Post for Monday, the 28th of September

Because we spent last Monday talking about particular relationships, we wanted this time to focus on individual characters. For your comment, please focus on a singular person You can choose someone you find most interesting, someone you most identify with, or maybe someone you strongly dislike. Once you've settled on someone, answer this question in your post: What is queer about this character?

Please consider both the literal and metaphorical ways you can answer this question. For instance, it's obvious that characters like Louis and Prior might be identified as queer because of their sexuality, but in what other ways do they exceed -- somehow -- the bounds of the conventional ways of living? Do they transcend gender stereotypes? Do they resist heterosexist oppression? Is there something in how they dress, speak, or interact with others? Be creative and take us to a specific place in our reading to support your response! Maybe think about including what Jagose would say of your character if you find it particularly relevant.

See you all on Monday!

A+G

Response for Monday, September 21: Millennium Approaches

After you finish the first part of Angels in America for class on Monday, I'd like you take time to reflect on the question of relationships in this play.  Which relationship do find the most interesting, vexing, compelling, or perhaps even inexplicable?  In your comment to this post, I'd like you to explore this relationship and the two main characters who comprise it.  Share with the rest of us what sense you're making of these characters, their relationship, the conflict or attraction that might be said to exist between them, and why you think it's significant.  Ultimately, I'd be curious to see how you would relate this relationship back to the bigger questions this play raises about HIV/AIDS, sexuality, justice, or any other larger theme you seeing being essential to understanding this play.

Aim for a substantial post of at least 250 words.  I look forward to reading what you write.

Growing Into Power

Having had a very limited understanding of “queerness” and queer theory before opening up Jagose’s Queer Theory book and joining this class, I can only hope to understand the dilemma behind the term “queer” through my own experiences in marginalization. Within many movements for liberation and social recognition there has been an understanding that existing language that was imposed on marginalized communities can be limiting and used as a tool to ensure the invisibility of the community. During the Chicano movement activist and youth organizers resisted the term “Hispanic” as imposed by the US census by adopting the term Chicano. The reason why I draw on similarity among the creation of this term is because Chicano was a term that was appropriated in resistance to oppressive structures by not allowing structures of power to normalize their identity and erase a history in oppression just as the term queer is attempting to do. Though critiques of elitism and privilege are also a part of the history of the term Chicano. 


The imposition of gendered binaries has been limiting and oppressive in understanding our shared lived experiences on this world. These binaries have excluded and erased individuals and communities in our past and our existing present. In Maggie Nelsons book The Argonauts she shares her partners experience in exclusion, “I will never feel as free as you do, I will never feel as at home in the world, I will never feel as at home in my own skin.” For those who do not securely fit into either side of the gendered norms it may seem as if the “world” was not made for them. Those whose physical body parts do not align with the predetermined standard that have been imposed by those in power pose a threat to maintaining the notion that gendered spaces are essential to the order of our society.

The gender binary is also limiting in understanding our desires and attractions to others. In attempting to define homosexuality Jagose states, “While there is a certain population of men and women who may be described more or less unproblematically as homosexual, a number of ambiguous circumstances cast doubt on the precise delimitations of homosexuality as a descriptive category.” In understanding the laws of attraction, it can be very limiting to think only within the confines of gender. In her blog Elizabeth Sherman relates to author Maggie Nelson’s sentiment that “’whatever sameness’ she encounters in her relationships with women is not that of gender.” By imposing the categorization of sexuality as either homosexual or heterosexual, individuals are met with pressure to fit rigidly within the confines of that identity. Nelson describes her attraction as that of “the shared, crushing understanding of what it means to live in a patriarchy.” Terms such as homosexual and heterosexual are limiting because they allow us to understand and explore our desires only within the confines of gendered bodies.

While organizing our society around gender binaries has become common place and is rarely questioned, post-structuralist and queer activist/theorist assert that the gender binary is far from the “natural” order of the world. In Jagose’s Queer Theory structural linguist, Ferdanand de Saussure, in 1906-11 challenges us to question the ways in which language has affected “our notions of a private, personal and interior self.” Saussure is arguing that our self-identity is continuously influenced by language.

Queer writer, Hel Gebreamlak, describes her experience in learning gender identity, “I learned masculinity last. I say learned, not because it isn’t who I truly am, but because no gender expression or identity, no matter how normative or queer it is, is expressed without the world’s interpretation in mind.”  Gebreamlak recognizes that while masculinity and femininity are learned expressions of identity, the expression of “queer” is also influenced by the worlds interpretation of the world even if it a term that attempts to escape the limits of language,

Jagose defends the claim that queer identity is not grounded in one specific definition and therefore is “stretching the boundaries of identity categories”. She also goes on to express that this ambiguity has caused much unrest among the LGBTQ community. The gay and lesbian community have expressed concern over the ambiguity of the term queer and what that means for their communities. Gay activist Stephen Jones expresses his reluctance in identifying with the term due to the fact that he is “not confident that we yet have a common understanding of queer politics and culture.” Ambiguity may not always be most desirable especially when your community is trying to lead a movement against powerful structures that have historically oppressed them.

