In Summary...

As I read over my blogs for this class, the one theme that consistently strikes me is that of community identities: how to create them, how to name them, and who to include. Perhaps this is an obvious theme to choose, but seeing as how the gay community has struggled to find a community since the possibility of a community even came up (or out), it seems like an important and meaningful one to chose.
To me, the hardest thing to overcome when talking about community identities within the gay community, is having to overcome the idea of being outsider. Any queer identity is based on the fundamental notion of being different, of not being mainstream, of being something else, and something other. Lisa Kahaleole Chang Hall says in her essay “Bitches in Solitude” that

“Identities focused around not being something else as opposed to being something are the result of feeling attacked on all sides; they’re an attempt to consolidate ground that feels threatened.”

She goes on to talk about how, at least in the lesbian community, this consolidation has turned into an ever restricting ‘who’s a real lesbian?’ game, in which a community with strict rules and binding manifestos tries to limit their numbers in order to keep some semblance of similarity, or connection while simultaneously trying to transgress boundaries and fight for equality. Alisa Solomon, in “Dykotomies: Scents and Sensibility” talks about 1989 lesbian newsletter which published a long list of things the lesbian community needs to do be all-inclusive, yet many lesbians found this long list of rules to be completely ridiculous, completely suffocating, and ultimately against the point: the overwhelming number of ‘inclusivity’ rules actually turning away more women than including women.
However, this question of community identities is in no way limited to the lesbian community. One of my first blogs, “To Box or Not To Box” talks about the difficulty currently in the transgender community, which further demonstrates this difficulty. I still have not found answers to the questions that I pose in that blog, and I still don’t understand quite how transgender warriors who wish to conform to one gender or the other, who often desire to fit into traditional gender stereotypes can fight alongside the gender-fuck crowd who’s ready to topple over the oppressive dichotomy that gender presents. As Kate Borenstein points out in her book, Gender Outlaw, both of these groups ultimately point out the “silliness” of the gender system, and in one way or another seek to dismantle it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that its any easier to come up with one unifying name, or one unifying community.
Furthermore, the creation of a gender-fuck/queer identity has led to confusion over lesbian butch identities, as I bring up in my blog, titled “My Butch Identity”. While these two groups have much in common, perhaps especially in terms of appearance, their ideologies are different, making it nearly impossible to try to group them under one umbrella term. Esther Newton’s point, and my own feelings, about wanting to be a woman, and wanting to be butch, simply do not fit in with the idea of erasing gender altogether, although its possible and likely that for many women, these two ideas could be relatively synonymous.
Another couple of blog posts, “How Far We’ve Come” and “It’s an Individual Thing” respond to a debate that concerns the entire ‘queer’ community: assimilationist vs. radical. Although, as I mention in these blogs, I think, in many ways, this debate has turned into a celebrate vs. respect debate, its yet another way that the gay community is split apart, another way in which we find ourselves too big to fit under one name.
I am not trying to answer these big questions. I am not even trying to talk about these individual issues, but more trying to approach the ever-elusive community identity. Of course, the truth is that the gay community is every bit as diverse as any other community, including ‘the’ white community’ or ‘the’ heterosexual community, but I suppose that yet another privilege that comes packaged with being in the majority is that you don’t have to find a community label that fits everyone. There is a natural assumption that, of course, the heterosexual community is too diverse to try to include under one label, and certainly, no one would try to make the statement that ‘all heterosexual believe in…’ though people do that with the gay community, and other minority communities daily. Philosophically, of course, it makes sense to me, yet it still seems like an ultimately futile, and counter-productive search. Talking about our differences, figuring out ways to be inclusive without being exclusive, welcoming and joining other people’s communities, and banding together to work on a variety of issues seem like more productive paths to take. But then, again, I’m an idealist…

