Chapter 1: Challenging The Status Quo: Transforming and Queering Education

Over the last several years we have seen activists fight for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans* and queer (LGBTQ) equity. Progress has been made in some areas of the world where, for example, same-sex marriage has been legalized, protections against forms of discrimination in employment and housing have been put in place, and even the inclusion of LGBTQ populations in hate crime laws. However, given the conservative nature of K–12 education and its blatant resistance to the inclusion of Others, this volume had as its aim to explore whether this educational milieu has improved over time. After all, as Carlson (2001) reminds us, “As queerness has become more open and ‘out’ in campus life, homophobia has had a more visible target to attack” (p. 297). So with an increased visibility of the queer community, we approached this volume by seeking authors who would share their own personal experiences and findings from original research to help illustrate the current trend in the K–12 setting.