Queer politics in schools

J. Butler's mention of 'coming out' as a common instance of becoming visible and sayable in a way that does not challenge the structures of recognizability is particularly significant for queer politics in schools. J. Rancière's work on the role of allies in political interventions that shift the distribution of the sensible provides a fresh reading of the role of queer allies in schools. Rancière's distinction between identification and subjectification is helpful in discerning when the becoming visible, audible, sayable of queer students and teachers has political effects, in the sense of a shift in the distribution of the sensible, and when it does not. Since gender is so fundamental for achieving intelligibility and perceptibility that pronouns are lacking for all who do not fit unequivocally in the gender binary, one might even wonder whether 'queer' is a new 'proletarian'.