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

This researchindicated that students were less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to plan on goingto college when assigned to a Black teacher at least once in the third, fourth, or fifth grades. Inaddition, the researchers mentioned that the dropout effect was greatest among Black boys whoexperienced persistent poverty during their years in primary school. They also pointed out thatfuture research is needed to better understand how much of an impact Black teachers with higherexpectations may make. Their findings support implementing a policy that encourages assigningBlack male students to Black teachers to close achievement gaps (Gershenson, Hart, Lindsay, &Papageorge, 2017)

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.

When asked about the controversial ‘gay neutrality policy’ that occurred in the AnnokaHennepin school district, Ngo remarks, “I’m a firm believer that refusing to acknowledge certaincommunities is the first step to creating policies against those communities” (Ngo, 2022). AndNgo’s statement can never be truer. In order for certain school-sponsored or student-ledLGBTQ+ programs to work, we must first address the issue of neutrality, and how teachers andschool administrators could address their own personal biases. It’s impractical, or rather,simplistic for schools to leave queer and gender identity conversations to its students, all thewhile censoring the adults who are supposed to be role models for these kids

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)

Schools, like the rest of the social world, are structured by heterosexism-the assumption that everyone is and should be heterosexual (that such anassumption should have to be stated or even reinforced by policies indicatesthat everyone might not be heterosexual but they should be). Curricula, texts,and schools too often are constructed to reflect that heterosexuality is notonly the norm but also the only possible option for students. Heterosexismalso is reinforced by homophobia, overt expressions of dislike, harassment,and even assault of sexual minority people, a practice that members of theschool community often ignore or dismiss as typical behavior based on theheterosexist assumption that either there are no LGBTQ people present inschool communities or, if there are, those LGBTQ people ought to learnto expect a hostile environment. While homophobia possibly may be-atleast in some places-less socially acceptable today than it was previously,it is nonetheless the case that schools are not very supportive places formost LGBTQ, questioning, intersex, and ally students.

Gender bias is also a problem not only for women. Young men whounderstand cultural messages about masculinity as encouraging their dem-onstration of superiority show their power through aggressive taunting.Whether because of pressure to conform to this problematic notion of malepower or out of concern that they will be thought to be weak or gay if theydon't harass, young men are the group most likely to harass LGBTQ youthand young cisgender women as well. Even though we live in a time whengender norms continue to stretch, especially for women, schools are stillinstitutions where gender sorting occurs, whether it is in the classroom or incommunity settings that debate policy and curricula. Sex education contin-ues to be a relatively conservative part of schools, leading with abstinencc-until-marriage messages that not only exclude most LGBTQ students,but also leave girls at disproportionate risk for unwanted pregnancy (notbecause-obviously-only girls can get pregnant, but because so few youngmen are held responsible for the children that result)

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.