Queer teachers’ ethical dilemmas regarding queer youth

Abstract

Although all teachers are expected to be “role models,” discursive trajectories reaching back to the West’s gay liberation pressure queer teachers to be role models in specific ways – by “coming out” and helping queer students out of their “time of difficulty.” Paradoxically, discourses that construct children as innocent and queers‐as‐a‐threat make it difficult for queer teachers not only to take up these positions as role models but to be visible in schools. In this article, I explore the discourses that shape queer teachers’ understanding of touch, sexuality, confidentiality, the private versus public domain, and pedagogical responsibility within the schooling context. Informed by Foucault, I analyze the interview data of three Ontario queer teachers to investigate the ways in which queers‐as‐a‐threat and teacher‐as‐role‐model influence the negotiation of their ethical dilemmas regarding their student crushes.

Keywords:

• teacher socialization
• teacher professionalism

Notes

1. I borrow from Sullivan’s (2003) and Wilchins’ (2004) work in my use of the term “queer” as a noun, adjective, and verb – queer as both being and doing. Although I choose the word carefully and purposefully, it is not without its own set of contradictions. Queer as being is attached to concepts such as identity, subjectivity, or sexual orientation. The problem with such a use of the term is that it can be seen to erase differences across race, gender, class, and so forth (Anzaldua, 1991). Therefore, I also use the term as a way to acknowledge the politics of difference and the challenge to liberal humanist notions of the subject embedded in queer theory in order to move toward the notion of queer as doing – as a political strategy or viewpoint.

2. Gay–Straight Alliances (GSA) are student‐led organizations located in K‐12 schools and universities. One of the goals of these organizations is to create safe and positive educational environments for queer students and their straight allies.

3. Richard Johnston (2000) claims that the moral panic incited by particular constructions of children and childhood forces adults in caregiver positions to distance themselves from or “save” children. He says: “we treat children as ever‐innocent, protection starved individuals and we treat ourselves as benevolent, overprotective, redemptive humanitarians, always ready to provide needed child interventions … and rewrite sexuality in a way that distances us” (p. 22).