ABSTRACT
In the ongoing discussions and debates about lesbians in academia — as faculty members, as instructors in the classroom, as students, and as the subjects of research and scholarship — community colleges have been neglected. In this chapter, the author examines the context of community colleges relative to debates over queer theory and lesbian identity, using as a case study an experience she had teaching a course combining freshman composition with sociology on the theme of gender. The invisibility of the community college in the lesbian identity/queer theory debates is evident in two anthologies on issues for lesbians in higher education, neither of which considers the significance of community colleges in any substantial way. More students at community colleges than at other institutions of higher education are the first in their families to attend college. The community college provides fertile ground for a dynamic synthesis of politics and theory.
