Visibility Matters: LGBTQ-Affirming Teaching in the U.S. South

• In Event: What Does It Mean to Be Visible? Illuminating LGBTQ+ Students' and Teachers' School Experiences

Abstract

This research engages with the general question of how educators execute LGBTQ-inclusive practice in socio-political contexts where LGBTQ safety and civil rights policy debates have produced persistent doubt about whether or not LGBTQ youth are guaranteed the same quality of life as their heterosexual, gender normative peers. Specifically, this paper explores teachers’ visibility narratives, through which they describe their experiences with increasing LGBTQ visibility and their perspectives about structural barriers to normalizing LGBTQ visibility. This research lends insight to the particulars of how educator allies to the particulars of educators’ complicated navigations of heteronormative school environments that are, in some cases, openly hostile to non-normative gender and sexual identities.

Author

• Melissa J. Smith, University of Central Arkansas