LGBTGIA+ Issues in Writing Centers

For my blog post I covered three of the readings in the week of April 2^nd that consisted of questions about gender and queerness. The articles describe how they’re handled in Writing Centers. My readings were O’Leary’s, “It’s Not What You Say, But How You Say It (And To Whom): Accommodating Gender in the Writing Conference”, Dixon’s, “Uncomfortable Queer: Everyday Moments in the Writing Center” and Rihn and Sloan’s, “Rainbows in the Past were Gay”. All of these were interesting reads, bringing up aspects on a topic that I haven’t really thought about. There is the theme of a Writing Center being safe and like a second home, but for some people who identify as LGBTQIA+ it isn’t always this simple.

Dixon’s article was especially empowering to me because she talks about the moments where she was uncomfortable and sexually harassed in a Writing Center. The first encounter was especially chilling. She had a male tutee write a story that featured her and him kissing in the Writing Center. After reading it aloud, expecting it to be a normal romance creative story and not a stalker story, she told him to get out and hid under the table she was at. The second incidence of sexual harassment was with a female colleague (who was a tutor at the same Writing Center) who harassed Dixon over private messaging on social media. Dixon talks about how the center became a “space of deep discomfort and trauma…” (Dixon) where she hid in the bathroom whenever her harasser had free time between clients. Dixon did try to confront her harasser, but it led to more rumors and gossip being started.

Dixon also mentions how she’s a bisexual woman who married a man but still gets ignored talking about queer theory and what it means to be queer. People assume that she’s straight just because she’s married to a man and doesn’t come out to anyone but the people closest to her. Having read Dixon’s situations, I think that they could have been totally preventable. While Dixon advocates for openness and security in Writing Centers, while telling her experiences, the bravery in her writing is apparent. She wants to remake the atmosphere so everyone feels comfortable and not have experiences like hers.

Rihn and Sloan’s piece discussed  many different aspects involving queer theory and heteronormativity in the Writing Center. They talk about how heteronormativity (a view that promotes heterosexuality as the preferred sexual orientation) has dominated Writing Center scholarship. They also bring up the problem of how there aren’t a lot of queer studies/authors to be found in Writing Centers or studies concerning them. They connect to Dixon’s piece of inclusivity in Writing Centers and how to handle judgement. One of the important questions that they bring up, that is influential to my question for this post, is why is the failure to address sexual identity so apparent in Writing Centers when they are places where people go to feel safe?

Located in our textbook, O’Leary’s article talks about gender within the Writing Center (as stated in the title). She researches the ways that female and male students (tutors and tutees) complete tutoring sessions. She has collected observations, and some stereotypes, about the different genders and explains them. My final question of the blog post is: What can we, as tutors/students, do to make everyone feel comfortable in the Writing Collab? There are always different events that can be created and many people we can involve. Not only students, but teachers can create new paths for Writing Centers and advocate the Centers to their students.

– Ann Doychak