Shhh! Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell… Who Cares?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/us/politics/01military.html

The ongoing issue of whether or not the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which restricts gay and lesbians from openly serving in the military, will be repealed recently reached an interesting point. As The New York Times reports, a recent Pentagon study states that 70% of people currently serving in the military believe that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would have either a positive impact, mixed impact, or no impact on military units.

With numbers like this, it seems hard to understand what the hold-up is with repealing the 17-year-old policy. Often, those who oppose the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” say that it will interfere with combat readiness and unit cohesion. That is, that having gays and lesbians serving in the units will cause trouble and prevent the units from doing their job. Also, homophobic concerns that are based in religious beliefs, fears of getting raped by gay soldiers, and general “discomfort” around gay folks usually come up whenever repealing the law gets talked about.

However, Roderick A. Ferguson’s essay “Race-ing Homonormativity: Citizenship, Sociology, and Gay Identity” mentions how the obsession with issues like gaining the right to serve in the military, getting married, and coming out of the closet all perpetuate homonormative ideals that focus on the needs/wants of white, middle-class gay men instead of focusing on urgent needs of other queer people like transgender people, queer people of color, working-class people, queer people who are immigrants, and other marginalized groups. There is nothing wrong with pushing for equality on all fronts, including the right to serve in the military. However, when many urgent needs like the need for job security, food, shelter, safety from violence, etc. are overlooked because mainstream queer organizations care more about being able to serve in the military industrial complex, then it is time to reprioritize.

“Trans Atlanta: A Look inside an Evolving Community”

http://www.thegavoice.com/index.php/news/atlanta-news-menu/1500-trans-atlanta-a-look-inside-an-evolving-community

The Georgia Voice, a news outlet that focuses on LGBT communities, recently posted a story called “Trans Atlanta: A look inside an Evolving Community.” The post featured an interview with a black transman and discusses trans visibility, violence and discrimination against trans people, trans healthcare concerns, community building, and economic hardships. Also, the story has a list of trans-related definitions at the end of it, which is super-helpful for those who want to learn more about trans issues!

Dana Prosser, the transman interviewed in this story, speaks candidly about the decisions that he must make in order to stay safe on a daily basis. He speaks of the discrimination that he faces as a black man in the South (ranging from people crossing the street to avoid him to racial profiling by the police), and shares that the reality of possibly being arrested and imprisoned factored into his decision to keep his sex listed as “F” (for “female”) on his driver’s license. That way, in case he is ever arrested, he will not be placed in a men’s prison facility, where he would likely be assaulted by the other inmates. Prosser also says that while he doesn’t go around telling everyone that he is a transman, he will tell people if they ask him. “It’s about opening people’s eyes. I want people to know there are different people walking amongst you,” he says, “I am who I am.”

Prosser’s story of being black and trans made me think of Johnson and Henderson’s “Introduction: Queering Black Studies/ ‘Quaring’ Queer Studies.” As Johnson and Henderson note, in the phrase “black queer,” “black” and “queer” mark difference. “‘Queer’ challenges notions of heteronormativity and heterosexism, ‘black’ resists notions of assimilation and absorption. And so we endorse the double cross of affirming the inclusivity mobilized under the sign of “queer” while claiming the racial, historical, and cultural specificity attached to the marker ‘black’” (7). Basically, what the authors are saying is that the words “black queer” identify a different experience than just saying “queer” or “black”. For example, by identifying as trans, Prosser may be seen as being queer (especially in the sense of using the word “queer” as an umbrella term for LGBT folks); however, as he states himself, he is also black. He may not fit in with the black community because he is trans; he may not fit in with the queer community because he is black; and he may not fit into mainstream society because he is black and trans. However, by saying “I am who I am” and expressing a willingness to share more about himself when he wants to, Prosser proudly claims his identity in the face of a society that may devalue his experience, and negotiates his way in a world that can be hostile to him just because of who he is.

Janelle Monáe

Janelle Monáe, producer of thrilling music, great style, and general foxiness, is producing music with themes of anti-oppression and racial and class empowerment; though in some ways she is queering the way black women can perform gender and sexuality in pop culture, her music is not overtly criticizing homophobia or subverting heterosexuality.

Ruth Goldman's “Who is that Queer Queer?” discusses queer theory's tendency to ignore race and class in its project of disrupting heteronormativity, and thus calls for greater attention to race and class. In the case of Janelle Monáe, the marginalization of black and working class people is what she is critiquing. However, despite her displays of open support for the queer community and her habit of leaving her sexual orientation ambiguous (saying in an interview with Rolling Stone that “I only date androids” without specifying who qualifies as an android), some of Monáe's most popular music does not overtly address the oppression of sexual minorities. Thus, Monáe's work in some ways exemplifies Goldman's articulation of the alienation of people of color and working class people from queer theory due to its tendency to universalize the experiences of white, middle-class people and leave out people of color and working-class people.

