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How representative of queer communities is your curriculum? Too often, cisgender, white gay male narratives become a stand-in for “LGBTQ texts,” thus erasing the diversity of LGBTQ communities.
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We need narratives that center queer people. Where are queer narratives and voices present in the curriculum? First, do queer narratives exist in your curriculum? And if so, where? How do we position queer narratives? Are they in book club choices or literature circles? Do we use queer narratives as mentor texts for the whole class? References to queerness that are vague or disputable in canonical works are not enough.How can we make our own English classrooms spaces that live up to the ideals of the “English teachers support queer youth” meme? Some questions to consider in our classroom and practice that can guide our work include: And that message is that English teachers can work to make their classrooms affirming and loving spaces for students even when broader school structures remain entrenched with homo-, trans-, bi-, and queerphobia. The message behind the meme transcends the specific popular cultural texts used to construct the meme. A search on Twitter with the words “gay” and “English teacher” will provide the depth of the meme’s reach. While not an official name, I refer to the collection of memes as the “English teachers support queer youth” genre.Įxamples of the meme are abundant: screenshots from video games, promotional photos from actors, stills from reality shows, celebrity pictures at political events, stock images of bespectacled readers, and the list goes on. In the past few years I’ve noticed a warming (and often humorous) trend on social media: Queer youth creating memes that speak to the ways their English teachers supported, affirmed, and loved them. Instead of replying to your aunt's sad Jesus post by replying that "Jesus probably would have been cool with the LGBTQ community," or attempting to defend your well-researched points regarding the historical origins of non-heterosexual relationships on an Internet comment board (please, god - never read the comments section), you can whip out one of these hilarious babies instead and give yourself a good laugh.This blog post was written by Cody Miller, Chair of the NCTE LGBTQ Advisory Committee. Thankfully, we'll always have memes - specifically these gay rights memes that make everything a little better (or at least keep you laughing long enough to ignore that bigoted Facebook rant that your friend's mom just posted). But the tide of equally aggressive anti-gay sentiment that came with it has been less enjoyable, and recently, a bevy of state employees have even taken it upon themselves to make things even more frustrating by denying same-sex couples their legal rights under federal law. Hodges ruling, which legalized same-sex marriage, things have finally started looking up. With the Supreme Court's June 26 Obergefell v. With rapid roller coaster shifts in public policy and correlating social responses, gay rights advocates in particular have run the gamut from victorious to downtrodden and back again, albeit slightly annoyed. It's been a big year for the LGBTQ community.