Heteronormativity meets queering in physical education : the views of PE teachers and LGBTIQ+ students

This is a self-archived version of an original article. This version may differ from the original in pagination and typographic details. Author(s): Title: Year: Version: Copyright: Rights: Rights url: Please cite the original version: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Heteronormativity meets queering in physical education : the views of PE teachers and LGBTIQ+ students © 2021 the Authors Published version Berg, Päivi; Kokkonen, Marja Berg, P., & Kokkonen, M. (2022). Heteronormativity meets queering in physical education : the views of PE teachers and LGBTIQ+ students. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 27(4), 368381. https://doi.org/10.1080/17408989.2021.1891213 2022 Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cpes20 Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cpes20 Heteronormativity meets queering in physical education: the views of PE teachers and LGBTIQ+ students Päivi Berg & Marja Kokkonen To cite this article: Päivi Berg & Marja Kokkonen (2021): Heteronormativity meets queering in physical education: the views of PE teachers and LGBTIQ+ students, Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, DOI: 10.1080/17408989.2021.1891213 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17408989.2021.1891213 © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group Published online: 22 Feb 2021. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Heteronormativity meets queering in physical education: the views of PE teachers and LGBTIQ+ students Päivi Berg and Marja Kokkonen Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland ABSTRACT Background and purpose: In school physical education (PE) lessons, gender is often produced heteronormatively. Lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, intersexual, and queer (LGBTIQ+) students have reported experiences of discrimination and obstacles to participation. This study analyzed Finnish PE teachers and LGBTIQ+ students’talk about discrimination and problematic practices in PE and how equality in PE might be improved. Theoretical background: We draw on the concepts of heteronormativity and habitus. Habitus provides insight on how gendered norms and inequalities become embodied and contested in different social fields. In the PE context, we define social on the one hand as the heteronormative ‘feel for the game’and on the other as the queering of practices. We then demonstrate both the habitual elements of gender and sexuality and how expectations and categorizations are socially attached to bodies. Methods: Thematic interviews were conducted with ten heterosexual and cisgender PE teachers and with ten LGBTIQ+ students aged 13–17. First, thematic analysis was conducted to identify each group’s perceptions on discrimination in PE lessons, on PE practices in relation to LGBTQI+ students, and on ways of promoting equality in PE. Second, applying the concepts of heteronormativity and habitus, we studied the identified themes to ascertain whether discrimination, practices, and equality were reproduced or challenged in the PE teachers’and LGBTQI+ students’perceptions. Findings: The PE teachers’perceptions, informed by the ethos of individuality, reduced LGBTQI+ students to ‘minorities’whose practices diverged from the heteronorm. Hence, the non-heterosexuality and gender diversity of LGBTQI+ were constructed predominantly as ‘tolerated’and even invisible in PE lessons. However, some teachers reported paying attention to diversity in gender and sexuality in their thinking, speaking, and practices, thereby challenging heteronormativity. While the teachers aimed to protect LGBTQI+ students from discrimination, the majority also defended existing practices. Queering the status quo was considered challenging. In turn, the LGBTQI+ students focused more on lived power relations and structural discrimination and challenged existing practices by queering the status quo. For them, the best ways to promote equality in PE would be teacher familiarity with diversity in gender and sexuality, reduced gender stereotyping and the use of more inclusive language. The students also supported coeducational PE ARTICLE HISTORY Received 18 September 2020 Accepted 4 February 2021 KEYWORDS Habitus; heteronormativity; gender; physical education; sexuality © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. CONTACT Päivi Berg paivi.berg@nuorisotutkimus.fi PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND SPORT PEDAGOGY https://doi.org/10.1080/17408989.2021.1891213 groups and unisex locker rooms or changing facilities for LGBTQI+ students. Conclusions: PE teachers’tendency to defend heteronormative practices creates a paradox of ‘tolerance’which works to marginalize non-heterosexuality. The interviews with both groups indicate challenges in implementing the objectives of gender-awareness in school PE in Finland. Introduction Schools in general, and physical education (PE) in particular, are sites where heteronormative gender is reproduced by reifying heterosexuality and marginalizing, and often disparaging, homosexuality (Clarke 