Sex in the lesbian teacher's closet: the hybrid proliferation of queers in school1

Abstract

Using feminist, queer and postcolonial theories, this paper analyzes the public commentary and anxious concern about child-welfare in a recent lesbian teacher sex scandal in Vancouver, Canada, involving Jean Robertson. Arguing that the public and professional uproar is not really about child-protectionism so much as it is about the place of white teacher lesbianism in school culture, I ask new questions about how the regulation of teenage sexuality operates to secure heterosexual bifurcations of gender in the school. The idea of the innocent, white 'girl' child is, in this paper, shown to anchor a public and professional worry about the proliferation of queer teenage identifications in the school. Using Judith Butler's formulation of the heterosexual matrix, Lee Edelman's conceptualization of reproductive futurity, Judith Halberstam's investigation of queer time and space, and Mikko Tuhkanen's postcolonial reading of lesbian sexuality in popular film, I underscore societal-based upset about white teacher lesbianism. I argue that the teacher sex scandals in North America are driven by an unspoken societal upset about identifications and desires inhospitable to binary gender positions and heteronormative futures.

Courageous Leaders: Promoting and supporting diversity in school leadership development

“…When applied to teachers, LGBT sexual identity is too often conflated with child protection discourses, due in part to the tabloid press historically associating male paedophilia (with boys) with homosexuality. Panic about protecting children from an LGBT teacher is often a guise for a more deeply entrenched worry about the ‘proliferation of queer identifications in school’ (Cavanagh, 2008: 388). When every child is a potential victim of sexual abuse, every teacher is a potential perpetrator.…”

“…Though rarely explicitly articulated, there is evidence that the principal fear of LGBT teachers (particularly those in primary schools) is that their heterosexual colleagues, and parents of pupils in their care, will align their identity with discourses of hypersexuality and paedophilia (see Borg, 2017; Cavanagh, 2008; Thompson-Lee, 2017). Piper and Sikes (2010) too observe that ‘fear of the pedophile taints adult–child relationships in general’ (p. 567).…”

Improbable frequency? Advocating queer–feminist pedagogic alliances within Irish and European higher education contexts

“…Our education worlds, so heavily bounded and surveilled (Foucault, 1991), are clear beneficiaries of such queer, norm-exploding potential. We can observe queer pedagogy’s definitional defiance and its earlier cited ‘stubborn vitality’ in the rich, contextually divergent examples of queer doings in education in schools, higher education and within the community (Britzman, 1998; Cavanagh, 2008; Malmquist et al, 2013; Shalsko, 2005; Whitlock, 2010). Indeed, Harris and Farrington tell us that:Queerness has well and truly moved into classrooms, in ways that are sometimes hopeful, sometimes crushing, but always unruly … whether these moves are on the part of teachers … or of students, queer and its complexities are now visible and vocal in many schools across the globe.…”

“…2010: 7Our education worlds, so heavily bounded and surveilled (Foucault, 1991), are clear beneficiaries of such queer, norm-exploding potential. We can observe queer pedagogy's definitional defiance and its earlier cited 'stubborn vitality' in the rich, contextually divergent examples of queer doings in education in schools, higher education and within the community (Britzman, 1998;Cavanagh, 2008;Malmquist et al, 2013;Shalsko, 2005;Whitlock, 2010). Indeed, Harris and Farrington tell us that:…”

Professoras lésbicas na educação básica de São Paulo: rupturas e construção de visibilidades

“…Sheila Cavanagh nos apresenta uma reflexão sobre o chamado pânico sexual que se estabelece em torno da presença de professoras lésbicas em escolas, e da ameaça que elas representariam para as adolescentes. Analisando, em 2008, escândalos sexuais envolvendo professoras e alunas adolescentes em escolas de ensino médio em Vancouver, no Canadá, ela afirma que o problema gira muito mais em torno do compromisso com a manutenção e reprodução das normas de gênero e sexualidade do que com a segurança e bem-estar das crianças e adolescentes em si (CAVANAGH, 2008).…”