A Texas teacher fac losg her job after fightg for gay pri symbols school

THE PLIGHT OF BEG A GAY TEACHER

How do gay and lbian teachers negotiate their profsnal and sexual inti at work, given that the inti are nstcted as mutually exclive, even as mutually opposed? Usg terviews and other ethnographic materials om Texas and California, School's Out explor how teachers stggle to create a classroom persona that balanc who they are and what's expected of them a climate of pervasive homophobia. * gay male teachers *

As a gay teacher who hadn’t e out to his stunts or staff, he felt hamstng. In 1978, the state of California proposed a law—a ballot measure wily known as the Briggs Iniative—which would've prohibed openly gay and lbian teachers om workg the state’s public schools.

In five stat—Indiana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Virgia—gay people n get legally married but also legally fired by an employer for beg gay, a Washgton Post map shows.

TWO GAY TEACHERS FROM VERY DIFFERENT WORLDS ON SHAPG THE NEXT GENERATN

J.B. Mayo, Jr., Gay Teachers' Negotiated Interactns wh Their Stunts and (Straight) Colleagu, The High School Journal, Vol. 92, No. 1 (Oct. - Nov., 2008), pp. 1-10 * gay male teachers *

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. "In the years before I had tenure, there was no way I was gog to let someone’s else’s homophobia jeopardize my reer, " Bunger said.

"Even teachers stat wh legal protectn worry that homophobic school lears n still fd a way to fire them regardls.

"My stunts mostly e om Caribbean scent, where homosexualy is tradnally owned upon, " said Lamar Shambley, a sixth-gra math teacher New York who hasn’t e out to his stunts. "Paranoia surroundg LGBT teachers part trac back to unfound theori lkg homosexualy and pedophilia. 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.

GAY TEACHER 'HAD SEX HIS CLASSROOM DURG SCHOOL HOURS'

* gay male teachers *

"The more [homosexualy] n f to the schema that people already have about fai, the easier is for others to unrstand... Beg gay and sgle and not relatg to people’s notns of fay is harr and somehow not as easy to tst. "But even people wh generally tolerant views toward homosexualy sometim qutn the necsy of g out, particularly a school settg.

"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.

BEG GAY AT SCHOOL REMAS DIFFICULT FOR TEACHERS

Bunger also me out after earng tenure, spired by a fellow gay teacher who never had any qualms about discsg his sexual orientatn wh his stunts. "If a kid ever ed homophobic slurs, he’d open up the discsn. 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.

"If we ever want to get to a place where people aren’t beg killed for who they are, ’s important that stunts know people who are gay and are learng that difference isn’t herently threateng, " Lazar said.

"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.