If we are truly committed to educating responsible, caring, democratic citizens, then our schools must have a humanistic focus rather than an emphasis on efficiency; therefore, a broad societal analysis and critique is needed, as is attention to each unique person. In this way we can avoid both an individual and a social reductionist model and instead use what has been called an anthropological model (OECD, 1994). In this model, the capacity to care, to take responsibility for others, is seen as a core human trait. Children, then, become a central and precious concern for the whole community, and the most important concept for the future of humanity (Allodi, 2002). As educators, this is our ethical responsibility, our moral imperative: We must strive to see every child as a unique human being with hopes, dreams, aspirations, skills, and capacities. We must assume a capacity for full human feeling, for deep reflection and thought; we must see each child as being "of promise" (Ayers, 1996; Swadener, 1990). No doubt because I/we live with disability, I have come to believe in a perspective on disability that leads to an emancipatory agenda and autonomy as opposed to helplessness (Gustavsson, 1999). The bottom line: Equality means all people are equally important and equally valued.

Friday morning I attend a workshop on "dealing with oppositional children." I choose to attend in part for professional insight, but, I must admit, more for help dealing with Lydia who has been more oppositional of late. While I find the workshop very interesting, all of the good doctor's examples are about children with average to above average intelligence. When I tell him about our situation, he admits he doesn't really know what to do with a child who is both developmentally delayed and oppositional. Although I find some of the information helpful, I leave feeling more than a bit depressed. Situations like this are reminders that no matter how much I might want it to be so, Lydia will never be able to do what children who are typically developing can do. Grieving is an ongoing experience when you have a child who has disabilities. I spend Saturdays and Sundays trying to get caught up on all the other things I need and want to do that I rarely have time to do during the week. I also spend the weekend feeling guilty that I can't spend more time with Lydia because I am doing all these things. Lydia spends the weekend waiting for me to do these things or reluctantly helping me. Mostly her weekend is spent trying to find friends to come over and play or do something outside the home with us. If Lydia has a long weekend off from school, I will take her to meet her dad at a mid-way point and then drive back home for some much-needed rest and relaxation. Although I am happy to have a little time to myself every now and again, I also miss her and worry about her and cannot wait for her to come back so that we are together, our lives whole again.

In this paper I want to trouble — in two senses — the identity that bends Lydia and me over backward, the identity that positions her so painfully. That is, I am troubled by the identity that is ascribed to her, and I also want to challenge or trouble the ascription of the identity. Those who are labeled are reduced, as signifiers become identities; there's always more — they're always more (Ayers, 1996). Although obviously personal and idiosyncratic, I hope her/our experiences will resonate with others attempting to deal with similar positions — both those who share similar identity positions as well as educators who are working with those in her position. I situate my exploration in the view that distinctive ways of knowing arise out of and are tested against her lived, everyday experiences, and draw on my life story as a (single) mother and teacher educator/scholar to give "testimony" or "bear witness" (Burdell & Swadener, 1999) to her/our ongoing struggles with a society that exacts a steep toll on those who are "different." Based on my daughter's and my struggles with our "profoundly interrelated lives" (Hillyer, 1993, p. 105), I will raise some issues to ponder, and identify some implications of her/our situation. I end with recommendations for personal, educational, and societal policies and practices that would be less painful and limiting, and more inclusive, supportive, and ultimately democratic. Through auto-ethnography, I am, then, attempting to re-write the self and the social (Reed-Danahay, 1997). Greene (1998) writes about the power of the human experience to concretely and powerfully convey the depth and effects of social injustice; I hope her/our story in some small way does this.