2012, 90). Recent studies have pointed to the discrimination and obstacles to participation experienced by LGBTIQ+ (i.e. lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, intersexual, queer) students in PE. More specifically, LGBTIQ+ students encounter homophobic name-calling (Ayvazo and Sutherland 2009; Gill et al. 2010), isolation, loneliness, and harassment (Devís-Devís et al. 2018b). They find PE problematic, distressing, and frightening (Alanko 2014; Kokkonen 2014; Lehtonen 2018; Taavetti 2015), often due to locker-room and other gender binary-based practices (Devís-Devís et al. 2018b; Lehtonen 2003; Taavetti 2015), and avoid using showers and locker rooms, or skip PE classes (Gato et al. 2020; GLSEN 2013; Kokkonen 2014; Kosciw et al. 2018). However, those who have felt comfortable talking to their PE teachers about LGBTIQ+ issues have been less likely both to avoid PE facilities in school and to experience harassment and assaults in PE (GLSEN 2013). Unfortunately, PE teachers have not always acted to decrease discrimination (Jachyra 2016; Morrow and Gill 2003; Piedra et al. 2016; Warwick, Aggleton, and Douglas 2001), despite their awareness of homophobic and heterosexist language (cf. Sykes 2004). In recent years, gender and equality legislation and guidelines have been updated in many countries. In Finland, the Act on Equality between Women and Men (1986, amended 2016) extends the prohibition on gender discrimination from gender alone to gender identity and gender expression. The Non-discrimination Act (2014) prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. The National Core Curriculum for Basic Education (NCBI 2014) mandates reducing inequality and promoting equality and gender-awareness –including awareness of gender diversity –in teaching. However, no empirical studies appear to exist on what actions PE teachers and LGBTIQ+ students consider would promote the inclusion of non-heterosexual and/or non-cisgender students in school PE lessons. In Finnish schools, despite the option of organizing PE in either coeducational or single-gender groups (Yli-Piipari 2014), and the preference of some specialist PE teachers for coeducational PE groups (Quay, Kokkonen, and Kokkonen 2016), single-gender PE classes remain typical from grade 3 onwards. Secondary school students are usually taught in gender-segregated PE groups, girls with female and boys with male teachers (Berg and Lahelma 2010). The most recent Finnish follow-up evaluation of PE learning outcomes reported that only 15 percent of secondary education students were taught in a coeducational setting (Palomäki and Heikinaro-Johansson 2010, 81). We assume that this arrangement contributes to previously reported gendered variation in PE content (Berg 2010; Palomäki and Heikinaro-Johansson 2010). Broadly, girls are taught more gymnastics, fitness training, dance, and ice skating and boys’more ball games and ice hockey. In Finland, gender-segregated PE teaching has been justified by reference to students’individual developmental stage, skills, safety, and gender (Kokkonen 2015). Thus, gender differences are understood as informing children’s interests and preferences and their physical attributes and strength, differences which are considered to put girls’safety at risk (Johansson, Heikinaro-Johansson, and Palomäki 2011; Palomäki and Heikinaro-Johansson 2010). This logic may reproduce gender stereotypical assumptions of competences and preferences, and hence gendered practices 2P. BERG AND M. KOKKONEN and heteronormativity in PE lessons (Berg and Lahelma 2010; cf. Larsson, Redelius, and Fagrell 2011). Moreover, heteronormative practices in PE, based on a binary understanding of gender, may be especially problematic for transgender and non-heterosexual students (Devís-Devís et al. 2018b; Lehtonen 2018). In Finland, Lehtonen (2012) found that while teachers’attitudes and experiences regarding LGBTIQ+ students were generally rather positive, one-third had negative and prejudiced attitudes. Most teachers also saw no need to discuss issues relating to sexual orientation in their classes. However, teachers’attitudes, especially those of PE teachers, have not been studied in Finland. According to studies elsewhere, PE teachers’perceptions of LGBTIQ+ students impact strongly on the discriminative practices found to exist significantly in PE (Sykes 2004; Pérez-Samaniego et al. 2016). Landi (2019, 32) argues that the streams of LGBTQ research in PE have mostly dealt with (a) attitudes, perceptions, and climate, (b) (mostly lesbian) teachers’experiences, (c) PE teacher education programs, and (d) the reflective experiences of adults. In turn, research on the experiences of LGBTIQ+ youth in school-based athletic settings, such as PE, is scarce (Greenspan, Griffith, and Murtagh 2017) and much of it has been retrospective (Landi et al. 2020, 268). Our study contributes to filling the knowledge gap on issues relating to the current experiences of LGBTIQ+ students in PE, teachers perceptions of PE, and the views of both groups on how to promote the participation and equality of LGBTIQ+ students in PE. We focused on Finnish PE teachers and LGBTIQ+ students talk about discriminatory