Challenging the LGBTIQ+ borderlands: navigating Australian higher education landscapes through metaphor, lived experience and transformative spaces in academia Open Access

In this article, I examine how my identity as a queer academic in higher education has shaped my professional practice. I draw on my 17 years of lived experiences of teaching, research and service work in a regional Australian university. I explore the profound ways this core aspect of myself has affected my own journey, as well as my interactions with students and colleagues. While autoethnography provided the methodological foundation for articulating my experiences, I discovered that metaphor offered a crucial channel for conveying the emotional depth and nuance of my story. This allowed me to translate lived experience into shared understanding.

I first discuss the literature around the complexities of being a queer academic and the challenges faced by myself, my peers and students. I then detail the methodology of autoethnography, how it is useful for portraying lived experiences and how the use of metaphor enhances this description and helps make meaning from my experiences. The metaphor I based this work on was introduced by Anzaldua (1987) with the theoretical framework of the “borderlands”, which is useful when discussing a real or metaphorical “boundary”. The aim of this paper is to share insights gained along the way, reveal how I have shaped others’ perspectives and offer guidance for those navigating their own borderlands. What I have found challenges the traditional “us and them” mentality of social difference and proposes a significant transformation for understanding diversity in the context of an educational institution.

I use the acronym LGBTIQ+ meaning lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer and similar diversities represented by the +, and it is not intended to be limiting. Within this, I identify as queer, lesbian or gay.

The following literature review demonstrates the widespread negative experiences of LGBTIQ+ people, particularly in higher education settings, and highlights the problem of exclusion and discrimination. There is, however, a lack of detailed reports on how individuals can create change in this setting.

Internationally, there are extensive differences in laws and social attitudes affecting LGBTIQ+ people. For example, in Asia, homosexuality is illegal in some areas, or there are laws affecting rights in a same-sex relationship (Lim and Leong, 2023). Even in countries where there are greater rights, there is still significant bullying and discrimination, for example, in England (Hatton, 2023) and the Netherlands (Assink and Bos, 2024). In Australia, although marriage equality was achieved in 2017, the LGBTIQ+ population remains one of the most misunderstood in terms of knowledge of identities and understanding of issues and continues to face significant exclusion, discrimination and microaggressions (eSafety Commissioner, 2024). There is a specific concern here that due to persistent perceptions in countries which Australia looks to for social direction such as the United States, discrimination against LGBTIQ+ people is acceptable (Encarnacion, 2020), even though it contravenes antidiscrimination laws. On a local level, the recent Australian marriage equality debate and “misinformation and misrepresentation” by the “no” campaign had serious, negative impacts for same-sex attracted people (Anderson et al., 2020, p. 705).

While universities may be seen as progressive environments, the experiences of openly LGBTIQ+ staff at universities demonstrate marginalisation and a lack of representation and support within institutional spaces, something seen in Australia (Ferfolja et al., 2020), England (Tate and Glazzard, 2025) and the United States (Bilimoria and Stewart, 2009). Academics experience “everyday slights, harassment, intimidation, fears, exclusion and discrimination … including tokenism, stereotyping, increased visibility and scrutiny, isolation and boundary heightening, difficulties in the classroom … and constraints on choices of scholarship” (Bilimoria and Stewart, 2009, p. 86). There is also systematic discrimination affecting hiring decisions and advancement opportunities for LGBTIQ+ academics (Batten et al., 2018). The professional penalties extend into the classroom, with Orlov and Allen (2014) identifying “the potential for lower teaching evaluations” (p. 1026) as a direct consequence of non-heterosexual identity disclosure. They further explain how disclosure can be seen as “advocating for unconventional sexual behavior” deemed “inappropriate and unprofessional” for educators (p. 1026). Some academics fear it will affect their professional relationships with students from other cultures (Bennett et al., 2015) or non-traditional demographics (Mann, 2021). In Australia, there is still a climate of “heterosexism and cissexism … widespread on university campuses” (Ferfolja et al., 2020, p. 936) directly leading to only 55% of LGBTIQ+ people feeling accepted “a lot” or “always” at an educational institution (Hill et al., 2020, p. 37). Tate and Glazzard (2025) call for more research into the experiences of LGBTIQ+ individuals as a starting point to determine what might create an inclusive environment.

