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Introduction

It is evident from new materialist writing that forces, energies, and intensities (rather than substances) and complex, even random, processes (rather than simple, predictable states) have become the new currency (Frost & Coole, 2010, p. 13).

Research related to gender and sexuality diverse subjects in schools and educational contexts has been a burgeoning area of research for the last 25 years. During this time, much work has taken up post-structuralist frameworks, including social constructivist , feminist-poststructuralist, and queer paradigms . These paradigms largely rely on the social construction of subjectivities , their various locations in discourses, the importance of language in constructing the subject, and the implications of the power/knowledge nexus (Dumont, 2008; Weedon, 1987). Indeed, we too have used such theoretical frames as the basis for our work and believe there are merits in these approaches (see for example, Ferfolja, 2013, 2014a, 2014b, 2015; Ferfolja & Ullman, 2014; Ullman, 2015; Ullman & Ferfolja, 2015).

However, more recently we have been interested in experimenting with the ways that critical posthumanism can inform our work in relation to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT ) diversities in school education; in particular, the ways in which these identities are silenced and rendered invisible in these contexts. Hence, in this chapter, we draw on Jane Bennett ’s (2010) concept of ‘thing-power’ to explore the active propensities of institutionally inscribed documentation, such as curriculum , alongside our own research excerpts to explore the ways in which both the tangible and intangible entangle and enjoin human subjectivities . We endeavour to understand the envelopment, circulation, location, engagement, and interplay between the human and nonhuman and the complexities and instabilities around subjective becomings. We conclude with an exploration for transformations in education that encourage a celebratory recognition and understanding of the fluidity of gender and sexuality diversity – and the ways in which it is contingent and entangled with all sorts of things, practices, and people. In doing this, we reject a monistic focus on the self and on individualism and instead concede the human subject’s interconnectedness with other things. Within this framework, the subject is contiguous with the external world, beyond the self, and related to nature, the social, the psychic, the non-living, and the nonhuman (Braidotti , 2013). We consider that recognition of these relational and intertwined understandings and knowledges can provide a kind of justification for a more equitable, harmonious, and socially sustainable planet, if ever justification is needed.

Through this approach, we engage with our various data moments and experiences to “open up new ways of seeing and thinking” (Mazzei, 2013, p. 777), moving beyond conceptions of the subject as normal/abnormal. As Braidotti (2013) points out, the power of the centrality of humanism has rendered particular subject positions to be privileged “on a hierarchical scale as a tool of governance” (p. 61), creating Others who do not reflect the ‘normalised’ subject – conceived of as heterosexual, white, middle class, and male (Braidotti , 2013; Weedon, 1987); such normality, constituted in a constricted range of subject positions, renders the Other as disparaged, marginalised, invisible yet surveilled, silenced, and punishable (Foucault , 1978).

An apparent blindness to the subject’s external connectedness to the world and the result of centring the ‘normal’ human has resulted in the establishment of certain (im)material regulatory structures and modes of operation that overtly or covertly enable and maintain discrimination towards ‘Others’. Of pertinence to this discussion is how the complexities of gender and sexuality have been reduced to a “binary machine that privileges heterosexual family formations and literally steals all other possible bodies from us” regulating and confining the infinite knowledges of these bodies (Braidotti , 2013, p. 85). In schools, this is discernible through policy, curriculum , institutional rules, pedagogies , and interpersonal, and professional interactions (Epstein & Johnson, 1998; Harris & Gray, 2014). By placing select conceptions of the human as central, everything/one else becomes inconsequential or derogated.

However, the sheer magnitude of unprecedented transformations pervading our world – including those pertaining to sexual and gendered bodies and subjectivities , such as their increasing visibility and the recognition of the range and complexities of these subjectivities – requires the conception of “new social, ethical and discursive schemes of subject formation” (Braidotti , 2013, p. 17). These new schemes would challenge, destabilize and stretch the “systematized standard of recognisability – of sameness – by which all others can be assessed, regulated and allotted to a designated social location” (Braidotti , 2013, p. 27). Such (re)visioning and reconceptualization is of particular significance for school education, which could be critical in the creation, shaping and transformation of a kinder, and more caring and humane planetary future. Despite the egoism of humanity, the human subject is no longer, if ever it was, the central pivot to all nonhuman/human, im/material beings and existences (Frost & Coole, 2010), but rather a part, or simply another entity, of the world (Barad , 2007).

