ABSTRACT
Queers have a history of being institutionalized. However, now queers are becoming part of institutions and helping to write their own historical relationship to such institutions, in part, through what is known broadly as queer theory. Queer theory has helped reorient (some) institutions in (some) productive ways that make (some) queer lives survivable. Seeing that this special issue is on education, I might say that schools as a social institution often associated with education have seen some reorientation to teaching queer bodies, most often conceived of under the umbrella of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students and teachers. LGBT students and teachers are slowly becoming counted in schools, depending on national context, including the growing trend to include sexual orientation on demographic questionnaires for college admission in the USA (Stainburn, 2013). For some, this is a success that adds to the recognition of sexual minorities who deserve protection from violence. Yet, such success rests on ideas of identity when queer theory has, in part, sought to subvert identity through various means, including humor. Queer theory has rarely been one for identity or success. Rather it has been concerned with exposing and rethinking mechanisms or techniques that frame how one gets counted and how one can (or cannot) relate to the world within the ongoing processes of normalization. However, as Dean Spade (2011) has shown, demands for rights based on identity and recourse to law have most often led to a retrenchment of institutions that perpetuate gender, race, and sexual violence. There are limits to law and mainstream political responses. These limits – in the twenty-first century – continue to be challenged by critical traditions including queer, feminist, critical trans, critical race, and postcolonial theories.
