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Can We Forget to Censor Silence? A Rejoinder to Applebaum

Barbara Applebaum develops a conceptual framework that makes clear the ways that speech acts reproduce power, especially as it serves to maintain the marginalisation of non-heterosexual people. However, Applebaum's focus on explicit "utterances" and "expressions of beliefs" is too narrow, leaving out silence, especially the silence around sexual orientation in school curricula. Silence is a speech act that serves the reproduction of power and promotes harm just as powerfully as the other speech acts Applebaum is willing to censor; and so she begs the question: can we forget to censor silence in the fight against heterosexism?