Educational Documentation through a Posthumanism Lens: The Criticality of ‘Thing-Power’

The ramifications and limitations apparent in the positioning of LGBT subjects in school education are not only entrenched, but are also well-recorded. Historically derided, LGBT subjects, or those perceived to be LGBT, have been marginalised and discriminated against, silenced in pedagogy and practice, and positioned as ‘Other’ in relation to the ‘normal’, centred human. This has been reflected in everyday interactions and relationships in schools and enshrined in policy and curriculum documentation (Epstein & Johnson, 1998; Hardie, 2012; Hillier et al., 2010; Jones, Gray, & Harris, 2014; Ullman, 2014; Ullman & McGraw, 2014). Our own work has analysed the ways in which this Othering is realised through implicit endorsement in official educational documentation, within which we have highlighted the limitations and ramifications of the discursive constructions of subjectivity. For example, our research examining the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Education and Communities (DEC) “Homophobia in Schools” policy and NSW state and federal curriculum documents in the key learning area of Health and Physical Education illustrates the contradictory framings, invisibility, and bureaucratic constructions of gendered and sexuality diverse subjects in relation to the mythical ‘normal’ subject (Ferfolja, 2013, 2015; Ferfolja & Ullman, 2014; Ullman & Ferfolja, 2015). In our previous publications, we have argued that such documentation produces spaces in many schools and classrooms for overt and covert enactments of silencing coupled with potential disregard for, and avoidance of, LGBT-related content, thereby reinforcing the marginal position of gender and sexuality-diverse subjects.

Critical posthumanism and the subsequent move to agential realism provides room for a more nuanced exploration of this phenomenon, in its decentring of the human as either “pure cause or pure effect” (Barad , 2003, p. 812) and in its explicit interest in the close exploration of other nonhuman agential forces at work. From this vantage point, a word or grouping of words such as those located in official educational documentation lack inherent meaning; as Barad writes, “Outside of particular agential intra-actions , ‘words’ … are indeterminate” (2003, p. 820). Agential realism views discursive practices as intrinsically material by nature, wherein meaning is made through:

…specific (re)configurings of the world through which local determinations of boundaries, properties, and meanings are differentially enacted. That is, discursive practices are ongoing agential intra-actions of the world through which local determinacy is enacted within the phenomena produced (Barad , 2003, p. 820–821).

This is evident in policy and curriculum documentation, which, as a case in point, does not just construct the discursive framings in which subjectivities are constituted, but rather manifests the matter of both past and future discursive practices by clearly delimiting the boundaries of what ‘counts’ as meaningful; viewed in this way, such documentation is “iteratively reconfigured and enfolded through the world’s ongoing intra-activity ”, interwoven into “the spacetime mattering of the universe” (Barad , 2012 as cited in Juelskjaer, 2013, p. 758). Further, from the perspective of agential realism , “time and space are produced through iterative intra-actions that materialise specific phenomena, where phenomena are not ‘things’ but relations” (Juelskjaer, 2013, p. 755).

These theorisations allow for the exploration of entanglements of nonhuman matter with human subjectivity where, for instance, policy and curriculum in spacetime mattering are relational phenomena. We can examine how such official documentation results in more than ongoing legacies of silencing in education about LGBT people, and is instead inextricably intertwined in, and exists as part of, teacher subjectivities . Bennett ’s (2010) concept of “thing-power”, which she describes as “the curious ability of inanimate things to animate, to act, to product effects dramatic and subtle” (p. 6) extends this theoretical base for the exploration of this phenomenon. Bennett ’s work with the theory of vital materialism intends to blur the distinctions between subjects and objects, humans and things – focusing, instead, on the ways in which these are co-constitutive. We might apply these theorisations to consider the apparent ‘thing-power’ of school policy, curriculum , and school resource documents via their relative position in spacetime – afforded power and marked as they are by their various logos, document numbers, and copyrights as meaningful elements of their assemblage . More than just words on a (web)page, these documents are visually positioned and officially endorsed in ways that encourage specific, local principal/teacher/student actions and utterances while discouraging others.

