Bent as a ballet dancer: the possibilities for and limits of legitimate homomasculinity in school

There is now a significant body of work concerned with sexualities and schooling. This work has detailed the discrimination faced by gay, lesbian, and bisexual students and examined the functioning of homophobia and assumptions about the normalness of heterosexuality—or heteronormativity—in school contexts. (See, for instance, Butler 1996; Epstein and Johnson 1996; Kehily 2002; Martino and Pallotta-Chiarolli 2003; and Mills 1999.) Recent research has also called into question the victimized, pathologized, or denigrated positions that are often ascribed to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students to consider if it is possible and, if so, under what circumstances, to be not-heterosexual in school and not be victimized, pathologized, or denigrated. Indeed, this work has asked whether, and how, queer1 pleasure might be possible in school (Crowley and Rasmussen 2004).