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Article published In: Who’s really normal? Language and sexuality in public space
Edited by Mie Hiramoto
[Journal of Language and Sexuality 4:2] 2015
► pp. 272–287

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Combating privilege, regulating language

The struggle to create and maintain university safe spaces

Published online: 18 September 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.4.2.05van
Despite recent claims that (public) gay spaces as we know them no longer need to exist (Aguirre-Livingston 2011), many queer scholars have shown that this is not historically the case (e.g. Manalansan 2003). In order to examine the issue of language and sexuality in public spaces, this paper uses ethnographic data collected among members of a university queer group in southern California to demonstrate role and regulation of ‘inclusive language’ — language that seeks to remain gender-neutral and non-exclusionary for personal identity labels — in the attempts to create what are known as safe spaces, both private and public. While a need for such spaces comes from a reaction to social privilege and normative expectations commonly found in public spaces, in many respects, the material reality of safe spaces would not be possible without regulating language used in this setting.
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2020. CDA/CDS and Its Interdisciplinary Connections. In Critical Discourse Analysis, Critical Discourse Studies and Beyond [Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, 26], ► pp. 247 ff. DOI logo
Bucholtz, Mary
2019. The public life of white affects. Journal of Sociolinguistics 23:5 ► pp. 485 ff. DOI logo
Wexelbaum, Rachel S.
2018. Do libraries save LGBT students?. Library Management 39:1/2 ► pp. 31 ff. DOI logo
Wexelbaum, Rachel
2016. The Library as Safe Space. In The Future of Library Space, ► pp. 37 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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