Comparing to my own struggles with marginalization and oppression, it seems to me that members of the LGBTQ community are fearful of a term that has the power to once again erase their struggle. “Stretching the boundaries of identity categories,” as Jagose puts it, does not sound so appealing when there are those who have faced real struggles with marginalization and social rejection. If the term continues to expand to be inclusive of all, even those who have held power and privilege in respect to gendered and sexual identity, those who have faced real struggles in oppression risk being erased even within their own movement.

Despite this anxiety it seems to me that in recent years there has been a shift in the LGBTQ community to be more comfortable with the political and social potential of the term queer. Gebreamlak expresses optimism in the adaptable nature of the term, she says, “The queer community’s image will change to show it isn’t a white, Western fad. But image, as an expositive tool, will never stop mattering. It will only move.” Gebreamlak is confident that the term queer is actively moving to take power away from the Western imperial powers that she says introduced the oppressive structure of gendered binaries. While she acknowledges that the image of queerness is ambiguous and changing, she is confident that it is moving into a place of power to obstruct structures of oppression and to liberate those who deserve it the most. 

Question or Passage for Wednesday, September 16, 2015

After reading the first act of Angels in America, "Bad News," please post a question about the reading that you'd like us to discuss in class tomorrow. Or, if you prefer, post a brief passage you'd like us to explore together.  Thanks!

Questions of Difficulty

During the inaugural lesson of my course on Literary Theory, my professor passed out a list of critical theories she hoped we would come to master. “Let’s get interactive!” she cried, bouncing on the same pair of heels she has worn to every single class since. They’re wedges. She pointed at the girl to my left, “You’ll represent New Criticism.” She looked across the room at another face. “You be Structuralism.” This continued… Post-Structuralism, Post-Modernism, Psychoanalytic Theory....

“Gabe,” she goes, eventually. “Why don’t you represent Queer Theory?” Why don’t I?

Maybe it’s because I am so immersed in this sort of atmosphere, where everything I encounter appears to be shaded by colors of justice and injustice, that I so am primed to notice moments like these. I stepped to the front of the class and wondered: Did she give me this role on purpose? What would that mean if she had, and what would it mean if she hadn’t? I thought maybe it would be useful to ask, but I couldn’t ask in the middle of a lesson, and I worried that bringing it up later would send the message I was angry, which I wasn’t. I couldn’t email her, because my tone could be lost, and I couldn’t approach her face to face, because I have always had a problem with being looked at and feeling seen. So! I did what I normally do with things that make me uncomfortable: I ignored it.

I ignored my sexuality for a very long time as well. This is curious, knowing now that I can hold a bit of a snobbish attitude over people who make deliberate choices not to think about things. I’m always like, “Stop being lazy! Just think!” And, when you spend your whole life being you, it hardly makes sense to never think of who you are and how you think of yourself.

Annamarie Jagose references psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan when she writes “identity is an effect of identification with and against others: being ongoing, and always incomplete, it is a process rather than a property.” My mind developed in an environment where there were hardly any others, where everyone was just like their neighbor. Everyone I knew was white and Conservative, and they worked on farms and went to church every Sunday. Any comparison against others seemed to be much more important, more massive, more hefty, then, and the weight of my growing inclinations toward other boys came in a bucket with no handles. The threat of what it meant to identify as something other than straight, to be gay or queer, was too emotionally, intellectually, and physically demanding for me to bear. I denied, I repressed, I ignored, I forced myself – often unconsciously – into a closet whose dimensions could not accommodate me. For a while, I was content in there.

Now, I grow anxious whenever people act in a way that appears to circumvent my own agency and ownership of the situation. I know when my professor asked me to act out the part of Queer Theory in a makeshift literary production that she was not being malicious. Her intentions, if she even had them, were probably to put me in a comfortable, gay chair that she knows I’ve sat in before. She knows I am studying Women and Gender, she knows that I consider myself an advocate for intersectional feminism and the struggle against patriarchy, she knows that I am concerned with deep questions of justice and injustice in the world. And she knows that I will, no matter what, be gravitating toward Queer Theory when the time comes that we learn about it because I recognize the importance of being critical about gender and sexuality in life and in literature. 

Still, though, I was conditioned from a very early age to recognize the hazards of assuming roles assigned to you, roles you don’t choose voluntarily, and my assumption of Queer Theory’s identity for a few minutes made me uncomfortable. Though I often identify as queer, as gay, as something not straight, and very recently I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions about gender identity and my maleness, I cannot get past this uncomfortability that comes with prescription.

I can say queer, and you can call me queer thereafter, and that’s okay. But when you call me queer first, before I’ve made my own moves, it seems insincere, accusatory, maybe even a smidge judgmental. I know the history of the word queer is complex, that it has been leveraged against entire communities in efforts to disenfranchise, to subjugate, to ridicule and disempower. Even in a collegiate classroom, where I give everyone the benefit of the doubt in assuming they’re decent human beings with decent beliefs, the opportunity to feel scrutiny exists and pervades my thinking about how I am existing. This is really difficult.

