Queer, Trans, and/or Nonbinary French as a Second Language (FSL) Teachers’ Embodiment of Inclusivity in Their Teaching Practice

Abstract

Increasingly, scholars are attending to questions of identity and power in French as a second language (FSL) education. An underdeveloped area of research is the experience of queer, trans, and nonbinary FSL teachers in Canada. Understanding how marginalized teachers navigate building inclusive and equitable learning spaces is the focus of this study. To this end, this study used narrative inquiry and photo elicitation methods to understand how—if at all—participants embody inclusivity in their classroom practices. Four themes emerged from this study: (1) (in)visibility of queerness, (2) performing a balancing act, (3) urgency to disrupt, and (4) navigating the teaching of a gendered language. These findings suggest that while participants in this study strive to build inclusive spaces for themselves and their students, external factors, such as fear of opposition and being reprimanded, abound. These findings offer insights into discursive moves to facilitate a meaningfully queered and inclusive FSL learning space, and contributes to the growing body of queer applied linguistics by revealing how queer teachers’ embodied practices can reshape inclusivity in FSL education.

1. Introduction

In recent decades, the social turn in applied linguistics has foregrounded the importance of making classrooms more reflective of the diverse and multiple identities that students and their communities embody (Knisely 2023). Second language (L2) education, in particular, has been identified as a powerful site for this work, given the central role language plays in shaping how individuals understand themselves and connect to others. French as a second language (FSL) programs in Ontario and British Columbia, Canada, are no exception to this growing emphasis on identity-affirming education. This is because of the ways in which their programmatic goals are rooted in developing linguistic and intercultural competencies for their students (Ontario Ministry of Education 2013, 2014), offering students opportunities to meaningfully express and explore their identities. In the same vein, the OME (2020) has even updated its website, requiring educators to create “an inclusive education system, [where] students must see themselves reflected in the curriculum” (para. 5, as cited in Carroll et al. 2025, pp. 3–4). However, creating such an inclusive space has been complicated because of the rampant cisheteronormativity (Moore et al. 2024) imbued within Canadian schools (Grant and Smith 2025; Hakeem 2022, 2024). In this paper, I follow Moore et al. (2024) who define cisheteronormativity as the linking of cisnormativity and heteronormativity, where the two together “prop each other up to such an extent that we can refer to them as a single oppressive regime” (p. 1). Cisheteronormativity often remains invisible within schools unless challenged (Brett 2024b), and materializes in the choice of pedagogical activities presented, assumptions about students, and the use of certain grammatical and social gender usages within the language (Coda 2018; Knisely 2022).

The implications of cisheteronormativity are harmful. Indeed, in a Canadian survey, 53% of queer youth expressed feeling unsafe in their school, with many highlighting the physical and violent harassment they experience (Taylor et al. 2011). Many compounding factors intersect that create such hostile environments (see Martino et al. 2024); however, for this study, I focus on the idea that L2 contexts are spaces built upon cisgender and heterosexual norms (Nelson 2006, 2009). The proliferation of these norms in L2 classes in turn work to invisible marginalized students, particularly those who are queer, trans, and/or nonbinary (see also Moore 2019; Tarrayo et al. 2024; Ulla and Paiz 2023) through an exclusion of their identities in the classroom discourse.

Thus, creating inclusive spaces is paramount—not only for queer youth, but also for all queer people in schools, including teachers. While some researchers have argued for students’ multiple identities to be represented and visible within the FSL curriculum and classroom dynamic (Adatia 2023; Carroll et al. 2025; Grant et al. 2024; Kunnas 2023), what remains largely underinvestigated is how such inclusivity materializes and manifests in the classroom, especially from queer teachers themselves. This idea is consistent with the work of Tarrayo and Potestades (2023), who stress that much of queer-related L2 research, especially on embodying inclusivity, comes from non-queer L2 teachers. This exclusion of queer L2 teachers’ perspectives, then, “implies that the beliefs of LGBTQIA+ educators are often undermined in initiatives to engender and inclusive” L2 classroom (Tarrayo and Potestades 2023, p. 832). This present study responds to this call by asking the following research question:

• How do queer, trans, and/or nonbinary FSL teachers embody and enact a queer-inclusive learning space in their classrooms, if at all?

To respond to this question, I first map out a review of inclusive and equity-focused FSL research, with particular attention to how inclusion has been characterized in FSL education. I then sketch out the theoretical framework guiding this study, which draws on queer theory. I segue into discussing the methodology of this study—narrative inquiry—to unearth the experiences of queer, trans, and/or nonbinary FSL teachers. Couched within the Section 4, I delineate the use of semi-structured interviews and photo elicitation methods. I end by discussing four key themes that emerged from the study.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Inclusivity and Equity-Focused FSL Research

In FSL education, a growing body of research has wrestled with questions of inclusion, identity and power, particularly in terms of access to and participation in FSL programs (Carroll et al. 2025; Grant et al. 2024; Kunnas 2023; Kunnas et al. 2025; Masson 2018, 2021; Masson et al. 2024). In early FSL research, Lapkin et al. (2006) underscored that addressing diversity was a concern for many FSL teachers. Decades later, a troubling trend shows that questions of diversity, equity, and inclusion remain relatively absent in the field of FSL research (Arnott et al. 2019). Consider, for example, how the term “social justice” in Arnott et al.’s (2019) analysis of 181 articles only rendered one result. This dearth warrants spotlighting. In what follows, I briefly trace three waves of inclusive FSL research that have emerged over the last two decades: (1) with English language learners (ELLs) and students with special education needs (SEN); (2) with questions of marginalized identities in curriculum, policy documents, and materials; and (3) nascently, with arts-based research to bolster equity and inclusivity in FSL education broadly.

