Faculty Scholars in Residence Talk: Ariana Steele, Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Language is part and parcel to the social world, and the social world births language. But what happens when we want our language to change the social world in specific, intentional ways? In this talk, I discuss the queer practice of nonbinary self-identification – calling oneself nonbinary or declaring that one uses they/them pronouns – and the social meanings that have emerged due in part to these declarations. While nonbinary discourses of self-identification seem to situate nonbinary identity within the said, conservative discourses dismiss nonbinary as only words. And yet, a widespread stereotype that has emerged over the past ten years has been the nonbinary person with “blue hair and pronouns.” I argue that both of these seemingly divergent discourses are troubled by misappropriations of gender constructivism while also leading to the construction of stereotypes from nonbinary identity work. Ultimately, I discuss the capabilities of language to develop queer meanings and the implications of relying on language to do so, particularly for trans and queer communities.