Gender Confidence

Our class discussion on Monday was pretty interesting, or at least I thought it was. Gender has always been a fascinating subject to me (I have been called tomboy since I could remember being called anything, and while it is a relatively nice term, it can definitely create some confusion for the little ones…), and one that I have sometimes struggled with, both in terms of my own gender identity and in terms of the gender of my ‘attractee’. Ultimately, like Juni, I would like to say that gender doesn’t matter, that I’m attracted to personalities, to minds, to senses of humor and compassion. But, really, given a man and a woman with the exact same personality, mind, sense of humor and compassion, I would choose the woman. Every time. I feel more comfortable with women: I like their softer voices, their softer bodies. I’m scared of penises. Each and everyone of those characteristics that Matt Kaily mentions in his book, all the parlor tricks, the jack of all trades, the 21-gun salutes, all of that just terrifies me. But like Matt Kaily (or, rather, unlike Matt Kaily) I feel I will always be attracted to ‘femaleness’, to whatever is that ‘essence’ of women.
While the big T throws a bit of kink into that ‘essence of women’ line, I think it does so in a positive way. Its good for women (and men) to think about what they really think a woman is, to consider the traits and characteristics, apart from a vulva and breasts. Having looked at a woman standing in front of me, with a real, functioning penis between her legs, has changed my view of a woman, but it has not destroyed it. While I don’t think that I am capable of putting to words exactly what I believe a woman is (perhaps, there are no necessary or sufficient characteristics), I think I’m just going to have to trust my heart on this one. So far it’s worked out well.

How Not to Stay White

We talked in class yesterday about homosexuality in the black community, and the ways in which these stereotypes haven’t changed. In class, we mostly focused on the ways in which the black community is homophobic, but I had a hard time separating that homophobia from the white community's racism. During our conversation I was reminded of Allan Bérubé’s article, “How Gay Stays White and What Kind of White It Stays” which takes a very pointed and interesting look at the white, gay male community. In his article, Bérubé talks about San Francisco gay bars that triple card people of color (and not white people) in order to make sure that the bar doesn’t “get taken over” by black, Latino, or Asian men. He talked about how the Campaign for Military Service actively denied letting a black gay man testify for fear that other gay men wouldn’t be able to relate to his experiences. He talked about how comparing gay rights leaders, such as David Mixner, to black civil rights leaders by saying such phrases as “our own Martin Luther King” is problematic because it excludes all the gay people of color who already have Martin Luther King, and don’t need their “own”.
To me, it seems like until the gay community can become ‘unwhite’ and actively look at its own racism, then being gay and a person of color will also be a contradiction, and will always bring up accusation of ‘race traitor’. I have a hard time talking about the ways in which people of color, or specifically, the black culture is homophobic without talking about the specific reasons they have to be, and the specific ways that we white queers perpetuate and create an environment of racism and homophobia.
In his article Bérubé suggests that we, the white gay community, actively talk about being white, that we talk about why we’re at a predominantly white bar, or on an all white panel. He believes that intentionally examining our own whiteness and asking some hard questions about our beliefs, and not just letting our white privilege allow us to not see or talk about race will help create a gay community that is more open and more representative of the actually gay population. I think Bérubé is right. I think we need to start talking about our whiteness, our own racism, our own acts of seclusion. One place to start is by looking at our own classroom.

My Butch Identity

Last week, I really appreciated Esther Newton’s discourse on the butch identity. Although an online Butch-Femme Test calls me androgyne, I still identify as butch, or at least soft butch, and I thought Newton has some really interesting answers to butch questions. I’ve had a hard time thinking about my gender in the past and locating it in a preset category, and I think that Newton’s response to my transgender question really helped me to figure that out. Like Newton, I grew up mostly as one of the boys. I admired my older brother to the point of wearing his clothes, copying his hobbies, and hanging out with his friends (being 6 years old, they weren’t always too willing, though). Today, I wear my own clothes, have my own hobbies, and hang out with my own friends, but my ‘tom-boy’ butch identity mostly remains. I don’t think I’m a hard butch, I mean, I still wear tight jeans on occasion, jackets from the women’s section of REI, and earrings, but I definitely like baggy clothes and power tools. And I like my lesbian identity, and I like being a woman, and I, like Newton, would hate to be a straight man (sorry, straight men).

