Thats Gay: The Politics of Language, Gender, and Sexuality in the English Classroom

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Thats Gay! The Politics of Language, Gender,
and Sexuality in the English Classroom

• Independent Study Presentation
• Spring 2006
• Maryellen Collins
• Advised by
• Dr. Emily Meixner and Dr. Colette Gosselin

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Seminar Overview

• Introduction
• Past One Survey Results
• Part Two Queer Theory Gender and Language
• Part Three Resources for the inclusion of
  homosexuality in the English classroom

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IntroductionIts in the Numbers

• Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey
• Findings GLB students were
• 5x more likely to have attempted suicide
• 4x more likely to have skipped school because of
  feeling unsafe/threatened
• 3x more likely to have been injured/threatened
  with a weapon

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Dont Jump to Conclusions

• Although structuring programs around core school
  values of violence prevention and safety is
  effective, it has limitations. By emphasizing the
  violence, harassment, and suicidal thoughts that
  gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people may face,
  programs run the risk of reinforcing images of
  this population as sick and unhappy. (Perrotti
  and Westheimer)

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My Initial Questions

• How prepared do teacher candidates at TCNJ feel
  in regards to dealing with homosexuality issues
  and students in the classroom?
• Is there a correlation between presence/lack of a
  GSA and a high schools environment in regards to
  homosexuality?
• How can tolerance, acceptance, and visibility of
  homosexual students be fostered in the English
  classroom?

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Part One The Survey

• 47 Secondary Education Majors currently enrolled
  in EFN 299 (Schools and Communities)
• Survey addressed pre-service teaching experience,
  sense of readiness, and GSA vs. non-GSA school
  safety correlation

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TCNJ Pre-Service Teaching Experience

• Have your secondary education professors ever
  addressed the issue of homosexuality in the
  secondary classroom?
• Yes 53 No 47
• Do you consider homosexual students members of
  the minority population?
• Yes 70 No 30
• How prepared do you feel to address the needs of
  homosexual students?
• Prepared 39
• Somewhat prepared 35
• Unprepared 26

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Our Legal Responsibility as Educators

• 18A37--13. Findings, declarations relative to
  adoption of harassment and bullying prevention
  policies
• The Legislature finds and declares that a safe
  and civil environment in school is necessary for
  students to learn and achieve high academic
  standards harassment, intimidation or bullying,
  like other disruptive or violent behaviors, is
  conduct that disrupts both a student's ability to
  learn and a school's ability to educate its
  students in a safe environment and since
  students learn by example, school administrators,
  faculty, staff, and volunteers should be
  commended for demonstrating appropriate behavior,
  treating others with civility and respect, and
  refusing to tolerate harassment, intimidation or
  bullying

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GSA Effect

• Questions
• Were any teachers at your high school openly gay,
  lesbian, bisexual, or transgender?
• How comfortable do you imagine your homosexual
  peers were in being open at your high school? If
  you, yourself, are homosexual/ bisexual/
  transgender, how comfortable were you about being
  open in your high school?
• Do you recall homosexuality ever being addressed
  during an academic discussion?
• How safe would you describe your high school
  environment?
• Do you know of any violence lodged against gay
  students or gay supporters at your school?
• Was there a school policy against anti-gay
  violence/language?

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GSA Correlation Questions and Results

• How comfortable do you imagine your homosexual
  peers were in being open at your high school? If
  you, yourself, are homosexual/ bisexual/
  transgender, how comfortable were you about being
  open in your high school?

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GSA Correlation Questions and Results

• Do you recall homosexuality ever being addressed
  during an academic discussion?

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GSA Correlation Questions and Results

• How safe would you describe your high school
  environment?

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Open Ended Questions

• When going over the answers to a test, you
  overhear a student who failed remark to a
  classmate, This test was gay anyway. Do you
  address the comment? If no, why not? If yes, what
  would you say?
• How would you describe a safe classroom
  environment?
• You mention that an important figure in your
  content area was homosexual. The next day, a
  parent calls to complain that you should not
  address homosexuality in your classroom because
  it is irrelevant and potentially offensive. How
  would you respond to this parent?
• Do you think it is important that homosexual
  students are affirmed in your classroom for their
  identity? Why or why not?

