Sought out, kept out: Transantagonistic, anti-queer, and racist rhetoric in liberal academia

ABSTRACT

Emerging from our everyday experiences, we approach the rhetoric of transantagonism working with anti-queerness and racism as intersectional power structures that impact us as historically marginalized academics. We point to how we struggle in our institutions to build upon themes of antagonistic rhetoric meant to keep our minoritarian identities in “check,” while our presences also “check” university diversity quotas. Drawing on transgender, queer, and critical race texts, we argue that academics voicing critical discord are seen as troublesome for universities, colleges, and departments upholding transphobic, queer phobic, and white supremacist systems. We explore three distinct responses to taking up space: Drama, Doubt, and Discipline.

KEYWORDS:

• Transphobia
• anti-queer theory
• anti-critical race theory
• microaggressions
• performative allyship

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Matt Brim, Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020).

2 Lore/tta LeMaster, “Interrogating ‘the End,’ Becoming ‘the End,’” Review of Communication 22, no. 2 (2022): 153–6; Lore/tta LeMaster and Amber Cypress Johnson, “Unlearning Gender: Toward a Critical Communication Trans Pedagogy,” Communication Teacher 33, no. 3 (2019): 189–98.

3 Hill Malatino, Trans Care (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2020), 13.

4 Mark Orbe, “The Normative Nature of Racial Microaggressions in the Legal Field: Exploring the Communicative Experiences of U.S. Attorneys of Color,” Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 50, no. 3 (2021): 208.

5 E. Cram, “(Dis)Locating Queer Citizenship: Imaging Rurality in Matthew Shepard’s Memory,” in Queering the Countryside: New Frontiers in Rural and Queer Studies, ed. Mary L. Gray, Colin R. Johnson, and Brian Joseph Gilley (New York: New York University Press, 2016), 267–89 at 278.

6 Amber Cypress Johnson, “From Academe, to the Theatre, to the Streets: My Autocritography of Aesthetic Cleansing and Canonical Exception in the Wake of Ferguson,” Qualitative Inquiry 24, no. 2 (2018): 88–100; Bernadette Marie Calafell, “Cisnormativity, Whiteness, and the Fear of Contagion in Academia,” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking 7, no. 1 (2020): 68–74.

7 Malatino, Trans Care, 14.

8 See, for example, Alisha Ebrahimji and Artemis Moshtaghian, “Police Release Michigan State Shooting Timeline and a Troubling Note Found in the Gunman’s Pocket,” News Channel 3–12, March 10, 2023, https://keyt.com/news/2023/03/10/police-release-michigan-state-shooting-timeline-and-a-troubling-note-found-in-the-gunmans-pocket/; Joe Sutton and Emma Tucker, ““24-Year-Old Suspect Charged with Stabbing 3 People during Gender Studies Class at Canada’s University of Waterloo in ‘Hate-Motivated’ Attack, Police Say,” CBS58, June 29, 2023, https://www.cbs58.com/news/a-professor-and-2-students-were-stabbed-during-class-at-canada-s-university-of-waterloo-police-say-a-suspect-is-in-custody; Nick Valencia, Devon Sayers, and Eric Levenson, “UNC Graduate Student Charged with Murder in Fatal Shooting of Associate Professor,” KTVZ, August 29, 2023, https://ktvz.com/news/national-world/cnn-national/2023/08/29/doctoral-student-arrested-on-murder-charge-in-fatal-shooting-of-unc-faculty-member-source-says/.

9 Marquis Bey, Black Trans Feminism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2022), 146.

10 Lore/tta LeMaster, “Discontents of Being and Becoming Fabulous on RuPaul’s Drag U: Queer Criticism in Neoliberal Times,” Women’s Studies in Communication 38, no. 2 (2015): 167–86.

11 V. Jo Hsu, Constellating Home: Trans and Queer Asian American Rhetorics (Columbus: Ohio State University, 2022).

12 Toby Beauchamp, Going Stealth: Transgender Politics and U.S. Surveillance Practices (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019).

13 Beauchamp, Going Stealth, 132.

14 Bernadette M. Calafell, “Monstrous Femininity: Constructions of Women of Color in the Academy,” Journal of Communication Inquiry 36, no. 2 (2012): 111–30; Rachel A. Griffin, “I AM an Angry Black Woman: Black Feminist Autoethnography, Voice, and Resistance,” Women’s Studies in Communication 35, no. 2 (2012): 138–57.

15 Santhosh Chandrashekar, “‘My Response to Racism Is Anger’: A ‘Mindful’ Approach to Mindfulness,” Western Journal of Communication 86, no. 2 (2022): 224–31.

16 Koritha Mitchell, “Identifying White Mediocrity and Know-Your-Place Aggression: A Form of Self-Care,” African American Review 51, no. 4 (2018): 253–62.

17 Rod D. Roscoe, “Please Join Me/Us/Them on My/Our/Their Journey to Justice in STEM,” Discourse Processes 59, no. 5/6 (2022): 345–60.

18 Elías Cosenza Krell, “Is Transmisogyny Killing Trans Women of Color?,” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 4, no. 2 (2017): 226–42.

19 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage Books, 1977).

20 Lisa A. Flores and Logan Rae Gomez, “Disciplinary Containment: Whiteness and the Academic Scarcity Narrative,” Communication & Critical/Cultural Studies 17, no. 2 (2020): 236–42.

21 Malatino, Trans Care, 31.

22 E. Cram, “Field Notes from Covid Time: Teaching Normate Burnout Culture through Energy, Disability, and Race,” Capacious Journal for Emerging Affect Inquiry 2, no. 3 (2021): viii–xvi.

23 Shaylee Ragar and Acacia Squires, “Montana House Votes to Formally Punish Transgender Lawmaker, Rep. Zooey Zephyr,” NPR, April 26, 2023, https://www.npr.org/2023/04/26/1172158461/montana-gop-transgender-zooey-zephyr-punishment-banned-speaking-lgbtq.

24 Angelica Ross (@angelicaross), “Racism on AHS & Ryan Murphy Cussing Me Out,” Instagram, September 20, 2023, https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cxbr8Y-v0-h/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==.

25 Karma R. Chávez, “Community Debates: A Pedagogical, Queer, Intersectional Feminist Experiment,” Feminist Formations 30, no. 3 (2018): 110.

26 Malatino, Trans Care, 72.