What Newton mentioned that I hadn’t really thought about before is the idea that the gender queer movement is really eliminating the butch identity. Today, anyone dresses ‘like a man’ or throws off prevalent female stereotypes is supposed to identify as transgender, or at least gender queer, but, as Newton was saying, part of the butch identity, as least for many people, is actually wanting to be a woman, but a butch one.
Of course, like most things, there doesn’t really seem to be a ‘one size fits all label’ that can actually work. Many butches might identify as transgender, etc, etc, but I agree with Newton that the woman-identified butch—at least as an identity—is disappearing, and I think, in many ways, its leaving more and more girls and women confused.

I think anger is a very interesting idea, especially when framed by the gay (or rather queer) community. As “Queers read this: I hate Straights” demonstrated queers have a lot to be angry about, in the past and now. There is, of course, how medical professionals treated AIDS victims, and how transgender people are treated today. And as class demonstrated on Wednesday, there is the issue of silencing. Silencing, to me, continues to be a huge problem today, and one that this manifesto really helped me to articulate. I thought that these anonymous authors really brought up some interesting and subtle points about how straight people respond to queer anger, and I thought it was fascinating that, 10+ years later, I, a lesbian who’s only been out for 2 years (though it sometimes feels much longer), has already heard nearly every single ‘straight’ silencing line that they mentioned. It is amazing to me how most majorities can simply refuse to listen to the minorities, or perhaps, it is not amazing to me that most majorities can do this, but that most majority individuals who claim to be allies can and do continually silence their minority friends—often without realizing it. Furthermore, this silencing most often, at least in my life, occurs during times of anger, and sends the message that queer anger is unacceptable.
What is particularly interesting, I think, is the way that queer people do this to each other. My experience of queer people my age, which is unfortunately fairly limited to Carleton, is that we are very intellectual and critical. There is not a queer movement, past or present, that my queer peers don’t have some sort of take on, often negative. There seems to be this way in which we are constantly striving for some version of perfect and constantly discounting anything less than, instead of accepting different versions for what they are. Even just within the conversations of our class, I think we have a tendency not just to try and categorize movements and theories, but to actually place judgment on them, as if we know what is better or worse. When speaking about current issues, I think these judgments are particularly silencing, and I think that often the impotence behind it is some sort of belief that anger will not move the queer community forward, will not get us the right to marry. Perhaps, once queer people begin to take the time to listen to one another, we can set an appropriate model for straight people, and the power of multiple viewpoints will add a much needed push in the right direction.

All Inclusive SEX

I have been very fascinated by our conversations this week in class, perhaps, particularly because I have worked a lot on sex positivity at the Gender and Sexuality here. Our philosophy at the GSC is that if more people start feeling more comfortable being in their bodies as sexual beings, if they are able to talk about their desires and fantasies, if they can voice those ‘taboo’ thoughts, sexual violence, or at least the type of sexual violence we see at Carleton most often, will cease. However, over the past year of working on ending sexual violence by continually talking about sex, I’ve come to realize that sex is one of the most heterocentrist topics that I’ve come across. Even among people who claim to be great allies, they really can’t get past the penis-vagina image of sex. Which makes me think that a sexual revolution is just what we need. In many ways, that one guy from Stonewall was right: being gay isn’t just about the sex. But, then again, I would venture to say that a lot of homophobia is. It’s about a man doing to another man what he should only do to a woman, or a woman getting something from another woman that she should only be able to get from a man. So, yes, it’s about gender and gender roles, it’s about power and powerlessness, but it’s also about the sex. So, I say bring on the sex radicals, bring on the sexual revolution.
Although I can’t claim that making sex more inclusive will end homophobia or normalize homosexuality, I do think normalizing other definitions of sex, or at least ending our society’s obsession with vaginal intercourse as the end-all be-all of sexual relations. Luckily, there are a few people working towards this end as well. The presentation we had last year, “I love the female orgasm” by a couple of ‘sex connoisseurs’ not only empowered women, but also helped to expand the definition of sex. Similarly, sex toy shops like the Smitten Kitten in Minneapolis, or Good Vibrations in San Francisco and Berkeley, serve both women and men with the express purpose of empowering people as sexual beings. And we at the GSC are doing our part by sponsoring Sex Toys 101, a presentation on sex toys presented by the Smitten Kitten, at least every year (shameless plug: Tuesday, October 23rd, at 8 in WA House (Berg House)).
It is my conviction that once we begin to view sex—all types of sex—as normal and healthy, the world will be a much better place.

