Queer teachers’ ethical dilemmas regarding queer youth

Abstract

Although all teachers are expected to be “role models,” discursive trajectories reaching back to the West’s gay liberation pressure queer teachers to be role models in specific ways – by “coming out” and helping queer students out of their “time of difficulty.” Paradoxically, discourses that construct children as innocent and queers‐as‐a‐threat make it difficult for queer teachers not only to take up these positions as role models but to be visible in schools. In this article, I explore the discourses that shape queer teachers’ understanding of touch, sexuality, confidentiality, the private versus public domain, and pedagogical responsibility within the schooling context. Informed by Foucault, I analyze the interview data of three Ontario queer teachers to investigate the ways in which queers‐as‐a‐threat and teacher‐as‐role‐model influence the negotiation of their ethical dilemmas regarding their student crushes.