Queer of Color Literacies as Subversive Reading Practice: How Queer Students of Color Subvert Power in the Classroom

ABSTRACT Queer of color literacies name the ways LGBTQ students of color read the world textually, particular to their intersecting minoritizations through race, gender, and sexuality. Queer of color literacies challenge which reading skills are deemed intellectually worthy of inquiry in schools. Rather than accept a subordinate and negated position to a white cisheteropatriarchal norm, queer of color literacies subvert schools’ normative values. Using critical autoethnography, I reread critical incidents from my classroom teaching through queer of color scholarship to reimagine how teachers might sustain their students’ queer of color literacy practices, which include reading through play, disidentification, and textual shadows. Achieving equity in schools requires moving beyond traditional measures of excellence by further grounding excellence in queer of color students’ subversive analytic practices and subcultural assets.