But if there’s anything I know for certain, it’s this: when something is difficult, it is worth your attention. It is worth your time, your wondering, your reflection. For now, I might identify as queer, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see the entirety of the word’s textures. If anything, it makes them all the more visible.

The Dilemma with Using Queer

How can I, as a white cisgender young woman, possibly be able to answer the question whether or not the use of the term queer is an appropriate and powerful identifier for the LGBT community and their fight for justice?

In my humble opinion, well actually not-so humble opinion, I cannot.

I cannot because I come from a powered and privileged place where I can use the term queer to categorize the other, and to be quite honest that is absolutely not something that I want to do or support.

But, I can explain the difficulty I have with the word queer. Its use is very widespread; it is used by those members of the LGBTQ community who have reclaimed it to both empower and identify, it is used by educated individuals to better understand what LGBTQ is in a society that focuses only on a binary system, and it is often used wrongfully by those in positions of power to categorize the other creating powerful societal tensions that are reaching a breaking point in the current sphere of gender and sexuality.

The difficulty for me in answering this question is, as I reflected on before, that I come from a background of privilege in my whiteness and straightness and my education has allowed me to identify my own opinions on the use and importance of the term queer. However, I believe it is safe to say that a rather large populous of the United States of America has not grappled with the term queer, and if they have, it has been used possibly incorrectly or perhaps even as an insult. So, queer tends to be more exclusive than inclusive.

Now, this idea might be challenging as one of the essential uses of the word queer has been as a so-called umbrella term in which all non-conforming people to societal binaries of sex and gender can be located. According to queer theorist Annamarie Jagose, “queer posits a commonality between people which does not disallow their fundamental difference” (112). This idea then surrounds the word queer that there is an inherent sameness in those who identify with it yet their differences are still valuable. Understanding this, queer when used in this manner is positive and people who find themselves rejecting the system of identity that society has placed on them can use it to ultimately choose to identify with. This can be empowering and foster a place of justice.

However, I argue that this ideal queer definition is not the definition of queer that enough individuals have access to in society today for it to be inclusive. Therefore, it is wrongfully exclusive. One problem I have is that queer is a movement that is predominately headed and represented by white men. It can be seen as a way of, “furthering the masculinist agenda” (117). This then leaves the voice of women out, but perhaps even more importantly, it also does not encompass individuals that choose NOT to identify within the binaries of gender. Even more frustrating, people of color also have a lack of representation in queer theory. Is this not one of the main components of this ideal queer definition?

Other individuals and members of the LGBTQ community have discussed the problem with queer exclusivity and elitism. In an online magazine I Don’t Do Boxes, Daniel Copulsky writes an essay on, “The Queer Umbrella”. He explains, “Queer is an identity that validates my lived experience… I also feel threatened by the possibility that the word could change too…But there is something problematic about wanting a word to grow just inclusive enough for myself and then stop without letting others in as well." This is an example of how people who identify as queer can even be exclusive to other members of the community. Queer has changed meaning multiple times in society. First it was a harmful slur, then it was reclaimed and made positive, yet it still can be used by the wrong individual in the wrong way, and it does not include all the people it is theoretically is supposed to. With this instability the word is not readily available to be properly used in its ideal context. Furthermore, it is exclusive because individuals who do not know about this discourse around it and who do not discuss these issues cannot appropriately use it either.

So, this is the problem that I have with the term queer and frankly, although it has its positives, there is still much work to be done in tweezing out its proper use and definition.

My final example that I want to leave with you comes from a poem. In a TEDTalk by Lee Mokobe, he performs a powerful slam poem about what it feels like to be transgender. In one line he powerfully testifies, “No one ever thinks us as human because we are more ghost than flesh, because people fear my gender expression is a trick, that it exists to be perverse… that my body is a feast for their eyes and hands and once they have fed off my queer, they’ll regurgitate the parts they don’t like."

Here, queer is what is used by those with power. I could use it as a white cisgender young woman to categorize Mokobe and hold him separate from myself. I have the power to take in the parts of him that I like, make a spectacle of him to society, and then reject everything else about him that I do not because of my straightness and my whiteness. How is that even slightly just?

This is the problem I have with the term queer.

This is why I will not use the term queer.


References
Copulsky, Daniel. “The Queer Umbrella.” I Don’t Do Boxes. I Don’t Do Boxes Mag., Web. 12 Sep. 2015.


Jagose, Annamarie. Queer Theory: An Introduction. New York: New York UP, 1996. Print.

Mokobe, Lee. “Lee Mokobe: A Powerful Poem About What it Feels Like to be Transgender.” Online video clip. TED. TED Conferences, LLC, May 2015. Web. 12 Sep. 2015.