practices in PE, with special interest in how they think equality in school PE could be improved. Theoretical framework Theoretically, we drew on the concepts of heteronormativity and habitus. Heteronormativity refers to heterosexuality positioned as the norm, thereby marginalizing sexual minorities (Warner 1991). Heteronormativity assumes that everyone is heterosexual, in turn legitimatizing homophobia and heterosexism and discriminating against sexual minorities in social relations and structures (Robinson 2016). Heteronormativity is thus ‘everywhere’and becomes internalized. However, sexuality and gender can be seen something that we ‘do’(Butler 1990) through the body. This manifests partly unconsciously in the ways the body works and how it appears. The incorporation of the social in the body can be captured by the concept of habitus (Bourdieu 1977,1984,1990; McNay 1999). Bourdieu’s concept of habitus is relational and usually applied together with the concepts of social field and capitals. For Bourdieu, ‘fields denote arenas of production, circulation, and appropriation and exchange of goods, services, knowledge, or status, and the competitive positions held by actors in their struggle to accumulate, exchange, and monopolize different kinds of power resources (capitals)’(Swartz 2016; e.g. Bourdieu 1990). The forms of capital are economic (income, wealth, inheritances, monetary benefits), cultural (embodied, objectified, and/or institutionalized), social (networks, relations) and symbolic (capitals that gain their value from legitimation) (Bourdieu 1986). Fields are structured spaces organized around specific types or combinations of capital. While fields can overlap, Bourdieu sees them as relatively autonomous, each with its own rules, knowledge, practices, and struggles for positions of power. As the present social field is school PE, we focus on cultural capital in its physically embodied form or habitus. Bourdieu developed the notion of habitus to describe not only the ways in which the body exists in the social world but also the ways in which the social is active in the body. It is manifested in ways of standing and speaking, and thereby of feeling and thinking (Bourdieu 1977). Bourdieu has often described habitus as a ‘feel for the game’– knowing how to perform successfully without consciously thinking about it. When bodily styles and the social field match, action is automatic, and navigation in social situations is smooth (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992, 127). PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND SPORT PEDAGOGY 3 Habitus is central to how gendered norms and inequalities become embodied (Skeggs 1997). In the context of gender and sexuality this relates to the predominance of heteronormative assumptions, as these are constantly reproduced through practice. Thus, the feel for the game is culturally developed, not naturally disposed. As heteronormativity normalizes heterosexuality, all non-heterosexual bodies become marginalized. Habitus as a Bourdieusian concept has been criticized for an emphasis on reproduction. Nevertheless, as some feminist researchers argue (Berg and Lahelma 2010; McNay 1999; Reay 2004) Bourdieu’s work has been found useful in integrating social structures and embodied subjectivity in a way that highlights the impact of power relations on experiences –also in PE (Fitzpatrick and McGlashan 2016). As noted by Butler (1990), the meanings of non-heterosexuality are produced socially in relation to heteronormativity. Thus, these meanings and marginality positions are not straightforwardly inscribed in bodies –they are also reshaped and resisted, producing alternative ways of being. Although people are widely exposed to heteronormativity, this does not mean that no other alternatives to heterosexuality exist. Here, we focus on PE practices as agents of socialization. We examine how the social in the form of heteronormativity is both corporeally inscribed and contested in PE practices. We define the social in PE as both the heteronormative feel for the game and as the queering of these practices. According to lisahunter (2019,2–3), queering entails unsettling existing assumptions, challenging the work and outcomes of normativity and revealing the oppressions associated with assigning people into categories. Larsson, Fagrell, and Redelius (2009) noted that queer designates the potential of different levels of social action or phenomena to be interpreted differently, particularly in a way that sheds light on heteronormativity. They scrutinized the possibility of queering PE in their analysis on how the concepts used by PE teachers included or excluded the possibility to challenge the gender order. We also aimed to queer mundane practices and critically reflect on the situations in which LGBTIQ+ students are considered ‘strange’. As stated by Devís-Devís et al. (2018a), efforts to enhance social justice via queer pedagogy should consider not only trans persons’experiences and feelings but also cisgender beliefs and attitudes toward trans persons (see also Pérez-Samaniego et al. 2016). Moreover, as Coll, Ollis, and O’Keeffe(2020) have argued, re-positioning