Discourse of inclusion of ELL and students with SEN. Earlier inclusivity research in FSL literature began from scholars who sought to investigate how English language learners (ELL) and students with special education needs (SEN) were supported—or excluded—in FSL programs. Some research has documented how ELL and students with SEN are frequently two marginalized groups of students who are funnelled out of FSL programming because their learning needs exceed the supports available in such programs (Arnett 2008; Mady and Arnett 2015; Mady 2020). Often, these exclusionary discourses materialize through a deficit-oriented discourse, surmising that students with special education needs, for example, are “‘lacking something’” (Arnett and Mady 2010, p. 24). Through empirical research and policy critiques, it has become clear that FSL programs have been made—and sustained—through privileging a homogeneous group of students (Davis et al. 2019; Kunnas 2023; Mady and Arnett 2010). Viewed as such, an equity issue abounds whereby students with diverse needs simply do not gain access to support and structures to help them succeed (Mady 2020).

Marginalized identities. Departing from student exclusion in FSL programs, more attention has been garnered toward questioning the paucity of intersectional identities in FSL programs, curriculum, and materials (Adatia 2023; Grant et al. 2024; Kunnas 2023; Masson et al. 2022). Such marginalized identities have been particularly absent from FSL curricula. Indeed, three recent studies have critiqued the FSL curriculum due to its dearth of topics or discussions that failed to move beyond homogenous, white learner identities (Carroll et al. 2025; Grant et al. 2024; Kunnas 2023). Importantly, these scholars impugn the disconnect between the documents’ forefronting of inclusivity, paired with its lack of follow through in the document itself. Given that such perspectives were absent from the curriculum, it is worth questioning how FSL teachers and teacher-educators navigate questions of equity and inclusivity in FSL. Responding accordingly, Masson et al. (2022) unravelled a tension precisely at this nexus. For example, one of their racialized participants stressed the need to trouble students’ thinking about French as a colonial language. In contrast, a white FSL professor stated that “addressing anti-racism does not fit within the context of their course” (Masson et al. 2022, p. 398). This is unsurprising, particularly because of the oversaturation of whiteness in FSL (Kunnas 2023) and because of the ways in which teachers embark on language teaching endeavours without being critical of the material and content used (Liu 2015).

In her doctoral dissertation, Kunnas (2024) revealed the ramifications that this dearth has on students. Indeed, through interviews with Black French Immersion students, she found that students had experienced racism in the program without interventions from teachers or administrators. Concomitantly, these same students also understood that racism was inherent in FI programs, woven throughout their studies. While Black students are clearly excluded in French Immersion programs, Adatia’s (2023) doctoral dissertation also indicated that racialized students were often excluded from programming, arguing for a need for greater visibility in their program. Taken together, these two findings highlight how FSL programs tend to operate under a white gaze, prioritizing white students and teachers over others.

In addition, new lines of inquiry around inclusivity and equity-focused research have questioned the place of queer students and teachers alike in FSL (Boland 2021; Hakeem 2022, 2023, 2024; Grant, forthcoming). In British Columbia, Hakeem (2022) examined the place of a queer pedagogical approach—and students’ response to such approach—for students in FI. Findings from his study revealed that an equity and social justice lens is needed in FSL programs to widen students’ understandings of (nonnormative) genders and sexualities. Thus, as research has shown, FSL classes, curricula, materials, and discourse often (re)produce a narrow and hegemonic perspective of who is included: those who are white, cisgender, heterosexual, and able-bodied. At the same time, strides are changing within these programs, and questions of queer identities are brought to the fore, especially as teachers and students dovetail to queer their curriculum (see Lebrec et al. (2024)). In the following section, I briefly share some arts-based methods that have been a promising way to interrogate teacher candidates and practicing teachers’ beliefs about inclusion.

Arts-based FSL research. While limited in scope, some FSL scholars have begun using arts-based research to reckon with how FSL teacher candidates (TCs) position themselves linguistically through drama activities (Kunnas et al. 2024), how visual narratives can unravel complexities of the ways in which FSL TCs understand culture (Masson and Côté 2024), and how art can dive deeper into TCs belief systems (Masson and Côté 2025). In a recent study, Masson and Van Geel (2023) examined drawings from pre-service English as a second language (ESL) teachers in Canada to understand how they position themselves against—and conceptualize—plurilingualism. Collectively, the use of art in these studies has shown, like Leitch (2006) argued, that it can help destabilize and nuance how we understand who we are as professionals. Following Masson and Van Geel (2023), the use of art in FSL research is a “powerful tool for rendering meaning-making processes explicit, helping teacher educators identify underlying beliefs and discourses that could have implications on their future practice” (p. 6). Operating under the assumption that art is a powerful tool for unraveling beliefs and discourses, this study builds on this arts-based trajectory by employing photo elicitation as a method to surface how queer teachers visualize and describe their embodied approaches to inclusion.

2.2. Cisheteronormativity Within L2 Research

Since research in the field of queer applied linguistics began in the 1990s, the spotlight has been cast on the exclusion of queer learners in L2 classrooms (Moore 2016; Nelson 2009). Such exclusion is due to the prevailing cisheteronormativity that seeps into classroom activities, discourse, and interactions—shaping the ways in which students and teachers alike behave, act, and speak. In many cases, cisheteronormativity tends to go silent unless challenged (Brett 2024b), allowing cisgender and heterosexual perspectives to dominate L2 classroom discourse (see Moore et al. 2024), relegating learners with marginalized identities to the sidelines of these spaces.