At the same time, students and colleagues look to us for guidance, for our knowledge and understanding of diversity. While this can feel tokenistic (Catalano, 2022), it can be beneficial to build self-efficacy and foster connection and allyship (Martinez et al., 2024). Teachers in the classroom can be role models for students (Morrow, 2012; Tate and Glazzard, 2025) to show it is acceptable to be “out” in the institution (Gortmaker and Brown, 2006) or as support (Pobo, 1999). Researchers can advocate for each other in the realms of academic freedom (Tate and Glazzard, 2025) or to empower colleagues to aspire to leadership positions (Lee, 2023). Sharp et al. (2022) argue that for meaningful inclusion efforts across the entire institution, there must be a reframing of “sex, gender and sexuality purely as personal experiences and private information” (p. 2401). This reconceptualisation breaks down the barriers and invites lived experience into professional practice.

Lived experience itself is a multifaceted conceptual framework, but a working definition has been given by Casey (2023): “lived experience is a first-person experience of the world that is meaningful and significant but, especially when momentous, not fully conceptualized by the forms of experience that are already present in culture” (p. 291). Lived experience has previously been researched (Casey, 2023), including in equity (Deem et al., 2022), mental health (Lee et al., 2023), race (Kitchen and Brown, 2022) and LGBTIQ+ studies (Duran et al., 2022; Hickman, 2024). What appears missing from LGBTIQ+ studies is how the analysis of the lived experiences fosters education for inclusion in higher education spaces.

Autoethnography is valuable when studying lived experience (Humphreys, 2005). In a higher education context, it can help in connecting and “integrating the academic and the personal selves” (Bochner, 1997, p. 4). There is a call for evocative research grounded in personal experience, and autoethnography “displays multiple layers of consciousness, connecting the personal to the cultural” (Ellis and Bochner, 2000, p. 739). Despite the risks of using autoethnography as a methodology while critiquing aspects of an institution (Merga, 2025), such as potential harm to institutional reputation or critique of management, when autoethnography is used sensitively on an individual level, there are distinct benefits to “make characteristics of a culture familiar for insiders and outsiders” (Ellis et al., 2010, p. 4), giving insights into lived experiences of diverse peoples.

In this study, I felt it important to demonstrate how my lived experience of balancing personal and professional aspects has pervaded my psyche and has had a monumental impact on my day-to-day practice. For anyone operating in higher education, it is imperative to be able to exist, survive, live and thrive within this space. It is necessary to evolve from self-preservation to self-fulfilment to shift the loci of focus from the self to others, to move from survivor to leader. To convey these “multiple layers”, in addition to autoethnography, I have borrowed a tool from creative writing, that of the metaphor.

Early work in the use of, and philosophy behind, metaphor was conducted by Lakoff and Johnson (1980), who challenged its status as simply a linguistic element used in poetry, saying “Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature” (p. 454). Those authors also discuss the more emotional space: “Metaphors allow us to conceptualize our emotions in more sharply defined terms and also to relate them to other concepts having to do with general well-being” (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, p. 477).

Schmitt (2005) analysed the use of metaphor to help in communication and understanding. They define a metaphor as “a word or phrase, strictly-speaking, [that] can be understood beyond the literal meaning in context of what is being said” (p. 385). Similarly, Ghazinoory and Aghaei (2024) describe metaphors as not simply a linguistic technique, but “metaphor pervades everyday life, not only in the realm of linguistics, but also in the realm of thought and action” (pp. 227–228). Metaphors can be used “to make perception more automatic and ease the energy required to understand” (Schmitt, 2005, p. 366). Since the experience of being LGBTIQ+ is often difficult for others to comprehend, I felt the use of metaphor was particularly poignant. Despite a few grievances with the use of metaphor in empirical research (Ghazinoory and Aghaei, 2024; Schmitt, 2005), the use of creative devices is well documented in autoethnography (Brewer and Lichtenstein, 1982; Hamilton et al., 2008; Mead, 2024; Slater et al., 2014; Sparkes, 2000), where the meaning-making is inherent in understanding lived experience.

