Opening the Conversation on Intersectional Issues in LGBTQ+ Studies in Applied Linguistics

Toward humanizing SFL praxis: Coconstructing language teachers' understandings of their intersectional identities via language use

“…In all three cases, examination of language use served as a window for the language teachers to observe their intersectionality or, in some cases to become aware of it (e.g., Collins & Bilge, 2016; Crenshaw, 1989). Research in language teacher identity has increasingly described this intersectional nature of the identity development of language teachers (e.g., Lander, 2018; Paiz & Coda, 2021). This intersectionality “produce[s] divergent and unequal experiences” (Lawrence & Nagashima, 2020, p. 52) that language teachers must become aware of and learn to negotiate for themselves as well as for their learners.…”

Gender‐justice beyond inclusion: How trans knowledges and linguistic practices can and should be re‐shaping language education

“…(Knisely, 2022f, p. 166) There are numerous possible ways that these aims can be taken up, and often these strategies will include (a) exploring with and alongside students as a part of individualizing learning, decentering the classroom, troubling student understandings of expertise, and engaging with the real world, enlanguaged experiences of LGBTQ+ people, particularly those that are locally relevant, (b) making space throughout the curriculum, de-sensationalizing and articulating the value of LGBTQ+ discussions as a part of critical literacy, rather than confining queer and trans knowledges to specific days, units, or courses, (c) engaging in critical discussions and close reading, especially with the goal of laying bare how language, assumptions, and normativities shape perceptions of reality and constrain certain forms of being, and (d) directly connecting queer and trans content to learning goals, as this can help to demonstrate gender and sexuality's importance in languaging (Knisely & Paiz, 2021;Knisely & Russell, 2024, Chapter 1). These and related gender-just pedagogies are distinct from, but build on and coexist with, those articulated by colleagues in queer applied linguistics (Paiz, 2020;Paiz & Coda, 2021), crip linguistics (Namboodiripad & Henner, 2022), and many others who take up traditions of culturally relevant, critical pedagogies (Hooks, 2014;Ladson-Billings & Dixson, 2021), principally because-although they center gender and its modalities-"there can be no gender-just pedagogy that is not also always concerned with equity and justice as it relates to race, class, sexuality, disability, and all other aspects of identity through which we are positioned in society" (Knisely, 2022a, p. 150). Their applications and manifestations equally span the breadth of language and linguistic subfields, including not only applied linguistics but also cultural, literary, and translation studies, for example (Attig, 2022;Conrod, 2022a;Disbro, 2022;Konnelly et al, 2022;Kosnick, 2019;Provitola, 2022).…”

“…The social turn in applied linguistics and its allied fields has been marked by mounting attention to our humanity as educators and students and a recognition that “who we are deeply influences how we approach the processes of language teaching and learning” (Knisely, 2023, p. 81; see also Block, 2003; Paiz, 2021; Pennycook, 2010). Our identities are enmeshed with the ways that we language and our positionalities are inseparable from the affordances and constraints that we experience as we engage in the social, relational act of doing language with others.…”

“…This attention to ourselves and to one another as whole persons has also provided fertile ground for laying bare who has (and continues to be) minoritized in and by our fields and the forces that contribute to persistent, wide‐ranging inequities and injustices. Growing social awareness has meant extensive conversations about identity writ large (Norton, 2013) and about race (Anya, 2020, 2022; Anya & Randolph, 2019; Flores & Rosa, 2022; von Esch et al., 2020), class, sexuality (Nelson, 2008; Paiz, 2020; Pakuła, 2021), disability (Henner & Robinson, 2021; Watzke, 2020), or any combination of these and other aspects of being and belonging (Motschenbacher, 2016; Paiz & Coda, 2021). Considerations of gender have also figured in this list (Kissau et al., 2010; Knisely, 2017; Sunderland, 2010), although attention to gender modality has been considerably scanter.…”