Queering the academy : UK academics’ negotiation of heteronormativity at work
Abstract
Whilst ‘queering’ theory has been accepted in higher education institutions, queering the
organization is not, and more research is needed on lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, queer, intersex
and asexual (LGBTQIA) and heterosexual academics’ experiences working in Higher Education
(Rumens, 2016a). In this manner, research omits to examine how LGBTQIA academics are
marginalized and the ways in which sexuality and gender are inextricably “linked within a
dominant heterosexual masculinity” in which academics are judged (Fisher, 2007:512). Research
drawing on queer theory is thus needed in order to expose the oppressive systems conditioned and
(re)produced by ‘compulsory heterosexuality’, also termed heteronormativity, within academic
institutions (Ozturk and Rumens, 2014). Although queer theory recognizes multiple and
intersecting identities, it often tends to “reinforce simple dichotomies between heterosexuality and
everything ‘queer’” (Gamson and Moon, 2004:52) hence neglects and subsumes differences in
terms of marginalized sexualities (Angelides, 2006) and how non-normative sexualities can render
gender as a ‘stable’ category unstable (Butler, 1999).
Given the lack of research ‘queering’ the academy, the aim of the study was to understand how
academics navigate working life in workplaces where discourses around ‘heterosexuality’ are the
implicit norm. Using snowball sampling to facilitate recruitment of participants, this study is based
on 30 qualitative semi-structured interviews with academics identifying across the sexuality and
gender spectrum working in UK higher education. All of the transcribed interviews were analysed
for emerging discourses relating to LGBTQIA academics’ workplace experience and
heteronormativity. Additionally, to explore how sexualities negotiate the heterosexual/homosexual
binary and the possibility to deconstruct essentialism, Willig’s (2013) Foucauldian discourse
analysis was utilised.
Rather than challenging normative ideals of gender and sexuality, the study found academia, as an
heteronormative institution, (re)produces knowledge, practices and norms that marshals academics
‘with a sexuality’ into a ‘queer friendly closet’ which restricts opportunities to ‘bring sexuality to
work’. This was found to present particular challenges for self-identified bisexual academics that
further have to negotiate the heterosexual/homosexual dichotomy and its underpinning norms
rendering non-binary sexualities ‘invisible’. From a queer theoretical perspective, this poses
problems for the opportunity to deconstruct essentialism and ‘queer’ the academy away from
binary and normative thinking.