"The Trouble with Normal" - Michael Warner

Michael Warner opens with an anecdote about the gay magazine “Hero”, the first intentionally sex-free magazine of its kind. The editor of “Hero” started the magazine after being shocked that an essay he wrote for another magazine appeared above an advertisement for phone sex—he wanted a magazine he could show to his mom. Warner uses this anecdote, and others, to paint a picture of queer reactions to stigma. He talks about Erving Goffman’s categories of people into “stigmaphiles”, who share identity and community with other people stigmatized for the same things as them, and “stigmaphobes”, who each strive to be one of the “normals” (3).

Warner draws a line between normative gay and lesbian movements and radical queer ones, pointing out that normative groups have far more social and political power than radical ones, saying “The more you are willing to articulate political issues in a way that plays to a normal audience, the more success you are likely to have.” (3) He says what defines gay and lesbian communities is that they have to be somewhat sexual in order to find members united primarily by who their sexual objects are, but that they simultaneously “draw the curtain” over that sexuality to avoid shame. He claims that these communities’ rejection of queerness in favor of normativity isn’t malicious, but based in “trickle-down” thinking (26). Still, their rejection treads upon people who can’t or won’t live normatively. Normative gay and lesbian figureheads like James Collard, “post-gay” editor of Out Magazine, appear as leaders of the “true lesbian and gay movement” by virtue of the power their stigmaphobic ideologies lends them (28-29). Queer communities, on the other hand, teach us that “everyone deviates from the norm in some context or other and that the statistical norm has no moral value” (30)

Warner’s writing about the conflict between more conservative (mostly) LGB queer people who want to “stay at home and make their boyfriends dinner” and queer people who actively reject norms resonated with my own experience in queer communities. A lot of my earliest queer friends were of the former category, and I remember being confused that they wanted to fight their feelings of shame and stigmatization around their sexualities by making their sexualities appear more acceptable, rather than ~being themselves~ and challenging the definition of acceptable.

This piece also made me think about disabled queer people’s experiences—many people perceive those with disabilities, especially intellectual/developmental disabilities, as neuter or not interested in sex. I wonder how queer disabled people’s sexualities are seen, if they are seen at all?

Discussion questions:

1) How does “respectable” gay and lesbian normativity harm or disempower other, more non-normative queer people?

2) Warner says “Variations from the norm…are not necessarily signs of pathology. They can become new norms” (18). How do LGBTQIA+/queer people conform to norms within their communities? When do those norms conflict with or diverge from mainstream heterosexual culture? When do they converge with it?

3) “Is it normal to want to be normal?” (15)

Bonus (silly) question: was Warner’s comment about “letting all the gerbils scamper free” a reference to the urban legend about the gay men and the gerbil?

Apologies for any typos/brainos--I realized too late that this post was due at 6pm yesterday, and I'm running on very little sleep. Forgive me!

"What's Wrong With Be[com]ing Queer?" posted by Sara Goldstein-Weiss

“What’s Wrong With Be[com]ing Queer? Biological Determinism as Discursive Queer Hegemony”

 Weber's article explores the idea of pro-gay biological determinism and the opposing argument from the Christian Right. She shows how biological determinism, while intended to support queer people, has instead led to exclusion and erasure of some queer identities and experiences. Weber first explains how biological determinism has come to be the popular pro-gay attitude because it is a more convenient position for political activism, despite academic work supporting social constructionist views. She then outlines the Christian Right's use of “gay-as-deviant-choice” arguments and contrasts those with the mainstream pro-gay views of “biological homonormativity.”

To show how biological homonormativity has become intertwined with pro-gay discourse while constructionism has with anti-gay views, Weber uses a google search, the exchange between Melissa Etheridge and Bill Richardson, the movie “But I'm A Cheerleader, ” and the case Perry v. Schwarzenegger. Weber analyzes google search results concerning sexuality and biological roots to show that a plurality of sites claim that sexuality has biological origins, and that such arguments are linked with pro-gay discourse, while anti-gay views are linked with social constructionism. She also uses the example of Melissa Etheridge's angry response to Bill Richardson's belief that being gay is a choice to show that gay-as-choice arguments are linked with homophobia and that gay people who subscribe to the ideas of biological homonormativity assume they speak for all queer people when they assert their views. She concludes that only by understanding sexuality in an expansive way can we create an atmosphere that does not marginalize LGBTQ people whose experiences do not coincide with biologically homonormative ideas.

