Queering Education: Pedagogy, Curriculum, Policy. Occasional Paper Series 37

Educators concerned with social justice are working in very different social and legal contexts than when they first began to take up the issue of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) lives in the school and the curriculum. The growing number of countries that have legalized same-sex marriage, the recent US Supreme Court decision requiring that same-sex couples be allowed to marry wherever they live in the US, and the passage of local and state anti-bullying legislation--all encourage educators to reinvigorate and refocus the conversation around queer curriculum and pedagogy. Rather than assuming that gayness has been "normalized," this issue of the Occasional Paper series takes as its premise that the full inclusion and engagement of LGBTQ youth and families is dependent on work still to come. It will open a new discourse on queer issues. Much of the recent attention on LGBTQ issues in educational settings has focused on the safety of bodies (queer or trans) in schools. Progress has been made for increased safety and inclusion of LGBTQ students in public schools in the United States and in many other countries. These changes include anti-bullying legislation and policies, activism on the part of gay-straight-trans alliances, advocacy by LGBTQ and ally teachers, and legal cases brought by students and parents. Following an "Introduction" by Darla Linville, this issue contains the following essays: (1) The Gift of Hindsight: A Parent Learns About Educating Trans Youth (Denise Snyder); (2) Changing the Shape of the Landscape: Sexual Diversity Frameworks and the Promise of Queer Literacy Pedagogy in the Elementary Classroom (Cammie Kim Lin); (3) Missing Persons' Report! Where are the Transgender Characters in Children's Picture Books? (Ashley Lauren Sullivan and Laurie Lynne Urraro); (4) An Embodied Education: Questioning Hospitality to the Queer (Clio Stearns); (5) Teaching Trans*: Transparent as a Strategy in ELA Classrooms (Joseph D. Sweet and David Lee Carlson); (6) "It's Nonexistent": Haunting in Trans Youth Narratives about Naming (Julia Sinclair-Palm); (7) "White people are gay, but so are some of my kids": Examining the intersections of race, sexuality, and gender (Stephanie Shelton); and (8) Gracefully Unexpected, Deeply Present, and Positively Disruptive: Love and Queerness in Classroom Community (benjamin lee hicks). (Individual papers contain references.)