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

Who decides what is age-appropriate and what is not age appropriate? Whenever schoolstry to implement a new curriculum on sex-education, or talks about racial discrimination, or amaterial that pertains to contemporary social and political justice issues, parents are often first in-line to slam those ideas. In today’s society, parent’s and parent unions want to know more aboutwhat their children learn in school. Politically conservative parents are usually the ones whocriticize and question new policies that bring about sensitive topics, and they assess what classmaterials are considered safe and unsafe for their kids to learn. According to Ngo,A lot of the times when people label things to be age-appropriate or age-inappropriate,it’s not because of their genuine concern for their child. It’s because of their belief that, ‘Idon’t want my kids to learn about things that I personally do not understand, or thingsthat I do not wish to understand.’” (Ngo, 2022)

This passage speaks volumes about the “coming-out” experience and how it is portrayed inAmerican film and media. Oftentimes when non-LGBTQ+ people hear the term “coming-out,”they always attribute it to this giant event that happens once in a person's life. But in reality,coming-out as queer, gay, lesbian, trans, or non-binary and gender nonconforming is somethingthat occurs repetitively and continuously for many LGBTQ+ youth. When Ngo says that “you’repotentially coming-out whenever you meet someone new” he attributes it to his own K-12experiences in middle and high school. Ngo believes that many of his peers and classmateswould “hint” that they’re queer, and they would come-out at different times and with differentpeople who fall under the same spectrum. Ngo even explains how coming-out became arecurring activity with his own mother, “I will say that, in terms of coming out in middle andhigh school, it’s definitely true that there is no set coming out experience. I told my Mom, andshe didn’t believe me, I told her later and she didn’t believe me. I told her two years later and shedidn’t believe me” (Ngo, 2022). In his book, Mayo explains how LGBTQ+ youth lack supportfrom family members within their immediate household and school environments, “these [lackof supports] may include a lack of role models in schools, discomfort with parental involvementor, especially in the case of children with LGBTQ parents, difficult relations between school andfamily” (Mayo 2014). And this ties back to that idea of a continuous coming-out experience.Ngo says how his mother and father were both staunchly conservative, if not, oblivious to talksabout the LGBTQ+ community. Ngo explains how she [his mother] cared more about her owndaughter’s academic success in a heteronormative world, as opposed to how her daughter feltand who she identifies as. For many LGBTQ+ teens like Thi Ngo whose parents are deeplyrooted in a heteronormative values, it can be difficult to comfortably exit as queer in onespontaneous go. And for students’ part of the LGBTQ+ community, coming-out can take monthsor even years before parents, relatives, and immediate peers could take the hint. And this issomething that will be discussed in further detail.

Such misunderstandings of law and policy lead to category errors inenforcement or to ignoring the problem of harassment altogether. In theirexamination of how teachers understand anti-bullying and anti-sexual ha-rassment laws, Charmaraman et al. (2013) found that teachers believedbullying to refer to unpleasant peer-to-peer relationships, but did not un-derstand that sexual harassment could be peer-based. Further, teachers didnot connect what they took to be boys bullying girls with Title IX's prohibi-tion of a hostile gender-based environment created by sexual harassment.

A year after her killing, the school district that refusedto have a moment of silence for her immediately after her murder allowedthe anniversary to be acknowledged by having a "No Name Calling Day"(Smothers, 2004 ). It is important to understand that homophobic violenceand the potential for harassment do structure the lives of sexual minorities.But the understanding of their identities, of the places to go to find commu-nities that support their gender and sexual identities, and of their ability toexpress their identities-even in challenging situations-demonstrates thatsexual and gender minority youth like Gunn are actively and creatively in-volved in making their lives and corrimunities.

Me~bers o[ school communities may believe that sexuality is not anappropriate topic for young people. However, there are significant numbersof LGBTQ and ally students in schools, as well as significant numbers ofsexually aware heterosexual students. Ignoring the issue of sexuality meansneglecting to provide LGBTQ students with representations of themselvesthat enable them to understand themselves, and to provide examples ofways to counter bias and work toward respect for those who initially maynot be willing to respect LGBTQ students. Many LGBTQ students reporthearing insulting words on a daily basis. According to the 2019 NationalSchool Climate Survey of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network(GLSEN), three quarters of students reported hearing derogatory languagesuch as "faggot" and "dyke" (Kosciw et al., 2020). In the same report, morethan half heard homophobic remarks from faculty and staff, and two-thirdsheard negative remarks about gender expression from school personnel(Kosciw et al., 2020). Half of the students surveyed heard sexist remarks,half heard ableist remarks, and one-third reported hearing racist remarks(Kosciw et al., 2020). One quarter of students reported homophobic assaultat schools, and one-fifth reported gender-identity-related assault (Kosciwet al., 2020). While supportive interventions did make a difference to stu-dents (Kosciw et al., 2020), Robinson and Espelage (2012) found that bul-lying explains only some of the disparities in risk factors of LGBTQ youthcompared with heterosexual youth. They warn that by focusing only on bul-lying, schools will miss other possibilities for improving the lives of LGBTQyouth. Ullman (2018) further suggests that policy that focuses on bullyingintentionally avoids more systemic discussions of gender-identity-relatedbias that pervade schools.