My First Experience with HIV/AIDS

The very first time I remember being encountered with AIDS was in the early-mid 90’s. I think I must have been somewhere between 7 and 10 when one of my mom’s former students stopped by. My mom invited him in for tea, and then lunch, and all I remember of the conversation is being somewhat by whatever they were talking about, but also intrigued by this enigmatic, flamboyant young man at our table. And I remember being shocked when he finally left, and my mom just started crying and took his plate, his tea cup, and his utensils, and threw them in the garbage.
Now, my mom is both a diehard hippy and has a persistent love of learning. I know now that she didn’t actually think that her family could contract HIV/AIDS from Sampson’s plate, or cup, or fork, but in that moment the terror was just too great, the risk, though small, just wasn’t worth taking. At the time, I remember asking my mom why she was throwing these things out, and I also remember her explaining, through her tears, about HIV/AIDS, how it could be contracted (and how it was unlikely that it could contracted from a plate), and how deathly it was, and how much she didn’t want me to even have the smallest risk of contracting (although I was very lucky that at this time my mom told me to use protection when I would finally have sex, instead of just telling me not have sex at all).
Once again, I must apologize for the lack of academia so far in this post, but I do think this story has some academic clout because it really speaks to that intense fear of death, that emotional side of HIV/AIDS that is so so powerful. Of course, cancer has its own emotional baggage, but not, as we talked about in class, the same stigma, and certainly not the same fear of infection. Its telling to me that my mother, a woman who I respect and emulate above all others, a woman with a masters degree from the University of San Francisco, can still be so illogical as to contradict the facts she knows and throw away a plate. In most ways, I think Justin really spoke what I’ve also been feeling in reading about the HIV/AIDS crisis: I just can’t get it. It was such a profound moment of loss, and it was dealt with in such a insulting and demeaning way. And that loss and that insult are so hard to come to grips with when viewed from my simultaneously innocent and knowledgeable perspective.
Today Sampson still visits us at our house—I’ve probably seen him 3 or 4 times since that first time. However, he’s never stayed for lunch again, and I have no idea what my mom would do with the plate she fed him on. In many ways, I think she might do the exact same thing she did 10 years ago, and as much as I know its wrong, I don’t know that I would try to stop her.

Its an Individual Thing

Considering the topic of my last blog, I though our class discussion on Monday concerning the “acceptance vs. respect” dialogue, and whether or not it is still persistent today was quite interesting. Although some of the class made eloquent points about how they believe this debate is over, it seemed that if some of the class (and thus a portion, though small, of the gay community) believes that it is still persistent, then it is still persistent. Although, today’s organizations seem to have found more of a balance by which they are not constantly bickering, these issues of acceptance and respect, or celebration and normalization, are still issues for many people.
The trend in national organizations today (see OutProud at http://www.outproud.org/ and The Human Rights Campaign at http://www.hrc.org/issues/coming_out.asp for examples) is to encourage and support coming out, in a way that was definitely not acceptable in Mattachine and the other lesbian and gay organizations during the 40’s, 50’s, 60’ and 70’s (and I think the 80’s too, but we haven’t started that reading yet). And even though I don’t know of any organizations that suggest that LGBT people shouldn’t come out, or should try to assimilate more effectively, I still think that are many individuals of LGBT identity who do believe that and live their lives to that effect, which means to me that the debate continues. I think that the most common way for LGBT people to show their ‘assimilist’ views is to be completely unconnected the queer community, to steer away from activism, pride banquets, and anything that has clearly visible gay connections, or at least that’s the assimilationist attitude that I’ve seen at Carleton. Ultimately, I think both sides has merits, that we should strive for both acceptance and respect, that its counter-productive to split apart the gay community with two nouns we should all be working towards. And I believe the same is true for celebrating and normalizing. In our community, in every community, there are moments for celebrating, moments for normalizing, moments for acceptance, and moments for respect. Today, its just a matter of figuring out which is which.

