ABSTRACT
As we outlined in the previous chapter, teachers conceptualized teaching and activism and the relationship between the two in different ways. These understandings framed the (im)possibilities that teachers saw for stepping up for sexual and gender diversity in schools. However, just because a teacher identified an opportunity for action didn’t mean they always would see it as a possibility or probability. In this chapter, we take up the complexity around teachers’ decisions to (not) step up for LGBTQ and gender diverse people. Specifically, we explore the nuances of decision-making and teachers learning to make choices. We hope to demonstrate how educators, more generally, can collaborate with colleagues, students, and families and leverage their choices to act as sites for social transformation, justice, and compassion. We begin by discussing three dimensions central to how teachers described their decision-making: the impact of their choices on different people; the knowledge they felt they did, or did not, have; and their vulnerabilities to different risks. We then focus on opportunities for learning named by teachers, exploring possibilities for expanding the ways they stepped up by increasing their knowledge and changing their practices. We close by offering suggestions for how teachers might step up in ways attuned to their contexts, recognizing that these must be variable, flexible, and organic to be the most impactful, informed, and collaborative.
