Pursuing Recognition: LGBTQ+ Academic Couples’ Experiences of Visibility in Higher Education

This article explores the problematics of visibility and recognition for LGBTQ+ academic couples. Despite important strides to secure rights for gender and sexual minorities and to promote more inclusive academic workplaces, intolerance and discrimination persist. Drawing on interviews with LGBTQ+ couples at U.S. institutions, we find that such scholars actively engage in visibility maintenance with respect to their institutions, colleagues, students, and the job market. Visibility maintenance occurs through internalizing hyper-awareness of others’ potential biases and preemptively comporting oneself to mitigate undesired responses. We argue that while selective invisibilities may serve strategic purposes for LGBTQ+ couples, such configurations also mask fundamental incompatibilities between individuals and institutions. Only by fostering deeper forms of recognition can academic workplaces achieve inclusivity that respects members in their full complexity.