For me, the disinventing of named languages parallels the deconstruction of gender binaries. Both political projects seek to challenge the seeming objectivity of bounded categories by revealing the colonial logics that produced and continue to maintain them.

People saying “named languages are real because people describe themselves as using them” parallels people saying “the gender binary is real because people describe themselves as having a gender.” Both overlook the role of discourse as a historical force in producing normativity.

Categories do not preexist their naming. It is their naming that makes them real and then beacons us to make sense of our lives in relation to them. It is by leaning into those in-between spaces where we don’t quite fit that we can develop strategies of resistance.

Translanguaging as a political project is one way of leaning into the in-between spaces of named languages to bring attention to the ideological conceit that presupposed that any language practices could be completely bounded—the same conceit that produced gender binaries.

Queering language is not just about bringing attention to LGBTQ issues (something educational linguistics certainly needs to do more) but also about embracing linguistic non-normativity as a political stance that exposes linguistic normativity for the ideological project it is.