Composition classrooms and writing centers are spaces where negotiation of academic, social, cultural, and political identities are ubiquitous, yet research has not produced adequate theory and practice to help tutors and writers navigate identity production and its politics. This article seeks to begin conversations that might lead to better awareness of the interplay of identity, discursive practice, and composition, most specifically in the writing center. Alongside the need for talk about identity politics (and perhaps as a consequence of its absence) is the need to include the perspective of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender studies (or what some have come to call "queer theory"). This intellectual work foregrounds identity and the experiences of constructing and assuming codes of self, community, and nationality for autonomy and pride. On one level, this article calls attention to the ways that queer theory can inform what people do in writing centers, but on another level, it cautions against an identity politics that positions any epistemology as offering a totalizing way of knowing. (Contains 1 note.)