For me,
the term “queer justice” is an oxymoron.
When looking at the definitions of each of these terms separately, they
don’t coincide with each other. The
definition of queer is, “strange or odd from a conventional viewpoint;
unusually different” and the definition of justice is, “the quality of being
just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness”. However, if someone is odd from a
conventional viewpoint, how can their qualities of being just be the same as
everyone else? The answer is that it
cannot be the same because every human is different; our justice system is a
way for the: rich, powerful, heteronormative, white population to control the
society in a way they find just for themselves.
There are many examples of this some being: death penalty, equal rights,
and zoning policies. Queer justice will
never be just until our community works together to overturn the justice system
we have today and transform it into something that helps everyone.
The
death penalty is sexist, racist, and genderist because of the chivalry hypothesis, which states,
“based on the assumptions that society is paternalistic and chivalrous towards
females, and therefore the police, prosecutors, judges, parole reviewers, and
other decision-makers will be chivalrous, as well” (Zaplin, R. (2008).
Overall, this means that women are treated more mercifully when
it comes to committing crimes. However,
if one looks at the history of chivalry, the rules of chivalry only applied to
women who were considered “ladies” (Kaeuper); it is proven that women who
conform to the normal gender roles are less likely to receive a harsh
punishment (Grabe, Maria
Elizabeth).
In the
book, Queer (In)justice, the authors
use two examples of women being sentenced to death, Bernina Mata and Wanda Jean
Allen who were both outwardly lesbian.
Bernina Mata was a Latina who killed a white male, while Wanda Jean
Allen was an African American butch lesbian who killed her lover. When looking at race of these women, they are
both a minority, which makes it easier for them to be executed because of the
racism this system holds. Second, Mata
killed a white man, which is another easy way to get convicted because our
society holds white males at a higher level than everyone else. Third, they were both lesbians; although
Mata’s story does not define her as a butch lesbian like Allen’s does, she was
placed in the “queer criminal archetype of the homicidal man-hating lesbian”
(82). Since both of these women did not
fit the stereotypical gender roles that our society values, it is easier, as
stated above, for our community to use the justice system against them. If these women were white, heterosexual,
gender normative women, the jury would have been more lenient with them because
they would not have given them the appearance of a “man hating lesbian” (53)
and images of “black ‘female masculinity’” (85).
Next,
the LGBTQ community has been fighting for their rights for centuries and still
has not gained full control of what the government considers justice. For example, in the book Queer Theory by Annamarie Jagose, she talks about the different
activist groups that fought for queer justice in the 20th century,
such as: The Homophile Movement, Gay Liberation, and Lesbian Feminism. The Homophile Movement was founded in Europe
and “fought to have homosexuality
recognized as a natural human phenomenon” (22).
Homophiles tried to improve the image of the homosexual community to an
image that was accepted to the mainstream society. Gay Liberation on the other hand, “challenged
conventional knowledge about such matters a gendered behavior, monogamy, and
the sanctity of the law” (31). They
refused to acknowledge the similarities with the heterosexual world and wanted
to scandalize society with their differences (31). Lesbian feminists consisted of lesbians who
felt that the women’s movement and the homosexual movements were leaving them
out (46); on page 52 it says, “that heterosexual and gay cultures are unified
in their love of men and hatred of women”.
Overall, this movement wanted to show the discrimination against
lesbians in the women’s movement and the homosexual movements. In a quote said by Sheila Jeffreys,
Gay men
can be seen as the conformists to male supremacy because they choose to love
those whom everyone is mandated to love under this political system, that is,
men. Lesbians, on the other hand, choose
to love those who are despised, that is, women” (51)
They believed that women, who were feminists,
were able to romantically love a woman because feminists should not love
someone that is suppressing them. Each
of these movements were stepping-stones for the progress that the LGBTQ
community has seen to receive “justice” within our community, however, they all
fought against each other for their rights instead of working together.
Today,
the LGBTQ community has a great deal of rights that they did not have in the
past, such as marriage equality.
