“You Make Me Erect!”: Queer Girls of Color Negotiating Heteronormative Leadership at an Urban All-Girls' Public School

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the concept of leadership endorsed by an urban all-girls' public school and how heteronormative ideas about female success were resisted by a group of the school's gay students through gender performances and named sexualities. The author argues that queer students are gender projects that the school uses to define and regulate appropriate behavior. Schools should define promoted goals like leadership in context with youth and urges broader consideration of how school employment conditions affect the safety of queer youth and teachers.