Monáe is queering a number of things: she performs working class identity and a sort of androgyny by donning a tuxedo, bowtie and saddle shoes, terming it her uniform in homage to her working class roots: “My mother was a janitor and my father collected trash, so I wear a uniform too.” In her song “Many Moons,” she interrupts the song's melodic verses with a spoken litany of often marginalized characteristics or identities (Many Moons: minute 3:39), including 'hood rat,' 'crack whore,' 'closet drunk,' 'outcast,' 'black girl,' 'welfare,' 'HIV,' 'overweight,' 'tomboy,' 'heroin user,' 'coke head,' and 'Jim Crow.' Monáe names these markers of oppression – mostly class- and race-based with brief mention of size oppression and gender identity marginalization (tomboy) – as a call to those whose “freedom is in a bind” to “just come and I'll take you home” to Shangri-La, a mythic utopia. However, in comparison to her overt messages about race and class empowerment, homophobia and oppression based on sexual identity go remarkably unmentioned in this song. It's a bit of a bummer, really, that she doesn't take this opportunity to include a critique of the marginalization of black queer people.

Despite this leaving out of queer people, Janelle Monáe has set up her music, message and aesthetic as a powerful medium of criticism of social and injustices and oppressive systems; she could perhaps quite easily incorporate the oppressions of sexual minorities into this critique. I'm rooting for her, too, because she's already indicated that she supports queer rights, and because her presence on the music scene is so vibrant, thrilling, and powerful that if she gave a critique of sexual and gender normativity, people would listen.

Queer Bollywood Movies? Or Not Quite?

I have a love/hate relationship with Bollywood movies. Bollywood is a genre of Indian movies. Not all Indian movies are Bollywood. Bollywood movies are vibrant and epic musicals, and usually have happy endings. They're tend to be about patriotism, family, or love. They rarely address disability or interracial relationships. Bollywood movies can be full of stereotypes and cliches and can be pretty contrived, but many Bollywood movies are fully aware of this and embrace it in a cheeky way.

Sexuality in generally is a taboo subject. The act of sex is rarely seen, let alone alluded to, despite how sexual the movies can seem with bare-waisted women and shirtless men are dancing about every ten minutes or so. Until I did some research, I honestly did not think there were any Indian (Bollywood or not) movies which positively portrayed homosexuality. I mean, homosexual intercourse between consenting adults was decriminalized in India in July 2009 (one and a half years ago). So, where does one go to figure out what queer Bollywood films are out there and popular? Well, I go to my family, and the only movie they thought of as having gay characters or themes was Dostana from 2008.

Dostana, which is Hindi for “friendship,” is a romantic comedy about two men, Sameer (Abhishek Bachchan) and Kunal (John Abraham), who pretend to be gay to get a place to live. They rent a couple of rooms of an apartment from an older lady who has beautiful niece, who lives in the apartment as well. It was a problematic movie. Every single character who is actually gay is a stereotypical caricature, and there is nothing to balance these crazy characters. The movie is set in Miami, and going back to the article “South Asian (Trans)nation(alism)s and Queer Diasporas” by Jasbir Puar, it portrays Western countries as the place to go if one is queer because everyone would be more open and accepting.

There are a couple of things which I did like about the movie. The mother of Sameer finds out that he is gay, that he's in a relationship with Kunal, and she flips out initially. She eventually becomes accepting of the idea of having a gay son, and she does a ritual with Kunal which she would have done with the bride if Sameer had actually married a girl. It was heartening that the mother, symbolic of an older, more conservative generation of Indian people, came to accept that she might have a gay son. It was also troubling because of the homonormativity the situation takes on because the acceptance came as a result of adherence to traditional gender roles.

Also, at the end, Sameer and Kunal, after their lies about being gay are discovered, kiss each other. Throughout the movie, there was a definite chemistry between them, and they come to rely on each other. The movie ends with them recalling the kiss they shared and being uncomfortable with it. I read it as them being uncomfortable with new feelings the kiss may have brought them, as being uncomfortable with the idea that they actually may be attracted to each other. A sequel, Dostana 2, is supposed to be released in 2011, so my questions about Sameer and Kunal might get answered, hopefully with a more balanced depiction of queer people.

How to Grow by A. Kalena Williams

The readings for the last few classes inspired me to share a Queer fiction piece I wrote for my fiction workshop. Please feel free to add critiques and comments you would only be helping me. :)

How to Grow


The concept of brunch is misleading. I think of families laughing over grapefruit and Belgium waffles and picking over each others’ meals because they aren’t strangers. Marisol and I can’t laugh together because I don’t know her. I knew Andres. I want to know where my brother went. I look at Marisol with her long brown hair filled with tiny golden threads and search for remnants of him in the creases oh her hands. Marisol takes a sip of her orange juice and leaves a magenta stain on her glass. She is a clone of Eva Longoria. She lifts her shades to order because she is not hiding behind them. I stare at the menu hoping I didn’t do my math wrong. I’m a clone of America Ferrera.

I am stiff in my chair, while she is practically in lotus position talking about her new place, about how she is taking up gardening. “What are you going to plant first?” I don’t actually want to know but we’re playing a game so I ask. “You know I think I may plant a few trees in the back to have more shade.” She pauses hoping I will contribute to her plans but instead I stare at the little green eyed boy in front of me eating apple slices. I want to smile and then cry. I shake the sadness out of my outgrown bob and forfeit the game. “So you still like trees?” I asked. She nodded as she removed her shades and placed them on the table. I wonder if Redwoods are still her favorite.

