“Is he gay? That’s like, all I want to know”: Curiosity, authenticity, and epistemology in a GSA bookclub

Abstract

Part of a larger yearlong ethnography at a comprehensive, public high school in a Midwestern city in the United States, this article explores a telling case from a bookclub that was part of the school’s Genders and Sexualities Alliance. Approaching curriculum as a question of what knowledges are valued in education, in this article I describe the layers of epistemic practices that youth in the bookclub co-constructed and the consequences of these practices for oppressive values with respect to sexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, and language. The telling case features youth talking about young adult author Sáenz’s sexuality, his novel Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, and whether and how (literary) authors’ identities affect their writing (of literature). My analysis of the case explores epistemological phenomena related to literature, curiosity, authenticity, #OwnVoices, and author–reader relationships, which I consider through critical, especially queer and trans, theoretical perspectives about epistemology, transparency, and opacity. The findings have implications for educators working to disrupt oppressive, anti-LGBTQ+ epistemologies in schools in an effort to encourage humanizing curiosity, promote compassion, and foster joy among and for LGBTQ+ students.

Keywords:

• Queer theory
• LGBTQ studies
• secondary schools
• epistemology
• adolescent literacy

Acknowledgments

I thank Ms. Abby, Mr. Brooks, and all of the youth at the high school who participated in the study, especially those whom I call Blair, Casey, and Hunter and all of the unnamed members of the GSA. It was a gift to learn from and with all of them as they generously shared part of their lives with me. I am grateful for the helpful comments on versions of this article from Sarah Lightner, Caitlin Murphy, the anonymous reviewers, and the editorial team as well as for guidance and mentorship on the larger ethnography from Mollie Blackburn. Whatever flaws remain are my sole responsibility.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Readers will notice various terminology used to reference sexual and gender diversity. I use the acronym LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, questioning, plus) to broadly reference non-straight, non-cisgender lives, practices, and communities. When discussing past scholarship, I follow each scholar’s usage.

2 Names of people and places are pseudonyms.

3 With respect to capitalization of racialized terms such as Black and white, Gotanda (1991) has written that both historically and contemporarily the term white “‘summarizes’ racial domination” and therefore “is better left in lower case, rather than privileged with a capital letter. ‘Black,’ on the other hand, has deep political and social meaning as a liberating term, and, therefore, deserves capitalization” (p. 4; see also, Rodríguez, 2019). In this article, I follow this logic.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ryan Schey

Ryan Schey is an Assistant Professor of English Education in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of Georgia. His research explores literacy and language practices and social change in schools, focusing on queer youth and those who work in solidarity with them. His recent scholarship can be found in Reading Research Quarterly, Teachers College Record, Research in the Teaching of English, English Education, and the Journal of Literacy Research.