Teaching While Queer

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Teaching While Queer

About Us
Teaching While Queer began as a podcast in 2022 and evolved into a not-for-profit organization in 2024 to support queer educators around the world.

Teaching While Queer provides queer folks working in education with a community to feel less alone and unload the burden of identity politics so you can work & live as your authentic self. Our Mission
Teaching While Queer’s mission is to create safe schools and communities where every educator can teach, every family can belong, and every child can learn regardless of actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Our Values
Teaching While Queer believes that all educators and youth deserve to feel safe and welcome in our schools and communities. Community
We believe in the power of authentic connection and community by fostering the wellbeing of Queer educators, honoring lived experiences, promoting safety within school communities, offering resources, and a safe space. Service
We provide support for all Queer Educators through mentorship, coaching, financial support, crisis mitigation, and referrals to resources we are unable to accommodate. Advocacy
We create culturally responsive classrooms and communities by elevating the pillars of diversity, inclusion, equity, access, justice, and belong at every level. Education
We provide professional development opportunities which promote collaborate toward innovative solutions to challenges, helping to enhance queer educators’ problem solving skills thus promoting educational independence for their students.

10/07/2026

We are only a few days away from the Q***ring Education Conference! This is your chance to connect, learn, and grow together.

Registration is just $40 this year due to a generous grant from NYC Pride.

Comment “Let Me In” for a direct link.

***ringEducation ***rEducators

10/05/2026

Students notice things we convince ourselves they don’t.

Who feels safe speaking.

Who gets grouped together.

Which teachers are able to be visible.

Whether the classroom changes when identity enters the conversation.

At QEC 2026:

Q***ring Active Learning: LGBTQ+ Students’ Experiences in Undergraduate Science Classrooms
Mary Kahraman

What Students Remember: Researching the Impact of Q***r Teacher Visibility
Sean McGill

Research gives us a chance to compare the classroom we think we created with the one students actually experienced.

Those are not always the same classroom.

If student experience is part of your work, save this session spotlight.

***rEducators ***r

10/04/2026

What if we stopped asking q***r students how to survive school?

What if we asked what they would build instead?

That shift matters.

At QEC 2026:

What Could School Become? Engaging Trans and Nonbinary Youth Imagined Futures Through Art and Reflection
SJ Hemmerich

“You Better Work!”: Q***r Youth, Representation, and Belonging in Public Schools in Conservative States
Margot Zsofia Leary

Both sessions center q***r and trans young people as people with knowledge, analysis, imagination, and ideas about education.

Not simply people adults need to “help.”

If student voice matters to your work, save this one.

***rResearch ***ringEducationConference

10/02/2026

Sometimes exclusion is hidden in the boring stuff.

A form.

An intake process.

A registration system.

The way a meeting is facilitated.

Who gets invited to speak.

Who gets listened to when they do.

That is why operational inclusion matters.

At QEC 2026:

Inclusion by Design: Operational Practices That Build Safer Learning Spaces for Q***r and Trans Learners
Husseinah Abubakar & Hassanat Abubakar

Breaking the Silence: Amplifying LGBTQIA2S+ Voices
Josef Vice & Melissa Bahle

Inclusive education is shaped by far more than curriculum.

It is built into the systems surrounding the learning.

Save this for the person on your team who actually builds those systems.

***rAndTransStudents ***r

10/01/2026

“Ally” can become a very comfortable word.

The harder question is what happens after we claim it.

What are we willing to interrupt?

What are we willing to change?

What responsibility comes with having more access or power than someone else?

At QEC 2026:

How To Be A Co-Conspirator, From Race to Gender Identity And Beyond
Ri Cruz

Next-Level Ally: From Words to Action
Eli Sachse

Both sessions ask participants to move past identity labels and toward practice.

Because solidarity should change something.

Share this with someone who is ready to go beyond saying, “I support you.”

***ringEducationConference

09/30/2026

Most people don’t freeze in the moment because they don’t care.

They freeze because someone says something anti-LGBTQ+, the room changes instantly, and suddenly every “I would absolutely speak up” becomes much harder.

That gap between values and action matters.

At QEC 2026:

Beyond Good Intentions: Aligning Values, Actions, and Culture in Inclusive Schools
Shanesia Davis & Shenelle Brooks

Anything but Silence: Practicing Interventions for Moments of Anti-LGBTQ+ Bias
Sean McGill

These are sessions for people who do not just want to believe the right things.

They want to practice what to do next.

Save this if practical LGBTQ+ professional development is what you’ve been looking for.

***r

09/29/2026

Some educators are not leaving because they stopped caring about students.

Sometimes the job asks people to carry too much of themselves, and too much of the institution, without enough support in return.

Two QEC sessions look closely at what LGBTQ+ educators experience inside schools:

How could the research on LGBTQ+ teachers in the USA, UK and Canada help leaders be more inclusive?
Richard McDonald

The Cost of Showing Up as Ourselves: Using Identity Camaraderie to Build Accountable Organizational Care for Educators
Dr. Shanéa Thomas

One draws from international research.

The other asks what accountable organizational care might actually look like.

Together they raise a question school leaders cannot afford to ignore:

What are we asking q***r educators to carry?

QEC registration is linked in our bio.

***ringEducationConference

09/28/2026

We love celebrating visible q***r educators. Supporting them is harder.

Visibility can mean representation.

It can also mean scrutiny, additional emotional labor, expectations to educate colleagues, and becoming the unofficial LGBTQ+ representative for an entire institution.

At QEC 2026:

Supporting LGBTQ+ Faculty & Staff: A Guide For Schools
Emma Wynn

Seldom Seen, Supported, or Sustained: Reframing the Experiences of Black and Gay Male K–8 Educators
Dr. Eric Turner

Representation matters.

But if q***r educators are visible and unsupported, we have not finished the work.

Send this to someone responsible for school culture, faculty support, or educator retention.

***rEducators ***r

09/27/2026

A lot of leadership training teaches people how to fit in.

Q***r leadership can ask a different question:

What if leadership did not require us to leave parts of ourselves outside the room?

At QEC 2026:

Q***r Leadership Isn’t a Title—It’s a Practice: Leading Through Authenticity, Advocacy, and Community Building
Di’Andre Davenport

Developing Authentic LGBTQ+ Leadership Through Identity-Conscious Programmes to Foster Inclusivity, Innovation, and Social Responsiveness in Education
Alex Baird

These sessions approach leadership through identity, authenticity, advocacy, and community rather than pretending leaders become neutral the moment they get a title.

If you’re building the next generation of LGBTQ+ leadership, this conversation belongs on your calendar.

Registration is linked in our bio.

***rLeadership ***ringEducationConference

09/27/2026

Inclusion gets shaky the moment we flatten people into one identity.

There is no single LGBTQ+ student experience.

Q***r students can also be disabled. Neurodivergent. Trans. People of color. First-generation. Multilingual. All of those experiences travel into the classroom together.

At QEC 2026:

Working With Neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ Adolescents in the School Environment
Julia Rutkovsky

Beyond disability: The experiences of LGBTQ+ undergraduates with disabilities in STEM
Riley Pizza

These sessions push LGBTQ+ education past one-size-fits-all inclusion and toward something more honest.

If our practices only work for some q***r students, we still have work to do.

Save this for the next conversation your school has about inclusion.

***r

Address

New York, NY

Website

http://www.teachingwhilequeer.org/

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