The trajectory and release of the new Australian Curriculum : Health and Physical Education (HPE ), recently distributed by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA, 2014), provides a useful case for a critical posthumanist exploration of ‘thing-power’ and its relational phenomena. In this document, the limited references to sexuality and gender diversity are grossly insufficient to render adequate support to teachers to confidently include this area of content knowledge in state-based and school-based health curriculums (Ferfolja & Ullman, 2014). This version of the curriculum was released for use despite the significant recommendations made during the public consultation process during the document’s development that specifically requested LGBT -content inclusions. For example, 11 of 17 submissions that were publically-available on the internet independently identified a need for specific, clear inclusions in relation to gender and sexuality diversity . These submissions further criticised the draft document for its implication that LGBT-visibility (e.g. the existence of ‘out’, LGBT-identifying students in schools) was somehow a precondition to LGBT-inclusive classroom content. The Australian Human Rights Commission epitomised the sentiment behind many of the submissions, asking for the HPE curriculum to explicitly state that:

Same sex attracted and gender diverse young people are part of all school communities … As students facing these issues exist in all school communities, whether they are visible or not, it is expected that opportunities will be taken when implementing the Health and Physical Education curriculum , to ensure that teaching is inclusive and relevant to their lived experiences (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2013, section 3.3b, emphasis in original).

Similarly, in relation to implementation of LGBT -related content in schools by teachers, the National LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex) Health Alliance (2012) wrote:

We believe that specifying LGBTI inclusion throughout the proposed [national HPE ] Curriculum is needed to provide teachers with adequate guidance for its implementation (National LGBTI Health Alliance, 2012, p. 2).

Furthermore, the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) critically highlighted a need for specificity, stating that “there is a risk that because teachers do not identify students as SSAGDY [same-sex-attracted and gender-diverse youth] that they will not teach in an inclusive way” (2013, p. 11). We will return to this sense of risk and teachers’ reluctance to engage with LGBT subjectivities in the section that follows.

We may wonder how it can be possible that, despite the multiple, evidence-based recommendations of state, federal and non-government organisations from across the nation, the new National HPE Curriculum , like its state-based predecessors (Ullman & Ferfolja, 2015), continues to omit guidance or provide clarity for teachers in terms of mandatory content and/or implementation strategies. From a critical posthuman perspective, the relational nature of ‘thing-power’ within a network, or assemblage , of human/object relations can offer some explanatory power. In Bennett ’s (2010) explanation of thing-power, she theorises that the agency of ‘things’ is located in their intra-action with other objects and bodies , both human and nonhuman, and discusses the power dynamic across these assemblages , stating that:

They have uneven topographies, because some of the points at which the various affects and bodies cross paths are more heavily trafficked than others, and so power is not distributed equally across its surface (Bennett , 2010, p. 24).

The various electronic consultative/feedback submissions to ACARA do not sit in a cohesive public online space, rather, they can be searched and found – if at all – within each host organisation’s own website archive. In the public HPE Curriculum drafting process, formal submissions were never centrally collected and presented or ‘branded’ in any way by ACARA as documents of import; while ACARA-authored summaries of the drafting process are available on their site, the 99 formal submissions to ACARA providing draft recommendations are not.

Accordingly, we may consider the thing-power of these recommendations as a fundamental element of their web-based assemblages , limited as it is by the documents’ relative inaccessibility and spacetime positionality – each as individual, discrete and discontinuous. As these recommendations are not located on state or federal education departmental sites, interested school staff members cannot locate this material within or through their ‘official’ online workspaces/websites. Thus, we suggest that this human-online-information pathway has been less ‘trafficked’, both in the more simplistic sense of movements of online ‘traffic’, as well as in line with Bennett ’s theory of vital materialism : certain pathways of affective movement and resultant power were/have become more ‘heavily trafficked’.

It could be speculated that the lack of submission centralisation and ACARA’s lack of take-up of the aforementioned recommendations may be the result of their stated desire to provide schools with ‘flexibility’ to meet the perceived needs of their community illustrated through statements such as, “The Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education (F–10) is designed to allow schools flexibility to meet the learning needs of all young people, particularly in the health focus area of relationships and sexuality” (ACARA, 2014, p. 12). However, regardless of author/organisation intent, the resultant intra-action of the national HPE curriculum documentation as currently written and positioned in concert with the “local determinacy” (Barad , 2003, p. 821) of school contexts and actors enables sufficient justification for continued LGBT invisibility and related pedagogical inaction; as such it inexplicably appears to support and condone the ostracism of LGBT subjects. Indeed, the almost entirely silent approach to sexuality and gender diversity in the document may be read as an appeasement of a conservative and/or religious element and a fear of parental/community objection, which through the very silences around LGBT-related content serves to indulge these factions at the cost of potentially reducing discrimination, increasing understanding of diversity , and making for a more equitable and harmonious society – essential components for a sustainable future.