I read this piece with the assigned readings by Adrienne Rich and Judith Butler in mind because I remembered talking about the origins of sexuality and gender when discussing those readings. This piece gives more context for the reactions to Rich's conception of lesbianism. When I first read Rich's piece, I was shocked to see a pro-gay argument that viewed homosexuality as a choice, because, as this article discusses, all of the arguments I had heard concerning “gay-as-choice” had been anti-gay rhetoric. Weber's explanation of the history of biological homonormativity and how the political landscape shaped current discourse allowed me to understand how the false idea that all beliefs based on social constructionism are necessarily offensive to all queer people has been perpetuated.

1. Did this article change the way you think of the origins of sexuality?
2. Do you think it is possible for hegemonic pro-gay ideas to shift away from biological homonormativity without creating unwanted vulnerability to “gay-as-deviant-choice” arguments?

Mutilating Gender

As Spade himself says, “Mutilating Gender” examines the relationship between individuals seeking sex reassignment surgery (SRS) and the medical establishments with which they must contend in order to fulfill their goals. While the piece primarily focuses on medical governance of transsexual bodies, it can be broken down into several subthemes, including (but not limited to): cisgendered gatekeeping and the resulting dominant trans* narrative, perpetuation of the gender binary, and presumed heterosexuality.

The “gatekeeping” metaphor Spade uses throughout the piece is fairly straightforward. It refers to the authority given to medical professionals – usually cisgendered – to determine who may medically transition. However, not just anyone can be given the go-ahead to do so. In order to be seen as eligible for sex reassignment surgery, the individual in question must first meet the rigid demands of diagnostic criteria, which generally means adhering to a dominant trans* narrative: the dissonance must stem from childhood and the individual must be sufficiently masculine or feminine, depending on which gender they wish to transition to.

Afterwards, they must “prove” that they are truly ready for and committed to their transition by “inhabit[ing] and perform[ing] ‘successfully’ the new gender category” for a preset amount of time (13). The emphasis here on success implies a “right” way to perform gender, and thus perpetuates the idea of the gender binary. Spade also mentions the impact that presumed heterosexuality has on the determination of eligibility for SRS: one is more likely to be allowed to transition if doing so will align them with the “correct” sexual orientation, i.e. changing gender in order to pass as heterosexual.

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By setting up diagnostic criteria at all, the medical world is prescribing certain qualities to transsexual individuals. It is demanding of them a trans* narrative – something innate, something universal, something that can better proclaim individual identity than the individuals themselves. The fact of the matter is that in order to gain access to medical resources, you must identify with the gender binary. The problem must be “within the mind of the ill rather than within the construction of what is healthy,” and the treatment must be seen as “fixing” that problem, thereby allowing the individual to better conform to a gender role (7).

The medical regime, then, both perpetuates society’s ideas of what it means to be male or female and negates the experience of anything in between. Using behavioral criteria to diagnose gender still functions to emphasize the differences between the genders themselves, implying that one who identifies as male would not perform acts seen as characteristically “female” and that one who identifies as female would not perform acts seen as characteristically “male.” This assumption of a lack of middle ground is ironic in the sense that SRS is generally seen as a “freeing” process; however, in taking away the potential to transition for sake of freedom of self-expression, it devalues gender self-determination and fluidity, thereby stifling the individual. The fact that the “trans* narrative” must be strategically employed by the person in question goes to show the true nature of the process: they are not being asked to express themselves, but rather to present an image that complies with the preconceived societal notions of what it means to be a “real” transsexual and thus “deserving” of medical assistance.

The politics behind this procedure are problematic for a number of reasons. For one, who has the authority to determine an individual’s identity if not the individuals themselves? Furthering that, who is to decide whose story is more “legitimate” or “real” than another’s? How can we place objective criteria on something so purely subjective as experience, anyway? And why do we feel the need to constantly adhere to what is “normal” when “normal” is nothing more than a social construct?

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Discussion Questions

If you prefer to keep rhetorical questions rhetorical, here are a few others to consider:

1. Where else can Spade’s idea of gatekeeping be seen in LGBTQ lives and politics? For example, how does this concept relate to intersexuality?

2. Who, if anybody, is to benefit from the rigid diagnostic criteria of sex reassignment surgery?

3. Why do you think other forms of cosmetic surgery are seen as more acceptable than (and are more accessible than) SRS? How does this relate to gender?

