he EFL classroom is composed of a mixture of people with various backgrounds and
identities. Sexuality is increasingly recognised as a form of identity similar to other categorical
forms such as class, gender and ethnicity (Nelson, 1999; Vandrick 1997; Dumas, 2008).
Developments in critical pedagogy, queer theory and poststructuralist theories of identities have
resulted in changes to the way sexual identity is viewed within the EFL and ESL classroom- a
classroom which should ideally function as a liberatory environment where consciousness can
be changed and weaknesses - racism, classism, homophobia, etc.,- expelled (Vandrick, 1994).
Based on the idea that ‘otherness’ related issues should be treated in the foreign language
classroom as a means to achieve Existential Competence (CEF, 2001), the present study
investigates the attitudes of Greek Cypriot EFL teachers towards the inclusion of gay and
lesbian topics in the EFL classroom. A 15-item questionnaire was designed and distributed to
58 English language teachers in Cyprus. The results indicated that EFL teachers tended to have
negative attitudes towards gay and lesbian topics in the classroom. They seem to believe that
such topics are unrelated to EFL teaching or learning, while a number of social factors such as
age, gender, education, years of experience, and country of studies appear to have an impact on
their attitudes towards issues of sexual diversity and orientation in the classroom.