'I'm Aaid to Return to the Classroom': A Gay Teacher of the Year Speaks Out

Contents:

• THE PLIGHT OF BEG A GAY TEACHER
• GAY SUBSTUTE TEACHER SAYS HE WAS FIRED AFTER HANDG OUT PRI BRACELETS TO STUNTS
• GAY TEACHERS SHOULDN’T HAVE TO HI WHO THEY ARE
• FEATURED STORI
• ‘I’M AAID TO RETURN TO THE CLASSROOM': A GAY TEACHER OF THE YEAR SPEAKS OUT
• A TEXAS TEACHER FAC LOSG HER JOB AFTER FIGHTG FOR GAY PRI SYMBOLS SCHOOL
• TEACHER ATTUS TOWARD LBIAN, GAY, AND BISEXUAL STUNTS: EVINCE FOR TERGROUP NTACT THEORY AND SENDARY TRANSFER EFFECTS
• FLORIDA TEACHER UNR VTIGATN FOR SHOWG DISNEY MOVIE WH GAY CHARACTER SAYS SHE DIDN’T KNOW LGBTQ RTRICTN APPLIED TO HER CLASS

THE PLIGHT OF BEG A GAY TEACHER

After about a the classroom, he was named the bt tor Kentucky September 2021 -- but at the same time, he said, a small but vol mory his ral town Montgomery County went after, who is gay, told ABC News that he was sgled out for actually protectg LGBTQ kids his school and their fai, which ma him a said that earlier this year, a muny member who was postg about him on social media also repeatedly went to unty school board meetgs to report predatn and so-lled child "groomg" -- a term that has bee popular nservative circl for allegatns of adults sexually manipulatg said this person, who had not named him at the board meetgs but repeatedly referenced him by name onle, also "doxxed" him and some of his stunts on Facebook by sharg their private, acrdg to Carver, he and some stunts' parents asked Montgomery County Supertennt Dr. "Joshua Block is a staff attorney wh the Natnal ACLU’s Lbian Gay Bisexual Transgenr & HIV "We need to be teachg them to read or wre, to add, to subtract, " he said -- addg that "the purpose of our schools is to te kids not to doctrate them.

GAY SUBSTUTE TEACHER SAYS HE WAS FIRED AFTER HANDG OUT PRI BRACELETS TO STUNTS

Before the bill was passed, some Democrats unsuccsfully attempted to make more specific -- rtrictg stctn on sexual activy rather than orientatn, for though many who spoke wh ABC News said they are disappoted the law's lack of clary, some gay teachers don't see an issue wh .

GAY TEACHERS SHOULDN’T HAVE TO HI WHO THEY ARE

In San Bernado, California, for example, a lbian teacher challenged her school district urt wh help om the Amerin Civil Liberti Unn, allegg that she was fired after attemptg to help the school’s Gay Straight Alliance chapter. Although the Amerin Psychologil Associatn and numero other rearch anizatns have nclud that homosexualy do not make someone more likely to sexually abe children, Conservative anizatns such the Fay Rearch Council and the Amerin College of Pediatricians—a group that requir s members to "hold te to the group's re beliefs of the tradnal fay un" before jog—argue that homosexualy is a threat to uld help expla why LGBT teachers who are married or mted relatnships sometim enjoy a level of legimacy and acceptance that sgle gay teachers often fail to secure.

FEATURED STORI

"But many LGBT teachers argue that nversatns about personal matters do happen classrooms all the time, that 's only bee society promot heterosexualy—vers homosexualy—as normal that discsns related to a teacher's sexual orientatn are kept out of class, of Teach for Ameri, agre that for herself and her lleagu, beg the closet wh an extra layer of work—and strs. Overall, the strs experienced by LGBT youth also put them at greater risk for mental health problems and substance e: A natnal study om 2008 found that lbian, gay, and bisexual youth are more than twice as likely to attempt suici as their heterosexual peers.