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Sample Responses

• No, because that language is commonly used now
  and I dont consciously connect it to
  homosexuality. In that context I hear it as
  meaning bad or stupid.
• A safe classroom environment is one in which
  each student can feel comfortable enough to self
  identify as they wish and not be harassed for
  it.
• Why does it matter what his sexuality is? Are
  you afraid that I am going to influence your kid
  to be gay? Oh no! !
• I do. I feel they have a right to feel
  comfortable with their identities. After all,
  identities shape how we view the world, and it is
  important for all students to consider every
  perspective.

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The Need for Addressing Homosexuality

• Students and their parents have different views
  on this subject. Either right or wrong, some
  believe that being gay is an absolute sin. I feel
  that these kids should understand about
  tolerance, but the school may not want you
  teaching the kids what goes against their
  parents belief. So, sometimes a teacher may be
  better off being silent.
• Homosexuality is a touchy subject for most, a
  lot dont want to accept it. I think it should be
  introduced a lot more in education so that
  students do not see the negative side when they
  learn it from a bully and such.

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The Need for Addressing Homosexuality

• You say, Yeah it was gay, so are you
• you faggot!

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Part Two Queer Theory

• Riki Wilchins Queer Theory, Gender Theory
• Queer theory is at heart about politics things
  like power and identity, language, and
  difference (Wilchins 5).
• Gender theory and in practice
• Language theory and in practice

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Truth with a Capital T

• Deconstructing Gender a given Truth (Gender) is
  not transcendent, but is a result of small-t
  truths (gender expression, stereotypes,
  passing). Deconstruction thus is as much
  political tool as philosophical method. Its
  about power (Wilchins 44).
• Semiotics of Gendered language breaking down the
  system (language) into its signs (implied
  stereotypes, gender expression, and power).

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Quest for Truth

• Identifying gender
• A couldnt help but jump out of the seat when the
  Red Sox won the World Series.
• B screamed at the sight of the bug.
• C didnt study, and failed the math test.
• D was unhappy when E flirted with the cashier.

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The Gender Card In Theory

• If you scratch the surface of sexism and
  misogny, you almost always find gender. This is
  apparent not only in our societys astonishing
  fear and loathing around the issues of femininity
  and vulnerability, but also in the fact that in a
  male-centered culture, women will always be the
  queer sex (Wilchins 11).
• We think our experience reflects our own
  personal shortcomings. We were ridiculed for
  being a geek or a fag or for throwing like a
  girl, or we were too aggressive and athletic or
  too old to be a tomboy. When these things
  happened, we assumed the problem was us, not the
  gender system (Wilchins 19).

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Gender and Homosexuality

• The GLBTQ community is often marginalized for
  their rejection of the gender system.
• It is now acceptable to be gay, but its still
  not okay to be a fag. You can be a lesbian, but
  not a dyke (Wilchins 19).
• Addressing the gender system, which everyone can
  identify with, ultimately addresses
  homosexuality.

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The Gender Card In Practice
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The Gender Card In Practice

• Gender stereotypesthats the basis for all of
  this (Wilchins 20).
• Unit on Gender Roles and Gender Expression
• Pre-reading Brainstorming of gender stereotypes
  and the inherency of gender
• Being a gender is always a doing, a continuous
  approximation of normative ideals that live
  outside of us and were always already there
  before we arrived (Wilchins 131).

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The Gender Card In Practice

• Address students own gender expression
• Tillie Olsens I Stand Here Ironing
• Only help her to knowhelp make it so there is
  cause for her to know that she is more than this
  dress on the ironing board, helpless before the
  iron (Tillie Olsen).
• Discuss Emilys conformity to and rejection of
  gender roles, as well as how it affected her life
• Dress and Hammers

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The Gender Card In Practice

• Its a start
• At its heart, bigotry against the GLBTQ
  community is outrage against the rejection of the
  gender system, which inherently is sexist
• The energetic critique of the gender system has
  helped provide new legitimacy for those on its
  marginsincluding transsexuals, intersex people,
  and cross-dressers (Wilchins 99).