young people as agents in problematizing hetero and cisgender normativity may facilitate the transformation of school spaces. Thus, questioning heteronormativity and combating inequalities is not only a matter for adult professionals (Coll, Ollis, and O’Keeffe2020,54–55). Material, methods, and ethical considerations The data comprise ten interviews with PE teachers and ten interviews with self-identified LGBTIQ+ students. The interviews were conducted as part of project Promoting equal access and tackling discrimination against gender and sexual minorities in sport and physical education (PREACT) implemented in the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä. The project’s main scientific objectives were to examine the different types of discrimination in sport and school PE, especially those experienced by gender and/or sexual minorities, investigate attitudes towards gender and sexual diversity, and to explore practices and experiences related to same-sex versus coeducational school PE and sports club training. The overarching goal was to inform policymakers and sports practitioners on how to facilitate safer sport environments for all. The project was approved by the ethical committee of the University of Jyväskylä and a data protection impact assessment delivered to the university’s data protection officer. The interviewed PE teachers were from different regions in Finland. All self-identified as heterosexual and cisgender, 1 five as women and five as men. Their age ranged from 29 to 56 years (mean 42, 8) and teaching experience from 4 to 29 years (mean 15, 5). Eight teachers taught in lower and/ or upper secondary schools and two in secondary and primary schools. All assumed that they had taught LGBTIQ+ students. Two teachers were recruited by the 2nd author, who is a PE teacher educator, seven by the snowball method and one contacted the researchers after learning about the 4P. BERG AND M. KOKKONEN research project via a press release. The thematic, audio-recorded interviews lasted between 55 min and 1 h 58 min. The interviewees were asked for background information on their age, gender and sexual orientation, family and work situation, graduation time, degree, and possible coaching experiences. The interview themes were teaching experience, mixed and gender-segregated teaching, attitudes towards diversity in gender and sexuality, legislation and guidance in education relating to equality, and ways of promoting equality in PE. Interviews were conducted in the teacher’s homes, workplace, or a public library meeting room. The interviewed LGBTIQ+ students were also drawn from several localities in Finland. All selfidentified as non-heterosexual: eight were transgender 2 or non-binary and two cisgender. Their age ranged from 13 to 17 years (mean 15, 7 years). Six were in upper secondary and four in comprehensive school. All had participated in their school’s PE lessons. Most also engaged in leisure physical activities. We are aware that LGBTIQ+ youth generally do less physical activity than heterosexual youth (Calzo et al. 2014). However, since one aim of the project was to examine experiences of discrimination in PE and sport, we considered it important to interview individuals experienced in these domains. Moreover, as noted by Landi (2019), LGBTQ students can only change the field if they participate in PE. Non-participation may also lead to stasis in PE, further harming LGBTQ students (Landi 2019, 135). The students were reached through mailing lists and non-governmental organizations working with LGBTIQ+ issues, such as Seta (LGBTI Rights in Finland), Trasek (Finnish Association for Transgender and Intersex Rights) and Sateenkaariperheet (Rainbow Families Finland). Potential participants contacted us based on these queries and in a few cases, with the child’s permission, guardians supplied their child’s contact information. Written consent forms were signed by all the interviewed students and their guardians. Prior to the interviews, participants were informed about how the interview would be conducted, the study goals, and how their anonymity would be protected. Interviews were conducted individually in the young person’s home, a public library meeting room or a university office. The audio-recorded interviews lasted between 25 min and 1 h 16 min. Interviewees were offered a post-interview possibility to talk with the interviewer (the 2nd author is also a licensed clinical psychologist), their right not to answer questions they found uncomfortable was emphasized and they had a possibility to read the transcribed interview. We also reminded them that they would not be identifiable in study-related publications. We then asked them for background information on their age, grade, hobbies, family members, gender, and sexual orientation. The interview themes were experiences in PE lessons and physical activities/sport, experienced and observed discrimination in PE lessons and sport hobbies, and ideas on how to promote equality in PE. From a Bourdieusian perspective, just as the field helps shape the habitus of agents within the field, the agents in the field shape the habitus of the field (Fitzpatrick and McGlashan 