A widely cited metaphor in scholarly work is the borderlands framework. I have learnt that there is no distinct line between personal and professional realms within education (Alsup, 2006). Rather than attempting to deal with a border, being a thin line with disparate features on each side and something that separates people, borderlands are expansive, indiscrete places with complex, overlapping landscapes. My experiences resonate with the metaphors that Anzaldua (1987) used in her original, autobiographical work, graphically depicting the complexity of my journey through my borderlands of higher education, complete with “the confluence of primordial images” (p. i). As Murphy (2016) explains, Anzaldua’s work uses “discursive myths, metaphors, symbols and emic linguistic knowledges … as a process of identity construction, deconstruction and reconstruction” (p. 1), and this is vital in the depiction of the individual experiences in the borderlands. Without “metaphor to reveal liminal spaces” (p. 2), it would not have been possible to truly understand the “author’s histo-socio-ethnic experiences … her multifarious use of language is important in that it contributes to the richness of the discourse” (p. 10).

The borderlands framework has been effective in giving a voice to marginalised groups. Clisby (2020) brings together global “researchers, academics, and activists from across the world to interrogate cutting edge intersections of ‘transgressive’ gender, sexualities, and identities in the margins and across borderlands” (p. 1). The borderlands framework has been used to explore LGBTIQ+ experiences in educational settings across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia (Camacho, 2016; Gately, 2010; Pallotta-Chiarolli, 2010; Russell, 2021; Ryan, 2012). One US study linked the framework to activism and scholarship for social justice (Naples, 2010). I endeavour to add to the work on social justice and fill the gap of how my interpretation of the framework has enabled me to extend the transformative power of education for inclusiveness.

The following section presents my journey, using metaphors from Anzaldua’s borderlands framework to make meaning. This is meaning for myself, meaning about my teaching, research and service practice; meaning for others to perceive my situation and journey and meaning for others to facilitate a successful borderlands journey at other institutions.

My borderlands experience as a queer academic in higher education involved a quest to clarify my identity. I commenced at my current institution as a professional staff member in student support in 2008. Although not part of my portfolio when I began, I chose to take on the additional task of implementing and coordinating the new, institution-wide ally program for LGBTIQ+ support and diversity training. This was my first foray into the overlap of a deeply personal part of myself and my professional duties. Due to organisational restructure three years later, I switched to an academic role. I had a choice: the ally program was either lost from the university, or it came with me, albeit unofficially. I could have let go of the angst of constantly trying to work out the boundary between personal and professional and associated personal depletion, or I could use what I had learnt to become stronger and continue. I did the latter, and the below details my experiences.

The following sub-sections reflect my journey. I quickly recognised that my identity was “alien”, an outsider. However, there can be a risk of “preoccupations with the inner life of the Self, and with the struggle of that Self amidst adversity and violation” (Anzaldua, 1987). Exploring more widely, I discovered the attitudes of those around me. There was a distinct “fear” of anything or anyone different, and I was not to be trusted. Innately I wanted to “hide” away and give up my journey. But I was simultaneously “restless”; my “shadow-beast” would not stay still. I had a fight in me, but did not necessarily want a “battle”. I needed to keep going, but something had to change. I had to make the crossing, “traverse” the land.

When I first began the ally program, I struggled with the dilemma to be open or to live in secret. Attempting to teach people definitions of LGBTIQ+ terms and also feeling like I was teaching about myself was an uncomfortable situation. I felt incredibly uneasy trying to balance my new role with my innermost feelings of low self-worth:

As the ally program gained in momentum, I became well-known for my advocacy around LGBTIQ+ diversity, and I chose not to hide. It was difficult, as I had moved into an academic position, and the ally work felt at odds with my role teaching mathematics. I was “living on borders and in margins, keeping intact [my] shifting and multiple identity and integrity, [it was] like trying to swim in a new element, an ‘alien’ element” (Anzaldua, 1987, p. i).