Queer L2 scholars have examined the impacts and effects of cisheteronormativity in three major areas. First, through the use of textbooks, classroom learning materials, and curricula (Carroll et al. 2025; Grant 2022; Grant et al. 2024; Moore 2020; Paiz 2015; Sunderland 2021). In this body of literature, we see that cisgender and heterosexual people’s perspectives are widespread, while queer people are virtually absent (Gray 2013). For example, Grant (2022) found that a common textbook used in FSL contexts only presented cisgender and heterosexual people, while Carroll et al. (2025) underscored how mentions of diverse genders and sexualities were introduced without follow through on how, when, or why these discussions need to occur. Both examples also document how heterosexuality is enforced through relationships and family structures, creating what Paiz (2020) called as “frigid” learning environments (p. 143). The exclusion of queer people and their identities is problematic because it upholds the perspective that cisgender and heterosexual people are the only ones who should learn an additional language, fossilizing a discourse where queer students are positioned as “bad language learners” (Paiz 2017, p. 353).

Second, cisheteronormativity has been found with(in) classroom interactions and discourses (Liddicoat 2009; Moita-Lopes 2006). In these moments, teachers have been documented correcting students in L2 contexts who wish to discuss their same-sex relationships. Liddicoat (2009), for instance, coined such interactions by teachers where students commit linguistic failures. Guided by this framing, students may eschew discussions about their identities for fear of colliding with tensions from their teachers (Milani and Cashman 2024). Such an interaction was also recently present in additional works (Spiegelman 2022). Although different in scope, a participant in Spiegelman’s study began to disengage from learning an L2 because of their teacher’s avoidance and denial of nonbinarism in Spanish. Taken together, this body of literature points to the damaging implications that cisheteronormativity has on its students and the classroom dynamic, often culminating in underprepared students and unmotivated students.

Third, cisheteronormativity can be linked as a factor for teachers’ avoidance of discussing queer perspectives and identities in their classrooms (see Brett 2024b; Campbell et al. 2021; Rhodes and Coda 2017). Although outside of the scope of L2 education, Campbell et al. (2021) highlighted that a lack of training and fear of opposition were the impetuses for teachers’ exclusionary practices in a Canadian school. This paucity of training and overall fear can be read as byproducts of a cisheteronormative schooling system that aims to regulate and normalize certain identities (Brett 2024b). What is more, as teachers are often only taught through cisheteronormative framings, they may reproduce or replicate this teaching with their students. An example of this was illuminated in the work of Thein (2013). Here, participants from this study discussed their fear of introducing queer works in their language classroom through “religious, political, or moral grounds” (p. 173). With this as a backdrop, researchers have rightly argued that teachers lack preparedness on the ways in which they can safely and meaningfully implement queer voices into the classroom (Grant and Smith 2025; Paiz 2020; Unwin et al. 2024). With such a lack of training, questioning how queer educators in particular challenge these hegemonic norms in their L2 classes is urgent.

Despite this pervasive cisheteronormativity, some researchers have begun to wrestle with how both students and teachers alike circumvent or—to put in the words of Moore et al. (2024)—“breach” cisheteronormativity (p. 1). While the focus of this article is not on ways queer teachers ‘breach’ cisheteronormativity, the aims are rooted in uncovering how teachers’ queer identities embody inclusivity in their classes. Indeed, these findings underscore the urgency of examining how queer FSL teachers actively navigate these silences in their classroom practice. In light of these structural and pedagogical limitations, it is critical to examine how queer teachers enact inclusivity through their own identities, pedagogical decisions, and interactions with students.

3. Theoretical Framing

3.1. Queer Theory

This study uses a queer theory (QT) lens to analyze the data. While QT has been notoriously difficult to define or pin down (McCann and Monaghan 2020; Sullivan 2003), it has been a useful framework for analyzing how (often marginalized) genders and sexualities are conceptualized in societies and schools against the ‘norm.’ For this article, I use three main tenets from QT to analyze participant data: cisheteronormativity (Moore et al. 2024), gender performativity (Butler 1990), and power (Coda 2018; Foucault 1978).

3.1.1. Cisheteronormativity

As outlined in the literature review, cisheteronormativity has long been studied in L2 education (Nelson 2009; Moore et al. 2024; Paiz 2020). It operates as an invisible and pervasive structure that governs what is taught and through what means (Brett 2024b; Cahnmann-Taylor et al. 2022; Moore et al. 2024). Research in this area consistently demonstrates how cisgender and heterosexual individuals are privileged in schools and how deviations from these identities are often constructed as abnormal or deviant (Coda 2018; Coda et al. 2024). In L2 contexts, cisheteronormativity appears in various forms: textbooks that omit marginalized genders and sexualities (Paiz 2015), classroom questions and activities (Nguyen and Yang 2015), and role-plays that default to heterosexual pairings (Coda 2018). Unpacking and challenging these structures allows for a reimagining of the L2 classroom as a space that affirms and includes diverse identities.

