Climate control: teaching about gender and sexuality in 2003--Part 2.

It seems that the themes we introduced in our first introduction still abound. It's July as we go to press, which means that New York City, and other communities around the country celebrated gay pride month in June. Yet, according to "The Truth About George," featured on the National Organization for Women's website:

   DOJ Pride, a group of lesbian and gay Justice
   Department employees, was reportedly told
   in a memo earlier this month that it would
   not be allowed to hold a June 18 awards ceremony
   in the department's Great Hall because
   the White House had not formally recognized
   Gay Pride Month with a presidential proclamation.
   The Bush administration--which
   has issued a proclamation for Leif Erikson
   Day and Save Your Vision Week, among others--has
   refused to recognize Gay Pride
   Month. (www.thetruthaboutgeorge.com)

While we're all committed to a celebration of Leif Erikson, the idea that Erikson would prove more important to President Bush than those in the feminist and queer communities seems somehow, well, off. To add to the woes in the feminist and queer communities, the recent House and Senate action regarding "partial birth abortion" further jeopardizes Roe V. Wade. This is another indication that women and women's issues are not a priority for this administration. NOW reports that:

   George W. Bush indicated through White
   House spokesperson Ari Fleischer that he
   does not consider discrimination against
   women to be an offense as serious as racial or
   ethnic discrimination. According to Fleischer,
   membership in a group that excludes women
   is not "a disqualifying factor" for candidates
   to Cabinet posts. However, when prodded,
   Fleischer stated that racial or ethnic discrimination
   is a very different category for the
   President." (www.now.org)

Perhaps Leif Erikson is lucky he's not a woman.

The current national situation underscores the imperative that the classroom be a vital realm for exploration, critical thinking, and discussion of gender and sexuality. Interestingly, however, the ongoing crisis in Iraq has led to a number prominent cases that essentially suggest teachers should keep politics out of the classroom. (See Kathleen Weiler's out-of-cluster article "Paulo Freire: On Hope" for a discussion of teaching to the current national crisis). Responding to this recent stir in academia around the war in Iraq, Jill Carroll wrote an article in the online advice column for adjuncts in The Chronicle of Higher Education entitled "Keeping Your Politics Out of the Classroom." Carroll suggests that the expression of political views in the classroom is an unprofessional stance: "But let's set aside for the moment the practical matter of losing your job over this. Adjuncts, and perhaps all faculty members, should reflect deeply about the pros and cons of airing personal views--of any kind--unrelated to the course content. Whatever the topic, my advice would be the same: Refrain from using your classroom to express your personal views" (http://chronicle.com/jobs/2003/05/2003052701c.htm).

Of course, as radicals, we perceive the classroom as a central locus for our work in informing, influencing and changing our society; as feminists, we question Carroll's use of the term "personal" to characterize and diminish engaged practice. Even the most apolitical of classroom subscribes to the notion that "children are our future." Classrooms are linked to fundamental notions of social change because in them, from the earliest years of our cognitive development, we are inculcated as members of the state, ascribing to notions of citizenship in school, in our communities and in our nation. In contrast to teachers like Carroll, the readers of Radical Teacher share a commitment to radicalizing the classroom and the lives of our students and those around them.

Yet, often in the classroom, we sense a disconnect between our students' lives, their perceptions of social, cultural and historical moments, and our own. Lately, as the news has been piling up about the major rollbacks in the feminist agenda, as the national government continues to reinforce traditional constructions of family and as Bush seems to roll on toward another presidency in the polls, it seems that now, more than ever in recent years, we need to make vital connections with our students about these, and many other issues. While some students are appalled at news of the ban against "late term" abortions, in the same sentence, these students will declare "I'm not a feminist."

It is into this milieu that we continue our discussion of teaching about gender and sexuality. In this issue, we continue the discussion from part I which takes a cultural studies approach to gender and sexuality, drawing on the ideas of relating the classroom to the world the students live in.

In "Speaking About Power Gender, History, and the Urban Classroom," Elaine Carey writes "As part of the third wave of feminist scholars, I owe much of my ease in the field to the trailblazers before me who questioned aspects of work, motherhood, reproductive rights, sexual orientation, war, and community and who struggled within the profession for a respected space for their work."

Erica Rand brings together the writings of five transgender activists who are also students. Besides offering an extensive discussion of tram issues in schools, which are integral to matters of gender and sexuality, the essay works, by featuring student authors, to challenge traditional authority models that suggest teaching happens from the top down.

Margaret Cruikshank's reflection on teaching and her journey from 1978 to 2003 offers a compelling look at the changes in the classroom and in the national political agenda.

Ed Check and Future Akins' article "Queer Activisms in West Texas" presents the most compelling story of how far we have to go yet in the struggle for equality around gender and sexuality Check and Akins detail their experiences in organizing a conference for K- 12 art educators in Texas. They were forced to remove a panel on lgbtq students from the conference at the behest of the state art association.

We were struck by Keith Gemerek's photographs which graced the cover and illustrated several of the articles in Part I of this cluster. We invited him to work with Elizabeth Powell, Radical Teacher's Art Director, to put together a powerful photographic essay entitled "History and Culture in the Making" which looks at lgbtq history through the documentary lens of a talented photographer. Gemerek's photographs offer a vision of inclusivity in our society, a powerful counter to the graphic images of heteronormative sexuality that fill the television, Internet, and movie screens each day in the United States. In this second issue, as in the first, we hope to contribute to a vision of justice, pleasure, and freedom for people of all sexualities and genders.

In our first issue of "Teaching About Gender and Sexuality in 2003," we said that this two-issue cluster of Radical Teacher seeks to combine the teaching of gender and sexuality for the first time in our magazine. We hope that this second issue in the cluster meets that goal, with three articles that explore gender identity, a brief reflection on the history of lgbtq studies in academia, a photographic essay, and an extensive resource list. Finally, we would also like to call your attention to the "Teaching Notes" section which looks at using Boys Don't Cry and Killing Us Softly III to teach gender and sexuality.

ERICA RAND teaches at Bates College in Art and in Women and Gender Studies. Her writing includes Barbie's Queer Accessories and a book in progress called "The Ellis Island Snow Globe: Sex, Money, Products, Nation." She is on the editorial board of Radical Teacher, and spends a lot of time enjoying genders on the ice rink.