Doing and feeling research in public: queer organizing for public education and justice1

Grounded in activism – fighting the implementation of Department of Defense-run schools in a public schools system; organizing to fight the largest national teacher education accreditation agency’s removal of sexual orientation and social justice from its accreditation standards; and protesting a state’s decision to hold a public meeting for teacher educators at a private Christian college that ‘condemns’ homosexuality – this article highlights how education is being re-formed through appeals to ‘private choice’ and at the same time select public issues are devalued by being called private and outside the bounds of normative ‘professional’ attention. This reframing, a hallmark of contemporary neoliberalism, has specific ramifications for queers, as analysis of these cases indicate. Using collaborative participatory research that attends to emotions, the authors argue that feelings are political and problematizing, and useful – they can trigger tactics. With the goal of offering examples of tactics tried, the paper archives evidence – original texts including pledges, letters, flyers, and emails – of queer organizing in education.