Over the last 15 years, however, the ally work has become part of my institutional identity and has had a positive impact on the experiences of students and other staff alike. Did I ever lose the feeling of being an alien? People might think so, as I exude confidence, but especially in the first few months of 2025, with certain facets of global and local leaders wanting to cancel diversity initiatives and minority rights, “the ‘alien’ element has become familiar – never comfortable, not with society’s clamor to uphold the old, to rejoin the flock, to go with the herd. No, not comfortable but home” (Anzaldua, 1987, p. i).

I will always feel alien. The internalised consequences of a life lived as an alien are not easily overcome. I am still troubled by what I might face from a world that does not understand me and often hates me, because in the borderlands:

I know that the feeling of being alien also impacts the work environment for my LGBTIQ+ colleagues and the ability of students to have a positive study environment. Being alien is innate; it will never go away and cannot be “fixed” with therapy or medication. It requires adaptation of approach, both for me and from others.

As in many areas of the world, including regional Australia, there is a fear of difference with respect to LGBTIQ+ identity and hence a fear of me – well, at least a fear of what my presence might mean:

An outwardly queer person is not particularly welcomed in higher education, especially in more conservative areas such as regional Australia (Burge, 2022; Formosa, 2010). Anzaldua (1987) also recognised this in the United States: “In a New England college where I taught, the presence of a few lesbians threw the more conservative heterosexual students and faculty into a panic” (pp. 19–20).

In understanding my own experience, I acknowledge the generational influences of conservative “institutionalized religion … [that] has strict taboos against this kind of inner knowledge. It fears what Jung calls the Shadow, the unsavory aspects of ourselves” (Anzaldua, 1987, p. 37). Time and again, there is a divide between queer identity and religion, creating a particularly dark and dangerous borderland. Here in regional Australia (Russell, 2021), as in southern parts of the United States, there exists a white-Anglo majority population where certain mainstream “religions encourage fear and distrust of life and of the body … they encourage us to kill off parts of ourselves” (Anzaldua, 1987, p. 37).

This distrust of the body seems to be more profound when concerning queer folk, as if we are more sexualised and too much so for the (otherwise decent and innocent) classroom environment. The fear of this misheld belief can affect my ability to remain focussed on teaching (Orlov and Allen, 2014) and hence the success of students. What is it about us queer people that would make us any different from heterosexual people? Are we slippery, slimy creatures because we love someone other than the “opposite” gender?

I have learnt how to deal with these issues, as Anzaldua was able to, by reclaiming her “serpent” identity: “and someone in me takes matters into our own hands, and eventually, takes dominion over serpents … Mine. Ours. Not the heterosexual white man’s or the colored man’s or the state’s or the culture’s or the religion’s or the parents’ – just ours, mine” (Anzaldua, 1987, p. 51). Dealing with the issues would be difficult in any context, but especially in traditionally patriarchal higher education institutions (Preston and Hoffman, 2015). Was I ready to do that? Or did I still want to just run away?

At many times over the 15 years of running the ally program, I have wanted to give up. I have had more than one rejection. I understand that it is a natural part of academic life, but working in this space is so deeply personal, as it affects me to the core, and it is difficult to remain pragmatic:

As catastrophic as that sounds, that is sometimes how I feel. I feel deflated. I see others doing their work, and I perceive it as less personal – perhaps they are looking at the mathematics curriculum, for example. I wonder if I should give up this quest due to the personal toll, wall in my demons for good and move to something less personal and also less soul-destroying. I ask if this is too much for me. It is something I cannot ignore, and I must treat it mindfully.