Links

Daniel Copulsky's Essay
Lee Mokobe's Ted Talk

To Identify or To Not Identify

As we sit any where in the world and watch people go by we label them intentionally or not. As we begin a new class and meet new people we label them; they are gay you can hear in their voice, she is preppy you can see it by her clothes, he is shy because he is so quiet. We judge them based on how they walk, talk, dress and look. So many labels for a person we will never know or will barely know but we makes these assumptions without really ever getting know people and if we do our ideas of that person are either confirmed or shattered. 

But why do we have this need to make assumptions about people? 

Why do we feel the need to label them?  

I label myself as a bisexual, feminist who is pro-life. I am shy, a nerd, I fit into many fandoms, and I am a woman. Labels I feel that fit me. Therefore, I feel we have a need to label because we try to label ourselves (like I did above), if we able to label others then we can connect to them or distance our selves from them because they are different. It gives us the ability to connect or disconnect. One label that is very interesting and has been used badly in the past (sometimes present) but I think in the right context can be empowering is Queer.

Queer in the past has been used as an ugly hateful word to tear people down for being different but are we not all different? No two people are the same, we can connect because we label our selves the same the same but we cannot be the same as that person because our labels will vary. I find that the label of Queer to be an umbrella term, "Given the extent of its commitment to denaturalization, queer itself can have neither a foundational logic nor a consistent set of characteristics" (96). By identifying as Queer and it being a term that is trying to break the binary system, anyone can use it. It breaks that naturalized terms we use to identify one another; straight, gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, etc.  When a person says they are queer we usually think they are saying they are gay but in recent years they could be saying that they identify as gender fluid or that they will not conform to what other sees them as because they do not fit the terms we use. They do not feel fully any one term so they will say they are queer.  It gives a person that identifies as queer a justice that cannot be given when labeling with other terms. In saying a person is straight it gives the illusion that they can only be attracted to the opposite sex but what if they are attracted to the same sex at different points in their lives. They aren't gay and they aren't straight but they can be queer. 

The only problem with using this term in today’s society is that it has been used in negative way for so long can it be reclaimed? 

I think it can because as I went to look up the definition and uses of it in a negative light the Urban dictionary gave it the definition of, "Originally pejorative for gay, now being reclaimed by some gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered persons as a self-affirming umbrella term".  It is already being reclaimed and giving restorative justice to those who want to be self affirmed in their label and no longer torn down by those who would use it to hurt them. Therefore, I think it is a term that can be used in this society to mean much more than it seems. It can mean that I don't fit into a binary that society has given me I fit into this term of queer because it has no consistent set of characteristics and is always changing just like I am. 

I am different, I am Queer. That is the real meaning of queer and how it should be used.

The Right Direction

To Queer or Not to Queer?

After reading Annemarie Jagose’s Queer Theory: An Introduction and reading articles online and listening to the discussion taking place in Dr. Bateman’s class, to attempt to answer Should we embrace the term “queer” or not?  Is a very complicated and difficult question to answer. Before I took this class I did not even know how many different definitions there are for the word “queer”. I simply thought it could mean weird or different or was just an insult thrown around. I now know, queer can also be a term of identification that LGBT people use. Some use it to not choose a specific label[1]. To say the least, many people feel differently about the word queer.

On pages 105-106 in Queer Theory Sedgwick claims, “…If queer is a politically potent term, which it is, that’s because, far from being capable of being detached from the childhood source of shame, it cleaves to that scene as a near inexhaustible source of transformational energy.” I would agree with Sedgwick twice. First I would agree that the word has a terribly destructive past and many people still see the word for what it was. I also agree on the account of the words potential and how it has such capability to transform into a productive and positive meaning to the word. On page 109 in Queer Theory Jagose states, “This installation of queer identity as something fixed, stable and known- within the template of national identity does not fulfill the radically denaturalizing potential of queer.” I would also agree with Jagose that to define this word to such a fixed meaning would destroy the true power of the word queer. The word has multiple definitions and creates the perfect environment for the re-introduction of the word in a new light but without losing sight of its other meanings. For example the ‘N’ word was first used to harass, damage, and oppress an entire race. It has many similarities and many differences with the word ‘queer’. Now it is used as slang between friends, and as a symbol of overcoming oppression and many other things. This is similar to what needs to be done and is en-route to happening with the word queer. To use the word that once damaged and oppressed and is now a politically potent term would be to overcome the old meaning and upon the old meanings oppression build a powerful and useful word. Similar to taking ridicule and upon that ridicule making it a sense of pride.

However, in today’s world many people are not educated, are not well informed and are very ignorant to the word queer. Similar to myself, before taking this class I had no idea the debate going on around the word queer. In my opinion the word has much potential but is still in the early stages of changing for the better. After just a few days of this class and reading Queer Theory I have different views on certain issues. I brought these issues to my friends here at Regis and they were also ignorant to the entire debate. I was ignorant to the entire debate and I have taken other courses (Gender and Homelessness) and was still ignorant to the word. Education is a huge and influential part to the word, and without it we are at a disadvantage.