"Kids and teachers need to know that someone they know is gay, that ’s not a hypothetil, that this is about real people who they know, " Bunger said "Beg visible to the kds of kids—kids who make dangero cisns bee they’re aaid to talk—is ccial. Inexorablylol the nspiracy theori you guys e up wh for LGB people are jt there are some downright whackos out there but nobody's tryg to make "the act of paedophilia" perfectly fe 's the Gay Mafia Agenda battytladySexualy has NOTHING to do wh this teacher of any genr should be sleepg wh any stunt of any genr. I pletely agree, In fact I thk we should promote female homosexualy#TurnAllTheKidsHomosexual#GayMarriageInAll50Stat#DeleteTheStraights Consent is om 16, watchg 17 year olds sexual acts is peadophilia, or beg out of age and engagg those activi, that's what he means.

‘I’M AAID TO RETURN TO THE CLASSROOM': A GAY TEACHER OF THE YEAR SPEAKS OUT

Out of blue, I get a chance to watch this Thai gay-themed film, TEACHER AND STUDENT by director Sarawut Intaraprom, a mi-budget drama plumps for exclivy about three ma characters, a young high-school teacher, his boyiend and one of his the openg creds, we are troduced to a ral landspe where the teacher and his boyiend, who wears stunt uniform, gleefully rollickg around, then fast-forward om 2005 to 2010, briefly prented by TV montag of Thailand's polil transformatn (which will ntue throughout the slow-paced narrative) and the photos maniftg their growth trajectory, until a marriage license cements their relatnship. Tryg heavy-handly to mgle gay romance, thriller and polil drama wh a taboo topic, TEACHER AND STUDENT don't suate self imprsively none of the genr, ankly speakg, is more like a stunt's graduatn work than a veteran director's latt offerg. Robson, who had hidn her own sexualy when she started teachg the 1980s, started the Courageo Lears programme bee she believed LGBT teachers were missg out on promotn, as they were aaid to put their heads above the year-long programme volv three days of face-to-face trag, cludg lectur, gut speakers and workshops, wh the aim of stillg learship skills and boostg nfince through sharg experienc and mutual summaris the succs a new book, Courage the Classroom, that clus chapters by lbian, gay and transgenr teachers about overg prejudice and learng to be themselv.

Some said they’re disuraged by the Irvg Inpennt School District’s rponse to the ncerns they’ve raised through the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) and school board meetgs, and they feel ls safe at school than they did a year ago.

A TEXAS TEACHER FAC LOSG HER JOB AFTER FIGHTG FOR GAY PRI SYMBOLS SCHOOL

And advot for LGBTQ stunts are alarmed by some parents’ recent mands that schools prohib stunts om anizg Gay-Straight Allianc, llg them “pornographic” and suggtg they would turn children clash at MacArthur, a suburb northwt of Dallas, was not the rult of a new law or policy, or a public prsure mpaign at school board meetgs. “They’re not gog to e out outright and say, ‘Don’t say gay, ’” she said of the school admistratn, “but they’re gog to make as difficult as possible for you to be allowed to exprs yourself or even learn about how you feel, who you are and your inty. Acrdg to her personnel file, which Stonecipher shared wh NBC News, the district’s human rourc office believed that Stonecipher had lled MacArthur’s prcipal “homophobic, ” which Stonecipher ni, and that she ma lleagu unfortable when she shared her opn about LGBTQ issu.

A feral judge later tossed the 2018, the district faced cricism om LGBTQ anizatns when a teacher reported that the district banned “Love Is Love, ” a ic book created to support survivors of the mass shootg at Pulse, a gay nightclub Orlando, Florida, followg a plat that the book featured “extreme homosexualy. “It jt felt very targeted towards people I knew, like they were tryg to get teachers or stunts trouble, ” said Aly Harb, a sophomore and GSA member, who was also lled for a meetg wh HR district did not rpond to qutns about the meetgs. For example, a Gallup poll of more than 12, 000 US adults (Jon, 2022), 21% of Generatn Z rponnts (born 1997–2003) self-intify as lbian, gay, bisexual, or transgenr (LGBT)—a rather high number pared to 11% of Millenials (born 1981–1996) and 4% of Generatn X rponnts (born 1965–1980).

