No Sanctuary

Stephen Lane’s No Sanctuary is a splendid, detailed account of how LGBTQ and progressive teachers, along with students, organized and fought to defend the rights and safety of LGBTQ students. The historical sweep of No Sanctuary is splendid-a century-long historical overview of sex panics, educational theory, sexology, attitudes about youth, and gender myths-and its accounts of on-the-ground organizing in schools across the nation are thrilling and inspiring. Imperative reading for teachers, students, activists, and political theorists, No Sanctuary is as vitally important as it is groundbreaking.

Few books on school reform capture how a bottom-up policy change progresses in bite-sized increments in a political arena to achieve safety and equity for both teachers and students. No Sanctuary does exactly that.

A timely counter-narrative to top-down school reform efforts, [No Sanctuary] illustrates how students and teachers can use their voice and leadership to personalize and frame an issue, educate administrators and those in power, and ultimately effect policy, cultural and large-scale change, not only in schools, but also in society.