Grant, Robert Michael2025-12-022025-12-022025-12-02http://hdl.handle.net/10393/51132https://doi.org/10.20381/ruor-31581French as a second language (FSL) teachers in Canada have been marginalized within the teaching profession for decades (Arnott et al., 2023; Kissau, 2005; Masson, 2018). These feelings of marginalization are exacerbated when we consider students’ negative reactions to learning and being in FSL classes (Arnott, 2019), couched within teaching a traditionally gendered and binarized language in a school system that maintains and perpetuates the logics of cisheteronormativity (Coda, 2023; Grant, 2022; Hakeem, 2024; Masson et al., 2024). While a single published study has looked briefly at the experiences of queer FSL teachers in Canada (Hakeem, 2024), missing from this research is how queer, trans, and/or nonbinary FSL teachers navigate and negotiate their schooling environments and relationships with others in the building and engage in a queer pedagogical approach to their FSL teaching. Set against this backdrop, this thesis-by-articles reports on a narrative inquiry (NI) with twelve (n = 12) queer, trans, and/or nonbinary FSL teachers across two Canadian provinces to unearth their experiences in the FSL classroom over a twelve-month period (2023-2024). Grounded within queer theories, drawing specifically on the concepts of cisheteronormativity, power and discourse, and gender performativity, data were collected through three-rounds of semi-structured interviews and photo elicitation methods (Brett, 2024). Like other narrative inquirers (Barkhuizen et al., 2025; Xu & Barkhuizen, 2025), data were analyzed via thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and narrative analysis (Barkhuizen, 2022) to find emerging themes relative to participants’ experiences. Throughout this thesis-by-articles, I present four articles that delve into different avenues pertaining to the ways in which queer, trans, and/or nonbinary FSL teachers move through – and negotiate – their teaching environments. Together, findings shed light on the complexities of individual queer FSL teacher experiences, both in light of constraints and possibilities. Indeed, while queer FSL teachers face curriculum-based queer erasure, hostility, and isolation within their profession, they simultaneously leverage curriculum vagueness to develop innovative queer pedagogical approaches. These approaches include implementing gender-inclusive French language (such as "iel" pronouns), incorporating intersectional resources and language materials, and disrupting normative thinking through activist pedagogical practices. The findings also highlight significant gaps in initial teacher education programs, including lack of support, resources, and mentorship for queer pre-service and early career FSL teachers navigating the intersections of their identities with FSL teaching, community expectations, and educational policies. Implications point to the need for enhanced collaboration among stakeholders, improved inclusivity in teacher education programs, and recognition of how FSL curricula can serve as both sites of exclusion and tools of resistance against cisheteronormative assumptions in FSL education contexts. Intersections of queerness and FSL teaching and research are largely absent from the literature (Boland, 2021; Hakeem, 2024). This study helps to fill this gap by spotlighting queer FSL teachers’ experiences to ascertain both their affordances and constraints as queer people in the language classroom. Ultimately, this study highlights how queer, trans, and/or nonbinary FSL teachers navigate structural barriers while simultaneously creating transformative educational spaces that challenge linguistic binaries and cisheteronormativity, underscoring the critical need for systemic support and recognition of these educators’ unique contributions to gender inclusive FSL education.enQueering language educationQueer FSL teachersTrans and nonbinary FSL teachersThesis