In Harriet Malionwitz article, "Queer Texts, Queer Contexts," she explains how gay and lesbian was not known in the classroom as early as we may think.  Many teachers did not teach upon this, or let students write about it in essays, research papers, etc.  It has come to the realization that sexual orientation whether welcomed or not, is in the classrooms.  It is there, because it is part of some student's identity.  Harriet herself, is a lesbian teacher, who just came out to her students maybe four years before publishing her article.  She talks about having some students who still have the same fear that she shared about coming out about being gay or lesbian.  She has talked about giving students gay related essays, and some of the rude laughs that at least comes from one of the students who are not as familiar with how widely ranged the gay community has become.  Some people in their writing try to categorize what it means to be lesbian or gay in their writings, which is not always accurate by calling this a person's personal identity.  This is still a growing topic in human society, and will keep growing as time goes on.  It has grown so much over the past few years, and is started to become accepted by all different states in the U.S. 

COMPARE
     I would compare Harriet's article to Elizabeth Wardle's article.  I would compare the two, because they both discuss the discourse communities.  Harriet talks about the discourse community of being gay or lesbian in a classroom.  Elizabeth Wardle uses Alan as an example in her discourse community.  He can not become a part of the community he wants to become a part of, because he won't accept the things around him.  This could come into comparison with Harriet's article on how some students can not become part of the discourse community of the classroom, because they do not accept the gay/lesbian community. 


     I personally found this article very interesting.  It is one of my favorites I have read so far this year.  I have a cousin who is gay.  He has been gay for as long as he remembers, even though he was a young child and did not like other men, he always leaned more towards the girly ways of things.  I wish it was more accepted in every classroom, and there was not that 'one kid in the classroom laughing and making jokes,' just because they don't understand or relate to the gay community.  I also, found this article interesting, because we are learning more about the gay community in my anthropology class.  We are learning about the heterosexual (liking the opposite sex), homosexual (liking the same sex), and bisexual ( liking both sexes).  We have been talking about this, and going more in depth for the past two weeks.  We had researched a specific court case involving the state of California, in a battle to see if same sex marriage could be legalized.  There were many issues involving this case, that I had never understood until doing my project on it.  All in all, the state of California was over-ruled, and now same sex marriage is legal in that state.  Hopefully, it will become legal in the rest of the states in the U.S. that have not yet accepted this issue.