CFP: Cs Conference Queer Caucus 2027 Sponsored Panel

Dear all:

As the Queer Caucus standing panel co-chair, I am seeking emerging and existing scholars to partake in a sponsored panel for the 2027 CCCCs conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This panel will center around radically imagining an impossible future for higher education through a roundtable format.

As Ruby Mendoza and Erin M. Green (forthcoming) write, since 2025, 1,014 plus anti-transgender bills have been proposed and 278 of those focused on education. Unfortunately, states like Texas have already passed anti-LGBT bills that target higher education institutions (Hubrig et al., 2025). From these anti-LGBT proposed bills, transgender individuals are at a higher risk. And while there are still proposed anti-LBTQ+ bills being considered into law, our academic and public community cannot forget that these very institutions have been historically racist and violent places. From these intentional acts of erasure, the LGBTQ+ community is among the most vulnerable when considering the attacks on higher education through policy and law.

From this important context, this panel seeks participants who would engage with the theme around designing imaginative futures for LGBTQ+ communities in higher education. For instance, as you develop a proposal, consider these questions:

• If we treated anti-LGBTQ+ legislation not as a permanent ceiling, but as a dying gasp of a failing system, what new pedagogical structures would we begin building today?
• How do queer scholars create or sustain current underground networks of knowledge that bypass state-level censorship during this political time?
• How can we transform the classroom from a site of state surveillance into a sanctuary of radical hope, where queer and trans identities are protected rather than "tracked"?
• The call acknowledges that these institutions have been historically racist and violent. In an "impossible" future, how does the liberation of LGBTQ+ scholars dismantle the university’s foundations rather than just renovating its facade?
• How do we move beyond the "vulnerability" mentioned in the call toward a future of institutional sovereignty, where LGBTQ+ scholars dictate the terms of their own presence?

Those who are interested in presenting on the panel, please email Ruby Mendoza and submit a 250 word description of how you imagine contributing to the roundtable discussion by May 15th, 2026. Participants will be notified by May 20 about a decision.

Ruby Mendoza | r.mendoza3