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Safety Without Passion: Queer High School Students Creating Networks of Support

Wed, April 23, 12:40 to 2:10pm MDT (12:40 to 2:10pm MDT), The Colorado Convention Center, Floor: Meeting Room Level, Room 303

Abstract

The experiences of queer students are more saliently marked by the lack of safety and inclusion of their identities in schools. This is often the result of institutionalized forms of heteronormativity that shape schooling practices and structures (Cohen, 1999) and that ultimately condition bodies and experiences into binary categories of identity (Keenan, 2017). Yet, as
Blackburn and McCready (2009) note, “Queer youth also find ways to make space to assert themselves and work against homophobia within the official school curricula” (p. 226). This paper documents the experiences of queer high school students to highlight (1) the ways schools and educators perpetuate heteronormativity, and (2) the ways queer high school students enact agency and create networks of support help them navigate unsafe schooling environments.

The narratives of students of color are often absent in queer studies, erasing the unique intersectional challenges queer students of color face. This study employs a queer of color
critique (QOCC) that attempts to “unveil the social and historical forces that have produced QOC marginality, as doing so provides a backdrop for exploring strategies of resistance” (Brockenbrough, 2015, pp. 29-30). A QOCC draws on Ferguson’s (2004) analysis of Black queer subjectivities to redefine the limits of queer theorizing by exploring the disruptive potential of sexual difference in critiquing heterosexual and patriarchal models. As such, a QOCC mobilizes two theoretical strands: (1) the disruptive potential of transgressive gender and sexual formations that queer studies wrestles with; and (2) the focus of women of color feminists on exploring strategies of resistance in response to intersecting forms of oppression (Brockenbrough, 2015).

This study uses pláticas as a methodology that questions objectivity in the research process. Pláticas are inherently subjective and political, centering the ideas, experiences, and stories of the researcher and the participants as instrumental in the process of knowledge production (Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016). In doing so, pláticas hold the potential of developing spaces and relationships needed to center healing and wellness for the participant and the researcher (Hannegan-Martinez, 2023). A plática methodology forces us to be reflective about what it means to do research with and not on youth of color. Over the course of an academic year, individual pláticas were conducted with seven high school students that identify as queer to learn about their schooling experiences. Group pláticas were then used as a form of member checking to discuss emerging themes.

This study found that students feel as if teachers enact “safety without passion,” failing to keep students accountable when they share sexist or homophobic microaggressions. They shared that these microaggressions take an emotional toll and create a sense of isolation. The students in the study share that instead of saying that a space is “safe,” what safety looks like needs to be established relationally and should be an ongoing process. The study also looks at the ways queer youth participate in an informal social mapping of safe spaces and people on campus. It is in some of those spaces where queer students collectively create spaces where they have a sense of belonging and that allow for more expansive forms of gender performance without the fear of consequences.
As we continue to work toward more equitable and safe schooling environments for all students, we must critically analyze the ways heteronormative ideologies impact queer students of color. The students in this study remind us of the need to have transparent conversations about the kind of safety that can realistically be created in classrooms and in schools. We must also work toward accountability measures for students and for educators to ensure that the humanity of all students is respected. Lastly, although queer youth create networks of support to navigate hostile schooling environments, the labor should not be placed on them. The responsibility to create inclusive spaces and pedagogical practices should be placed on educators as they are the ones that control power dynamics in classroom spaces. It is our responsibility to learn from the practices of agency that queer youth of color enact.

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