Ritchie’s focus in the article Queer Activism and the Politics of Visibility in Israel-Palestine is on the way Israel and Palestine react to MOGII communities. There are two big dynamics discussed in the article.  One is relevant to how Israel is built on two contradicting sets of ideals; the first is overarching liberalism and the second is ingrained racism due to the nature of Israel as a state that continues to deny Palestinians access to their native land.  Ritchie concludes that the lauding of Israel as a safe haven from Palestinian homophobia is a way to “evade the fundamental contradiction between racism and liberalism that defines Israeli nationalism.”  Ritchie says that in the context of the western world, many liberal Zionists use the argument of homosexual acceptance to claim that Israel is better than surrounding religious homophobic cultures.  Contrarily, Palestinians are never asked if they want to be visible in Israel’s queer community, and instead used to further Isreal sympathy while supporters quietly ignore that Palestinian queers can never really incorporate into Isreal’s queer community while they are still viewed as “outside” of Isreal’s society for their ethnicity.

            When Ritchie moves on to analyzing Shaul Ganon’s ideas on Palestinian culture as it intersects with queerness, he relays that Ganon feels that Palestine’s culture is overshadowed with high value of the family’s reputation.  Many queer Palestinians don’t “come out” for fear of ruining the family name.  Ritchie then critiques that many people can’t resist bringing Palestinian queerness into Isreali or Western context, and need to force Palestinians to live an existence of visible and active queerness all the time.  Ritchie continues to say that Palestinians who live this way are actually western or Isreali due to this conversion to “queerness” as a lifestyle and active way of living.  “Enlisting” Arab or Palestinian queers into this western/Isreali frame is only a tool for the gain of western means.  Leaders in queer Palestinian organizations admit that they feel humiliated and uncomfortable with the way they have ideas prescribed to them without permission.

Discussion Questions:

            1.What are some similar cases of “using” marginalized groups for the sake of seeming politically inclusive, while backhandedly continuing to oppress?

            2.How do many other “western” societies enforce their own standards upon the rest of the world?

            3.How do you feel about non-western and non-modern ideas of queer identity?  Do you think being queer would be viewed “differently” if the communities and lifestyles surrounding it were downplayed or nonexistent?  What affects would that have on the queer population?

White Gloves, Feminist Fists: Race, Nation and the Feeling of ‘Vintage’ in Femme Movements

In this piece, Dahl explores the way the 1950's "vintage" aesthetic has been taken up by (white) queer femmes and how it "can be linked to 'the performativity of whiteness.'" (3) She begins by defining the contemporary femme movement as consisting of "lesbians and other queer sexual subjects, most but not all of who identify as women and above all, to whom feminine gender expressions and the politics of visibility and femininity are central to their body politic." (4) Dahl posits that the lack of research done on femmes and the femme community is a result of a contempt for femininity where it aligns with strict, more outdated gender roles. Because femme is said to be more than just determined by clothing, she questions what the clothing choices of "vintage" mean outside of simply the aesthetic pleasure, and what it means for someone to be "nostalgic" for an era. She writes that she is working towards answering the following questions: If vintage... ‘connects us to women before us’, whom does it connect (us) to? What, to be a little provocative, are the consequences of (trans)national femme organizing and aesthetic practices invoking 1950s legacies of high femininity that also have ties to white supremacy, US (cultural) imperialism and nationalism?" 

 

 Dahl then begins talking about the femme movement in Australia, charting how Sydney's Femme Guild incorporated and referenced Euro-American politics in their activism, as well as how the Guild's manifesto notes their appreciation for diversity ("femme is a radical queer embodiment of femininity 'camping' out in bodies regardless of sex or race or class", "an aspiration towards ‘global collaborations with other femme networks'", etc [7].) Interestingly, the Guild's float for the Mardi Gras parade (with "‘big flowing skirts’ and ‘big hair’" and a banner that referenced Rosie the Riveter) was put into the "America section", which Dahl asserts is an indication of the ability of "vintage" to unite the femme experience. Dahl also remarks that in using the image of Rosie the Riveter, participants of the parade were able to heighten their activism and queer the image of Rosie (which she remarks specifically in reference to a sign reading "see how straight do I look with my fist up your cunt!") She also notes, however, that "As Osuri and Banerjee (2004, 160) have argued, ‘the ownership of Australia as a white, Western country is articulated through its political, cultural and military alliances with the UK and the USA’," and that the using Rosie in a queer, non-American context, furthers that (9).

