Queering Education Conference 2026
Lex facilitated two programs for the International Queering Education Conference on October 11th, 2026!
Session 1: Staying Grounded: Building Resilience for Hard Conversations About Identity in Schools
Conversations about gender, sexuality, and identity-based conflict pull educators into reaction mode — defensiveness, over-explaining, or shutting down — precisely when steady presence matters most. Affect labeling, the simple act of naming an emotion as it arises, has been shown to reduce amygdala reactivity and function as an implicit form of emotion regulation, making it possible to stay engaged rather than escalate or withdraw (Torre & Lieberman, 2018). Yet many K-12 and higher-education staff report significant gaps in their own emotional regulation skills, gaps that shape not only their own wellbeing but the emotional climate they create for LGBTQIA+ students and colleagues (Fuentes-Vilugrón et al., 2024). This session is grounded in that research: it treats the ability to stay present during a hard conversation as a trainable skill rather than a fixed personality trait, and gives participants a framework they can apply immediately in their own buildings.
This session is specifically about building a personal practice for staying grounded, curious, and non-defensive when conversations about identity, conflict, or harm get difficult — whether that conversation is with a student, a colleague, a parent, or an administrator. Participants will learn to recognize their own reaction patterns under stress, practice a grounding sequence they can use mid-conversation, and use affect-labeling language that de-escalates tension without minimizing the issue at hand. The session names two specific interventions drawn from the research base: affect labeling as a regulation tool (Torre & Lieberman, 2018) and restorative, relationship-centered response as an alternative to purely disciplinary reaction, which randomized controlled trial evidence links to reduced exclusionary outcomes for previously affected students (Huang et al., 2023). The session moves participants from theory into rehearsal through a facilitated reaction-pattern inventory, a guided grounding practice, and scenario-based practice drawn from real school and classroom situations involving LGBTQIA+ identity and conflict.
Learning Objectives
After attending this session, participants will be able to:
Identify their own reaction patterns (defensiveness, rushing, shutting down) that surface during identity-related conflict.
Apply an affect-labeling technique to regulate emotional reactivity in the moment during a difficult conversation.
Practice language that de-escalates tension without dismissing the underlying issue or concern being raised.
Distinguish between a purely disciplinary response and a relationship-centered, restorative response to conflict.
Session 2: The Power of We: Building Belonging Through Empathy and Collective Care in Schools
Belonging is not a given; it is built intentionally, moment by moment, through small acts of empathy and care that add up to something powerful. A meta-analysis of 51 studies on school belonging found that three relationship-based factors, teacher support, peer support, and family support, along with academic motivation, are among the most consistent predictors of whether a student feels they belong at school. Teacher support emerged as the single strongest factor: students who experience their teachers as caring, fair, and willing to help resolve problems report significantly greater belonging than those who don't (Allen et al., 2018). For LGBTQIA+ students specifically, the stakes of belonging are high: GLSEN's national data show that students who feel connected to school staff and peers are more likely to report incidents and less likely to experience the worst outcomes of a hostile climate (Kosciw et al., 2022). A systematic review of school-based belonging interventions found that the programs that worked shared a common feature: they targeted students' strengths and actively built positive interactions between students, and between staff and students, rather than treating belonging as something that happens passively (Allen et al., 2022).
This session is specifically about moving school and organizational culture beyond individual inclusion into a true practice of collective belonging, where community becomes a source of strength and resilience for LGBTQIA+ students and the adults who support them. Participants will learn to map where belonging currently lives, or doesn't, in their own school culture across the four domains the research identifies as most consistently predictive: teacher support, peer support, family support, and academic motivation (Allen et al., 2018), and will practice specific, evidence-informed interventions rather than abstract values statements. The session names concrete activities: a belonging audit across these four domains, an empathy-circle discussion protocol, and a collective-care mapping exercise, each tied to intervention strategies shown to build school connectedness (Allen et al., 2022). Participants leave with a community-care framework adaptable to any school or organizational size.
Learning Objectives
After attending this session, participants will be able to:
Apply Allen et al.’s (2018) four-component belonging framework to audit where belonging currently exists, or is missing, in their own school or organization.
Identify at least two evidence-informed practices for building collective, rather than individual-only, belonging.
Map specific interactions between students, and between staff and students, that research links to stronger school connectedness.
Draft a community-care framework they can adapt and bring back to their own context.