When Andres was well, my brother Andres and not Marisol, he would cry when trees where cut as if he was a branch being torn from its trunk by a rusted blade. But that was when he was seven and I was five and we weren’t ashamed of our emotions. In time however, we would learn to shed our childhood for tougher skin to make it through the daily contests we always lost.

Andres lost the most. He lost the ability to make the words on the pages stay in one place. He tried to keep the p’s from looking like q’s d’s and b’s but the girls were yelling again and he couldn’t concentrate. Someone else was leaving, someone else had a baby, someone else was going to have to teach him how to read because his tutors were dropping like flies better yet, they were leaving like they had been kicked out of the house for getting pregnant at 17, 16, 15. I was lucky. I relied only on myself when it came to book smarts.

Afterschool we would always study in the kitchen. “The red wood forest is the only place the red trees grow.” After thirty-five minutes he managed to read one sentence. He closed the book and began to wash his hands in the kitchen sink. I was reading our sister Angie’s journal to see if she would be the next to go play house. “Let’s make a snack Nati.” “You should probably finish your homework.” “I’m almost done.” “You read one sentence.” “So how about grilled cheeses and green apples?” “OK. Fine” I would always give in. He would only let me help him that way. I tried to teach him how to read but he just starred at the pages for hours, even when he gave up on deciphering the words. He would look at the pictures and tell the story he saw. This worked pretty well until the books he read no longer had photos. After that he began to sink inside himself and even I wasn’t allowed in.

I watch Marisol neatly eat her crepes. I wanted to know what happened that day after we finished the last of the apple slices but she was more focused on small talk. I had lost track of Marisol’s progress on the house, she was saying something about changing the color of the living room then going for modern light fixtures in one room to antique fixtures somewhere else. She was stalling. “I can’t believe we’ve only been talking about me. How are you?” Even behind my shades she notices my impatience. Whatever she wanted to say since she called me last Monday, “Hi Natalia, have brunch with me. I miss you” was going to pour out soon in front of all these happy people. “I can’t complain.” I really couldn’t.

I have been trying Buddhism for a while now; the whole concept of “ending suffering” drew me in. It’s the only reason I am here today. “This can be a healing experience if you let it be.” The words of my teacher no longer made me think I was in Jedi training. “Don’t empower negativity.” “Take the time to free your mind.” “When you hold grudges you enable suffering.” They have turned into quiet mantras I whisper as I adjust my worn tote bags filled with overdue notices on my shoulder while walking the seven blocks to the write for a magazine no one ever reads.

As I slump in my chair I claw at the phrase “This can be a healing experience if you let it be.” I take another bite of my bagel. Take one last glance at the little boy as he waddles out the door. This Bistro in the valley is a clone of the clean ones for tourists in Hollywood. I take my shades off and look at my sister. Andres is gone.

My brother was my soul mate before I knew what one was. I never really had sisters. I had nice girls that would brush my hair and told me stories to go to sleep before their boyfriends came to tap on the windows late at night. They didn’t know me and left the house before they could. I had been waiting for this, for some way to piece the yesterdays back together. I was done with the ugly pleasantries. They were remnants of the mariansimo I thought I had peeled away from after picking it apart while getting my B.A.

We no longer play make-believe. Marisol strokes her shades as if she wants to be strangers again. Before she has time to really ponder it I speak again. “Why didn’t you tell me? I used to feel sorry for you but then I realized it was happening to me too. To all of us so I just started to feel sorry for myself.” “Your editor Shawn tells me you are covering the opening next week, will you promise not to leave until you see the whole exhibit?”

Andres would do this all the time. He was three steps ahead of me when it came to things like this. No matter how many words I could read I could never quite predict his reasoning. “I know you are struggling with stuff right now Nati, I also know that we don’t know each other anymore. One conversation over one meal won’t help us. Besides words were never my thing. I can show you the answers you want or atleast a way to find them.” I stare at the remainder of my fruit salad.

That day we were studying in the kitchen Andres told me he had something to show me. He had the biggest smile on his face and I got excited. I chewed the apple slice as quick as I could and ran after Andres to Susie’s old room which was Sara’s old room before that.

There’s only a few dresses in the closet, heels scattered on the floor like they’d been picked over, and a white comforter over the bed. All things you leave when you have to grow up and have babies. Susie had left her favorite shirt on the bedroom floor before she left the house. It had been lazily swept under the bed, where all things went when wewere supposed to clean the house. Andres retrieves it as if he knew it was down there.

He puts it over his clothes and it fits like an oversized dress. “Did you wear my shirt? It feels bigger then it was last week.” His impression of Susie was flawless. And it helped that they looked the most alike. “That’s perfect!” I laughed. He even held his hands like her. His green eyes glowed as he twirled his dress. I think he forgot that I was in the empty room with him. “Kids!!! Andres, not again, why do you like to do that. Your sister has been harassing me for this thing.”Andres yanked the dress off, walks past my mother, and grabs my hand. We walk back to the kitchen. I wanted to ask him what mama meant but he had the dead trees look in his eyes, so I thought otherwise.

