Destabilizing Anti-Gay Environments through Gay-Straight Alliances: Possibilities and Limitations through Shifting Discourses

Abstract

Drawing upon research with Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) advisors, high-school principals, and two district-level administrators, we examine the potential and limits of the safe-space discourse that encompasses the aims of GSAs. We argue that this discourse conceals heteronormative school environments, which supplies the groundwork for hostility perpetrated against LGBT students. We then delineate three strategies–organizational, pedagogical, and systemic–toward altering the safe-space discourse to a forward-looking, social-justice discourse that fosters the eradication of heteronormative school processes.

Keywords:

• Gay-Straight Alliances
• LGBT youth in schools
• school reform