3.1.2. Gender Performativity

QT was born from the threads of poststructuralism (Sullivan 2003), particularly as it sees identity as being fluid (Coda et al. 2024). For queer FSL teachers in this study, understanding that their identities are influx and adapt from their experiences in social and cultural ways is key (Meyer 2007), especially when we map these moving identities within cisheteronormative schooling environments. Some may choose to align more closely with cisgender and heterosexuality for fear of opposition. Tracing the ways in which identities shift over time—and how they are performed—is central to QT and in understanding queer teachers’ experiences in schools (Butler 1990).

Just as identity is not static, neither is gender and the ways people express and perform their gender (Butler 1990). Viewing gender performances as acts—and not facts (Nelson 2006)—is helpful when exploring how gender is socially constructed and contested. I follow Nelson (2016) in the ways she understands gender performativity, especially in the L2 landscape: gender performativity is the “cumulative effect of repeated discursive and semiotic acts that sexual identities become constituted; and these layered acts of identity are not freely chosen but subject to certain social constraint” (p. 353). It is precisely within these social constraints where gendered acts become seen as social norms (Brett 2024b). It is important to signal that when a gender performance—these “repeated discursive and semiotic acts” align and abide by the rules of normalcy, then they are not questioned or challenged. However, when people distance themselves from such norms, they risk becoming scrutinized because of how they destabilize the hegemonic powers associated with cisgenderism and heterosexuality.

3.1.3. Power

When examining marginalized people within institutions, such as schools, it is important to consider how the concept of power plays a role in shaping these peoples’ individual experiences. I operationalize power in the Foucauldian sense (Foucault 1978) where bodies are “managed, inserted into systems of utility, regulated for the greater good of all, [and] made to function according to an optimum” (p. 24). In this framing of power, power is neither a top-down nor bottom-up dichotomy. Instead, power is pulled in different directions and can be “enacted but also contested in every interaction” by all individuals implicated (Pawelczyk et al. 2014, p. 51). For queer FSL teachers in this study, power dictates and regulates the systems in which they work—often with the goal of maintaining hegemonic forces. However, queer FSL teachers can also exercise power to subvert such discourses and, in doing so, create more inclusive spaces for themselves and their students.

In this light, QT is used to examine how the privileging of cisgender and heterosexual people suffuses within schools, how their gender performances align with discourses of normalcy—or disrupt them, and how power is implicated in queer FSL teachers’ experiences in schools.

4. Methodology

This study used narrative inquiry as its methodological approach (Barkhuizen et al. 2014; Clandinin and Connelly 2000) from a larger doctoral study in Canada (Grant, forthcoming). Narrative inquiry has steadily grown in popularity as a methodology over the last two decades because of the unique ways it centres on—and explores—the experiences of people (Barkhuizen 2022). Narrative inquiry “is based on the premise that we understand or make sense of our lives through narrative” (Murray 2009, p. 46). Increasingly, scholars are employing narrative inquiry as a methodology within L2 contexts and research (Barkhuizen et al. 2014; Lander 2018), social justice education (Caine et al. 2018; Callaghan 2018; Clandinin 2006), and queer language teaching and experiences of queer L2 teachers (Endo et al. 2010; Grant and Smith 2025; Lander 2018; Lin et al. 2020). Given that this study focuses on the ways in which queer, trans, and/or nonbinary FSL teachers enact and embody queer inclusivity, narrative inquiry is well suited to explore both “how the activities of teaching and learning languages fit into their lives” (Barkhuizen et al. 2014, p. 11) as well as how teachers make sense of “their lived (as well as imagined) experiences” (Barkhuizen 2022, p. 3).

Participants

Five self-identified queer, trans, and/or nonbinary FSL teachers from this study were recruited via an open call. Participants lived in Ontario and British Columbia, Canada, and at the time of this study, taught in various FSL programs across the province (see

Table 1. List of participant demographic information.

Name	Gender	Sexuality	Pronouns	Number of Photos Shared
Angela	Female/gender queer	Bisexual/pansexual	she/her they/them	3
Caleb	Gender queer	Gay	he/they	6
Elm	Trans non/binary	Queer	they/them	2
Jade	Female	Asexual	she/her	2
Jason	Male	Gay	he/him	3

for a demographic table). While the larger doctoral study explored the experiences of 12 queer FSL teachers, participants from this study were chosen specifically because they participated in the photo elicitation portion of the study. Following ethics approval from the University of Ottawa, participants signed an informed consent, and began engaging in data collection, discussed next.

Data collection. Participants in this study engaged in three rounds of semi-structured interviews and photo elicitations over the course of the 2023–2024 year. While I followed an interview protocol, the conversations—like in other narrative inquiry studies (Clandinin and Connelly 2000)–unfolded organically across participants lived experiences. The first interview explored how queer FSL teachers entered the profession, asking questions such as “Tell me what led you to wanting to become an FSL teacher?” The second explored how they navigate teaching a gendered language. For example, I asked participants to tell me a story about how they incorporate discussions of genders and sexualities in their classes, if at all, and asked them to think of examples where cisheteronormativity existed in their schools or practice. Finally, the third explored how their identities were enmeshed within their teaching. For instance, I asked participants to share any experiences or stories about how their gender expression influenced their interactions with students, colleagues, parents, or administrations. Before each interview, I sent each participant an email with possible questions and photo prompts. For example, before interview 2, I asked participants to take or find a photo of an inclusive or exclusive teaching practice or material they have used or seen. I reminded participants to exclude any signifiers that may identify them (e.g., their school name, street signs or addresses, students, etc.). The photo elicitation method was chosen specifically because photos have the ability to “humanize groups that are viewed in abstract or nonhuman ways” and can help promote empathy among their readers and viewers (Joy and Numer 2017, p. 32).