She follows these observances of The Femme Guild's use of vintage in the parade with remarks made by the two women at the beginning of the piece who have found their place in the vintage femme movement. Both women see vintage aesthetics in part as a way of accessing family members - for one, her grandmother, for the other, her mother. One woman admires the way things in the 50's were built to last - quality over quantity - and the other praises the time's expectation of "domesticity and nurturance". Dahl summarizes that "vintage is thus a term variously used to describe a style of dress, a home decorating style, an ‘old- style’ aesthetic or a fetish, each of which has an attachment to a set of values, memories or identifications that exceed beyond a visual representation or costume" and that in this way, it is a form of "femmebodiment." (10) Because these are aspects of white femininity during the 50's, utilizing vintage in the femme movement has the potential to exclude femme people of color.

 
The final part of Dahl's piece focuses on Bird la Bird, a white femme performer who arrived in Australia from Britain in 2009. At a small local bar, Bird's debut performance, which relied on "a white-dominated history of feminism and queer critiques of normativity," was met with praise and laughter, while "‘Rank’, a commentary on imperialism and racism," was not so positively received (12). After an extraordinarily vulgar depiction of colonialism and racism in her performance, a riot broke out in the crowd, "and while her whiteness facilitated her arrival on that stage, she was not protected by her British or her royal queer status as an international performer." (13) Dahl continues on to claim that "By calling the seemingly ‘banale’ choices of aesthetic cues and themes for public displays of femme visibility into question and pointing to their entanglements with histories of racism and imperialism, Bird ran the risk of becoming a ‘sore point’ or a feminist kill-joy (Ahmed 2010); a characteristic far more often attributed to non-white bodies," and observes that through her article, she can be accused of doing the same (14). 

Dahl concludes that "although the raised fist, dressed in a white glove, can point to the strength of femininity, it also serves as a reminder of a second skin, the preciousness of whiteness and a colonialist and racialized order that unfolds from and is oriented towards some femmes and not others," closing with the fact that the Femme Guild removed the white fist as their logo for this exact reason.

I've noticed the trend of "nostalgia" for 50's and 60's culture from people who weren't alive at the time (which calls into question whether or not this is a good use of the term nostalgia) and have found the celebration of the look without any consideration for the political climate surrounding those times particularly disconcerting. The anecdotes in the beginning, at first, placated me, as the women acknowledged these things ("'I know not everything was rosy back then (genocide, prejudice and so on)'"/"she saw [the 50's] as also marked by ‘McCarthyism and racial apartheid’"), but Dahl's questioning of how dress ties to culture made me believe that there is no way to access a culture without also accessing the general attitudes of the time surrounding it - in this case, racism, sexism, xenophobia - a whole slew of fears and aggressions acted out towards marginalized peoples. I can understand an appreciation for the look but to have strong positive feelings (or even a "fetish," as one woman described it) about the culture and perspectives of the time (especially on morality) I feel is concerning. In other words, I definitely agree with Dahl's remark that "The privilege of whiteness here enables gesturing towards an acknowledgement of ‘prejudice’, ‘genocide’ or ‘racial apartheid’ and yet, a simultaneous emphasis on ‘some lovely attitudes’ that can be recuperated or kinkily reworked," and can see where issues from that may arise (10).

(There are lots of run-on sentences in here, let me know if you'd like any further clarification on anything.)

 
Discussion questions:

1. Do you find that the celebration of the vintage aesthetic and the implications of the culture surrounding it results in its participants aligning themselves with an imperialistic and ultimately harmful nature?
2. Does linking Western countries in their queer pride erase queerness in non-Western countries?
3. Is it possible to remove the aesthetic from the culture it resided in? That is to say, is there a way to appreciate the look without associating the sexist/racist (etc.) attitudes of the time?

