Start with Kindness: How Queer Educators Build Inclusive College Classrooms

In this episode of Queering Education, Bryan Stanton (they/them) sits down with Emilia (she/her), a graduate teaching assistant and first-year PhD student at the University of California Davis, to talk about discovering your teaching identity while navigating queerness, accessibility, and classroom culture.Emilia reflects on her journey from the U.S. South to a more affirming academic space, and how that shift shaped her approach to teaching. Together, they explore what it means to build classrooms rooted in kindness, trauma-informed practices, and genuine inclusion—not just as theory, but as daily practice.In this episode, you’ll learn:How small accessibility choices (like captions) can transform learning for everyoneWhat trauma-informed pedagogy looks like in real classroomsWhy kindness—not just “niceness”—matters in student interactionsHow to foster vulnerability and creativity in arts classroomsWays to build connection and community, even in short academic termsIf this conversation resonates, subscribe, leave a review, and share with an educator who needs this reminder: you’re not alone in this work.Support the showQueering Education is a Teaching While Queer podcast centering LGBTQ+ educators and the real-world realities of teaching while queer. We explore queer representation in education, including burnout, tokenism, doxing, visibility, boundaries, and advocacy for inclusive classrooms, safe schools, and anti-bullying practices.This podcast supports gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, asexual, aromantic, agender, and two-spirit teachers, and addresses how gender identity in schools can be honored to reduce isolation, protect educators, and build community.Support the podcast and spread the message with merch from Equalitees.Me.Follow Teaching While Queer on Instagram and Facebook. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.Keywords: Teaching While Queer, queer educators, LGBTQ teachers, inclusive education, gender identity in schools, safe classrooms, anti-bullying strategies, educator burnout, LGBTQ advocacy, queer visibility in education