Queerness as Being in Higher Education: Narrating the Insider/Outsider Paradox as LGBTQ+ Scholars and Practitioners

Drawing on autotheoretical methods, this insightful volume explores how LGBTQ+ scholars, practitioners, and scholar-practitioners exist within and negotiate an insider/outsider paradox within higher education, highlighting issues of affect, legibility, and embodiment.

The first of a two-volume series, this book foregrounds the experiences of LGBTQ+ higher education scholars and practitioners in the United States as they navigate cisheteronormative culture, structures, practices, and policies on campus. Through theorization of contributors’ lived experiences in relation to identity and the concept of queerness as being, the volume posits queer identity as embodied resistance and demonstrates how this plays out within an insider/outsider paradox. An innovative theoretical framing, this text artfully exemplifies how queer and trans people exist simultaneously as both insider and outsider in university communities and deepens understanding of how critical narratives might inform institutional transformation and drives toward equity. The book then looks to the future, discussing implications for research and practice, using the lessons learned from the chapter authors.

Embellished with a plethora of diverse firsthand contributions and innovative scholarship, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of queer and trans studies, student affairs, gender and sexuality studies, and higher education, as well as those seeking to understand the experiences of LGBTQ+ higher education scholars and practitioners as they navigate central tensions in their practice.

Antonio Duran, Ph.D. (he/him/él) is Assistant Professor in the Higher and Postsecondary Education program at Arizona State University. Antonio received a Ph.D. in higher education and student affairs from The Ohio State University, an M.S. in student affairs in higher education from Miami University, and a B.A. in English and American literature from New York University. Antonio’s research examines how historical and contemporary legacies of oppression influence college student development, experiences, and success. In particular, he is interested in understanding and centering the lives of queer and trans people with multiple minoritized identities in postsecondary education settings.

Ryan A. Miller, Ph.D. (he/him/his), is Associate Professor of Higher Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he teaches courses on college student development, student affairs administration, and higher education leadership. His research agenda focuses on (1) the experiences of minoritized social groups in higher education, with emphases on disabled and LGBTQ+ people; and (2) the institutionalization of diversity and equity initiatives within higher education, in curricular, administrative, and student affairs contexts.

T.J. Jourian, Ph.D. (he/him/his), is an independent scholar and consultant with Trans*Formational Change and an instructional designer with LifeLabs Learning. Previously, he served as Assistant Professor of Higher Education Leadership at Oakland University. T.J. earned his doctorate in higher education from Loyola University Chicago, studying how trans masculine students conceptualize masculinity. He earned his M.A. in student affairs administration with a Multicultural Education cognate from Michigan State University and has experience as a practitioner in Gender and Sexuality Centers and Residential Life. Centering trans and queer people of color’s experiences and epistemologies, his research examines race, gender, and sexuality in higher education, with particular attention to masculinity, transness, and racialization; campus gender and sexuality centers and practitioners; and trans*ing constructs and methodologies.

Jesus Cisneros, Ph.D. (he/him/his), is Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Foundations at the University of Texas at El Paso. Jesus obtained a doctorate in education policy and evaluation from Arizona State University, a master’s degree in higher education administration from Texas A&M University, and a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communications from New Mexico State University. He brings his knowledge of higher education research and practice to highlight the intersection of education and immigration. His research moves gender, sexuality, and immigration status, and their conceptual margins, to the center of analysis in an effort to explore and understand the way politics and identity interact with various axes of inequality.