I went to an all boys, all-boarding, military school in southern Virginia. It was a strict Christian school that was also ignorant to the word queer. The only use for the word down there is negative, brutal and harmful. My roommate being gay really struggled throughout this school and also only saw the word being used horribly. I wish I could take my roommate and many others to this class with Dr. Bateman and hopefully then too they would learn and become educated about the word queer and change the way they think of it, use it and understand it. Of course this is impossible to actually have happen, however I do firmly believe that through education and many other ways the word queer can be used for good and can be a politically potent term. Many people may argue that they would not and do not surround themselves with people who use the word damagingly. However to change a word or anything at all, it is undeniable that one must reach a wide audience and many people of differing beliefs in order to cause change and cannot just simply ignore others. Overall I have learned a lot from Queer Theory and firmly believe that we should embrace the term “queer” and although it has a long way to go, I would say it is headed in the right direction.                 

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[1] https://community.pflag.org/abouttheq

Words.

The main question that Annamarie Jagose is attempting to answer is “What is Queer?” Although Jagose attempts to answer this question by using facts and data she and others have gathered, I have come to more personal understanding of this word.

What is queer? According to Jagose queer is a word that is used to identify gays and lesbian. “Queer as a term of self-description is a relatively recent phenomenon, it is only the most recent in a series of words that have constituted the semantic force field of homosexuality since the nineteenth century”(72). Based on this description, queer is simply a word that people use to describe a group of people. Yet, this word is more than just a description.  It could be a word that people use to identify themselves. But it could not be a word that people use to identify themselves.

The main point I gathered is that words can be powerful. Words can hold great meaning. They after all are used as identifying people. That is why labels are constantly changing. However, one thing is always constant. Humans need to identify themselves and they need to feel accept for who they chose to be. “Queer is not simply the latest example in a series of words that describe and constitute same-sex desire trans historically but rather a consequence of the constructions problematizing of any allegedly universal term”(74). Queer has been used to describe the gay community but now it seems as though this specific word has run its course. In fact, when I have heard this word used it has always been with a negative connotation. “Queer” has become an insult in many cases. This word has become a way to shame people who are simply living a different lifestyle than others. In my experience, queer has become a dirty word. However, that is not to say that we as society have backtracked on accepting gay and lesbian people.

Words are powerful, as such society keeps creating words that show acceptance for people who live differently than others. I am no expert and do not claim to be one, but I am aware of various words used to identify people of the gay community. Positive words consist of gay, lesbian, homosexual, and LGBT. These specific words, in my own personal opinion demonstrate respect to those who chose to identify as such. However, there will still be those people who chose to turn these words into vulgar words, words that are used to offend people. That is not to say that society has not come a long way since, the homophile movement.

Society keeps changing and with this change come acceptance of the homosexual community. Recently, the entire nation has voted to allow gay marriage. Coming from a time in which people could be killed for being gay, this is a huge step in the right direction in accepting people who are gay. Even if there are people who think gay people should not hold this right, it could be said that they are outnumbered by those people who support the gay community.

Society has also demonstrated their ability of acceptance with the media. Currently, there are various shows on television that showcase better understanding for gays. To mention a few, there are shows such as; Modern Family, Orange is the New Black, I am Jazz and various movies.  The gay community is being represented in the media in a positive light.

Queer. What does this word mean? Queer could mean many different things to various people. As could gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual. But these are just words that are used to describe a set of people just like straight and heterosexual is used to describe another set of people. In a society that requires labels, words will always be used to name people in a positive light and in a negative light. Words are important, but actions have always spoken louder than words. People continue to fight for what they believe in and they continue to stand up each time that they are thrown down. Our society continues to make progress, from gay marriage to representing the gay community positively in media. We simply have to keep moving forward and we all have to learn that words are just words. It is the people that matter in the end.

Jagose, Annamarie. Queer Theory: An Introduction. New York: New York UP, 1996. Print.

Hopeful

The times are a changing, I hope. Sexuality and gender aren’t strictly viewed as the two limited options that have shaped societal norms these days. As the history of gender has evolved, so have the definitions and connections to sexuality and sexual preference. There have been a few movements along the way that have helped to shape new meanings and new relationships to how cultures and society relate to these identities and identity in general. Now the term “queer” is used academically and in activism, does the term encompass all the change, growth, and advancement of the issues surrounding sex and gender for society or for the LGBT community? Can the word lose the negative connotations of generations past? I hope so.

