The Education Department initially assigned him to a middle school in East Flatbush. But Mr.Hochbaum, his lawyer, said that T.J. would be the only student in his class with an intellectualdisability and that the school’s curriculum was not a good match for his needs. The school is also partof the city’s Renewal and Rise program for struggling schools. In the 2017-18 school year, 13 percent ofits students passed the state math test and 28 percent scored as proficient in reading

All of it was provided by New York City as part of aprogram called Early Intervention that covers children up to the age of 3.A program called the Committee on Preschool Special Education then picks up services for childrenbetween the ages of 3 and 5, but it seems to have dropped the ball in T.J.’s case. T.J. was evaluated afew months before his third birthday and found to be well behind his peers, according to Departmentof Education records. He was recommended for speech and occupational therapy and services from aspecial-education teacher, but it’s not clear if he ever received them. Kerrin said he got no servicesafter he turned 3. (T.J.’s family does not have all of his records. The family’s lawyer first asked theDepartment of Education for records over a year ago and still has not received them all.

So T.J.’s mother, Kerrin, called the pediatrician and asked what she could do. (T.J. and his familymembers are being identified by their middle names or initials to protect his privacy.) That call beganT.J.’s troubled journey through the labyrinthine bureaucracy of New York City’s special educationsystem. A decade later, T.J. is a friendly 12-year-old boy with a generous smile. He giggles whilewatching cartoons, always says “please” and “thank you” to his teachers, and he makes his brotherlaugh with his goofy sense of humor.Even though he has started sixth grade, T.J. still reads at a first-grade level. Instead of composingessays, he struggles with putting sentences together. He forgets to use punctuation.And as his years in school fall away, T.J. is being left behind

The disproportionate representation of students of color in special education is a serious andcontroversial concern that needs to be dealt with well. This problem is controversial becauseoverrepresentation in special education does not necessarily mean that students from a given groupare placed inappropriately. In fact, Morgan and Farkas (2018) argue that students of color arefrequently under-identified for special services. Nonetheless, evidence exists suggesting that biasoccurs in the placement of these students, that they are more likely to be segregated than otherstudents, and that the programs they attend are inferior in quality. If children are in need of specialeducation, it would be tragic to not provide it. However, inappropriate placement in segregatedprograms that will likely not yield favorable outcomes is tragic as well. Unfortunately, researchsuggests that these trends occur too often.To alleviate this problem, policymakers need to lower the chances of biased placement and reducethe rate at which students of color are segregated when placed in special education. They also needto improve the overall quality of the educational services these children receive and to providespecial services to all students who need them. To avoid biased placement, schools need toimplement policies that increase culturally responsive practices. These policies need to focus onproviding training to increase cultural competence and ensuring that committees of decisionmakers are racially diverse (Ford & Russo, 2016).Finally, the unacceptable practice of funding high-poverty schools inadequately needs to end.Students who attend low-income schools need more support from qualified educators, not less.

One of the most important factors within the school system that can contribute to racial disparitiesin referrals for special education is the teacher’s role in the process of identifying students. Indeed,the identification of students for special education starts with a teacher’s belief concerning whetheror not a student has a disability (Cooc, 2017). Unfortunately, teachers sometimes hold biased viewstoward students from cultural minority groups.Although teachers of the same race as their students are more likely to be aware of the culturalcharacteristics of their pupils, there is a lack of teachers of color in public schools (Morgan, 2019).Scholars have therefore hypothesized that many students of color are perceived to have disordersas a result of not understanding aspects of students’ cultures (Bean, 2013). For instance, Rudd(2014) mentioned a study that revealed that teachers perceived students who displayed a walkingstyle more commonly used by Black adolescents as in more need of special education services

The disproportionate representation of students of color in special education is a serious concernthat has lasted for forty years. Research suggests that students of color are too often not identifiedaccurately for special education and that the programs they are placed in are frequently poor inquality. This trend contributes to a less-than-optimal learning environment that lowers theirchances for future success. Some of the factors that may contribute to this problem include povertyand inaccurate teacher perceptions. To reduce this problem, teachers can be trained to be culturallyresponsive and the public-school system can be improved so that students from low-incomehouseholds receive better services

Educators have three options when trying to move an authoritarian, bureaucratic organization or system (such as the U.S. school system) in the direction of democratic community: We can leave; we can conform; or we can express ourselves, argue and protest, and try to change the situation. I am arguing for the last. Becoming visible and using one's voice can be dangerous — even in purportedly free societies like the U.S. — but these strategies can also be successful in the long-run, contributing to local and systemic change. The creative function of difference, according to Lorde, renders interdependence unthreatening and gives us the power to effect change (1984). Let us use the power we have.

