The Queer Pedagogue in a State of Exception

The Queer Pedagogue in a state of exception 

It is amazing how much being alone with my thoughts has changed me as a queer academic. I think ‘identity politics’ do affect who we are in the classroom, and I have begun to question aspects of mine. Recently, one of the biggest questions I have been entertaining is whether or not I identify as an ace lesbian, as opposed to bi. These thoughts have occupied my consciousness far more as of late as I think about the things which are most important to me at the very core of my being. When I imagine happily ever after, it is always with a woman. In fact, when I imagine ‘happy’ at all, the same is true. I have also begun to question elements of my gender presentation. I feel very much like a woman, but I also feel that I have lived a life so afraid of being perceived as abnormal that I have not felt free to explore a queerer representation of what womanhood means. For me, it has been empowering to stop shaving during this lockdown, and experiencing what that looks and feels like. I am interested in the whole spectrum of creative gender presentation, meaning I can wear feminine dresses and make-up, more androgynous looking clothes, or a mix between the two, and feel no real conflict with that. I like how I look in gowns, yet I think I’d also feel pretty euphoric to attend a fancy event in a suit. I’d like to begin presenting openly as queer, something I have never been comfortable to do in the past, and something which I think I can do with impunity in New York City, where I will be moving to graduate school. I do not fit the label of either femme or butch entirely, but have elements of both. 

I have done a lot of thinking about how this kind of gender non-conformity might affect how I am perceived in the classroom. Currently, I am a medievalist who studies Iberian legal codes. Much like Jody, I have a hunch I may research, write about, or teach classes on gender related topics just due to my own positionality and education on the topic, regardless of my professional specialization. I constantly make an effort to read about contemporary queer issues because my ambition is to be a leader in the queer community. I want people to know I am a safe person. I want my students to be aware that I am working towards an intersectional pedagogy coming from my own perspective as a queer person. I will likely write, in a journalistic fashion, articles about what it means to be queer and in academia. 

I do not intend to call attention to myself, nor will I arrive at Columbia’s graduate school and proclaim my queerness to everyone I meet. They are definitely going to notice it, but I plan to at least start out by simply being myself and going about my work. This is a much more difficult undertaking than it would seem to be. It has taken me a lot of self-reflection to arrive at the point at which I am comfortable enough with myself to make my own body a site of resistance just by being myself. 

I honestly cannot wait to take my hard earned place in the academy, at least for these next seven or so years. I can’t wait to be a serious medievalist, and queer, both openly, in all of the traditional academic spaces. I do have the feeling that I must somehow ‘be better’ because I am queer, that I must somehow outperform the field’s expectations for me simply to prove that I can. But more than anything, I want my young queer students to leave my classroom and be just as euphoric and hopeful as I was years ago when I found out that Jody was a lesbian.