TEACHER ATTUS TOWARD LBIAN, GAY, AND BISEXUAL STUNTS: EVINCE FOR TERGROUP NTACT THEORY AND SENDARY TRANSFER EFFECTS

The sexual mory stunts benef om the safe spac—where stunts n eely be who they are whout fearg negative nsequenc of any kd—created by their teachers as studi monstrate lbian, gay, and bisexual stunts to be more vulnerable than heterosexual stunts to experience homo- and biphobic discrimatn, stigmatizatn, and victimizatn (Dunn et al., 2017; Gegenfurtner & Gebhardt, 2017; Smh & Reidy, 2021) which, ultimately, rc their amic achievement (Goldfarb & Lieberman, 2021; Kosciw et al., 2020).

FLORIDA TEACHER UNR VTIGATN FOR SHOWG DISNEY MOVIE WH GAY CHARACTER SAYS SHE DIDN’T KNOW LGBTQ RTRICTN APPLIED TO HER CLASS

To mimize the negative school experienc for sexual mory children and adolcents, is important to sensize pre-service teachers early their teachg reers and crease their attus toward the vulnerable groups of stunts bee, as rearch fdgs suggt, teachers wh posive attus toward lbian, gay, and bisexual stunts are more likely to create safe spac (Goldste-Schultz, 2022), prevent homophobic behavr (Glikman & Elkayam, 2019), rrect peer bullyg (Nappa et al., 2018), act as mentors (Gastic & Johnson, 2009), participate sexual diversy trag (Kwok, 2018), and implement LGBTQ-clive curricula their classrooms (Klocke et al., 2019; Page, 2017) than teachers wh homonegative attus. Followg the attu theory proposed by Eagly and Chaiken (2007), teacher attus toward lbian, gay, and bisexual youth n be fed as psychologil tennci that are exprsed by evaluatg lbian, gay, and bisexual stunts school wh some gree of favor or disfavor. Eagly and Chaiken (2007) pos that attus n be short-term or long-term; while past experienc of an dividual wh a particular attu object (for example, wh gay or lbian stunts) n tablish a certa stable tenncy to rpond favorably or unfavorably to other gay or lbian stunts, the rpons are not necsarily temporally permanent—they n change as an dividual mak more experienc (for example, new social ntacts) which leave novel mental ridu that predispose how an dividual (a teacher) rponds to attu objects the future.

For this purpose, survey-based rearch employs the feelg thermometer approach (Alw, 2007; Herek & McLemore, 2013), which measur overt affective feelgs toward an attu object (Eagly & Chaiken, 2007): Based on a symbolic thermometer, teachers numerilly exprs their favorable or unfavorable feelgs towards lbian, gay, and bisexual stunts, wh their attus rrpondg to temperatur. Comparg different target groups, Pettigrew and Tropp (2006) reported that the largt effect siz of rced prejudice emerged for sampl volvg ntact between heterosexuals and homosexuals, followed by ntact wh physilly disabled and ethnilly diverse people.

Posive relatns between tergroup ntact and rced sexual prejudice, posive attus, and equent rpons to homophobic bullyg school have also been documented wh teacher sampl om Germany (Klocke et al., 2019), Greece (Grigoropoulos, 2022), and Italy (Bac et al., 2020; Simone et al., 2022; Zotti et al., 2019). To acunt for the different qualy of work ntacts, is specified here as someone one’s larger social work (for example, loose acquatanc at work or a socially distant neighbor), one’s close iendship circle (for example, a very good or a bt iend), or one’s fay (a lbian, gay, or bisexual siblg).