I look up to see Marisol’s face she has the same green eyes as before, as always. Even when Andres became Andy and only looked at me when he was tapping on my bedroom window after mama locked him out for skipping curfew, or because she found his makeup bag, they never changed. They always seemed too say, I wish we could be kids forever.
“The redwood forest is the only place where the redwood tree grows.” Andres closes the book because that’s all he needs to know. Marisol is like a red wood herself, she was forced to grow in one place until she convinced others to cut her down and take her with them.

We had both tried to escape the pattern our sisters created. I struggled in school and landed a job on the bottom of the journalist food chain writing for angry lesbians. Marisol worked gods know where to pay for her surgery and then took up photography. She was lucky enough to gain a kudzu like following and is comfortable at 32, at least financially. But we both lost everyone even each other. We should have just been normal and had babies as teenagers.

I sigh and agree to all of the conditions Marisol mentions, she graciously pays for our meals and I wave goodbye not yet ready to embrace her. We had opened a wound and had barely begun to treat it. I would have to wait for the 16th of September when Marisol débuted her photography exhibit titled Funeral.

I didn’t want to be there but questions that need answers. More importantly I had bills to pay. Bills that did not care if I hated the crappy “how to” pieces I was forced to write to prove myself to the magazine. When I first received this assignment I thought it would be the piece I had been aching to write: “How to Spot Queer Art: Today’s Top Ten Queer Artists”. Since art had many interpretations I thought I would have free reign but Shawn who was not only the editor of Grapefruit but a controlling Octabitch already picked the artists. Once again I was still stuck writing for someone else.

That night I stood in front of the gallery and held a promotional card in my hand. Behind the when and where was a photo of six manikins four girls make a perfect row in the back a younger girl and a younger boy are in the front, They are in a forest with bare trees. Although this was the opening night, the title of the exhibit: Funeral, told me everything. I knew what she was going to do and a familiar unease settled inside me. She was going to kill my brother, again.

I stepped into the gallery the typical white walls were painted sandstone and made my red button up and black blazer standout as I maneuvered through the entrance. The first photo I see is called Hermana and is the same one that is on the card. The photo has a captive audience around it. They unknowingly swoon over our childhood. I look at the photo and feel sick. I hated the day that photo represents.

That day, my hair was slicked back and braided tightly to keep in the wildness. My dress was 66% starchy tool and 34% polyester. My neck and belly itched underneath it, my sprit itched underneath that. I am holding Andres' hand and he is wearing a stiff maroon button up shirt with a bolo tie, black slacks and crocodile boots with a metal toe that matched his aglets. We grasp each other's hands hoping we could teleport somewhere else. But instead we are ushered to my sister’s wedding reception which would not end until 8 am the next morning.

After five hours of our drunk “tios” telling us to get them more beer, Andres and I ran to a back room and with little dialog, exchanged clothes. In our innocent joy we returned to the party and resumed our waitressing roles. Mama was furious when she saw us. The next week she shipped Andres to our Tio Mario’s house for the whole summer, figured he needed a male role model. That summer I begin to slip into the pages of the stories I read and when that was not enough I would write my own. Before I walked to the next photo I realized that the younger girl has green eyes. Mine are brown.
There is a nervous smile on my face. A survival skill I learned from my mother. I smile to save face and so I am not judged for burning inside as she did that day she shoved us to the bathroom to lock me back in my dress and Andres in his pants and tie. When we saw that smile as we walk through the party, we knew our mother was hurting. The guilt seeped into our small chests and we began to hurt too.

Marisol must have kept that smile with her as well because her next photo is a remake of our mother. The woman in the photo had a scarf over her head and was starring into the candles that lined a mantle. My mother prayed to the Virgen many times a day hoping for answers and all she was given was the strength to cope. Although she would never admit it, after awhile, she began to think she was cursed for leaving Mexico and her husband. Curse or no, the strength she had to leave that day was what helped me love her even when she no longer loved me or Andres, or Marisol.

I pass many other photos and after the seventh one they had begun to tell stories about a world I only saw hints of in those green eyes as we grew older. One of the last photos was of a figure balled up back against a white wall. Everything was blurred except the hands. The nails were manicured and painted magenta, the hands covered in makeup covered the face. The photo was titled Andie. My throat tightened and it was hard to swallow to breathe. I began to understand. Andres was burden, a lie my mother tried to mold Marisol into. Here in these photos Marisol was trying to kill the burden that laced the beautiful parts of the Mestizaje our mother shared with us in the womb. Tears escaped from my brown eyes and soothed my burning cheeks that were still trying to maintain my pride with a smile.

In a startling motion I am disoriented and find myself in an embrace. Marisol has found me and I have found her. I quiet the rush of emotions inside and hug her back. She smells like the children we will never have. She lets go and we look at one another there was so much to recover and I had only just begun to understand. Her eyes held back tears, they were the only part that still hurt like she used to when she was merely a secret hidden behind a body.
That night I realized that I had been running from many of the answers I had been looking for. There is something in our family, in our culture that kept us from growing into the people we wanted to be. And it wasn’t my mother’s fault alone, someone had taught her how to limit her expectations and her identity. What else could she do but perpetuate the cycle? To transcend the norm meant an internal loneliness because no one really gets you, you don’t even get it all the time. I guess I am lucky to have Marisol at least now we can be lonely together.

