Abstract

Responding to wide-spread abuse of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning persons in education, this dissertation examines theories of heterosexism, conceptualizing as mis-educative compulsory heterosexuality's stigmatization of "out" LGBTQs as outsiders. Reflecting upon the Outsiders' Society Virginia Woolf envisioned in Three Guineas for daughters of educated men, I re-name and re-conceive as Out-Siders those people who "side" with the "out" in order to mitigate compulsory heterosexuality's mis-educative effects. Examining how Out-Siders already bring theory and action to bear on sexual identity, I name and explicate six Praxes in re Sexual Identity: Praxis of the Closet, ignoring/denigrating non-heterosexuality; Praxis of Inclusion, advocating LGBTQs' equal rights; Praxis of Coming Out, utilizing identity politics; Praxis of Location, claiming composite identities; Praxis of Refusal, eschewing learned/scientific discourse's normative labels; Praxis of Performativity, "queering discourse" by de-centering naturalized/normative/prescriptive gender roles.