Teacher-Becoming–Spectre-Becoming-Teacher

A critical posthuman theorisation of these silences in official school documentation alongside teacher apprehension and/or subsequent (in)action and/or silencing in relation to LGBT -related content inclusions in schools, enables us to recognise that there is more to the materiality of the HPE curriculum and the discourses and discursive subjects constituted within and through it. Contained yet simultaneously uncontained in its materiality , lies an immaterial phenomenon, a ‘spectre’ of fear-of-LGBT- subjectivities -in-schools [hereafter referred to as ‘the spectre’] that transcends a mere ‘haunting’ of school education and is, instead, interwoven into its material and human fabric. The spectre is more than a ubiquitous presence; it is a compelling force that is entangled with (rather than merely coexisting with) subjectivities and shapes material practices. The spectre is a force – a type of ‘dark matter ’. Frost and Coole (2010) point out that in physics:

…the universe is composed of the so-called ‘dark matter ’ that is needed to explain the gravitational pull manifest in the galaxy, and [physicists] claim that only some 10 to 15 percent of the theoretically required material is visible (Frost & Coole, 2010, p. 12).

In line with this dynamic in physics, the spectre’s dark matter is realised through its omnipresence, its power, it productivity, its ‘pull’, and its capability to share its subjectivity; it bridges the nonhuman – human divide in the formation of subjects.

Few teachers who are aware of the spectre’s presence (and who isn’t?) can be devoid of it, enlivened as it is by the material documentation that is meant to inform and scaffold teachers’ daily work. There can be no doubt that the spectre takes material form within school policy, curriculum documents, and school practices while simultaneously featuring in the processes of their production; the nonhuman/more-than-human spectre and official school documentation co-exist and produce one another in “(entangled) processes of materialization” (Barad, 2003, p. 810). As such, teachers respond to the spectre, through it, and in association with it through, for instance, their behaviours, responses, conversations, and thoughts. In this way, teacher becomes part-spectre and spectre becomes part-teacher. This becoming-spectre invokes teachers’ ambivalence towards, advocacy for, or detraction of, gender, and sexuality diversity acknowledgement and inclusions in the school context.

Such theorisation enables different conceptions of teacher and spectre subjectivity, not as unified, singular, and central, or even complex, dynamic, and contextual (Weedon, 1987), but as a connected and interactive formation between the human and material . It “compel[s] us to think of causation in far more complex terms; to recognize that phenomena are caught in a multitude of interlocking systems and forces and to consider anew the location and nature of capacities for agency ” (Frost & Coole, 2010, p. 10). Thus, we are not purporting that all teachers are fearful of enacting/including LGBT -related content in their daily practices, nor are we saying that they lack agency to act in the interests of equity and social justice for LGBT subjects; rather we are suggesting that how they do so and how they take up these issues (or not), reveals an entanglement of subjectivity with the spectre. This entanglement informs which lessons are learned, which discussions are had, which resources are mobilised and which subjectivities are included.

We note the affordances of theorising teacher-becoming-spectre-becoming-teacher as a process of ‘diffraction’, where, as with the movement of ocean waves, as forces encounter one another in a movement of overlapping, there is change and accumulation in a process of intra-action (Barad , 2007). By viewing the boundaries of the material curriculum and policy documentation, the spectre, and human classroom agents as indistinct and overlapping, we are able to underscore the ways in which each are always affecting or being affected by one another and further, how the degree to which teacher-becoming-spectre inevitably shifts this trajectory in an individual classroom.