Each time I saw or heard about an instance of bullying, discrimination or hatred, something stirred inside me. I tried to ignore it, because it was so horrendous, but that was impossible:

When I experienced pain, try as I might, I was unable to remain hidden. I was constantly reminded that others were going through a similar struggle. I could not stand by while others were being victimised, discriminated against or excluded. “The clash of voices results in mental and emotional states of perplexity. Internal strife results in insecurity and indecisiveness. The mestiza’s dual or multiple personality is plagued by psychic restlessness” (Anzaldua, 1987, p. 77). I was, and always will be, both the victim and the educator at the same time. This is a restless position indeed. The borderlands are “not a comfortable territory to live in, this place of contradictions” (Anzaldua, 1987, p. i).

Over time, it became more than something I could simply eradicate and move on. I have found myself becoming defensive, or even more than that, becoming aggressive. This feeling welled up inside of me, both powerful and a little unwieldy, and I was uncertain if it was productive or counterproductive – crossing the boundary of both, perhaps:

Although I was a little bit fearful of my shadow-beast, it was a little bit useful too. It gave me courage. One example is when I found out another staff member was being misgendered. There was a fire in my belly to do something about it, but as the “offender” was someone highly respected, it took a lot of courage to respond, and I can attribute finding that courage to my shadow-beast. However, I had to ensure that my shadow-beast did not rage out of control, to make myself “conscious of the shadow-beast, stare at the … lust for power and destruction we see in its face, discern among its features the undershadow that the reigning order of heterosexual males project on our Beast” (Anzaldua, 1987, p. 20) and realise that was not my entire identity. I did not want to be known as aggressive, but I was still vexed.

At times, I have felt like advocacy in the LGBTIQ+ space has been, and still is, an incredible fight. It has felt like “hatred had finally fomented into an all-out war” (Anzaldua, 1987, p. 8). The arena is full of “vigilante groups” (p. 8). The trouble is that in the “warzone [the] convergence has created a shock culture, a border culture, a third country, a closed country” (p. 11). In such a “closed” place, there is no negotiation. There may be times when “battle” is necessary, such as the 1969 Stonewall riots (Field, 2018) or the 1978 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras (Marsh and Galbraith, 1995). I certainly had my own shadow-beast clamouring to be released, and I was aware of anger in others (Mann, 2022). But was “battle” and fighting going to be useful?

My own, personal battles have been difficult. One example was hearing a student use the word “fag” and having to counter that immediately, despite the acid rising in my throat and the turmoil of my thoughts. Another example was in a committee meeting, a staff member being adamant there had to be gendered bathrooms “for the safety of our female students”. I was prepared and had my arguments ready to go, but since both our swords were raised, I do wonder if it was productive. I also wondered which side the university management would take. Were they listening to whoever was winning the battle? Or were they listening to the rationale? In a battleground, there is no possibility of education and no opportunity for empathy. We need to meet in the middle and find a common ground that will help everyone, staff and students, LGBTIQ+ or not, to not feel they must fight battles.

My entire attitude to LGBTIQ+ advocacy, inclusion, education and training has evolved. This required me to stop my own internal battle and realise that fighting with myself or others is not constructive. I had found that “there in front of us is the crossroads and choice: to feel a victim where someone else is in control … or to feel strong, and, for the most part, in control” (Anzaldua, 1987, p. 21). To forfeit control can lead to anger and the battle rage unrestrained. To be strong, however, was not to silence my shadow-beast, not eradicate the anger, but to negotiate a more rational battle. I had to make the choice to metaphorically “traverse” the borderlands, where the role of anger became simply but unapologetically to maintain momentum. It was a difficult step to take, as at that point I still did not have institutional investment in the ally program. “There is no one who will feed the yearning. Face it. You will have to do it yourself. And all around you a vast terrain. Alone” (Anzaldua, 1987, p. 165). For 15 years, I had resigned myself to this fact.

The journey for me involved dealing with the negative aspects of the borderlands. Difficult as it was, I had to keep going:

My persistence has resulted in a new story for myself, new values for my practice and new connections across the institution.

