Teaching Undergraduates About LGBTQ Identities, Families, and Intersectionality

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12224
• Date: 01 February 2018
• Author: Abbie E. Goldberg,Katherine R. Allen
• Published date: 01 February 2018

A E. G Clark University

K R. A Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Teaching Undergraduates About LGBTQ Identities,

Families, and Intersectionality

Teaching undergraduate students about LGBTQ

identities and family issues presents several

challenges, or “opportunities,” which we

address within personal, ecological, and his-

torical contexts. We begin by articulating our

positionality as scholars and instructors, and

the feminist intersectional and queer lens

that guides our research and pedagogy. We

organize our presentation of contemporary

teaching opportunities around three primary

and interrelated topics: (a) teaching about

LGBTQ issues with attention to intersection-

ality as a conceptual framework, (b) teaching

about sexual orientation diversity and uidity,

and (c) teaching about gender diversity and

transgender identities. We incorporate sugges-

tions for educational practice throughout and

recommend that instructors continually revise

their teaching practices to reect the changing

technological and social landscape, thus max-

imizing opportunities for student engagement

and learning.

Universities, as institutions, and the knowledge

produced and taught within them are largely

heteronormative (Braun & Clarke, 2009), where

heteronormative refers to the assumption that

heterosexuality is the only normal and natural

Department of Psychology, Clark University, 950 Main St.,

Worcester,MA 01610 (agoldberg@clarku.edu).

KeyWords: Families,feminist intersectional theory, LGBTQ,

queer theory, teaching, transgender.

expression of sexuality within society (Oswald,

Blume, & Marks, 2005). Teaching undergrad-

uates about LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual,

transgender, and queer) identities and families,

as well as intersectionality, is a radical act that

serves to decenter heteronormativity (Oswald

et al., 2005) by explicitly centralizing LGBTQ

people and topics (Evans, 2000; Kuvalanka,

Goldberg, & Oswald, 2013). In turn, it has

potential to “queer” the curriculum and the

institution (Bacon, 2006). Further, teaching

undergraduates about LGBTQ individuals and

their families specically allows instructors to

honor the range of sexual and gender identities

that exist in the classroom and beyond. Such

inclusive teaching normalizes, validates, and

provides support for LGBTQ students and

students with LGBTQ family members who

typically do not see their life histories or expe-

riences reected in course content. Treating

LGBTQ identities and families as a content area

worthy of exploration may even help change the

campus climate for LGBTQ students, faculty,

and staff, who often are exposed to mistreatment

(Dozier, 2015; Rankin, Weber, Blumenfeld, &

Frazer, 2010; Yost & Gilmore, 2011).

Classes and coursework on LGBTQ identi-

ties and families are equally important for het-

erosexual and cisgender (i.e., not LGBQ and

trans) students, as they help cultivate awareness

and acceptance. Often, this enables these stu-

dents to more honestly and effectively relate

to, work with, and interact with individuals of

diverse backgrounds and identities, including

176 Family Relations 67 (February 2018): 176–191

DOI:10.1111/fare.12224

Teaching Undergraduates About LGBTQ 177

sexual and gender identities. Many heterosex-

ual students who take courses in family science,

human development, psychology,sociology, and

related disciplines go on to seek employment

in counseling, social services, education, and

related elds (National Council on Family Rela-

tions, n.d.). In turn, knowledge of LGBTQ lives

in the context of families, and of how their iden-

tities intersect with other identities, such as racial

identities, is likely to be valuable in the ser-

vice professions (Blumer, Ansara, & Watson,

2013; LaMantia, Wagner,& Bohecker, 2015). It

is essential that course content on LGBTQ issues

be integrated into “mainstream” courses—such

as those on human development and family

policy—and not just specialized courses on top-

ics such as human sexuality, which may tend to

draw students who are comfortable with, or open

to, topics related to sexual and gender diversity

(Rothblum, 2012).

Teaching about LGBTQ individuals and their

families today is, in some ways, easier than it

has been in previous decades, given relatively

rapid and recent changes in societal attitudes

toward sexual and gender diversity. Students

today are growing up at a time when acceptance

of same-sex relationships, same-sex marriage,

and adoption by LGBQ people are at an all-time

high. For example, about 73% of millennials

(i.e., persons born between about 1982 and

2004; Bump, 2014) favor same-sex marriage

(Pew Research Center, 2015). At the same time,

acceptance of these rights is far from universal;

there is considerable variation in approval for

same-sex marriage, for example, by religion,

education level, race/ethnicity, and geographic

region (Lipka, 2014; Pew Research Center,

2015). In part, given growing social acceptance

as well as the many Internet resources that

allow youth to explore their sexual orienta-

tion and gender identity (e.g., support groups,

YouTube videos, video blogs; Raun, 2015), at

increasingly younger ages youth are showing

awareness of sexual identity (Floyd & Bake-

man, 2006) and coming out (Russell, Toomey,

Ryan, & Diaz, 2014), at least online (Bond,

Hefner, & Drogos, 2009; Raun, 2015). In turn,

“out” LGBTQ students on college campuses are

increasingly present and visible (Renn, 2010).

Such visibility has implications for the experi-

ences of these students—and their heterosexual

and cisgender counterparts—in the classroom

and beyond, including the types of inquiry they

are willing to engage in, content areas they

are open to, and discussions that are likely

to ensue.

In this article we address several con-

temporary challenges—framed here as

opportunities—in teaching about LGBTQ

identities and family issues, which we situate

within personal, ecological, and historical con-

texts. We begin by providing some background

information about us, the two authors, as a

means of providing context for our particular

vantage point and teaching approaches. We

then describe our feminist intersectional and

queer lens more broadly, which informs our

scholarship and teaching. Next, we discuss

three interrelated teaching opportunities, pro-

viding suggestions and implications for practice

throughout. Namely, we discuss teaching about

LGBTQ issues with attention to intersectional-

ity as a conceptual framework, teaching about

sexual orientation diversity and uidity, and

teaching about gender diversity and transgender

identities. We conclude by reecting on the

importance of continually revising pedagogical

practice to meet the needs of our students and

curricula. Indeed, given the pervasive role of

technology in shaping students’ ideas about,

identication with, and embodiment of sexual-

ities, it is necessary that we regularly integrate

new sources of knowledge into our teaching. In

our writing, we draw on our personal experi-

ences as feminist scholars teaching classes on

human sexuality, families of LGBTQ individ-

uals, sexual orientation, and related topics, as

well as the literature on teaching about these

issues and our own research.

S O: P

C  E

From a feminist perspective—upon which we

later elaborate—reexivity and openness about

one’s positionality is an inextricable aspect of

theory, research, and practice (Allen, 2000). The

perspective of the person who is making various

truth claims should come under self-conscious

and critical scrutiny (Freire, 1970/1997; hooks,

1994) to move beyond the objectivist aim of

sanitizing research reports and the obscuring of

diversity and difference in families(Allen, 2000;

Stanley, 1990). As we detail here, we are passio-

nately engaged in studying and teaching about

LGBTQ individuals and their families, yet our

approach to this work necessarily is shaped by

personal, generational, and institutional factors.