However, it is also worth noting that this ex-amination of social roles does not deal with actual homosexuals or actual teachers. Rather, in order to

THEORY INTO PRACTICE, Volume 43, Number 2, Spring 2004 122Copyright © 2004 College of Education, The Ohio State University

talk about gay teachers, a group that does not have a consistent identity (Halperin, 1995), the talk it-self must shift from homosexuals and teachers to the discourse practices that construct “the homo-sexual” as different from a “straight man.” It is in these discursive contexts that homosexuality is pro-duced and then used for extortion. To begin any discussion in an opposition between straight and gay would merely recreate the problem of “gay is different from (whatever).” This is the very rea-soning that creates gay as Other. This article is centered on the discursive practices, or the language routines, that create and recreate homosexuality and then offers up that constructed reality as an unac-ceptable possibility within early education.

Teachers are Asexual

Teaching in the primary grades has been con-sidered “women’s work” (King, 1997). The pro-fessional personnel for that work have also been influenced by patriarchal constructions of “women who work” (with children). Essentially, the regu-lations that selected who would be allowed to teach defined a slot where only chaste women fit. To teach, women were required to lack sexuality. Rem-nants from the social mores of Victorian sexual repression, female teachers were expected to rep-resent themselves as having no sexuality. Such rea-soning appears quaint, perhaps repressive, in retrospect. But the effect of these historical delim-itations of teachers lingers in our current concepts of what a teacher is and in our understanding of teaching as compulsory caring within a desexual-ized profession. Today, the everyday, taken-for-granted notions of the ideal teacher still contain outdated descriptions. Then, once made, the out-dated versions of past teachers are used to regulate today’s teachers. Similar regulation is also inter-nalized by teachers, who may try to correspond to others’ expectations. It is important for all of us to question what we imply with the category of “teacher,” and to consider the effects that embed-ded expectations have on all teachers, gay and straight, male and female.

A common perception regarding men who teach primary grades and in preschools is that they are homosexuals. Another common perception is that homosexual males are effeminate. The combination

of these largely inaccurate mappings between ho-mosexuality, teaching, and gendered behavior have had disastrous effects on teachers. As a closeted, gay primary teacher, I constantly monitored my behav-iors around children. I was anxious about how other teachers, parents, and principals would interpret my interactions and relationships with my students. The paradox that my self-monitoring engendered is complex. As a strong child advocate, I valued the concern that I and other adults have for children. Therefore, like others around me, I was and am careful about the influences that prevail upon the children I teach. Yet, how can I, by virtue of my sexual orientation, be unhealthy for kids? If I had been open about being gay, others would assume that being gay meant being sexual (King, 1997). Because I was aware that others believed that so-cial contact with homosexuals was harmful for chil-dren, I monitored myself carefully.

Teaching is Women’s Work

Indeed, some male teachers in the primary grades are gay; and some men, gay and non-gay, are effeminate. But the relationships of these cate-gories to teaching are ones that are ambiguous and flexible. When they become fixed by others it is usually with regulative intent. But reversals (Lank-shear & Knobel, 2002) of these very arguments can also be used as support. Since teaching is con-strued as women’s work (itself a problematic con-struction), it can make some sense that those who participate within its borders do so with some un-derstanding of “working like a woman.” At the same time, it is also critical that all workers within such a context understand the patriarchal reason-ing that supports such monetary and sexist differ-entiation (Benhabib, 1987; Reskin, 1991). When being gay registers as being like a woman, these males have the potential for teaching that is emo-tional, sensitive, creative, child-centered, or con-sistent with other teachers (who are women). This is not at all a bad list of attributes. Given that the enter-prise of early childhood and early elementary grades is the production of inpidual students’ self-regula-tion and rationality (Walkerdine, 1990), these very characteristics, understood as female, allow for teach-ers who can make way for the emergent student/ inpidual. Yet, who can manage this momentary