My expedition through the borderlands helped me realise a new, and better, reality. I can be both living in the borderlands and also a guiding light – for staff and students. This is embodied in everything I do in my higher education, LGBTIQ+ space. When it comes to equity issues, I feel it is essential to act upon injustices, as it will benefit others, especially students who may have limited agency in this context due to systemic imbalances. Therefore, I have created an approach where I am not fighting with others; instead, I am finding common ground, exercising patience and attempting not to let anger become unrestrained. Taking control means using a non-combative approach that enhances education, creates connection and true understanding and transforms the landscape.

It may have been my years of experience in teaching or just my innate, logical nature, but I was able to restrain myself from battle. I may even have made friends with my shadow-beast. When I need to, however, I can still show my shadow-beast’s “fangs barred and hissing” (p. 20), but only when truly necessary and still maintaining a short leash. While my colleagues cannot know the depth of my experience, I appreciate their support in coming along to events, doing the ally training and enacting the learned behaviours in the workplace or proactively looking to change systems to use preferred names and have more gender fields. I feel it is vital that we really listen to each other’s stories with empathy, and I thank my colleagues for listening to mine. After all, “the struggle has always been inner … nothing happens in the ‘real’ world unless it first happens in the images in our heads” (Anzaldua, 1987, p. 87).

Over time, have I become comfortable enough to teach others about the borderlands, about how to survive, prosper and guide others. As with Anzaldua, I too have an “almost instinctive urge to communicate, to speak, to write about life on the borders, life in the shadows” (p. i). I now thrive here, and, because of my dedication to incorporating borderlands framework into the ally training, others also thrive.

Within my institution, my change in approach from “battle” to “journey” has led to systemic change. Educating others and creating a chain reaction of acceptance and understanding has resulted in the ally program once again, after 11 years of being lost in the borderlands, being reinstated in the institutional structure with workload and operational budget. It has been my direct influence on the way our university handles diversity that has led to this change. I have received a multitude of feedback from students, staff and senior management that what I do really does change lives.

My learnings from my journey for others in navigating borderlands can be summarised accordingly:

1. I acknowledge that people might be having a hard time and feeling “alien”, which can lead to low self-esteem, withdrawal or even over-compensation and aggression. I refrain from playing this down.

2. I recognise the fear from the “mainstream” population, understand why it exists and walk in their shoes. I ask them questions and find out their background.

3. I try to draw people out of the shadows and allow a safe space for them to express their insecurities. I have come to understand the reason both sides are “hiding” and not engaging.

4. I do not engage in battle – this often begins with my inner battle to remain calm and moves to discussions with others. I have realised that contradiction leads to fighting; empathy leads to common ground.

5. I tell myself to be brave and continue the journey. I tell others about it, and we travel together. I both guide and am guided.

My journey through queer borderlands in an institutional setting can offer advice to create a more inclusive learning environment for students and a better work environment for staff. I could not simply be a bystander witnessing discrimination or exclusion. It is possible to create conditions where difference is not merely tolerated but is embraced and inclusion is enhanced. This cultural shift away from fear and toward acceptance will enable progress. However, to date, despite some progress in policies and systems, real progress for inclusion in universities has been slow. For example, universities are still quite uncomfortable spaces for trans people (Sterk, 2025), as well as for students with non-white cultural intersectionality (Nakhid et al., 2025). In addition, as a queer researcher, there is still pressure to “appear legitimate according to normative research standards” (Slovin and Stiegler, 2026, p. 78).

The borderlands demand a “shift out of habitual formations; from convergent thinking … to divergent thinking, characterized by movement away from set patterns and goals and toward a more whole perspective, one that includes rather than excludes” (Anzaldua, 1987, p. 79). Sometimes we lead the way; sometimes we stumble and require others to illuminate our path. Stagnation, however, would leave us isolated from potential support networks and more vulnerable to opposition. Instead, through empathetic engagement, we can initiate dialogue, even with perceived adversaries. While repeatedly confronting these challenges exacts a personal toll, we must consciously learn from our lived experiences and choose educational responses as a way forward. This approach, though perhaps the most demanding, ultimately offers the greatest reward.