University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2006 Silent Outsiders: Searching For Queer Identity In Composition Readers Travis Duncan University of Central Florida Part of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, and the Rhetoric and Composition Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Duncan, Travis, "Silent Outsiders: Searching For Queer Identity In Composition Readers" (2006). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 1064. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/1064 SILENT OUTSIDERS: SEARCHING FOR QUEER IDENTITY IN COMPOSITION READERS by TRAVIS W. DUNCAN B.S. Radford University, 2002 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of English in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Fall Term 2006 © 2006 Travis W. Duncan ii ABSTRACT This study searches twenty composition readers’ table of contents for the degree of inclusivity of queer people and issues. Four means of erasure are labeled as possible erasing of queer identity: presuming heteronormativity, overt homophobia, perpetuating tokenism, and pathologizing queer identity. The presence of other differences are compared to the number of times that queer identity is referenced in the table of contents. The final portion of the analysis examines the two most inclusive composition readers to understand more clearly how the readers present queer individuals and issues. In a sense, I want to explore the question of how often queer people are discussed or addressed and in what forms within these composition readers. My hope is to develop a means for instructors and students to investigate whether or not, and in what ways a composition reader prescribes presence for the queer individual. iii “Other people have ‘sexuality’ but heterosexual people are ‘just people’”. — Shaun Best This is dedicated to those teachers that strive to make an impact in all students’ lives: students who are straight and those who are queer identified. If not for teachers like those, I would not have the courage to do this type of project. That courage has enabled me in attempting to find a solution to disempower those enfranchised forces that seek to trivialize, label, and control the presentation of queer people and communities. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks to David, Martha, and Blake for guiding and pushing me through this project. Special thanks to David for the extra time, effort, and passion devoted until the end of this project. Thanks again for giving me the support needed to finish this project and most importantly allowing me, as your student, to be my altered, queer self. Final thanks to my mother, father, sister, brother, and the entire family, who have not only accepted me for who I am, but also struggled to understand, not judge, and appreciate me for being myself—gay or not. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………………vii LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………………………….viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION: RECOGNIZING MY ALTERED SELVES……………….1 CHAPTER 2: NEGOTIATING SELF(S) AND COMMUNITY(S)……………………………9 CHAPTER 3: MARGINALIZING AND STEREOTYPING: COUNTING THE OUTSIDERS…………………………………………………………………………………...21 Presuming Heteronormativity………………………………………………….............23 Overt Homophobia……………………………………………………………………..24 Perpetuating Tokenism…………………………………………………………………25 Pathologizing Queer Identity.......................................................................................... 27 Composition Readers Analyzed………………………………………………………. 29 Methods of Analysis....................................................................................................... 31 CHAPTER 4: ACTUAL INCLUSION: SPACE FOR QUEER IDENTITY?............................35 Presence Analysis: Absence, Presence, and Inclusion....................................................35 Presuming Heteronormativity: Presence or absence…………………………...36 Marginalizing Comparisons: Counting all outsiders…………………………...36 Overt Homophobia: Fear of fags, dykes, and trannys?.......................................39 Perpetuating Tokenism: Setting the borders……………………………………39 Pathologizing Queer Identity: Negative impressions..........................................40 Left-overs: Positive perceptions of queer identity?.............................................41 Content Analysis: How Inclusive are the most-inclusive?..............................................43 Main Ideas: Positive, negative, or other..............................................................43 Continuing the Erasure Search: Overt homophobia, perpetuating tokenism, and pathologizing queer identity……………………………… …………………………47 CHAPTER 5: SILENT DISPLACEMENT: FINAL CONCLUSIONS……………………….48 APPENDIX: LIST OF COMPOSITION READERS ANALYZED…………………………..54 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………………...57 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Table of Contents Organization ……………………………………………………30 Figure 2: Marginalized Difference Keywords………………………………………………..32 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Marginalized Difference Readings in the Tables of Contents………………….....37-38 Table 2: Main Ideas…………………………………………………………………………….44 viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION: RECOGNIZING MY ALTERED SELVES “There it was, what he wanted—tangibly before him, like the fairy world of a Christmas pantomime; as the rain beat in his face, Paul wondered whether he were destined always to shiver in the black night outside, looking up at it.” —Cather, Willa (453) I started this project because I wanted to open people’s eyes: students—gay, straight or bisexual, and faculty, staff, or others who have an impact on education. What I found was that there was much about gay culture that I had never been exposed to which ended up opening my own eyes more than I had expected. I had never realized my own engrained homophobia until I reached an age where I could look back. I grew up in a very small town in southwestern Virginia, and unfortunately, for me, gay and lesbian studies were not exactly at the forefront of the most influential topics either in high school, college, or the general public. I felt dislocated, distracted, and separated from society—I wasn’t sure who I was. I didn’t know if I was gay, straight, confused, lost, or exactly what I should be feeling. I only knew that what I was feeling wasn’t exactly correct in the southwestern Virginia definition of the word. Even after leaving this small town, going to undergraduate school near home and then on to graduate school, I found that there was a wealth of knowledge that I never realized existed before because it had never been addressed in any of my prior educational or cultural experiences. When I was younger I enjoyed reading, but somehow felt that no book revealed characters similar to me. Lee Lynch takes a similar perspective in her essay “Cruising the Libraries:” “throughout childhood and adolescence, I 1 searched and searched for images of myself in literature, on television, in movies…I had feelings of discomfort [with] the world” (Lynch 4).1 It wasn’t until my graduate school days that I learned more about gay and lesbian studies, gender studies, and queer theory—certainly I was never exposed to it in my so called liberal, humanist education at my undergraduate institution. Little did I realize at the time how silencing affected society and individuals. In fact, it was not until the end of my undergraduate career while taking bioethics and an independent study in the history of eugenics that I realized silencing as a force existed at all. An issue I read about in this class was the mismanagement of discourse about AIDS / HIV and the ill effects that spread as a result. Still, this never really accentuated what happened in the language of AIDS until I starting asking myself questions like: Why was it this way? Why do people still have a common misbelief that AIDS is automatically associated with queer persons or other minorities? What of the language used? How did it silence queer individuals and groups? Why have we not talked more in these classes of the language(s) used and the detrimental effects silencing had on minority groups in America? In a distorted way I started slowly recognizing the reason behind this—homophobia and heteronormativity. When the only people believed to be affected at the onslaught of the AIDS / HIV pandemic were what was collectively called “The Four Hs” (heroin [or intravenous drug] users, hemophiliacs, Haitians, and of course homosexuals) it did not help. It wasn’t until later that I pieced together the exclusionary practices that went on in AIDS / HIV language and the distribution of medicines, the outright discrimination, and the perpetuation of prejudice(s). 1Lee Lynch discusses the difficulties of finding a queer perspective in any books growing up in her article “Cruising the Libraries:” Essay was dedicated to her high school English teacher Mr. James Fechheimer. 2 When this piecing together had finally spun around for me near the age of twenty-two after coming out only a couple of years before, I felt hurt, angry, belittled, outraged, and lied to by people who I once trusted—not just the biology department