What is Contact Zones

This chapter addresses the important role of moral respect, reciprocity, and dialogical interactions in order to create spaces that move beyond traditional heteronormative boundaries and engage with empathy across gender constructs. The author shows that awareness of heteronormative constructs is necessary to explore 21st-century solutions to such monumental issues as increased LGBTQI+ harassment, discrimination, bullying, and the erasure of LGBTQI+ rights in conjunction with economic, social, cultural, gender, civil, and political rights. The author utilizes a teacher research approach to highlight the successes of culturally responsive and sustaining teaching (CRST) practices with specific attention to intersectionality that respond to the concerns of LGBTQI+ youth as well as to students marginalized based on cultural, ethnic, racial, and economic backgrounds. The author concludes by arguing for teaching practices that draw on epistemological frameworks such as asymmetrical reciprocity and deep rhetorical listening to complicate and rethink normative stories about LGBTQI+ youth.