What is more, the impetus of pairing semi-structured interviews with photo elicitation methods emerged because photos are key in capturing “the embodied and material manifestations of sexuality and gender which can be difficult to articulate and uncover through more traditional methods” (Brett 2024b, p. 5). It is through these photos that other meanings of stories can be brought to the fore and unravelled, offering insights into the ways queer teachers embody inclusive pedagogical approaches. Thus, throughout each of the three meetings, photos were discussed alongside the semi-structured interviews, often recursively as we moved between time, place, and space of participants’ stories of experience (Clandinin and Connelly 2000). All interviews were conducted via Zoom, recorded, and subsequently transcribed. After polishing each transcript, I shared it with respective participants using Google Docs in “Suggestion Mode” and invited them to make any changes. Once approved, transcripts were uploaded into NVivo 14 Pro for analysis, discussed next.

Data analysis. Following trends of other narrative scholars, like Barkhuizen (2022), I relied on both Polkinghorne’s (1995) analysis of narratives and narrative analysis to complete data analysis for this study. For the former, I engaged in thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006): coding, reviewing codes, finding themes, reviewing and refining them, and creating a write-up. With thematic analysis underway, I pulled major themes from participants’ stories to create a two to eight page narrative for each participant which included their photos. Narrative analysis, in this way, allowed for a configuration of the story (Barkhuizen et al. 2014). Or, as a way of “re-storying the data … into a coherent whole; i.e., the outcome is a story” (Barkhuizen 2022, p. 4). Once their stories were crafted, I shared them via Google Docs and encouraged them to make any changes to improve readability and to ensure it encapsulated their voice, tone, and experiences. Few changes were made; yet those that were made were rooted in changing syntax. After both analysis of narratives and narrative analysis were completed (Barkhuizen et al. 2014), I examined both together with the research question in mind, which culminated in the generation of the findings of this paper.

5. Findings and Discussion

Through this narrative inquiry and photo elicitation (Brett 2024b; Clandinin and Connelly 2000), four themes were generated: (1) the (in)visibility of queerness, (2) a ‘balancing act,’ (3) an urgency to disrupt, and (4) navigating teaching a gendered language. Each of the accounts described below exemplifies how queer, trans, and/or nonbinary FSL teachers embody queer inclusivity within their practice and pedagogy, illuminating moments of tension because of pervasive cisheteronormativity, while also documenting how they challenge and subvert these discourses. Each theme is distinct to each participant’s story, though some overlaps are mentioned, couched among relevant literature.

5.1. (In)visibility of Queerness

The first theme, the (in)visibility of queerness, was illuminated through Angela’s narratives of experience. This theme explores the complex and context-dependent visibility of queerness for FSL teacher Angela, whose experiences reveal both the power and precarity of being read as cisgender and heterosexual in a cisheteronormative educational landscape. At the time of this study, Angela was a middle-school FSL teacher and had been teaching in various FSL programs for the last decade—most recently in a rural environment in Ontario. While strides toward acceptance were being made in their community, Angela described how discrimination and hate were continuously on the rise for queer-identifying people. This contextualization is important, because it plays a role in Angela’s ‘outness’ in schools. As Table 1 shows, Angela identified as gender-queer. However, they frequently described being perceived as cisgender and heterosexual given their marital status to a cisgender male with children. This ‘passing privileges’ sometimes meant that they are read entirely as cisgender and heterosexual, disavowing their queer identity altogether. When describing their queerness, they illustrated that,

It’s not overt [but] it’s not a secret. Everyone knows I wear a lot of rainbows … I’m in the newspaper in the photos of the crosswalk … But I don’t feel like all students pick up on it … I think they just perceive it as allyship … I’m more out when I’m in my GSA [Gay Straight Alliance] with my queer students, and I know we’re all safe.

Here, Angela demonstrated how their queerness is neither overt nor covert. Yet, they described feelings of safety in certain spaces and in certain places when their queerness is indeed overt. It is important to note how, in these moments, pieces of their identity are relegated to certain communities within the school. Angela felt as though they could be themself within these spaces. Further, as a result of their queer identity, Angela felt like they could build lasting connections with their students as a queer role model and human. As they shared, in these spaces “I could open up or be open with my queerness. And then you see those success stories [from students]. You connect to students who need you.” This connection is striking for Angela, particularly because they understand that multiple students do not have support or cannot express their genders or sexualities in their home lives. Creating these GSA spaces and being a trailblazer is thus entangled in Angela’s practice as a queer educator.

With(in) and outside of these GSA spaces, the affordances of passing privilege abound, offering Angela the possibility to ‘travel’ across and through their queerness, helping to cement how they negotiate their school being both invisible and visible. For example, within their GSA group at school, Angela received a pair of socks as a gift from a student (see Figure 1).

Through our conversation, it became clear how, metaphorically, when rolled up, these socks represent the ways in which Angela can manouever throughout their school as both a queer person and as an ally of the queer community to showcase queer representation. Indeed, Angela can share parts of their (queer) life with their colleagues and students and can meaningfully create queer-based initiatives, which benefit all. For instance, in one of Angela’s stories, they outlined their activism toward spearheading Pride events within their school and in the wider school community. In their FSL classroom specifically, they shared how they fostered inclusive spaces through queer representation, critical reflection, and questioning techniques in French. They intentionally taught about gender inclusive and nonbinary pronouns because of a students’ sibling who was toying and exploring with their gender. These example lessons bring students toward Angela. As they underscored in one story, students often come back and visit them, informing them about their lives, and in many cases, ‘come out’ to Angela, who embodied and modelled safety.

