Editors' Introduction: Is the Personal Pedagogical? Sexualities and Genders in the Higher Education Classroom

Abstract

One area of self-disclosure particularly pertinent to teaching feminist psychology, women’s studies and other university subjects linked to gender and sexualityrelates to sexual and gender identities and practices. Most discussions have centred on the disclosure of a lesbian or gay sexual identity in the classroom. However, ‘coming out’, or not, around sexuality and gender identity can be much more than this, and in this special feature, we revisit and aim to reinvigorate discussion of this topic. Our call for contributions asked academics across disciplines and cultural contexts to reflect on their experiences of coming out (or not) in their teaching practice. The response to the call was staggering, indicating that coming out remains an ongoing concern for many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) (and heterosexual) academics, or at least those based in Englishspeaking western countries. Although much has been written about coming out in the classroom since the late 1970s, including personal reflections (e.g., Cruikshank, 1982; Garber, 1994; Mintz and Rothblum, 1997), theoretical debates (e.g., articles by Khayatt, 1999, and Silin, 1999, in the journal GLQ) and empirical research (e.g., Cain, 1996; Cramer, 1997; McNaron, 1997; Waldo and Kemp,1997), and western sociopolitical contexts have tended to become more ‘accepting’ of diverse sexualities (and genders), the question of whether to come out, ornot, and how, is still clearly not one that has an easy or definitive answer.

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