Queer Sci-Fi

I love science fiction and reading the excerpt from Octavia Butler's Wild Seed has forced me exam how sexuality is represented in the sci-fi shows, movies, and books I love. There's a lot out there in the sci-fi world which is overtly sexist or homophobic. But there's hope! In the vast ocean of science fiction, there are many books, movies, and tv shows which is not!

Torchwood is a more adult spin-off of the long-running Doctor Who series. I'm fairly certain all of the main characters from the show are queer. Russell Davies, the creator of the show, was intentionally trying to break the idea of sexuality being fixed or stable. While the relationship between the characters Jack Harkness and Ianto Jones develops through the series, we learn about their past relationships with men, women, and aliens as well. There is an episode where Toshiko Sato is in a relationship with an alien who takes the female form, but later in the series, she attempts to create a relationship with another main character, Owen Harper.

While this show celebrates the fluidity of sexuality, it is also problematic. The three male characters, Jack, Ianto, and Owen, are fluid in their sexualities, but there is no fluidity in their gender. They are stereotypical “manly” men who are violent, aggressive, and in charge. They show few emotions other than anger. They are able-bodied and white. Toshiko is a problematic character because of how she's portrayed, stereotypically asian and feminine. She's portrayed as passive, overly academic, strait-laced, and unobtrusive. Gwen Cooper is complex character. She demonstrates her sexual fluidity, but for most of the series, she's one half of a typical heterosexual couple. While she has a more apparently masculine, aggressive role (she's always seen kicking alien butt where as he is usually seen in their home), she's also the one who ends up pregnant (once with an alien baby and once with an actual human baby she wanted).

Excerpt from Wild Seed by Octavia Butler

Octavia Butler was one of very few black women science fiction writers. Her work is also understood to be afrofuturist, meaning it queers notions of time, race, and often has supernatural themes. Wild Seed is the first book in the plot development of her first book series know as the Patternist Series.

Anyanwu is an African healer who lives in a small village in the middle of the African content. She is discovered by Doro who is drawn to her magical abilities of healing and transformation. When introduced in the story, she is already 150 years old though she naturally looks like a young woman in her twenties. Doro is thousands of years old, his spirit jumping from body to body to stay alive. He convinces her that she should come with him to meet other unique people with special powers like them. She agrees and they set out for the new world, America.

Though she goes willingly, she soon realizes that Doro does not have good intentions. They are lovers but then she realizes that he wants her to marry his son Isaac and have babies that have both her powers and those of Isaac (he can fly). She reluctantly agrees but realizes that Doro has breeding plantations all over the world where he is trying to create a master species of beings like him. He is mean and makes people have children with their relatives. Often these magical children suffer because of their gifts and they take on too much from the world around them. They can never escape Doro because he can hunt them down where ever they go.

She does escape! Because she is able to transform into animals, Doro is unable to find her because he can only track her when she is human. We begin reading after he has found her, over a hundred years after she escaped. When he finds her he is surprised that he doesn't want to kill her immediately. He learns about her new life as a White Plantation owner name Edward Warrick. Through her neighbors, he finds out that she takes the shape of a black dog and had been married to a white woman for some time and that they had kids.

When Doro arrives at her plantation, he meets her son who knows who he is and tells him about his own ability to heal. Doro meet Anyanwu and they have a long talk about her life since she escaped him. She tells him of her time living as a dolphin and how she and her white wife married despite their fear of the racial and gendered taboo of their relationship. She tells him of the other people with powers who live on her plantation and their relative freedom compared to the lives of the people who live on his plantations.

As she is telling her story, you can tell how much power Doro has and his never ending desire to control her. She's defeated but she tries to negotiate some protections and some freedoms for her people, that they be able to marry once and that they get to decide who they marry. He grants her these small things and she tries to be ok with it. The excerpt highlights his absolute power and her small acts of resistance, her resignation to her identity as a slave but also her disidentification from that role in its entirety. She is both female and male, black and white, human and animal, even as she resists the animal like breeding Doro wants to force on her people. She is also a slave owner even as she grants her people more freedom than he would. Her existence troubles all binaries and dichotomies and even the notions of what's good and bad.

"Monstrous Discrepancies" Comic

This image is a clip of a comic titled "Monstrous Discrepancies" from the "Subnormality" comic blog. Defining sexuality is a problem that often plaques queer theory, but this image provides an accessible way to define sexuality. Sexuality is fluid, not binary. Every different variation of sexuality has a different term (hence the "alphabet soup" phenomenon). This comic simplifies the problem of identifying sexuality with clear imagery. Every monster is a little different from the others, which is similar to sexuality. Everyone's sexuality is a little different, even within identified groups. This comic relates to every article that has tried to define queer and to every article's underlying definition of queer. Some of these articles are "Dueling Dualisms", "Who's That Queer Queer", and "Introduction: Queering Black Studies/'Quaring' Queer Studies."

