Treading Lightly: The Ethics of Instructor Il/legibility and Neutrality in the Classroom

Instructors in the classroom often describe their experiences teaching as being a performance, which often combines authenticity with boundaries to keep certain aspects of the instructor’s life out of the classroom. For queer instructors, their performance may be especially complicated; since queer identity is less visible than other types of identities, instructors must also weigh whether or not to come out to their students. In our current political moment, where queerness has yet again become a scrutinized topic (especially when in proximity to youth), teachers have an even more difficult decision to make. This thesis uses queer theory and queer pedagogical studies alongside historical analysis to discuss the impact of legibility (or being recognized as something without “coming out” as such) in the classroom, and the impact of being il/legible in certain contexts. By putting these texts in conversation with each other and contemporary issues, I discuss the complexity of queerness in the classroom, keeping the embodiment of the instructor and of students in mind, and what this implies for pedagogical practice in the teaching of writing especially. I explore how students respond when exposed to queerness in the classroom, and how the instructor’s embodiment must also serve as a text in and of itself that influences what messages students internalize about queerness. Advisor: Stacey A. Waite