In contrast, there are moments where Angela must ‘roll down’ these socks, not only for their safety, but also to engage in difficult conversations to curtail homophobic and/or transphobic rhetoric. For example, in response to students’ comments about the gender of an inanimate object in French in a family unit, Angela felt confident to interrupt these students, highlighting that “you can’t talk like that in my classroom … it’s not something we’re going to joke about.” Such stark disruption sets the tone that this language is not allowed within their FSL classroom and aims to highlight the power that language holds. This notion echoes similar arguments from other lines of research (McEntarfer and Rice 2022). For example, in this study, a queer teacher participant, Matt, urged students “I cannot tell you what to think, but I can tell you what you cannot say out loud here” (p. 9). In these moments, Angela (and Matt) leverages the power held as teachers to disrupt and challenge students’ binarized, homo/transphobic thinking. As Foucault (1978) argued, “discourse transmits and produces power” (p. 101), and Angela’s disruptive discourse in particular works to confront these discriminatory ideologies that permeate throughout the classroom in hopes of making transformational strides in student’s thinking.

At the same time, it is worth questioning whether their ‘passing’ gender presentation—that is, a cisgender and heterosexual woman—added to the feasibility of these conversations. For example, as Angela displayed their first photo (Figure 1), the ideas that passing privilege existed for them came to light. This idea also connects with the work of other scholars. For instance, Carroll et al. (2020) revealed that when white TCs discuss marginalized identities with their students, they often feel a sense of fear of making mistakes.Indeed, in their research, they found that many non-Indigenous TCs either stopped teaching—or avoided it altogether—when confronted with teaching about Indigenous epistemologies and content, leading to (re)producing settler structures within their schooling systems. Applying this logic to Angela’s context, their passing privilege may have inadvertently made it easier for them to disrupt and destabilize homophobic and transphobic rhetoric in their classes, since they were viewed as part of the ‘dominant’ group and not an ‘outsider.’

In both instances, Angela demonstrated the ways in which they embodied inclusivity—both for themself, but also through their FSL classroom space and discourse—that was made possible through the (in)visibility of their queerness.

5.2. A Balancing Act

While all participants in this study embody queer inclusivity in their FSL teaching, some described a need to carefully balance their queer identities to enact inclusivity in ways that felt sustainable within their school contexts. This ‘balancing act’ was particularly acute for Jason. Jason was a gay elementary French Immersion and music teacher in Western Canada. Jason had a passion for both music and languages and attempted to bridge the two subjects together whenever possible. In Jason’s childhood and through parts of his elementary and high school studies, he often attempted to conceal his identity, masquerading his queerness through excelling in school:

I think I eventually hid myself in my studies—I didn’t want to be known as gay so I needed to be highly performing at these other things. So I became very competitive, especially with the other academic girls, because I always did relate better to girls.

Since high school, he has begun to embrace his queer identity—and is ‘out’ within his wider school community. Jason even described how comfortable he felt being ‘out,’ highlighting that “I can just be who I am without having to hide it.” Such descriptions and sentiments echo the ways in which other queer teachers negotiate their identities in schools, such as is the case of James in Brett’s (2024a) study. Here, this participant was able to visibly queer–despite some initial reservations on being so (Brett 2024a). Interestingly, despite feeling confident being ‘out,’ it appears as though some lingering feelings of fear still resonate with him, which impact the way he teaches and engages with ideas of inclusivity. Part of this fear may be due to the cisheteronormativity that is enveloped in schools, causing Jason to second guess moments of his teaching. This paradox (e.g., how he embraces his identity, paired with some fear) is exemplified in his teaching approach through his photo in Figure 2. Jason aims to foster spaces rooted in critical thinking and dialogue but ensures that inquiries emerge from students rather than himself. He explained that, “I plant the seed of the question … [I ask] why is it that way?” Through this type of questioning technique, he is able to probe students, but also to ensure that it “comes from the students. And I also think that is a form of protection. So it’s never, he told us this, that if I ask a question, it’s very open to interpretation.” While there were threads of inclusivity that have come to the fore, Jason appeared to feel as though his queerness and his classroom activities were under surveillance due to his queer identity. This notion of surveillance has been linked to an increase of fear for queer educators (Davies and Neustifter 2023; Mizzi 2013, 2016; Mizzi and Star 2019), which can act as a controlling mechanism to maintain and regulate identities (Butler 1990). However, in this case, Jason subverts such regulation through his questioning techniques—putting the onus instead onto students.

Indeed, in this photo (Figure 2), alongside his students, they collectively delineated members, people, identities, and cultures that contribute to the makeup of a society. This “form of protection” for Jason meant that his facilitated discussions of identity (e.g., as we see in the first photo with society, cultures, multiple identities, etc.) were shouldered by the collective in the room—not just through his activist and queer-pedagogical stances. This fear of encroaching on discussions of nonnormative sexualities and genders is felt among others, as documented in the literature (Coda 2019; Ferfolja and Hopkins 2013; Mayo 2008), with Canadian researchers in particular citing an omnipresent “anxiety of teachers about sexuality” that still pervades, despite decades of research in the field (Khayatt and Iskander 2019, p. 5). In Jason’s case, however, his embodiment of queer inclusivity in the class appears to be silently enacted and woven throughout many of his conversations, activities, and materials.