However, there are still many injustices that they and other minorities
face that to receive “equal rights”. In
Urvashi Vaid’s book Irresistible
Revolution, she lists the many different ways that are still fighting for
their rights and says “Equality as a goal is not enough” (3). She argues that the past movements,
Ignored the broader dynamics of racism, economic
exploitation, gender inequality, and cultural freedom, it would achieve what
other civil rights movements in America have won- a partial, conditional
simulacrum called equal rights, a state of virtual
equality that would grant legal and formal equal rights to LGBT people, but
that would not ultimately transform the institutions of society that repress,
denigrate, and immobilize sexual and gender minorities (3)
She
argues that the future of LGBT politics but consider, “principles of freedom
and principles of equality” (60). Unlike
the earlier movements, she states that to gain freedom for the LGBT community,
they must include everyone and not leave anyone behind. She argues that since our society has a class
and racial division that favorites the elite population, the movements must
fight the urge to conform to the norms of our society and to redesign what
normal is for their community (60).
Since the LGBTQ community is again learning to be queer instead of
normal, like the Gay Liberation Movement, why should their justice be similar
to the heterosexual white community? On
page 148, she states that she wanted to “bring down the capitalist patriarchy
and build a radically egalitarian society”; this is “a belief in human equality
especially with respect to social, political, and economic affairs”. Since this doesn’t state certain laws but a
respect to different parts of life, I agree that an egalitarian society would
be the goal of the modern LGBTQ movements.
Lastly, the elite
population continues to push the LGBTQ and minority community out of popular
areas and place them in locations that are hidden. There are many different reasons for this,
some being, gentrification, anti-violence movements, and health departments. The term gentrification is, “the process of
renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent
people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer residents “. In Irresistible
Revolution, Urvashi Vaid argues that the LGBTQ community is disproportionately
homeless and/or lower class (89) just like the vast majority of minorities; because of gentrification that is controlled by the same people who coined
the term justice, the minorities are forced to move because it is just for the
middle to upper class community.
In the book by
Michael Warner, The Trouble With Normal,
he discusses how in 1995, the New York City Health Department started to
enforce the State Health Code because of the AIDS outbreak. This caused many of the theaters, video stores,
and sex clubs to be closed down because of their participation with sexual
activities even though they promoted safe sex (153-154). Another example of how the government is
“zoning out sex” (149), is the Anti-violence Project in New York in 1997; this movement
tried to prove to the community that minorities and the LGBTQ community were
violent because of the arrests they were making. However, the arrests were because of public
lewdness, even if “men were cruising or just nude sunbathing” (155); because
the media gatekeepers are normally the majority, the LGBTQ community was
thought of to be violent and this lead to Mayor Giuliani’s zoning amendment,
which stated that “adult businesses are allowed only in certain zoning areas”
(158). What is so just about that? To Giuliani, his justice is centered around
the majority, again, instead of the minority.
So, is queer
justice an oxymoron? With all these
examples, I would hope that you replied yes, along with how the term justice is
played out in our society today, is not the definition of justice. There cannot be queer justice until there is
justice, by definition, within our community, not only for the elite, but for
the middle class, lower class, racial minorities, gender minorities, etc. I believe that educating people about how our
justice system is not just would be a step towards what justice is suppose to
be. I also believe that because I am a
white, upper class, heterosexual female, I am in no place to set the agenda for
the LGBTQ and minority movements in their fight for justice because I do not
personally understand the struggles they have faced. However, for people like myself, we can learn
to understand white privilege (Vaid, U. (2012) 54-55), and
the overall privilege that we live and how to prevent that privilege from
harming individuals who are ill-fated. As said by Molly Ivins, an American
Journalist, “government is a tool, like a hammer. You can use a hammer to build with or you can
use a hammer to destroy wish”; how will you use your hammer?
Grabe, Maria Elizabeth, K. D. Trager,
Melissa Lear, and Jennifer Rauch. "Gender inCrime News: A Case Study Test of the Chivalry
Hypothesis." Mass Communication and
Society (2006): 137-63. Print.
Jagose, A. (1996). Queer theory:
An introduction. New York: New York University Press.
Kaeuper,
supra note 13, at 290 (citing the
writings of Andrew the Chaplain)
Vaid, U. (2012). Irresistible
revolution: Confronting race, class and the assumptions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender politics.
New York, NY: Magnus Books.
Warner, M. (1999). The trouble
with normal: Sex, politics, and the ethics of queer life. New York: Free Press.
Zaplin, R. (2008). Part 1: Theoretical
Perspectives. In Female offenders: Critical perspectives
and effective interventions (2nd. ed., pp. 19-20). Boston [etc.: Jones and Bartlett.
No comments:
Post a Comment