Fit to Teach: Same-Sex Desire, Gender, and School Work in the Twentieth Century

Examines the construction of gender in public school employment.

Honorable Mention, 2006 History of Education Society's Outstanding Book Award
Winner of the 2005 Critics' Choice Award presented by the American Educational Studies Association

Jackie M. Blount offers a history of school workers in the United States who have desired persons of the same sex as well as those who have transgressed conventional gender bounds. Despite recent impressive social and political gains for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons, schools remain a zone of great vulnerability for the larger LGBT movement. This thoroughly researched, vivid, and engaging book details the largely untold story of how this state of affairs developed during the twentieth century. It also profiles some of the remarkable people who have risked their careers by brilliantly organizing for LGBT rights, openly challenging discriminatory laws and practices, and educating their communities about conditions for LGBT school workers and students alike.