What would it take for U.S. society and schools to stop labeling, to stop positioning Lydia in ways that attend primarily to her differences, her perceived deficits, and that negate her full personhood? I offer a few suggestions for a more caring, democratic society and more caring, democratic schools. As a first step, we might increase our sensitivity to the particular details of the struggles of other, unfamiliar people; such increased sensitivity makes it difficult to marginalize people different from ourselves. This is part of the process of coming to see other humans beings as 'one of us' rather than as 'them.' There are significant consequences when we disqualify another's knowledge or experiences; one of these is certainly the emotional suffering those who are marginalized feel. This is the main reason I/we tell our story.

In this paper I draw on my life story as a teacher educator and the mother of a daughter with disabilities to trouble the identity that positions and labels her as, first and foremost in U.S. school settings, a "child with special needs."

So, what can we do? Mayo believes that true change starts with the school faculty.LGBTQ+ students are more than capable of creating events, clubs, and student-led organizations.But without the proper guidance and support from their teachers, all their efforts will ultimatelysuccumb to “Don’t Say Gay” bills, gripes and interventions from heteronormative parents, andRepublican-led state mandates. “I feel like programs are good but what schools really need is thesincerity to back it up” (Ngo, 2022). You can’t just have teachers stand at a podium, clicker inhand, lecture for twenty-minutes about Title IX, and then walk away like nothing happened.With the number of state-sponsored policies that seek to undermine and disenfranchise theLGBTQ+ community, it seems that schools have lost their moral and ethical credibility when itcomes to these issues. In order for true change to happen, schools need to (1) acknowledgeLGBTQ+ students as real people, (2) address the personal biases within teachers and parentsthrough school-sponsored programs, and lastly (3) incorporate talks of gender identity, genderintersectionality, and queer representation in school pedagogy and curricula. Addressing thosekey factors might not guarantee a sudden change in society, but it’s a start to institutional reform.As teachers, parents, and school administrators begin to acknowledge people from multiracial,multicultural, and gender nonconforming backgrounds, they can create a better, and moreinclusive, learning experience for students under the LGBTQ+ umbrella. When asked how hisVietnamese and queer identity influenced his decision to become a teacher, Ngo says, “that’s oneof the reasons why I wanted to go into education actually. Because I want to go inside aclassroom and stand there and be openly queer and openly Asian. So some poor teen out theredoesn’t have to grow up thinking - I cannot be both. I cannot be out there” (Ngo, 2022).

Students that shuffle between a gender nonconforming identity often lack the propersupport within their communities. If school administrators and teachers continue to stay neutral,they are essentially blinding themselves from conversations that acknowledge gendernonconforming youth. It doesn’t matter if you know that queer students exist; what matters iswhat you can do for them. Describing his experiences with staff and administrators within hisSan Jose charter school, Ngo remarks, “And you could tell, the teachers knew, the administratorsknew, everyone knew that they have students under the spectrum. On the other hand, you go toschool and realize that none of your teachers talk about gay people”

Ngo is an Education Science major who, at the time of this writing,attends the University of California Irvine. Ngo is a Vietnamese American who is part of theLGBTQ+ community. And as a female-born individual, Ngo identifies as a non-binary queerwho wishes to transition as a male. In hopes of providing more research into queer and genderdiscussions, I, along with my colleague Emily Mercado, have decided to create our very firstacademic podcast entitled Uncloseted, a one-hour conversation that delves deep into theintersectionalities, struggles, and personal challenges that our guest speaker, Thi Ngo, hadexperienced as an LGBTQ+ student in Northern California. Our podcast also pulls ideas fromCris Mayo’s 2014 book entitled LGBTQ Youth and Education. Mayo is a world-renowned authorwho currently serves as Director and Professor of the Interdisciplinary Studies master’s degreeprogram in the U.S. Department of Education (uvm.com). And it is through his readings thatwe’ll begin to debunk previous misconceptions about the coming-out experience, look at theissues of being LGBTQ+ under an Asian American household, and explain how unfairgovernment policies and school practices persist at removing queer and non-binary conversationsinside American classrooms

But this was not the end of the story, as will be discussed in more de-tail in Chapter 6. A change in presidential administration in turn meant achange in how the U.S. Department of Education intervened in LGBTQ-related bias in schools, and within a few years the Anoka-Hennepin districtschool board reverted to conservative exclusionary practices and once againfound itself the focus of a lawsuit. This time a young transgender man whohad been allowed to use facilities matching his gender had that recognitionrevoked by his high school. As discussed later in this book, he has sincewon a significant monetary settlement against the district, whose apparentcommitment to equity lasted only as long as the impact of a lawsuit (Verges,2021). Better, of course, to make equitable changes more permanent andpervasive.