"A Comparative Analysis of Hijras and Drag Queens" by Sandeep Bakshi

In his article "A Comparative Analysis of Hijras and Drag Queens" Sandeep Bakshi explores the ability of hijras and drag queens to question heteronormative culture. He begins his article by explaining hijras. Hijras are men who voluntarily go through castration and penectomy and thus, are neither men nor women. They perform as women at important Indian ceremonies, such as weddings and birth ceremonies, as "perceived guarantors of fertility" (213). Though they are culturally sanctioned, they are not regarded as full citizens either and have few political rights. Their community structure is very religious (each hijra has guru) and hierarchical, mirroring normative society. Their motivation for castration is part of a religious ritual to a goddess and their history is shrouded in myth. Hijras are similar to drag queens, by virtue that they parade as women, but they are not the same.

Bakshi compares and contrasts the ability of hijras and drag queens to subvert the gender binary and common conceptions of gender roles. Hijras perform in a public space and "enjoy religious and cultural legitimacy" (216), while drag queens perform in a private or alternative space. Hijras interact with the public who tend not to question heteronormative culture, while in most cases drag queens are performing to an audience that is already questioning society. One problem during the performance of hijras is that the gender roles of the audience members are reinforced, because women are passive observers and men are active participants, "controlling" the show. Drag queens also seem to reinforce gender roles because "female impersonators almost universally present stereotypical and exaggerated images of females" (218). Not only that, but power is a fundamental part of current gender dynamics and in one sense male drag queens are proving that they are "'better' women than women themselves" (218), reinforcing male power. A drag queen's performance relies on the audience's preconceived perceptions of gender and gender roles, instead of calling them into question. While both hijras and drag queens perform as women, hijras reveal their sex (or lack thereof) at the end of the show by lifting up their saris. This shocks the audience are destabilizes their experience.

Bakshi finishes his article by reminding the reader to keep national context in mind when comparing and contrasting cultural practices of the Orient and the West. Both hijras and drag queens "are subcultural byproducts of Western and Indian societies and have developed in relation to their respective mainstream cultures" (221). And they both have their limits and abilities to question the gender binary within their respective cultures. In conclusion "reading the hijra alongside the drag queen means broadening and enriching the discursive elements of identity (in)congruity and revealing the fiction of all gendering and sexualizing processes of any dominant culture" (221).

Disidentifications by Jose Muñoz

In the Introductory chapter of his book Disidentifications, Jose Muñoz explains this term and introduces readers to the performance artists who inspired his thinking about it. He begins by introducing reader's to Margo Gomez, a queer performance artist who's work is really personal and about her own relationship to her queer identity as well as her identity as a Cuban/Puerto Rican Latina. It is through her memories, performed on stage that we see "disidentification" take place.

Muñoz describes disidentification as the third way of relating to identity. While folks may opt to identify with a mainstream concept like whiteness or straightness, others may choose to counteridentify by claiming blackness or queerness as their preferred location. These two choices of identifying or counteridentifying create problems. When you identify, you have to throw out all the parts of you that don't fit into the box you are identifying with. Counteridentification seems cool because it works against assimilation, asking folks to be who they are in spite of what the mainstream dictates. But in defining oneself against the mainstream, a power dynamic remains and it can turn into the same old hierarchy just with the previously marginalized folks on top.

Disidentification is a third option that isn't apolitical that allows folks to embrace all parts of who they are, even the parts that don't fit into a narrowly defined box of identity. To return to the example of Gomez, Latina lesbians are unique in that they don't quite fit into the straight box of Latino identity or the white box of queer identity. By living her life she is disidentifying a little bit with each identity category that she inhabits.

South Asian (Trans)nation(alism)s and Queer Diasporas by Jasbir K. Puar

When Puar submitted a panel entitled “Transnational Sexualities: Narrations of Normativity” which included her paper which bore the same title as her article, National Association for Ethical Studies asked for clarification about the relation of the panel topic to the theme of the conference which was “The Ethnic Experience in the United States: Changing Migrations, Changing Borders, and Changing Traditional Ethnic Communities.” The NAES specifically challenged her paper, the only paper about queer issues which raised many questions in her mind about why they would do such a thing. Puar, in this article, seeks to show how “queer” and “diaspora” relate to each other. She does by looking at A Lotus of Another Color: An Unfolding of the South Asian Gay and Lesbian Experience edited by Rakesh Ratti as well as other productions of South Asian queer diasporic culture.

In the section of her paper “Queering the Diaspora, Diasporicizing the Queer,” she shows us some of the ways the words interact with each other. Puar says “queer” has “presumed that its subjects have a fixed relation of inclusion within the nation-state, one that is rarely interrogated.” Being queer does not bring about questions of whether or not that person is a member of a nation. Diasporas are mobilized spaces of transcendence of the nation-state. People who have moved from one country to another are not fully members of each country. The terms, incorporated together, force particular redefinitions of the originals. Diasporic communities they can also be a source of various support for national movements. The people who have left their home countries still feel like they belong to their home countries and do things to show their belonging.

