To be entirely honest, the first time I ever really entered the writing center was the day of our first class. If you can recall, we went on an exciting field trip, freeing ourselves from the somewhat dungeon-like structure of the Gallon Wing basement. To also be entirely honest, I had no desire to be a writing tutor until Andrea said “hey, have you considered taking the pedagogy class?” and I said, “no, but I do need to take an extra class, and another job wouldn’t hurt!” Now that I’ve become semi-acquainted with the space, on the most basic of levels (i.e. only attending the center a second time for my observation center), I’ve had time to discover, to explore, and to think on it.
As a queer person, it’s easy to identify when there is a lack of queer people in any space. This tends to be disheartening at best and utterly terrifying at worst because I believe queerness can often provide a sense of comfort. Perhaps this is a long-winded way of me stating that my interest in writing center studies lies with queerness within the writing center.
While most aspects of queerness excite me, I think I am most interested in studying the concept of gender within the writing center. So regularly we find ourselves talking and existing within a stiff gender binary, with little room to breathe. However, the gender binary is, of course, a construct. Gender is a construct, but one that is deeply ingrained in our society. I am interested in how the gender binary exists within the writing center, and how breaking from that binary also exists within the writing center. As someone who identifies outside of that binary (non-binary, they/them pronouns thank you!), I think working to de-construct this harmful and completely made-up concept is how I can be most helpful.
Through Praxis, I found the piece entitled “‘Rainbows in the Past Were Gay’: LGBTQIA in the WC” by Andrew J. Rihn and Jay D. Sloan, which focuses on queerness in a broader sense, but the gender binary does come into play. On Praxis I also found a work called “Preferred Pronouns in the Writing Center Reports” by Justin B. Hawkins of Franklin and Marshall College, which is a write-up of a study conducted in 2016 about a policy regarding students disclosing their preferred gender pronouns. This article also includes a response to the study itself and interviews with a few students.
Through The Peer Review, I found a presentation titled “Affirming our Liminality and Writing on the Walls: How We Welcome in Our Writing Center.” This piece covers a wide variety of topics, but one of the sections by Kristina Togafau discusses a pronoun poster with gender-neutral options that hangs in the University of Hawaii’s writing center. The three of these works (and hopefully many more!), will be able to provide a basic understanding of how gender binaries are expressed within the writing center, generally speaking. I believe they will also give me a brief history of the gender binary within the writing center, and what the future of this holds.
Each of these articles also comes with a long list of sources that seem useful as well, and “‘Rainbows in the Past Were Gay’: LGBTQIA in the WC” even includes an annotated bibliography! I believe these sources will be useful in my pursuit of deconstructing gender binaries within the writing center, and I am excited to be able to explore more “gay stuff” this semester!
Pure Vibes. 