The examples of youth suicide or homophobic and transphobic murder areextreme manifestations of bias. But in each case, a less spectacular, moreeveryday experience of homophobia or transphobia also preceded the moreviolent act. In other words, these were students who were already makingtheir way through school contexts that were not supportive and did nottake seriously their concerns about peer or adult bias. That kind of isolationor harassment, in and of itself, has a negative impact on school attendanceand educational aspirations of many LGBTQ students. LGBTQ studentswho experience extreme harassment in schools are likely to report plans tocontinue their education beyond high school, and students who experiencedmore LGBTQ-related victimization at schools reported a lower grade pointaverage and higher absenteeism (Kosciw et al., 2020). Further, youth whoare out or public about their gender identity or sexual orientation weremore likely to report experiencing more harassment, but they also expresseda higher sense of self-esteem.

The examples of youth suicide or homophobic and transphobic murder areextreme manifestations of bias. But in each case, a less spectacular, moreeveryday experience of homophobia or transphobia also preceded the moreviolent act. In other words, these were students who were already makingtheir way through school contexts that were not supportive and did nottake seriously their concerns about peer or adult bias. That kind of isolationor harassment, in and of itself, has a negative impact on school attendanceand educational aspirations of many LGBTQ students. LGBTQ studentswho experience extreme harassment in schools are likely to report plans tocontinue their education beyond high school, and students who experiencedmore LGBTQ-related victimization at schools reported a lower grade pointaverage and higher absenteeism (Kosciw et al., 2020). Further, youth whoare out or public about their gender identity or sexual orientation weremore likely to report experiencing more harassment, but they also expresseda higher sense of self-esteem

Experiences of harassment, assault, or simply not seeing any representa-tion of LGBTQ lives in the curricula all contribute to negative school-basedexperiences. This chapter details recent studies and theoretical work on thehostile climate in schools, examines gaps in curricula, and discusses family-related issues that also challenge LGBTQ students or students with LGBTQparents. These may include a lack of role models in schools, discomfort withparental involvement, or, especially in the case of children with LGBTQ par-ents, difficult relations between school and family

This points to what we can learn from the vernacular forms of youthsexuality and gender questioning and curiosity, and a range of other forma-tions that show the contextual possibility and complexity of gender identity.Youth may be nonbinary, pushing at the edges of what gender can be. Youthmay also navigate spaces in relationship to other group membership. For in-stance, youth whose racial or ethnic identity may be their primary identi-fication and site of solidarity may approach coming out and/or hiding inplain sight in diverse ways. There are heterosexual girls in Gay-StraightAlliances or Gender and Sexuality Alliances-which seems to indicate thatsuch groups are not yet attracting the students who need them (Perrotti &Westheimer, 2001)-who then turn out to have interesting ideas about theirown definitions of heterosexuality and their queer experiences, reminding usthat young people are often more complex than they initially might presentthemselves (Mayo, 2007). Young men who reinterpret their experiences ofhomophobic hostility as an indication of interest in finding out more aboutsame-sex attraction (McCready, 2010) and young people who rework gen-der for themselves-and to show what can be done-are engaging in actsof resist:mce but also acting as educators themselves. They show not onlyinterest and desire to learn but a clear sense of what criticality might bringto the projects of sexuality and gender, resituating the terms more fully backinto possibilities and back into relation with other categories of personal,social, and historical meaning.

Without addressing the deep cultural, political, and historical obstaclesto educating LGBTQ people and educating about them, progress towardrespectful education and justice will be only halfhearted at best. Whilesome religious traditions may be the root of some cultural disapproval ofhomosexuality, most religious traditions do not require their adherents todemand doctrinal discipline from those outside their faith tradition. Giventhe pervasiveness of homophobia even among people who do not groundtheir discomfort in religious traditions, it is clear that other anxieties alsomotivate discomfort about minority sexualities and gender identities.Many religious denominations are very supportive of sexual and genderminorities. Consequently, the tendency to blame religion for homopho-bia and transphobia is an oversimplification. Denominations supportiveof sexual and gender minorities include the Metropolitan CommunityChurch, Reform Judaism, Hinduism, United Church of Christ, Society ofFriends (Quakers), and Unitarianism, as well as segments of the Episcopaland Lutheran churches. Individual congregations of many faiths are alsosupportive of sexual and gender diversities.

Drawing on theories discussing gender as a process, homophobia, and intcr-sectionality, this chapter examines the pervasiveness of heteronormativityand the varieties of queerness to help readers understand where bias comesfrom, as well as be attuned to differences in the experiences of gender di-verse, creative, and/or nonconforming students and/or sexual minority stu-dents. Looking at the roots of homophobia in bias against gender diversitywill help link homophobia to transphobia and sexism as well. Examiningsexuality as racialized and gendered, in turn, will illuminate differences inexperiences of sexual minority students across diverse identities and providea fuller understanding of how race structures sexuality. This chapter willhelp readers understand the theories of gender, sexuality, and race rha t haveinfluenced writing and research on LGBTQ students as well as helped struc-ture current LGBTQ and ally political projects in schools.