Puar says she has two main concerns, 1) that constructs of queer diaspora rests on cultural nationalism and 2) that queer diasporic discourses (conversation, discussion) show the West as a site of “sexual liberation, freedom, and visibility,” a place where it is more acceptable to be queer. The first concern is illustrated in Lotus because of the “recovery work.” In Lotus, they try to show that homosexuality is nothing new to India, that it is there in the history. They reduce South Asia down to India, and India becomes Hindu culture and religion. The static Indian heritage they present has a supposed relevance to all South Asian queers without considering the diversity within the group. They “other” Sihks, Muslims and other groups with the focus on Hinduism. Lotus is a collection of coming out stories, and is in itself a coming out, that there are South Asian queers. This is problematic because coming out is a uniquely Western experience. Lotus was published in the United States, and South Asians in the US have a position of relative privilege compared to those of other Western diasporic locations. These coming out stories show India as a place of origin, but the West as a place of sexual freedom. South Asians living in the West sometimes portray India as a place where being queer is not good and that going to a Western country will liberate queers.

Puar is hoping this piece will serve as a counter to an “overabundance of celebratory discourses on queer subjectivities.” She does not mean to demean them, but she wants to caution that things like Lotus, which was done to help, can actually be oppressive through problematic politics. Diaspora may add to queer politics. Diasporic queers have this problem of belonging to a nation without being a part of the nation. It's a paradox highlighted in the problem of visibility where some welcome it and others see it as dangerous. It is important to question how and why certain queer subjectivities are highlighted over others.

"Toxic Bodies? ACT UP’s Disruption of the Heteronormative Landscape of the Nation" by Beth Berila

Berila begins by initiating a discussion regarding the relative “purity” or “toxicity” of bodies and the ways in which certain bodies are constructed as “impure.” She creates a link between environmental justice activism (and the rhetoric surrounding it) and this dichotomous pure/impure frame of reference. Berila argues that the hegemonic “American way of life” is defined and upheld by high volumes of consumption and waste. This waste is inevitably funneled into poor communities and communities of color, and as a result of the high cost of this “Americanness” (by which I imply that our ethics of consumption has been so fully integrated into our national psyche as to become inseparable from our ideals of ourselves), the physicality of both the landscapes of the communities which suffer from this and the bodies residing within said landscapes become compromised. This dumping of waste into poor communities is telling because 1. it highlights what communities and people must bear the brunt of the “American” way of life (despite the fact that usually, the communities which receive the detriment of rampaging “Americanness” are not the same ones living this “American dream”); and 2. it shows which communities and bodies are deemed valuable within structures of American hegemonic ideals.

Basically, what the author of this article is arguing is that there is a certain idealogical notion of the “American people” and the “American lifestyle” that is often perpetuated through a dependence upon members of communities and bodies not considered a part of this “Americanness.” Thus, bodies and communities become “toxic” because they are forced to pay for this “lifestyle” and are simultaneously deemed valueless because of their status as outside of said lifestyle.

Similarly, Berila focuses on the ways certain bodies, specifically those of individuals living with AIDS, are rendered “impure” and are viewed as “contaminating” to the “purity” of national hegemony. She draws parallels between environmental justice activism’s work to make visible the high cost being paid by members of certain communities and with certain bodies, and the ways in which the bodies of people who have AIDS are constructed as “toxic” and threatening to the “purity” of the “American” lifestyle. Thus, both movements are interested in who (what types of people, bodies, and communities) counts towards national conceptions of “Americanness,” as well as underlining who (what types of people, bodies, and communities) pays for this “American” lifestyle so dependent upon consumerism.

In a parallel fashion, the construction of the “toxic” bodies of those who have AIDS is not a static work, but a continuously shifting process. The bodies of people living with AIDS are surrounded by perceptions of being “toxic” to public health, similar to the poor communities who become (literally, in some instances) toxic as a result of the massive consumption of the “pure” of the nation. In both cases, there is a stark divide between those viewed as “pure” and “uncontaminated,” and those who are “toxic” and threatening, as well as a power structure that necessitates the exploitation of the one for the sake of the other

. However, it is through the construction of the “contaminated” that the “uncontaminated” is also created.

ACT UP, or the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, then, works to trouble this construction of the bodies of those with AIDS as “toxic” to public health. Members of ACT UP challenge these constructions of “toxic” bodies by infiltrating public spaces, often through a manipulation of the privileges (being white, financially well-off, etc.) available to them, and “passing” for a member of America’s heteronormative landscape. Berila writes that, via ACT UP, “passersby are implicated in the production of some bodies (usually those who are healthy, white, not poor, and straight) as the ‘general population’ of the nation precisely by marking others (usually those who are queer, poor, HIV positive, or people of color) as stained and toxic, and therefore as ‘contaminants’ of the nation.” This, again, focuses on Berila’s point that there can be no “purity” without first rendering others “impure,” and that it is through this construction of “toxicity” that national ideals of hegemony are upheld.

*photo credits unknown

“Race-ing Homonormativity: Citizenship, Sociology, and Gay Identity” by Roderick A. Ferguson

In “Race-ing Homonormativity: Citizenship, Sociology, and Gay Identity,” Roderick Ferguson explores how sociology identified sexuality as being a social construction and how the social construction of homosexuality privileges white gays and lesbians in the United States. Ferguson says that by examining sociological arguments about the social construction of sexuality, you can see how white gays and lesbians became increasingly more accepted as American citizens. The author also believes that this white gay and lesbian acceptance into American citizenship is due to the race and class of that particular group of people. Most importantly, Ferguson believes that this acceptance has led to homosexuality being socially constructed as white, middle-class, and adhering to so-called traditional gender roles so much so that it has resulted in “homonormativity.” This homonormativity is viewed as being close to the heterosexual norm; however, this homonormativity is not inclusive of LGBTQ people who are people of color, working-class, and/or do not adhere to the usual social construction(s) of gender.

