachers alike could have
become more effective teachers in pursuit of social justice had the program
been more inclusive and incorporated the various intersections of race,
class, gender, and sexualityas evident in our four lives.
More and more queer teachers and students of all levels in schools are
coming out and speaking up. But, are our voices being heard? The silence
surrounding queer issues in teacher-training programs must desist.
NOTES
1. Pseudonyms are used.
2. Issues surrounding sexuality were brought up, though briefly, in other elective
classes that MAT students took along with graduate students in other programs offered
by the department as well as undergraduate students. The professors of these courses
were not part of the core MAT faculty.

REFERENCES
Donahue, D. (in press). Rethinking silence as support: Normalizing lesbian and gay teacher
identities through models and conversations in student teaching. Journal of LGBT Youth.