I had heard the term used mostly around “queer theory” in my Women’s and Gender Studies classes. I can’t even recall if I have heard it used derogatorily in person— ever. I know it is used in media quite often in this sense, but in my everyday life it didn’t seem to be. I guess because of this experience I had thought it was an accepted term nowadays. I realize that I came from a place of privilege in this aspect, where I need reminding that there is still struggles a oppression due to lack of knowledge surrounding identity. Not until reading Queer Theory: An Introduction by Annamarie Jagose did I understand the evolution of the word much less the use of identity terms in the LGBT community. It helped me to know how the movements for rights and acknowledgement shaped where the US is today. A time, in which same sex marriage and transgender rights are visible along with individuals identifying as gender-fluid or pan-sexual in the media. Recently Mylie Cyrus revealed to Huff Post that she identifies herself as pansexual: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/miley-cyrus-comes-out-pansexual_55e05c7be4b0aec9f352d9f4

Likewise, Australian actress Ruby Rose has been illuminating the public on gender fluidity, bringing to light going beyond the binary: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/17/ruby-rose-gender-fluid-video-interview_n_7603186.html

While these are just some recent incidents in the media today, it helped me to learn that Foucault theorized the term homosexuality came about from medical professionals trying to create an identity for sexual preference beyond the hetero norm. Jagose states that “Foucault’s argument is premised on his assertion that around 1870, and in various medical discourses, the notion of the homosexual as an identifiable type of person begins to emerge (2).” The book goes into identity and use of words used to label. While I can see some use for labeling and as we humans grow it can be helpful to have identities to help shape who we are or want to become. But labels also create separation and notions of being an outsider, which can be very hard to overcome.

Jagose goes on to explain three movements that have contributed to “queer theory” today, the Homophile movement, Gay Liberation, and Lesbian Feminism. All three had a contribution and made a deeper critic of the use of homosexuality and sexual identity. While originally the word was mainly connected with male homosexuality, there were movements to look beyond and at women’s same sex relationships.  There was also delving into definition of behavior and identity, which is an important distinction. She cites this idea from theorist Halperin, “although there are persons who seek sexual contact with other person of the same sex in many different societies, only recently and only in some sectors of our society have such persons—or some portion of them been homosexuals 16).” This quote speaks to me that there was a development of labeling and identifying. In some cases maybe this wasn’t a good thing, but in other areas it did give individuals a sense of order and belonging to a particular community, such as the LGBT community now that are organized to continue providing community and support for each other.

This is where the word “queer” can help, it can help to bring the varying facets of the communities together, not because they are the same gender, sexual identity or anything, but that they have a shared history in certain senses that led one pathway to another. The Homophile movement started up a road, taken up by Gay Liberation, and even further progressed by Lesbian Feminism. The studies of these movements and history have allowed theorists and others to use the term queer to create flexibility and to allow room for self-growth when trying to relate to communities. If someone chooses to identify with specific labels they can do so, but queer gives the possibility of not having to pick any one sexual preference or gender to be labeled by society. It gives options for the individual that chooses to identify as queer, but also options to communities to have more inclusive boundaries. The reclamation of queer and its usage can opens doors; it can bring advancements to create more selections beyond the sex and gender binaries. Then maybe one day the media won’t be posting stories of celebrities using non-normative identities to shed light on the issues, because there will be further progression with either more identities to associate with or using less labeling overall. I know this is idealistic and that breaking the social structures that oppress LGBT identified are ever difficult to tear down (feminism is still working against gender norms), but hopefully it is a start. A beginning, that can help to create larger strides towards tolerance and openness.

That Damn Magazine

I remember standing in my kitchen, three years old, crying, gripping a tear-soaked copy Time Magazine. In large red block letters, “Yep, I’m Gay”, and beside it a picture of my idol, Ellen DeGeneres. I adored her, and now, she was gay? 

My mom recalled that day to me, last night, over the phone: “You were crying, no, BAWLING, because you didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know how to help you. You just looked at me with big tears and said, ‘She’s gay mom, I cant believe it, what if they are mean to her and take her off the TV?’. I didn’t know what to say to you, I remember saying, ‘Tobi, it’s just a big deal because people don’t understand, but they will, someday’. But that didn’t help, you just sat and cried and eventually fell asleep on the kitchen floor with that damn magazine and your Pokemon blanket”. 

       I get upset sometimes, that no one ever taught me what being gay was.

       I get enraged sometimes that I come from a small town full of ignorance. 

       I get tears because that ignorance causes some children grow up to hate instead of understand. 

        That was my first experience of any other sexual preference even existing. Then came middle school, where I heard the word ‘queer’ for the first time. The word was never used in a positive manner, it was used as a derogatory slang. Smear the Queer. Before leaving home for college, I don’t think I had ever met anyone who identified as queer because of how my city viewed them. Until my lifelong best friend came out to me last year, identifying herself as queer, I could never even begin to understand the word. I know, now, that queer is just an umbrella term, one that is used as an identity people can lean on and be proud of. Queer has become the term for the movements popping up all around our nation, all around the world. I can’t help not thinking about the Queer Africa I only caught a glimpse of while in Tanzania. There, where hate crimes are still very much existent, the word has become a dangerous identity to hold, but also one that shows a new response to the hate. Identifying as queer has become a catalyst for change, allowing for a “new” queer community in Africa. 

