Intergenerational Exchange: Learning at the Intersection of Sexuality and Schooling

• In Event: New questions in queer and trans issues in education

Abstract

This paper begins with the spectre of intergenerational sexualities. As LGBTQ social movements have shifted their attention from rights for adults toward the interests of LGBTQ youth the threat of intergenerational contact between queer adults and youth looms. Even as schools work to make all LGBTQ youth feel safe and welcome, queer and trans adults are suspect. Studies of LGB teachers confirm that despite anti-discrimination laws and policies that benefit students, LGB teachers worry that their sexuality poses an implicit risk to students. Rather than sanitize the threat of intergenerational relations through, for instance, the discourse of role models, this paper makes a case for the productive erotics of intergenerational pedagogical relationships. I consider how intergenerational relationships between LGBTQ adults and youth, including feelings of attraction, disappointment, love, envy, and pleasure, offer a theory of sexuality and learning that can trouble attempts to domesticate queerness as age-appropriate.

Author

• Jen Gilbert, York University