XM : A Schema for Encoding Queer Identities in Qualitative Research

Many projects in the digital humanities utilize eXtensible Markup Language (XML) in order to create scholarly editions or to transform text into data. Although XML has been used extensively under the valence of a heteronormative perspective, it also has potential as a queer methodology. This methodology paper presents a queer XML language called XM and demonstrates the possibilities of a “QueerOS” - a system that thinks in queer ways, with LGBTQ+ concerns in mind. As a case study of interview data drawn from a study of LGBTQ+ writing center tutors demonstrates how a non-heteronormative system for encoding texts opens possibilities to encode a queer discoursal identity. In doing so, XM allows identity to thrive instead of being lost to the heteronormative ecology it would otherwise exist in.