Ferguson discusses how, historically, white American society was very concerned about immigration of ethnic people (both white and nonwhite) because of fears that immigrants would contaminate white racial “purity” in America through sexual reproduction. However, eventually, white Americans accepted the immigrant ethnic whites as American racial whites, which shows that race is a social construction that can be adjusted to fit the needs of the social and historical context at the time. Ferguson states that now that ethnic whites were considered racial whites who were culturally a part of white America, black people and other racial non-whites were still culturally un-American. The author also states that white came to be associated with heteronormativity while non-white was associated with nonheteronormativity. Ferguson says that once this occurred, culture became the determining factor in whether or not you were seen as a “normal” American citizen.

Ferguson agrees with Epstein, who is another author, that once white, middle-class gays and lesbians were viewed by other white, middle-class Americans as being “the ‘same’ as straights to the extent that they are ‘different,’” then they became American. Ferguson uses Marx to say that for white, middle-class lesbian and gays, homosexuality is viewed as being a difference that is a private matter, and not one that affects their ability to be American citizens in public matters. Ferguson goes on to discuss other writers’ examinations of marriage, hate crimes protection, military inclusion, and the focus on the need to “come out of the closet” as proof that contemporary gay rights and the construction of homosexuality is centered on white, middle-class gays and lesbians who adhere to traditional gender roles. Ferguson says that this homonormative social construction leaves out LGBTQ people who are immigrants, people of color, and/or working-class since its goals are centered on helping white, middle-class, gay and lesbian Americans become more integrated into white, middle-class, heterosexual America.

"Queer Theory." by Annamarie Jagose and “Who is that Queer Queer? Exploring Norms around Sexuality, Race, and Class in Queer Theory.” by Ruth Goldman

In her article Queer Theory, Annamarie Jagose discusses the meaning of the term. She talks about queer theory being used to disrupt beliefs about "natural" heterosexual desire, two gender system (man/woman), and two sex system (male female). Queer theory asks questions about the assumption that heterosexuality and all that we associate with it is natural and normal (heteronormativity). She also warns against queer theory being used to mean lesbian and gay studies and queer being used as an umbrella term for lesbian and gay identified people. The tension between gay and lesbian identity and "queer" questions around the stability of identity is a really important tension that needs to continue to be explored.

Similarly, Ruth Goldman explores what queer means in her article "Who is that Queer Queer? Exploring norms around sexuality, race and class in queer theory." Goldman explains how queer was used initially to get away from identity categories but how the term has still come to mean white gay male and middle class. In particular she talks about how queer is used as an umbrella term for gays and lesbians and often excludes bisexuals. Bisexuals have a unique experience to bring to queer conversation as their desires are not built on a single track of desire. She even discusses the limits of a term like bisexual to talk about the real ways that bisexual desire does not necessarily focus on gender as a way of choosing partners. Goldman also discusses the ways that "queer" is generally used by white and middle class folks. While there is in interest in other perspectives, because queer theory is so closely tied to the academy and people of color are invited in to an already existing conversation as opposed to allowed to center themselves, queer theory reproduces its own norms even as it tries to challenge others. She asks that queer theorists not just think about sexual oppression but also about racial, class, and gender oppression as well as they all work to maintain each other.

These two works explain where queer theory is and offer suggestions about where it should go. It's important to think about how sexuality is connected to other systems of oppression. Queer theory is not an identity but a way of looking at and examining hierarchy in our world. A big piece of undoing oppression is going to be making queer theory accessible outside of academic places like colleges and universities. We have to meet people where they are and not just talk abstractly all the time. This is what "making accessible theory" means.

Dueling Dualisms by Anne Fausto-Sterling

In the first chapter of her book, Sexing the Body, Anne Fausto-Sterling pulls a part our understandings of what is normal and what is natural. She challenges the facts that we understand to be true; that there are two sexes, male and female, two genders, men and women, and two sexualities, heterosexual and homosexual (and maybe bisexual). She asks tough questions and uses real life examples that make these black and white extremes seem less fixed.

She begins by telling the story of Maria Patiño, an Olympic runner, whose life was destroyed when mandatory sports sex testing proved she was not female. Because she was one of many people born with sex characteristics that do not fit neatly into the box male or female, she had to fight in court to prove her femaleness and womanhood. Eventually she triumphed but this is still an issue today. Last year, South African runner Caster Semenya was publicly labeled intersex after smashing a world record time in the women's 800 meters. She has been the subject of cruel jokes and commentary for over a year before she was also allowed to return to track officially as a woman.

These two examples are a small window into the negative affects of thinking about sex and gender along an "either/or" frame. When one is either male or female, straight or gay it limits people's understanding of what true diversity there is in the world. Part of queer theory, or thinking about things outside of the "norms" of society, is not limiting possibilities to two "either/or" options. It's not about making new "norms" either. It's about recognizing the many ways that human beings can come to be and interact with each other. "Dueling Dualisms" is asking readers to think beyond competing polar opposites and really deal with all the shades of gray in between.

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