From a queer perspective I delight in the performativity of the border because I recognize the limits of nationalism. Despite the fact that a gay life style is still understood to be transgressive and oppositional to the politics of nationalism, I have used the silence around my gay to negotiate it and instead relied on my whiteness or professional identity. Both whiteness and professionalism in this case transcend nationalism. I also recognize that whiteness and professionalism are privileged social places and my freedom is a function of that privilege. I could, for example, not invoke my gay identity as a means of crossing the border.
Nationalism is deaf to gay identity.
The reason that I use this illustrative case though is to reveal a way of thinking which I believe is of use to geographers. For our purposes here, a queer perspective is enlightening because it assists in our thinking about teaching. Towards a Queer Geographic Pedagogy Like the international border 25 miles north of campus, my classroom is also a geographical site where performative identities are the currency and I use the above story to set the context for understanding my classroom dynamics. In this space the performances do not give me mobility, but rather the authority with which to teach and transfer knowledge and challenge the limits of my student's thinking or ignorance. I see the boundaries of my student's thinking in similar terms to the international border north of campus.