The Elementary and secondary schools remain establishments that continue to perpetuate an institutional heteronormativity which often results in LGBTQ identified teachers being bullied by colleagues, parents, and students [1], [2]. There are significant mental and emotional costs to LGBTQ teachers ranging from forced closeting, fear of firing, and constant stigma [3]. Russell [4] sums up the experience of being a LGBTQ teacher as an “awful predicament” (p. 2). As all beginning teachers fight to make it through their first years often plagued by common doubts, LGBTQ teachers are weighted with additional burdens as they negotiate what it means to teach as an LGBTQ person in a system that considers them the other, and often and ‘other’ that the system and those within it would rather not see.

Author: Lesley Siegel

Published in: Ireland International Conference on Education (IICE-2023)

• Date of Conference: 11-13 April 2023
• DOI: 10.20533/IICE.2023.0014
• ISBN: 978-1-913572-51-8
• Conference Location: Dún Laoghaire, Ireland