2016). Due to our gendered embodiment, we (authors) can be labeled cisgender middle-aged women. As a social scientist and youth researcher (Berg), and as a certified sport psychologist working with athletes and as a PE teacher educator (Kokkonen) we share an interest in gender and other intersecting ‘categories’in the context of PE and sports. We are empirically and ethically experienced researchers of children and young people. We aim to think about gender and sexuality in fluid and contested ways. For both of us, equality and equity are important, and this inevitably motivates the topics of our teaching and research and how we interpret our data. In this article, to avoid reproducing cisgender and heterosexuality as the normalized form of existence, we use the term LGBTIQ+ student. We also consulted the interviewees on how to refer to them in our publications. We are aware that non-heterosexual and transgender persons are not a homogeneous group. Due to the small sample size and anonymity requirements, we present the data without reporting speakers’specific sexual/gender identities, ages or other personal information. The requirement of guardian consents means that the students had discussed matters relating to their minority gender and/or sexual identity with at least one of their guardians –many PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND SPORT PEDAGOGY 5 of them with other people as well. This also means that we excluded LGBTIQ+ students who had not come out to their guardians. First, we conducted thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006) to locate all mentions in each interview of (1) discrimination in PE, (2) PE practices in relation to LGBTQI+ students, and (3) ways of promoting equality in PE. We then read the PE teachers’and LGBTIQ+ students’views on these three themes side by side. Finally, each theme was examined through the concepts of heteronormativity and habitus to ascertain whether the PE teachers’or students’perceptions reproduced or challenged heteronormativity. We focus both on how the field of PE shapes the habitus of agents in this field, and how the agents in the field shape the habitus of the field. Our overall present focus is on how LGBTIQ+ students have been considered in Finnish schools’PE practices following the reformulation of inclusiveness in the Act on Equality between Women and Men 1986/2016, Non-discrimination Act 2014, and guidelines on education (NCBI 2014). Below, we first examine PE teachers’and LGBTIQ+ students’perceptions on discrimination and detail the actions these interviewed groups experienced as helpful in promoting equality in PE and reducing discrimination. We then examine teachers’and students’perceptions on PE practices and, finally, the practices they proposed for furthering equality in PE. Tolerance versus equality All the PE teachers stated that LGBTQI+ students are ‘students/children in the same way as others and it doesn’tinfluence my attitude towards them’, or words to that effect. Moreover, all students should be ‘treated as individuals’(e.g. PE teachers 1 and 9, both women), meaning that one modifies one’s actions ‘in situation-specific ways’with both LGBTQI+ students and other students. I think there’s not much need for special gimmicks. If the teacher, or any adult, is sincerely tolerant and fair it will come out naturally in the situation. I think that an adult can act […] as an example and intervene in such situations and discuss them. (PE teacher 10, man) Like the PE teacher cited above, half of the PE teachers generally described their attitudes towards LGBTQI+ students as ‘tolerant’(PE teachers 2, 4, and 10 (men), PE teachers 8 and 9 (women)). They also considered young people today as ‘tolerant’and students’attitudes towards LGBTIQ+ students ‘permissive’. Thus, the PE teachers’perceptions revolved largely around the concept of tolerance, not equality. In Finnish, as in English, tolerance (suvaitsevaisuus) can also refer to a liberal attitude; however, it also connotes enduring something. Tolerance is thus a problematic word, as it can be understood as othering. As Walters (2014,2,10–11) puts it, it is: ‘apolitical and individual, that mode a society falls back on to avoid deeper challenges to the social order’. Tolerance contains an assumption that there exist those who differ from the norm –that something ‘different’exists that is tolerated. This has to do with power: those who are defined as belonging to the ‘majority’ define what/who should be tolerated and what criteria for tolerance ‘minority groups’should fulfill (Suurpää 2005, 48). Consequently, the PE teachers’choice of tolerance can be seen as intertwined with heteronormativity, relegating non-heterosexuals and non-binary genders to a marginal minority position (Lehtonen 2003,2012; Warner 1991). Despite articulating their aspirations to be inclusive and the assumption of ‘tolerance’among young people, four PE teachers (teachers 3, 5, and 6, men, teacher 7, woman) mentioned specific discriminatory practices, such as exclusion, name calling and laughing, directed at LGBTQI+ students by heterosexual peers. For example, getting other students to perform pair-dances with a