The South as a region has proven to be resistant to the idea of LGBTQ teachers. Some Southerners, including prominent politicians, have gone as far as asserting that it should be against the law for LGBTQ people to teach. This memoir chronicles the changes that Randy Fair witnessed in his over forty years of experience, both as a teacher and student, in the school systems of the South. Fair explores his experiences of overcoming his homophobic, conservative, and chaotic upbringing through the help of his teachers. He also tracks his own evolution as a gay teacher. From threats by administrators, distrust from homophobic students, and challenges by students, both gay and straight, who desperately needed more openness surrounding the issues of concern for LGBTQ people, Fair examines the difficulties he faced as a gay teacher in the South. Fair's teaching experiences also bring up issues of concern for both current and prospective teachers. Which parts of a teacher's life are public and which are private? What right does a teacher have to engage in politics and activism? How much of a teacher's beliefs are consciously or subconsciously embedded in the curriculum and the classroom experience? Through the examination of Fair's thirty years as a teacher, readers can examine more deeply the many roles and identities that a teacher must constantly confront.

Literary Nonfiction. Education Studies. Memoir. Why would a high school teacher who loves teaching leave school after half a career in the classroom? TEACHER AT POINT BLANK answers this question at a time when concerns about school performance, safety, and teacher attrition are at an all-time and often anxious high. Meditating on subtle and overt forms of violence in secondary public education from an up-close and "pink collar" point of view, Jo Scott-Coe defies cliches and cultural fantasies about teachers. She examines her own workplace as a microcosm of the national compulsory K 12 system, where teachers now nearly 80 percent women find themselves idealized and disparaged, expected to embody the dedication of parents, the coldness of data managers, and the obedience of Stepford spouses. In this groundbreaking memoir in essays, Scott-Coe recounts her own journey to recover a sane and independent voice. TEACHER AT POINT BLANK fuses her perspectives as teacher and former student, adult and child, educator and writer."

Kate Evans' book is the first ever study of lesbian and gay pre-service teachers. It includes experiences as a student of teaching in the university, as well as teachers or assistant teachers in public schools. Integrating personal stories from interviews with broader global theories on notions of identity and queer theory, she gives a moving and insightful look at the positions these teachers hold. Her study provides for thought-provoking debate on the negotiation of self and subjectivity and gives valuable perspective to this growing field in education.

This book argues that issues of sexual diversity are inextricably interwoven into the basic concerns of pre-service teacher education. How do we make our students aware of assumptions regarding masculinity, femininity, and sexuality that arise from what is presented, represented, or omitted from curricula and classroom practice? What do we say about homophobia and heterosexism as we anticipate the administrative hierarchies, school cultures, parent and community politics they will encounter as teachers? What special challenges might face a teacher (straight or gay) who discusses sexual orientation in a high school classroom, or responds to a homophobic remark in the hallway or the cafeteria? How should we prepare a teacher for a parent conference with two moms or two dads? The essays in this volume range from an analysis of gay stereotypes in teacher education textbooks, to a discussion of queer multiculturalism, to personal accounts by lesbian and gay teacher educators and heterosexual allies who are challenging homophobia and heterosexism in their own classrooms and programs. All agree that education for sexual diversity is as important as education about all other forms of difference, and that future teachers need to know how to create safe spaces for lesbian and gay students, along with the children of gay families who are increasingly a part of the classroom landscape.

And They Were Wonderful Teachers: Florida's Purge of Gay and Lesbian Teachers is a history of state oppression of gay and lesbian citizens during the Cold War and the dynamic set of responses it ignited. Focusing on Florida's purge of gay and lesbian teachers from 1956 to 1965, this study explores how the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, commonly known as the Johns Committee, investigated and discharged dozens of teachers on the basis of sexuality. Karen L. Graves details how teachers were targeted, interrogated, and stripped of their professional credentials, and she examines the extent to which these teachers resisted the invasion of their personal lives. She contrasts the experience of three groups--civil rights activists, gay and lesbian teachers, and University of South Florida personnel--called before the committee and looks at the range of response and resistance to the investigations. Based on archival research conducted on a recently opened series of Investigation Committee records in the State Archives of Florida, this work highlights the importance of sexuality in American and education history and argues that Florida's attempt to govern sexuality in schools implies that educators are distinctly positioned to transform dominant ideology in American society.

South Africa remains a global leader in the legislative protection of individuals who engage in same-sex relations, and is the only country in Africa where the rights of these individuals are explicitly recognized and protected by the constitution. Yet South Africa’s identities are still contested and evolving, particularly for same-sex desiring teachers – many are forced to locate their sexualities privately for fear of being ostracized, bullied or losing their jobs, resulting in the miseducation of young people in schools. This volume reveals the various ways in which black South African male teachers construct their sexual and professional identities, how they accommodate structural dictates while simultaneously resisting them, and the effect this has on students. Presenting the day-to-day experiences of eight same-sex desiring teachers within repressive contexts, this volume challenges the Western origins and assumptions of queer theory, particularly its inability to confront communal forms of social organizing and its focus on individual agency. It asks for more socially responsive theorizing that takes into account the role played by location, race, class, gender and sexual identification within South African and international contexts.

Praise for Saeed Jones: "Jones is the kind of writer who's more than wanted: he's desperately needed."—FlavorWire "I get shout-happy when I read these poems; they are the gospel; they are the good news of the sustaining power of imagination, tenderness, and outright joy."—D. A. Powell "Prelude to Bruise works its tempestuous mojo just under the skin, wreaking a sweet havoc and rearranging the pulse. These poems don't dole out mercy. Mr. Jones undoubtedly dipped his pen in fierce before crafting these stanzas that rock like backslap. Straighten your skirt, children. The doors of the church are open."—Patricia Smith "It's a big book, a major book. A game-changer. Dazzling, brutal, real. Not just brilliant, caustic, and impassioned but a work that brings history—in which the personal and political are inter-constitutive—to the immediate moment. Jones takes a reader deep into lived experience, into a charged world divided among unstable yet entrenched lines: racial, gendered, political, sexual, familial. Here we absorb each quiet resistance, each whoop of joy, a knowledge of violence and of desire, an unbearable ache/loss/yearning. This is not just a "new voice" but a new song, a new way of singing, a new music made of deep grief's wildfire, of burning intelligence and of all-feeling heart, scorched and seared. In a poem, Jones says, "Boy's body is a song only he can hear." But now that we have this book, we can all hear it. And it's unforgettable."—Brenda Shaughnessy "Inside each hunger, each desire, speaks the voice of a boy that admits "I've always wanted to be dangerous." This is not a threat but a promise to break away from the affliction of silence, to make audible the stories that trouble the dimensions of masculinity and discomfort the polite conversations about race. With impressive grace, Saeed Jones situates the queer black body at the center, where his visibility and vulnerability nurture emotional strength and the irrepressible energy to claim those spaces that were once denied or withheld from him. Prelude to a Bruise is a daring debut."—Rigoberto González From "Sleeping Arrangement": Take your hand out from under my pillow. And take your sheets with you. Drag them under. Make pretend ghosts. I can't have you rattling the bed springs so keep still, keep quiet. Mistake yourself for shadows. Learn the lullabies of lint. Saeed Jones works as the editor of BuzzfeedLGBT.