To examine how this subjective contiguity plays out, we draw on examples from two of our research projects. The first example draws on the voice of George (a pseudonym) who was a participant in a study examining the workplace experiences of lesbian and gay-identified teachers in New South Wales. (For more about this research see Ferfolja, 2014a, 2014b; Ferfolja & Hopkins, 2013; Ferfolja & Stavrou, 2015). George was employed in a school leadership position – a position that enabled him to work with educational policy to implement LGBT -positive approaches in his school. He stated:

Some [teachers] are quite happy to deal with it [LGBT content]. Others find it more difficult. … I however, probably because of who I am, have a recognition of the statistics and the facts about male teenage suicide in country towns and the very great belief that a lot of that may well be contributed to sexual identity issues. So … throughout the year I will make comments just in terms of bullying and teasing and … name calling … you know I don’t accept racism, I don’t accept homophobia , I don’t accept sexism – so I bundle it in with all of those things. And most of the kids I would say in all the schools I have been … they know my position on that sort of thing. I have had a number of openly gay students in schools, and I guess they identify with me in some ways but … I always follow DET policy you know, so it is never a case of favouritism.

This extract illustrates a number of insights pertaining to subjectivity, agency , and teachers’ relationships to, and entanglements with, the spectre. George refers to the impact of surveillance and regulation on sexuality and gender, and recognises the relational effects of discriminatory discourses and marginalisation pertaining to not ‘normal’ masculinities in schools (“[I] have a recognition of the statistics and the facts about male teenage suicide in country towns and the very great belief that a lot of that may well be contributed to sexual identity issues”). He actively endeavours to alter the subjectivity-policing discourses circulating in his school context; discourses that call on the spectre (“I will make comments just in terms of bullying and teasing and … name calling, … you know I don’t accept racism, I don’t accept homophobia , I don’t accept sexism”). In doing so, he is aware of the spectre, but actively seeks to purge this entangled presence from the school environs. Of resonance to the focus of this discussion, George alludes to other teachers’ subjective relationships to the spectre (as all are familiar with it) through their agentic (in)actions. (“Some are quite happy to deal with it [LGBT content]. Others find it more difficult”). Moreover, despite his personal understanding, openness and reputation in relation to these issues, George is simultaneously and throughout the above-mentioned encounters, entwined in and colliding with, the spectre, while desirous to expunge it. This entanglement is apparent through his felt-need to assiduously abide by institutional policy because of the possible (or more likely imagined) ramifications of doing this work (“I always follow DET policy you know so it is never a case of favouritism”). The spectre and George are one becoming – enmeshed, fluid, and complex.

Additionally, for some teachers who identify as sexuality diverse, self-silencing, and deliberately remaining inconspicuous in terms of their sexuality are mechanisms employed to assimilate to their heterosexist and heteronormative workplace context. Natalie, a lesbian-identified teacher, illustrated her subjective entanglement with the spectre demonstrating how it became as one with her subjectivity, although it is critical to remember that subjectivity is always a “contingent and ongoing material practice” rather than a settled identity position ( , 2007, p. 240). Recognising that to access the privileges automatically granted to heterosexually-identified teachers in her school, she felt it requisite to neutralise her sexual subjectivity in favour of the spectre in this space:

I started off this year and I kind of made a conscious decision to keep like, to not be so out, to keep my personal life more private, just to kind of be more professional and try to get a permanent job and stuff and try to get promoted (Ferfolja & Hopkins, 2013, p. 10).

These examples illustrate the spectre’s subjective existence and its entanglements in the daily lives of teachers. The spectre exemplifies how the human and nonhuman, material and immaterial experience no clear separation between their entities (Frost & Coole, 2010). Maintaining silence about LGBT subjects in one’s classroom thus exemplifies, not only the impact of a material object on a human subject, but also the entanglement of the human and the immaterial; thus, teacher-becoming-spectre-becoming-teacher.

The nature of the spectre’s ‘pull’ is observable through the witnessing and voices of a variety of subjects. In another of our research projects, which examined parents’ and students’ perceptions of the inclusion of LGBT -related content in school education across the state of NSW through a series of adult and student focus groups, all participants were cognisant of the spectre. Its presence alongside teacher subjectivities was clearly discernible to both parents (“It’s just something they can’t talk about at the school”, Parent 1) and students as illustrated by the quotes from Mark below (see Ferfolja & Ullman, 2017, in press; Ullman & Ferfolja, forthcoming). While parents and students alike called for increased LGBT-inclusive content in defiance of the spectre, students in particular bore witness to the spectre. This was apparent in reports of their teachers’ trepidation, disengagement and distraction techniques when LGBT-related content was raised.