Humankind is beginning to comprehend. People like Annamarie Jagose are writing books on Queer Theory, movements are happening, the term is being used as a way to identify as “out of the norm”. Through all the positives, “Queer skepticism” exists, according to Jagose,as it can limit identity or put some identities in a larger category, which can be painful to some who hold a specific gender identity (Jagose, 101). She goes on in more detail about the contestations that the word holds, “an umbrella term for dissimilar objects, whose collectivity is underwritten by a mutual engagement in non-normative sexual preferences”, “[queer has been] accused of working against the recent visibility and political gains of lesbians and gay men”, and the allowance of “gender non-specificity” (Jagose, 112-116). This all comes from our need for an identity, and these are the exact contentions I have with the word. After all, who am I to identify anyone with an umbrella term? How will I know they will be okay being called ‘queer’? Coming from my little ignorant town, I can understand how this word can be painful to some, pain that they will always hold onto.

       After my mom recalled that day to me, last night, over the phone, she said, "For the paper you're writing, tell your teacher thank you. Sounds like you've finally got some answers...only took you 18 years". 

I wish we didn’t live in a world that finds the need to label everything. However, we do, and I cannot imagine that changing anytime soon. So, for now, I guess I will just going on using the labels given to us, queer being one of them. I think, as an ally, I can use queer as an empowering term to represent the entire LGBT community. I understand it is not an end-all solution - as some would like to think it is - but it is simply a category of sorts. I know my three year old self would have benefitted from the understanding I now hold. I’m glad I can say that now, I finally understand. At least, I hope I do.

To Queer or Not to Queer?

Usage of the word “queer” connotes being unusually different, against typical mainstream and on first impression seems like a negative term that signifies how someone prefers to identify as liking the same sex. Not knowing the meaning of queer though questions whether society should choose to embrace the term or not. Annamarie Jagose in Queer Theory states that “Queer is not a conspiracy to discredit lesbian and gay; it does not seek to devalue the indisputable gains made in their name. Its principal achievement is to draw attention to the assumptions that intentionally or otherwise inhere in the mobilization of any identity category, including itself” (Jagose, 126). Although there is not a definite way to define queer, it should be embraced by society because it describes the long term struggle for equality even in this generation. Below are the following reasons why queer should be embraced and accepted.

• It represents the struggle of various population demographics. Jagose says “The increasingly organized articulation of the identities of lesbians and gays of colour destabilized the notion of a unitary gay identity” (Jagose, 63). What this means is that homosexuality applies to more than just one particular group of people. The struggle for equality is more large scale than thought. Movements for equality have been unsuccessful especially since there is “difficulty in absorbing or controlling challenges to its authority from groups which are even more marginalized” (Jagose, 62). Despite the fact that efforts for equality have left out certain groups, the movements still have potential to be successful. It is just a matter of identifying the same oppression that applies to gay and lesbian people both face. Basically, it is a trial and error. Groups stand up for gay and lesbian rights, but just make the mistake of leaving out particular groups. Standing up for equality has happened and it cannot be ignored. It just needs to be improved
• There is evidence of improved movements. Jagose states Julia Parnaby’s quote “’Queer aims to provide an arena where men and women work together to fight men’s battles’ (Parnaby, 1993:14)” (Jagose, 117). This shows a unity amongst sexes fighting against patriarchy. AIDs was the example mentioned and that “gay men would not reciprocate the support and efforts of lesbians in the AIDS crisis” (Jagose, 118). Even if this may portray a bad image of gay men, the fact that men who could identify as gay or relate to lesbian women, is evidence that movements become more inclusive as injustices arise.
• More importantly however, is that equality efforts have been continuous. During the time of Gay Liberation, it was stated “In spite of its conservatism, the homophile movement did much to generate an emergent sense of community and identity politics; although its attempts to transform itself into a mass movement were unsuccessful, its legacy benefited gay liberation” (Jagose, 32). The failed crusade does not necessarily mean complete failure. Since people feel they could identify and relate to the issues, it would be inevitable that they would recognize injustices and want to do something about it. Ignoring their protests cannot continue given the persistency.
• The ongoing struggle has gone into the 21^st century. This is where a revolutionary recent event of permitting gay marriage has become one of the biggest reasons to embrace the term queer. The New York Times Article posted here states legalization has changed the United States. To name a few, taxes have been reformed, marriage licenses would be issued even in conservative states like Texas, Missouri, and Georgia, and even Republican governor of Arizona vetoed a bill quote “that would have allowed business owners to deny services to invoke their religious convictions to deny services to gay men and lesbians.” Some churches like the United Church of Christ in Cleveland, Ohio celebrated gay marriage permissibility. This is especially surprising considering the Republican and church beliefs are usually against same sex marriage and/or relationships. There is still opposition such as legislation in North Carolina where only opposite sex marriages are permitted. There are also religious institutions funded by government that could promote discrimination efforts against gays and lesbians. Despite the opposition, marriage establishment of marriage equality and the ongoing support for the Supreme Court’s decision is still very active. Nick Corasaniti, one of the authors writing about the event states “3.8 million people in the United States made 10.1 million likes, posts, comments and shares on Facebook related to the decision, according to data provided by the social media company.” The millions of supporters and recent events supporting their positions triumphs the opposition. It may have taken a long time for equality to be established amongst the gay and lesbian community, but traditional beliefs against gay marriage is tremendously weakened with the great numbers of supporters and the legislation decision that affected even conservative states. This image is a perfect representation of the long term struggle that has finally resulted in triumph. http://www.nytimes.com/live/supreme-court-rulings/?action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article

