Double jeopardy: (Trans)versing higher ed as queer trans advocates

Weiser, S. Gavin; Wagner, Travis L.; Lawter, Myles

doi:10.1080/15505170.2018.1542359

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…The concerns of this are both its clear reminder that academic libraries are not neutral in their organization and that further such locating can have dire effects on the navigation of TGNC individuals based on their particular geographic locales. As Weiser and Wagner (2017) and Weiser et al (2018) make clear the need to situate and do extra work to make queer identity a liberatory and non-negative identity in the American South requires active and affective labor on the part of queer individuals.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why are bathrooms inclusive if the stacks exclude?

Wagner

Crowley

2020

RSR

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to deploy a critical discourse analysis (CDA) to consider exclusionary practices enacted by academic libraries as evidenced through resource provision. Specifically, this paper looks at the inclusion of trans and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) individuals in library guides, TGNC naming practices in abstracts and the physical shelving of transgender studies texts. This paper concludes with a discussion of methods to overcome such exclusionary practices in the future. Design/methodology/approach This paper deploys CDA as informed by queer theory, affording a lens to consider how language and information are structured such that particular power dynamics emerge placing symbolic value on discursively normal identities. CDA helps illuminate when, how and why TGNC individuals remain excluded within academic librarianship practices. Findings Findings show continued investments in heteronormative and cisnormative structures concerning information provision and access for TGNC patrons. TGNC patrons using library guides consistently fail to see any mentioned made of their respective identities aside from research about their identities. Patrons seeking information of personal value (i.e. coming out resources) find few resources. Further, library stacks and databases enact consistent microaggressions such as fetishizing, deadnaming and misgendering. Research limitations/implications This project contains considerable social implications, as it pushes against a continued recalcitrance on the part of academic libraries to invest in neutrality by showing its failures regarding TGNC persons. Practical implications This study possesses a considerable set of practical implications and highlights tangible problems that could be addressed with relative ease by academic librarians through either systemic reorganization of information or TGNC patrons. Alternatively, this work also suggests that if such reformations are not possible, academic librarians can take it upon themselves to call attention to such issues and purposefully mark these failings, thus making it clear that it is a current limitation of how libraries function and invite patrons (both cisgender and transgender) to challenge and change these representations through research and advocacy. Social implications This project contains considerable social implications as it pushes against a continued recalcitrance on the part of academic libraries (and librarianship more broadly) to invest in neutrality. This study contests the idea that while possessing neutrality academic libraries also posit themselves as inherently good and inclusive. By showing the violence that remains enacted upon transgender and gender nonconforming folks through multiple venues within the academic library, this study makes clear that statements of negativity are thrust onto TGNC patrons and they remain excluded from an institution that purports to have their well-being as one of its core values. Originality/value The deployment of CDA within information science is still a relatively new one. While linguists have long understood the multiplicity of discourse beyond language, the application of this method to the academic library as a discursive institution proves generative. Furthermore, the relationship between academic libraries and their LGBTQ+ populations is both underrepresented and undervalued, a problem exacerbated when focusing on how transgender and gender nonconforming patrons see themselves and their relationships to the academic library. This paper shows the dire state of representation for these particular patrons and provides groundwork for positively changing such representations.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why are bathrooms inclusive if the stacks exclude?

Wagner

Crowley

2020

RSR

Self Cite

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“…Like the opening vignette of my experiences working in a multicultural center focused particularly on using activities as a teaching tool for equity and justice education, many of us who work with disenfranchised student populations have experienced our own experiences of marginalization and push-back on our acts of support for these/our communities (Weiser, 2019). The nature of educational administration proposes a set of guidelines in which political neutrality is expected.…”

Section: Solidary Is…mentioning

confidence: 99%

Activism as leadership: Supporting progressive activists within our work

Weiser¹

2023

JCAPS

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This empirical work is driven by a study on the experiences and motivation of a group of college-aged student activists. Using a cohort of 14 millennial-aged activists who organized their work in response to a rise of right-wing authoritarianism in national and state politics, this paper presents recommendations for how student affairs professionals working in activities-oriented functional areas can leverage these experiences to build capacity around engagement, leadership development, sense of belonging, and work in partnership with these communities to challenge unjust practices within the academy. Further, I argue that in order to do our work of supporting students in their educational ventures, we can no longer claim notions of political neutrality.

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“…This moving-with is not always straightforward, as Weiser et al (2018) argue; it is not always easy to be working as an educator within the system but living a life so contradictory to the current paradigm. The Bad-Folx can often be researching and working in-tension but within the academy.…”

Section: Edge-dwellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This reimagining of the challenges of the Bad-Folx supports the dialog that there is a need for real change rather than preexisting realities. However, for Weiser et al (2018), tenacity is essential, “Educators without the protection of tenure, such as all three authors, must navigate these spaces carefully, choosing when to be silent, and when to risk our jobs” (p. 335). I respond to this by arguing that not everyone has the freedom to say no to the academy, nor do they want to; however by exploring this situation as a “utopian performative of hope” (Spry, 2016), a potentiality to materialize the “what if” of hopeful futurities arises.…”

Section: Edge-dwellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Autoethnography, as defined by (Spry, 2001), is “a self-narrative that critiques the situations of self with others in social contexts” (p. 710). Following Weiser et al’s (2018) guidance—that “by engaging with self-as-participant research, exploring experiences, engaging with a deep amount of reflexivity, our hope is, to erode structures that maintain the status quo” (pp. 334–335)—allows this paper to offer possibilities for change within the academic world through “speaking from, for, and to the margins” (Boylorn & Orbe, 2013, p. 18).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bad-Alys and the Bad-Folx: Edge-Dwelling, Hope and How to Get Your Voice Heard

Mendus¹

2021

International Review of Qualitative Research

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I attended a symposium on “Bad Girls” at the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI) 2018, looking for inspiration on how to make sense of myself and academia. When I asked, “How can I be a Bad Girl now?” I was told to go and get a job and get published. This autoethnographic piece shares stories of Bad-Alys, an Early Career Researcher trying to get published and finding her place as an academic. This paper was written to inspire the potentiality of change by exploring the concept of multiple selves from Etherington and Speedy, moving away from a binary to position Bad-Folx alongside Barad’s concept of entanglement; as activists and edge-dwellers within qualitative research. This is a paper of hope, offering ways to move-with the current-accepted paradigm of the academy by taking control of your doings as Ahmed would argue, through vignettes of collaborative inquiry, re-envisioning the use of conference spaces and self-publishing.

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Double jeopardy: (Trans)versing higher ed as queer trans advocates

Cited by 11 publications

References 27 publications

Why are bathrooms inclusive if the stacks exclude?

Why are bathrooms inclusive if the stacks exclude?

Activism as leadership: Supporting progressive activists within our work

Bad-Alys and the Bad-Folx: Edge-Dwelling, Hope and How to Get Your Voice Heard

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