LGBTQI+ student in PE was described as a ‘challenge’: […] it was quite visible there: some of the girls put their hand inside their sleeve and didn’t willingly touch them [the LGBTQI+ student] and so on. When teaching traditional pair-dances, there was this kind of behavior and maybe a little bit of sniggering and whispering. (PE teacher 6, man) 6P. BERG AND M. KOKKONEN Another PE teacher described how ‘the difference is noticed [by students] and some people are just so narrow-minded that they get stuck with that’(PE teacher 7, woman). In this case, a LGBTQI+ student with disabilities had endured multiple discrimination by other students, although the school personnel aimed to organize equal teaching for this student. In other words, the PE teachers perceived that despite their aim of promoting equality, problems arose from other students’reactions towards the LGBTIQ+ students’somehow ‘different’way of being, or habitus. The PE teachers stated that they do not necessarily know their students’sexual orientation and that it does not influence their teaching or how they treat students. However, many also stated that they had been ‘on tiptoe’when a LGBTQI+ student joined an already existing PE group. The teachers monitored the actions of other students ‘ready to intervene’(quotes from PE teachers 2 and 3, both male). Occasionally, the teachers’views revealed the assumption that all students are heterosexual. Earlier studies (Devís-Devís et al. 2018b; Larsson, Redelius, and Fagrell 2011; Piedra et al. 2016) have also found heteronormativity to be dominant in PE lessons. Heterosexuality appears as self-evident and hence more visible in practice. Unlike non-heterosexuality, it is not seen as ‘a private matter’(Lehtonen 2012, 31). As shown above, the PE teachers talked about discrimination against LGBTIQ+ students as deriving from the actions of other students, and not from themselves. Nevertheless, ‘tolerance’in the PE teachers’data seems to mean something other than complete equality. The next example illuminates the difference between these two notions. It maybe depends a lot on the personality of the student, how they carry themselves and how they in a way display their [sexual/gender] orientation. Like, if a student is more timid, then one has to adopt a slightly more protective role. […] sometimes […] it might go a little bit over the top. They are so aware and have such a sense of justice that one has to consider the other students […] we had this kind of lesson about sexual orientation to 8th graders and one teacher said that now all the students are like: ‘How do you know I’m a boy or how do you know I’m a girl’.[…] Of course, that’sfine as it goes but on the other hand, if you know yourself, maybe you don’t have to bring it up […], in a way also fostering the idea among students that if it is a big thing to someone, of course it has to be visible and one has to accept it but if it’s not a big deal one shouldn’t make a fuss about it, in my opinion. […] like presumably boys are anyway boys and girls are girls. So, in my opinion it would be foolish to talk about it in a way like we should completely get rid of that division. (PE teacher 3, man) Here, the demand for complete equality is seen as both excessive and unnecessary: these teachers saw no need to call attention to (minority) sexuality or abandon the traditional binary gender distinction. Similarly, Landi (2019, 180) notes that ‘LGBTQ persons are often accused of flaunting their gayness and have been asked to tone it down for being too gay (whatever that means)’. This notion of crossing a line is also used to justify the treatment of minorities in PE teaching. At the individual level, this also relates to students’habitus: ‘timid’students are protected but those demanding their rights are going too far. At the same time, some of the PE teachers saw that sporty, ‘strong’and ‘visible’LGBTQI+ students, with valued physical and social capital in PE, seemed to be in a better position in the school’s hierarchies, than counterparts who are ‘timid’or show ‘mental symptoms’. Interestingly, the latter were believed to hide their ‘orientation’. We understand ‘timid’LGBTIQ+ students as those who do not challenge teachers’authority, whereas remarks made by ‘visible’ LGBTIQ+ students’may arouse feelings of uncertainty in some PE teachers, thereby threatening the customary student-teacher power relation. To summarize, the PE teachers typically perceived LGBTQI+ students as individuals whose habitus somehow queers heteronormative and/or gender-binary assumptions. The difference between the heterosexual majority and LGBTQI+ minority was constructed as something to ‘tolerate’. Thus, teachers’notions of tolerance do not promote the cause of equality. This resonates with findings on teachers’claims to be ‘color blind’in critical race studies (e.g. Annamma, Jackson, and Morrison 2017; Castro-Atwater 2016; Lewis 2001). PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND SPORT PEDAGOGY 7 Skeggs, B. 2004.Class, Self, Culture. London: Routledge. Suurpää, L. 2005.“Suvaitsevaisuus. Sietämistä vai solidaarisuutta?”In Suomalainen vieraskirja. 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