An additional queer FSL educator, Caleb, elaborated on the benefits of such a ‘balancing act’ to facilitate meaningful change within their school. Caleb was an FSL and social science secondary school teacher in Ontario, and an FSL learner himself. He described being fully out to his students and colleagues during this study. Throughout our many conversations, Caleb illuminated stories of his queer advocacy and mentorship that he has offered his students, and other stakeholders in the building. One such initiative he ran was teaching a night course on 2SLGBTQIA+ identities—specifically designed for queer students. (Re)tracing his memories from this course, he recounted a conversation he had with his administration. In it, his administrators were enthralled with the success he had reaching his students and continuing his advocacy work. On the other hand, they were cognizant of the “noise happening with you know, how the right wing is viewing” queer people. The school board went so far as to note that because of this noise, all stakeholders involved in this course and these initiatives need to think about—and prioritize—their safety, because “you could get death threats” given the heated political climate toward queer people. In these moments, Caleb felt caught in a bind. They wanted to continue this advocacy work but understood that there were some boundaries to this work. Indeed, he shared that he wants to push, but he must “tow the line. If I push too much, are you gonna cut the finding to this? … I really worry sometimes about causing too much noise.” In this example, Caleb is strategic about navigating within a cisheteronormative system that invisibly privileges cisgenderism and heterosexuality through discourse (re)produced in his schools.

For both Jason and Caleb, embodying queer inclusive education is paramount. For them, this embodiment is enacted through their queer identities to promote dialogue and engage in initiatives, such as Caleb’s night school course, to bring together other queer people in safe(r), affirming, and inclusive spaces. At the same time, it is important to recognize how systemic barriers, such as political climates—with the case of Caleb’s experience, and cisheteronormativity—in reference to the ways in which Jason was raised, transforming how he teaches—interfere with their full queer embodiment of inclusive education. Sometimes, they have to perform a ‘balancing act’ to appease all stakeholders in order to be radical and create “transformational possibilities” (Brett 2024a, p. 68) that are much needed in FSL education.

5.3. Urgency to Disrupt

A key idea emerged from participants’ narratives: the urgency to disrupt traditional and standardized ways of ‘being’ and ‘doing’ education, particularly FSL education. A cluster of international scholars have documented this urgency (see Coda 2018; Moore 2019; Paiz 2020; Nelson 2009). However, such urgency has been less documented in Canada. Yet for participants in this study, likely because of their queer identities and perspectives, this disruption is crucial, especially for Elm. Elm presents their gender in typically masculine fashion, has shorter hair, and has transitioned while being in school. As an elementary teacher, they often are questioned by their students “are you a girl or a boy?” Many students, especially younger ones, assume they are ‘a boy,’ specifically due to their choice of clothing. Consider an interaction between them and their student:

Male student: You’re a boy teacher!

Elm: Oh, no.

Male student: Yes you are! You’re wearing a dinosaur shirt!

Elm: Oh … let’s unpack this a little bit!

According to Braun (2011), “the first thing on display and noticed by students and staff when entering a school … is their [the teachers’] body and appearance” (p. 275). This example illustrates this display—and how students notice and subsequently make assumptions about Elm. However, this is a constant reality for Elm: a trans, nonbinary and queer FSL teacher. In many cases, students are elated to know Elm. In one story, Elm recalled an interaction during a parent-teacher interview night: “The student was so excited and kept referring to me as nonbinary, and the parents got it!” However, Elm later elaborated on the fact that not all students, colleagues, or parents share this excitement, which has resulted in shifts in their school’s climate. Reflecting on this change, Elm noted that “I think 5, 10 years ago … like it still felt like things were moving in a good and a generally hopeful direction.” Now, they elaborated how the current climate in education “just feel[s] really dark.” This darkness emanates from political disdain and action toward queer people, vocal parents, and policies that thwart queer inclusion.

Given the ‘dark climate’ that circles around Elm in their schools, they have been committed to disrupting their practice as an FSL teacher as they embody inclusivity. For example, in their practice, as Figure 3 shows, they retraced how they have reconfigured a family unit in French that deviated from traditional and nuclear families. This decision was intentional, because many L2 and FSL materials in general are fraught with cisheteronormative presentations of family (Gray 2013; Grant 2022) and other cisheteronormative perspectives generally (Paiz 2015; Moore 2016). As we have argued elsewhere, Elm feared that if they do not present non-nuclear or nonbinary language options, many queer students in general will avoid taking French (Grant and Allister n.d.).

Beyond content, Elm also ensured that they created a critical and affirming space for all students through paraphernalia, such as posters (shown in Figure 4), in their classrooms. These posters, while seemingly small on the surface, help to disrupt traditional postage found in classrooms that serve as a reminder that all students that they have an intentional place and space in the room. They may act as a conversation starter, indicating to queer students that teacher’s, at the very minimum, will act as allies for them. This is especially crucial given how L2 scholars have recently argued that queer students “still do not have access to classroom spaces where they can feel safe, comfortable, and learn to express their identities” (Moore et al. 2024, p. 2). Thus, for Elm, through their classroom decor, their embodiment of queer inclusivity meant creating and sustaining spaces where students had access to the language, but also to be themselves. While part of Elm’s commitments to maintaining inclusive classroom atmospheres involves disrupting normativities, all participants have commented on the myriad ways in which being an inclusive FSL teacher emerges as they navigate teaching a gendered language, discussed next.