If Only I Were Cute: Lookism and Internalized Homophobia in the Gay Male Community

Andrew J. Feraios’s article details his experience in the gay male community and comments on how appearance is such a paramount factor in social and sexual interactions. Feraios uses his life as a case study, drawing on differences in his social life from times when he was overweight and times when he was in “cute mode” (what he describes as when individuals behaviors and appearance are manipulated and designed to seem more sexually attractive). He noticed that he was treated with more attention when he was thin and, but also that the attention was highly sexual. When he was heavier, he found it easier to form real connections based on personality rather than appearance. Faraios uses his experience to comment on lookism and internalized homophobia in the gay community. He demonstrates that obsession with appearance and qualities of sexual desirability could stem from poor self-esteem and internalized homophobia. The judgment of fat, feminine, and older members of the gay community is a result of societal stereotypes being perpetuated due to “young gay men [having] little support to unlearn all of the vile things they were raised to believe about gay men” (427). This is manifested both in “less cute” gay men acting subordinate to “cutest” individuals and a general fear of not fitting into the gay community.

This article relates directly to what we just discussed in class about sexual fields. Feraios’s term “cute mode” can be seen as an accruement of erotic capital. Faraios talks about how his own erotic capital was increased through weight loss, contact lenses, and different clothing. These specific qualities that Faraios talks about in his own life seem to be the standard for garnering attention within the gay community. To me, this goes along with the idea that even after coming out of the closet, one is confined into a box of strict expectations and norms.

I thought one of the most interesting points in the article was the idea that lookism and gay male sexual and social hierarchies are directly related to substance abuse and HIV transmission. The fact that the top reason for having unprotected sex for gay men is that “he was really hot” is an unfortunate concept and hard to wrap my head around.

QUESTIONS:

1)   Do you agree with the idea that lookism and internalized homophobia are possible causes of HIV/AIDS transmission?

2)   The article discusses how lookism and internalized homophobia affect the cis gender gay male community. How do these factors create hierarchies in other sectors of the queer community?

The Social Organization of Desire: The Sexual Fields Approach by Adam Isaiah Green

In this article, Green details his theory of sexual fields, which is a sociological framework for analyzing how people with shared erotic identities or tastes interact with specific "erotic worlds", and how these worlds are structured in terms of what Green calls "erotic capital". Green uses a case study of gay black men in arenas such as gay clubs, bars, and bathhouses to analyze how certain qualities either reduce or increase a participant's erotic capital. Green also analyzes how sexual fields are split into "tiers of desirability", indicating how participants are stratified into categories of desirability based on physical or behavioral characteristics. Finally, Green explains the larger sociological implications of the sexual fields theory, and how it can be applied on a macro level in the study of sexuality.

Given that this week's focus on the syllabus is Queer Hierarchies, I read this article with that lens in mind, and personally found Green's framework for analyzing sexual situations useful not just for detailing how power relations play out for queer people within an erotic context, but just within interactions among the queer community in general. Especially interesting was Green's observation/suggestion that black gay men often "do race" (i.e. presenting themselves in a way that plays into some white gay men's fantasy of the thuggish, ghetto, or dangerous black male) to increase erotic capital, but do the exact opposite (play down their blackness) to be seen by white gay men as "relationship material". I feel like this instance speaks to Green's point that sexual arenas often apply a different set of rules or logic than general social arenas, but still manage to maintain the power structures we find in greater society. In the situations Green observed, gay black men may be able to increase their erotic capital by playing up their blackness (which Green points out often decreases socioeconomic capital), but they still must play down their blackness to be considered worthy of a long term relationship with white gay men- not to mention, of course, the mere fact that white gay men in these situations hold enough power that black gay men must be the ones altering their behaviors to cater to the rules of the environment.

I feel like the above described dynamic can be applied in a wider context to the conversation about who in the queer community dictates what acceptable queerness looks and acts like, and how others in the community must often alter their behavior and appearances to those standards to be accepted within and outside the community. Inevitably, the power structures that privilege whiteness, maleness, and higher socioeconomic status allow people in the queer community with those qualities to dictate what queer people "should" look like or act like, forcing members to either conform to those standards or risk being accused of not truly being queer (or just not being "queer enough"). For example, a society that privileges traditional masculinity has the double effect of putting masculine white gay men "at the top of the pecking order" (p. 41), as well as often treating femme lesbian women like they aren't queer or queer enough because they exhibit traditionally feminine traits.

1. How do you think sexual fields play out among groups not discussed in this article, such as queer women or trans women and men?

2. Green's article focuses on erotic and sexual situations, but how else do you think the observed valuing and commodifying of certain physical or behavioral qualities within sexual fields can apply to the queer community outside of explicitly sexual situations?