TITLE:
Transvestite and Transsexual Teachers: The “High Heels Pedagogy”
AUTHORS:
Fernando Seffner, Marina Reidel
KEYWORDS:
Professor, Transvestite, Transsexual, Pedagogies of Gender and Sexuality, “High Heels Pedagogy”
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.6 No.22,
December
25,
2015
ABSTRACT: In the Brazilian educational scenario, transvestite and transsexual teachers are increasingly visible, and cause repercussions generally related to the prejudice and discrimination they suffer. This text investigates the pedagogical and educational consequences of the presence of transvestite and transsexual teachers in the classroom. Following the careers of a group of these teachers in several states of Brazil, we try to identify the elements that characterize their action in the classroom, and reach the proposition of the “high heels pedagogy”. In this pedagogical modality, two strong elements are combined, being a woman and being a teacher. The “high heels pedagogy” is about an educational activity that evades the traditional bodiless and sexless figure of the teacher. Contrary to what may be thought, a certain amount of eroticism and production of the woman who “has the role” in being a teacher, far from “misrepresenting” the space of the classroom, has brought out the power of affection. This results in a professional who is more skilled and involved with work, and a woman who assumes herself as adult reference in the classroom.
