The Past I Did Not Learn: How Gender and Sexuality Diverse Teachers Center Queerness

• In Event: Excavating the Past, Present, and Future Through Archival Frames That Elevate Black, Indigenous, and Queer Perspectives for Radical Hope

Abstract

In a moment with so much focus on “don’t say gay”, this study explores the practice of teachers who do say gay. This focuses specifically on gender and sexuality diverse and expansive (GSDE) teachers from a qualitative study designed to explore LGBTQ+ history teaching. My cartographic analysis focuses on the complex intra-actions of identity, colleagues, contexts, students, policy, past, present, and curriculum. Their experiences depict a history curriculum that centers queer genders and sexualities rather than labels and categories. This focus reflects their journeys, the limitations of knowing, and the questioning they observe in their students. These teachers show the complicated relationship of the past, present, and future and in so doing hold space for how their students can/will identify.

Author

• Sandra Schmidt, Teachers College, Columbia University