As a young educator, Stephanie Jo Marchese was initially emboldened by hope and naivety. However, trying to balance the resistance to her body politics and the rules of engagement forced upon her in schools set the stage for an inevitable collision. She faced the devastating reality that a Queer-White-Radical-Feminist-Survivor-Teacher heralding liberation learning was not a valued commodity in schools. Nonetheless, her students were her greatest allies. They engaged in mutual curriculum development based on state frameworks, in addition to their interests, passions, and personal stories of struggle and success because good curriculum is a living document. Each year, Marchese delved into different paths of discovery depending on the students in her class. The students' courage and willingness to make themselves vulnerable created unique opportunities. Identity politics were front and center. The problem is institutional reform movements are only able to diagnose what is lacking, because they cannot incorporate the knowledge that is already present. In this brief article, Marchese makes several suggestions for what needs to change in society, school systems, and teacher training in order to accomplish true reform and bring critical education theory, critical race theory, and feminist and queer theory into play.