Mark (a pseudonym), a regional NSW high school student, clearly articulated the ways in which students witnessed the spectre as it entangled their teachers’ subjectivities , and subsequently resulted in the foreclosure of LGBT -related content in their classes. Noteworthy too, is Mark’s inevitable participation in this assemblage , ensnared and implicated by his teacher-becoming-spectre, and forced to reframe, or at least reconsider, the boundaries of appropriate school conversation:

Mark:

I think it’s one of those things that teachers feel they’re not meant to talk about often, and I think they seem to kind of shut down if it comes up….It just seems like no one wants to talk about it. Not sure why. In school and in class where everyone’s open about everything else – I sit there with my biology teacher and talk about politics to her. So, I don’t know; it just seems strange.

JU:

Do you think those fears might have something to do with parents, or what students might say?

Mark:

Yeah…yeah…I don’t know. Because like it’s a Catholic school but then like in a lot of areas of the Catholic faith - there’s a large portion of the community that don’t actively go to church and that sort of thing, so I guess I doubt the backlash would be that big, but there could be something. If some parents found out they could take offence at it and cause all sorts of problems with the school…just call up and complain. Yeah, not sure.

Later…

Mark:

Most of the teachers would probably acknowledge its [LGBT -inclusive education] value, but, just like I said, a lot of them see it as a really taboo subject. But personally I think they’d acknowledge its value.

Mark describes his teacher-becoming-spectre in instances where student interest illuminates the potential of, and desire for, LGBT -inclusion and notes the lack of similar hesitancy in the context of other subject matter , even that which might be considered personal or polarising (“I sit there with my biology teacher and talk about politics to her”). Mark is clearly puzzled by this inconsistency – even as he, too, is a participant in it, entangled and silenced as he appears to be by the spectre – particularly in light of his assumption that most of his teachers would acknowledge the value of LGBT-inclusive education outside of a public classroom space. His struggles to offer an explanation acknowledge how teachers-become-spectre within a relational spacetime assemblage , inclusive of official curricular in/exclusions (“they’re not meant to talk about [it]”). Mark’s speculation that, in all likelihood, most parents would not complain about LGBT-inclusions reiterates Bennett ’s notion of uneven topographies of power within material assemblages (2010, p. 24); the spectre’s invocation is situational and its power localised, strong enough within educational contexts to foreclose on LGBT-inclusion within them (“If some parents found out they could take offence at it and cause all sorts of problems with the school”).

Transforming the Spectre

As our discussion has illustrated, the spectre has very real implications for teachers and their (in)actions and thoughts related to LGBT -content and subjectivities in schools. We have written about the ways in which official documentation possesses ‘thing-power’ and how this informs teacher subjectivities regarding LGBT-inclusions. We focused on the effects of teacher-becoming-spectre (and spectre-becoming-teacher). Our theoretical considerations using a critical posthuman framing illustrate how the spectre is intimate and entangled with the teacher subject, executing a process of shaping and (re)forming, inclusive of the documentation that informs their work. In many ways, the spectre presents a fraught situation for those of us who seek social and cultural change for genuine equity and for those who champion the formation of understandings and celebration of gender and sexuality diversity . At the crux of such aspiration is the search for a more humane planet, which feels an elusive desire considering the seeming inescapability from the spectre that is always present, as dark matter and a compelling force, entangled and colliding with the teacher subject in myriad diffuse and particular ways. School education, which could light a way forward, seems almost hopelessly ensconced in the dark matter of the spectre and its effects.

However, we believe that other futures are possible. Although it is unlikely that the spectre as described in this discussion will be entirely vanquished and expunged from teacher consciousness, at least in the immediate or foreseeable future, other material opportunities that form competing knowledges are possible. While the spectre may be addressed by many reforms, we focus here on the affordances of revising policy and curriculum documentation to explicitly include LGBT -related content. We suggest that, over time, such unambiguous inclusions would contribute to the becoming of a different, and potentially equally forceful spectre, that could similarly entangle teacher subjectivities : a heightened awareness of opportunities for LGBT-inclusivity across all stages and areas of the curriculum and within the ordinary social practices of everyday school life. Indeed, the way that “components are produced together in one on-going movement” (Juelskjaer, 2013, p. 755) through spacetime mattering, may enable the reduction of the power of this present dark matter from teacher subjectivities and everyday actions and slowly dismantle the normal/abnormal binary, expanding the range of multiple ways of being, both in schools and in the world at lar ge.