5.4. Navigating Teaching a Gendered Language

The final theme emerged as participants reflected on how they navigate teaching a gendered language: indeed, FSL. On the one hand, participants like Caleb celebrated the affordances of French, describing FSL as “one of the perfect subjects to bring forward your identity and be truly who you are and be able to express yourself in a very meaningful and wholesome way.” On the other hand, several participants acknowledged that the language could feel limiting due to its binarized male/female grammatical structure (see Carroll et al. 2025, for an overview of how this binarization is embedded in the FSL curriculum). Jason encapsulated this tension, remarking, “there’s a big elephant in the room: everything [in French] is still gendered.” For participants in this study, striving to embody inclusive language curricula and materials often equated to integrating and uplifting multiple identities in the classroom, while impugning the gendered language. For instance, Jade—a queer, asexual FSL teacher—linked her pedagogical stance to a broader absence of inclusive representation in her own language education. As illustrated in Figure 5, Jade described how her classroom has become a deliberate site of inclusion and transformation. Indeed, Jade did not want to reify this male/female binary in French that she learned, and by extension, (re)produced the assumption that French exists only for a hegemonic and dominant group. To disrupt this logic, she navigates teaching the binarized French language through teaching gender inclusive language to normalize it. Consider how she describes her practice:

And if we’re learning subject pronouns, like “je and tu,” and then I’ll also go “il, elle, iel,” just to normalize having it in the classroom. And I’ve had to have conversations with students for like, “what is this? Why is it here now? How are things changing in French?”

Jade’s practice of normalizing queer language in her French class acts as a catalyst for queer inclusion, which is important since other scholars have argued that such language tends to be absent generally in FSL spaces (Grant and Smith 2025; Hakeem 2024).

Yet Jade, and other participants in this study, understood the importance of providing language learning opportunities that reflected students’ myriad identities. Just as Figure 5 displays, Jade is able to create this environment in tandem with her students through photographs, signs, and posters. During her narrative, she delineated how her classroom and its contexts were oriented toward social-justice education and examining real-world issues: such as the need to use language in ways that honour and represent students.

All participants in this study understood that teaching French necessarily entails grappling with how the language has historically operated within a rigid male/female binary. Yet they also expressed a commitment to moving beyond this binary—to make visible the fluidity of language, just as they affirmed the fluidity of identities. In this way, their pedagogical choices echoed the insights of Knisely (2024), who reminds us that humans are the users of language—and, as such, we hold the power to adapt, transform, and reimagine it to meet the needs of those who speak and live it.

6. Conclusions

In a Canadian context, where teaching and learning FSL is required in many provinces due to the country’s bilingual status, tracing and understanding how marginalized FSL teachers strive to make their classrooms inclusive is of critical importance (Masson et al. 2024). Using narrative inquiry and photo elicitation methods (Brett 2024a, 2024b; Clandinin and Connelly 2000), the five participants in this study: Angela, Caleb, Elm, Jade, and Jason, offered glimpses into their realities, tensions, and classroom dynamics. Indeed, they showcased how they embody inclusivity for themselves and in their curricula and material to bolster inclusivity for all people in their FSL spaces. Although embodying such inclusivity in FSL is not always feasible, as alluded to by participants, they also articulated their discursive moves to do so. For example, Angela described how they ‘travel within’ their queerness to show up for students, while also disrupting homophobic and transphobic slurs they hear in their classroom. Others, like Jason, shared how, despite feeling as though they are under surveillance by those in his school, he managed to shift the power from himself to his students to avoid potential backlash that may arise (Pawelczyk et al. 2014).

In addition, the photo elicitation method offered a new avenue to explore how participants physically embody and (re)present inclusivity. For example, it became clear that many do so through postage and queer paraphernalia. Others, however, used their narratives and photos to go beyond physical attributes of their classroom, and instead, to dive deeper into their belief systems and ontological forces that anchor the ways in which they approach teaching FSL. Jade, for instance, while sharing her photo of her classroom, elaborated on the tensions she experienced learning French in a way that embodied traditional norms. Through our discussion, she was able to disentangle some of these tensions and spotlight the changes she has made to her pedagogical stance that serve all students in her classrooms. Such photos also offer opportunities to glean into how queer FSL teachers disrupt and destabilize normativities that are often found in the classroom. These photos can thus be promising grounds for others who are interested in finding ways to actualize inclusivity for themselves and their students.

Beyond highlighting the lived realities of queer, trans, and/or nonbinary FSL teachers, this study also carries implications for both practitioners and researchers. For the former, these narratives call for intentional training and resources that equip teachers to challenge cisheteronormativity and to integrate inclusive language practices in meaningful ways. For the latter, this study invites continued inquiry into the ways queer, trans, and/or nonbinary FSL teachers—but also language teachers generally—navigate within their spaces.

In closing, the aim of this article was to shed light on the ways queer, trans, and/or nonbinary FSL teachers in Canada embody inclusivity: not only for themselves, but also to bolster inclusive curricula for students. It is important to remember that FSL classrooms, like all classrooms, are not neutral spaces; rather, they are sites of identity creation (Paiz 2020). To continue creating more just and inclusive language education, we must also centre the voices of queer educators, whose everyday practices illuminate both the challenges and transformative possibilities of teaching French. Since very little research has been focused on queer L2 teachers generally (see Tarrayo and Potestades 2023), and especially within the Canadian context, this study offers important insights into how queer FSL teachers navigate within their schooling system. Although some participants harboured concerns about fully embodying inclusivity because of fear of castigation, the vast majority saw their practices as a symbiosis between students and teachers alike.