Reference Publications

Climate control teaching about Gender and sexuality in 2003 - Introduction - issue contents

Radical Teacher, Spring, 2003 by J. Elizabeth Clark, Erica Rand, Leonard Vogt

As workers in radical education, we believe that this cluster needs to push the edge in encouraging all educational workers, ourselves included, to think about gender and sexuality in the classroom. Catherine Lord's article pushes that edge as perhaps the most controversial article we decided to publish in this cluster because it confronts the perception that teaching about gender and sexuality is a way of "sexing the classroom." We were interested in moving beyond a milquetoast perception of gender and sexuality, beyond "Rosie the Riveter" as a sign of gender equality. Lord describes being accused of promoting pedophilia in a college art course that attempted to bridge "words about gender, women, power, oppression, resistance" with "visual works touching perhaps more lightly and certainly more succinctly on the same issues." As she suggests, teaching radically can have serious misunderstandings and painful consequences. Taking the chance, she also suggests, is often well worth it.

Noticeably missing from this first volume of our cluster on gender and sexuality is an article with a particular focus on transgender issues. As Hugh English notes in his essay in this volume, trans identities and concepts call into question some of the very categories on which much understanding and experience of gender and sexuality has been based. They are also integral to already common understandings--as in the idea that queers are recognizable for gender transgression. For both of these reasons, too, people in educational settings who identify or are identified as trans face problems we need to address, ranging from safe access to bathrooms to curricular support and inclusion. Thus, our original intention was to ensure that trans-focused material appeared in each issue, as both a sign and practice of its centrality. In assembling our dusters, however, we received few submissions on trans material, and then underestimated the work of recruiting. We hope to make up for this absence in our next issue of Ra dical Teacher.

1 Paola Bacchetta, Tina Campt, Inderpal Grewal, Caren Kaplan, Minoo Moallem, and Jennifer Terry, "Transnational Feminist Practices Against War," October 2001, accessed at http:// www.geocities.com/carenkaplan03/transnationalstatement.html.> 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 sometimes chooses her nail polish to match the "homeland security" alert system.