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The Politics of Language In Theory

• Gender, as a system, is expressed through verbal
  and non-verbal language
• Gender is a language, a system of meanings and
  symbols, along with the rules, privileges, and
  punishments pertaining to their usefor power and
  sexuality (masculinity and femininity, strength
  and vulnerability, action and passivity,
  dominance and weakness). (Wilchins 35).

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The Politics of Language In Theory

• Defamatory language runs rampant in society, and
  is a source of power in the classroom
• Tellingly there is not a single words for people
  who dont fit gender norms that is positive,
  affirming, and complimentary. There is not even a
  word that is neutral. Because all our language
  affords are strings of insults, it is impossible
  to talk about someone who is brave enough to
  rebel against gender stereotypes without
  ridiculing or humiliating them at the same time.
  Language works against you. It is meant to,
  because the language of gender is highly
  political (Wilchins 38).

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The Politics of Language In Practice

• Have students acknowledge the power in language
• Teaching Tolerance
• The power of words Origins

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The Politics of Language In Practice
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The Politics of Language In Practice

• Creating a zero-tolerance policy for defamatory
  language that is racist, sexist, and homophobic.
• Language casts sheaves of reality upon the
  social body, stamping it and violently shaping
  it Monique Witting

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Part Three Resources

• James Howe The Misfits
• www.nonamecallingweek.org
• No Name-Calling Week is an annual week of
  educational activities aimed at ending
  name-calling of all kinds and providing schools
  with the tools and inspiration to launch an
  on-going dialogue about ways to eliminate
  bullying in their communities. (The History of
  the No Name-Calling Week Project)

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Harnessing the Power of Words

• Suggested Middle School Works
• Am I Blue? Coming Out from the Silence by M.D.
  Bauer
• From The Notebooks of Melanin Sun A Novel by J.
  Woodson
• The Misfits by J. Howe
• Totally Joe by J. Howe
• Suggested High School Works
• Dangerous Angels The Weetzie Bat Books by F.L.
  Block
• Annie on My Mind by N. Garden
• Luna by J. Peters
• My Heartbeat by G. Freymann-Wehr
• Boy Meets Boy by D. Levithan
• Suggested Resource Guide
• GLBTQ The Survival Guide for Queer and
  Questioning Teens
• by K. Huegel

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Seminar Resources

• Bauer, Marian Dane. Am I Blue? Coming Out from
  the Silence. New York HarperCollins Publishers,
  1994.
• Block, Francis Lia. Dangerous Angels The Weetzie
  Bat Books. New York HarperCollins Publishers,
  1998.
• Freymann-Weyr, Garrett. My Heartbeat. New York
  Houghton Mifflin Corporation, 2002.
• Garden, Nancy. Annie on my Mind. USA Douglas
  McIntyre, Ltd, 1982.
• Howe, James. The Misfits. New York Simon
  Schuster Childrens Publishing Division, 2001.
• Howe, James. Totally Joe. New York Simon
  Schuster Childrens Publishing Division, 2005.
• Huegel, Kelly. GLBTQ The Survival Guide for
  Queer and Questioning Teens. Minneapolis Free
  Spirit Publishing, 2003.

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Seminar Resources continued

• Levithan, David. Boy Meets Boy. New York Random
  House, Inc, 2003.
• No Name Calling Week. 2006. No Name Calling Week
  Coalition.
• Peters, Julie Anne. Luna. New York Time Warner
  Book Group, 2004.
• Savin-Williams, Rich. The New Gay Teenager.
  Boston Harvard University Press, 2005.
• Teaching Tolerance. Southern Poverty Law Center.
  
• Wilchins, Riki. Queer Theory, Gender Theory. Los
  Angeles Alyson Publishing, 2004.
• Woodson, Jacqueline. From the Notebooks of
  Melanin Sun. New York Scholastic Inc, 1995.
• Maryellen Collins collin15_at_tcnj.edu

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Thank You!

• Dr. Meixner and Dr. Gosselin,
• Friends, and Family
• I couldnt have made it through this project,
  semester, college career, or life without you!