 

In conclusion, queer is a term that should be embraced by society. It represents an extensive struggle for equality climaxed with gay marriage permitted in throughout the United States in the 21^st century. Jagose in Queer Theory describes movements for equality and how they have failed at times, not being inclusive for everyone. More importantly though is that even when these movements were unsuccessful, they gave people a sense of identity to continue to protest. Now that gay marriage is legal, there is still opposition but supporters and legislative decisions can counter opposing arguments. Queer is definitely not a loose term especially since there is no definite definition. It does however; refer to movements fighting for acceptance in societal culture uniting people with ways to identify. The unification and the eventual legalized rights for gays and lesbians today can give queer an overall positive connotation, representing victory for equality even with long time opposition that was finally broken.

Main Question: How do people identify their sexual orientation?

Still Questioning Queer

While trying to figure out how to write this post, I still am very torn about this question.  Being from San Francisco, I experience very accepting people who don’t use these orientations as offensive words; such as using phrases like, “that’s so gay”, “what a fag”, etc.  I also have not been exposed to the word queer.  While reading this book, I have learned that this word is actually used quite often, negatively and positively.  In queer theory, there is a quote on page 103 who was also uncertain about the word, he said, “Every time I hear ‘that’ word, I want to feel empowered and use it myself.  Instead, my feelings get hurt”.  Although my feelings do not get hurt when I hear this word, I agree that it is a uneasy, confusing word, that has a history.  Since I have been sheltered from this word it is very hard for me to try to convince someone that it is good or bad.  However, I will try my best.

Since I was still confused about the word, I asked my friend, who is lesbian how she felt about the word.  She said, “I like the word personally, but i don’t really use it describe myself.  A lot of people use it in a derogative manner cause the word itself means strange.  For me, it’s a way for gay people to describe themselves or if they don’t want to label anything they can say they are queer”.  After this, I explained to her that I was confused because it was so open ended and her reply was, “Exactly! There’s no correct way to use the word”.  When she explained this to me I started to like the word more because of how she explained it to me.  That there is not a correct way to use it and that it is for anyone that does not want to brand themselves.  I found a quote by Gloria Anzaldúa who was a chicana feminist and cultural theorist, she said, “The queer are the mirror reflecting the heterosexual tribe’s fear: being different, being other and therefore lesser, therefore subhuman, inhuman, nonhuman”.  I think this quotes helps explain what my friend talked about when she brought up the definition of queer meaning strange.  However, I do like this quote because it makes it known that queer, or strange is a good thing and brings light to the people who identify with it.  

A large group of my peers back home identify as something other than heterosexual.  For a lot of them, this was hard, since most attended a catholic, same sex, high school.  The rest of our friends accepted them and tried our hardest to make sure they felt accepted.  However, for the majority of them, they went through phases of who they were before finally coming to a conclusion.  For example, one of my friends went from bi, to lesbian, to transgender.  For her, I believe it could have been easier if she knew that the word queer could have helped her explain her identity until she understood/was ready to be herself.  However, I also believe that these stages that she and most of my friends went through made it easier for them to fully become who they are to friends, family, and the world. 

After I really thought about it, I believe that this word should be used as an identifier today.  Queer can be used any way that the person wants to use it and I think that brings a sort of charm to the word.  Since not everyone is comfortable using labels, coming out and being exactly who they are, or having terms that people now a days use in a derogatory way, our generation can revitalize the word queer and use it in a way that is accepted and used correctly.  I also like how the word, by definition, means strange or out of the ordinary.  This is not because I think it is strange to be something other than heterosexual, but because I believe it is a way to show people who do not accept it that they don’t care and are proud to be different and not the ordinary.  Robin Tyler, a Canadian born comedian said, “if homosexuality is a disease, lets all call in queer to work. ‘Hello, cant work today, still queer’”.  This joke made me think about how even though there are some people who still don’t approve of different gender identities, one can still be proud of who they are as someone who doesn’t fit societies norms and joke about the people who think that it is “queer”.  I think that this term if brought back and used correctly, could help eliminate discrimination that the other gender identity labels have come to obtain.

Even though older generations have a negative connotation connected to the word queer, I believe that if people start to use it in a positive way, that the older generations will see that people have learned to respect it and prove to them that queer is not a bad thing.

Overall, I believe the word queer, although confusing and not having a distinct definition, should be embraced by society and honored just like everyone who is honest with their gender.