This all only adds to how cruel the school settingcan be, with its already palpable rumble of heteronormative institutionalstructure. But clearly in all of this, the queer, questioning, and ally kids learna lot and they have much to teach as well.

his narrative may trouble the idea that transgen<ler people choosetheir gender for only one reason or that inevitably they must subscribe to thefeeli_n~of being trapped in the wrong body, rather than literally embodyinga crmque of the g_ender they were born into. Bornstein (1994) complicates,too, what be_lon~mg_to a gen?er means in a sexist society, in her analysisof how passmg is discussed m transsexual and transvestite meetings sheattended:A lot of emphasis was given to manners: who stands up to shake hands? Whoexits an elevator first, who opens doors? Who lights cigarettes? These arc allcues I had to learn in order to pass as a woman in this culture. It wasn't 'til Ibegan to read feminist literature that I began to question these cues or see themas oppressive. (p. 29)Like the students in Greytak et al.'s (2013) study, then, Bornstein (1994)suggests a critical reading of gender can be coextensive with a change in em-bodied gender. In other words, transgender identity does not need to meanconforming to the other gender norm. Just as students created alliancesacross differences of gender identity and sexual orientations, Bornsteinpoints to the need for a greater understanding of relationality in identity andcommon struggles with sexism, racism, and other forms of bias. Connectingtransgender activism more firmly to feminism also can help highlight areasof overlap between gender-related struggles, challenge ideas about stablegender binaries, and open possibilities for new kinds of gender identities(Enke, 2012a).

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.As education against homophobia proceeds, it is necessary to find waysboth to support people who experience homophobia and also to ask dif-ficult questions about the cultural, religious, and contemporar7 roots of oralibis for homophobia. Acknowledging the existence of m~ilnp~e cultural,local, and global forms of same-sex affection and ge~der d1vers1ty may beone starting point. Examining the variety of expre~s1~ns of tolerance a_ndvalue of minority identities within minority and maJ_onty cultures may giv_einsights into the differences that make up even seemmgly co~~rent and urn-fied cultures and subcultures. These issues should be familiar to an_yonethinking carefully about how to study and educate about_ any !orm of iden-tity. But there are particular features to sex and gender identity that makeaddressing it challenging.

Heterosexism and heteronormativity, the beliefs and social practicesthat maintain the dominance of heterosexuality over other forms of sexu-ality, rely on a stable conception of binary genders. Men have to act inaccordance with norms regulating masculinity, and women nee<l to be femi-nine, not only in order for their genders to be legible in expected ways butalso to justify the "opposites attract" version of heterosexuality. Gen<lerand sexuality, then, sort out who is "normal," and the categories providenorms that interact with one another. People of all sexualities and gendersexperience these social pressures to conform, whether they actively try toconform or they are nonconformist or they don't even know they are tryingto conform. In other words, gender and sexuality are categories by whichlife in schools and elsewhere is organized, and understanding those normsframes everyone's experience even if they are involved in critiquing thosenorms. Gender nonconformity and sexual minority status may be linked byschool peers inaccurately, exacerbating the harassment transgender youthface (D' Augelli et al., 2006). Moreover, LGBTQ students themselves mayexpress their identities through both gender and sexuality, so even tryingto define what each term means may not fully explain how deeply they arelinked (Hereth et al., 2020).