How Far We've come

One thing I find fascinating about Duberman’s Stonewall (and this whole class really) is seeing how split apart the gay community was back before and around Stonewall. I keep trying to imagine myself participating in the gay community of the 50’s and 60’s—which organization meetings and conferences would I have attended, would I have played into butch/femme roles or taken on a Kiki personality, chosen to assimilate or be radical. Although my gay life so far seems to have taken on somewhat radical edges, I’m quickly realizing as commencement rears its ugly (though much wanted) head, that those choices, my work in the GSC, and my public affection for my girlfriend, have all been made within the privileged realm of Carleton. And while I still absolutely think that our gay ancestors were able to do a pretty good job paving the road, and that I am unlikely to be attacked by a police officer at a gay club, I know that ultimately I will have to face all those same decisions, though perhaps in a subtler fashion.
I think the more academic point I’m trying to make is that while I was initially amazed at how far the gay community has come, I think in reality, its disagreements have just become subtler. For instance, it seems to me like the “assimilate vs. radicalize” debate of the 50’s and 60’s has shifted to the “normalize vs. celebrate” debate of today. While these two clashes are very different, I think at their core, they are asking the same question, and it was only by asking and fighting over the first, that we’ve been able to partake in the latter.
As a young gay (both in terms of biological age and years since coming out—is there an official gay term for that? Because I think there should be. Maybe gayge?), I have not really figured out my answers to these questions. I want to be both radical and normalizing, to fight the government and its heterosexism, yet make it so young kids can think about their sexuality without scaring it out of themselves first. So, while we’ve come a long way, we certainly have a long way to go yet. And I’m excited to be a part of as much as I can.

an official advertisement

This weekend I went with a few friends to check out some slam poetry in the city. I didn’t really know anything at all about the place or the even before I went, but was pleasantly surprised to find myself sitting front-row to a couple of gorgeous queer women (and 1 man). The even took place at The Loft, a literary center that hosts book clubs, workshops, printmaking…and slam poetry once a month that is centered around giving minorities a voice. This past weekend the theme was Asian queers, and it was absolutely amazing. One of the performers, D’Lo is Sri Lankan, but grew up “on hip-hop” in LA. She came on stage wearing an oversized sweatshirt, huge pre-faded jeans, and a completely shaved head. During the course of her performance she managed to take off her jeans and her sweatshirt, and don a skirt, sari, long wig, earings, and the voice of her mother. The transition was stunning, and gender bending. If you guys are interested in some really great spoken word, you should check out the Loft—I think the next poetry event is October 20th, and it will also be dealing with issues of sexuality and gender.

To Box or Not

One strand of conversation that has been particularly interesting to me in class is that of gender. Since coming to Carleton (the very beginning of my journey into sexuality, gender, and heteronormativity), I have just begun to recognize the impact of gender on our society: the prevalence and pervasiveness of gender roles in homes, health care systems, and even LGBT societies—and yes, I did mean to leave the T in. Although we ‘queer’ folk like to believe that we are going against the grain, and in many ways we are, gender roles still have a powerful though underlying current of power in our culture, one that was perhaps set up in the 1950’s by those rebellious “Outlaws” and culturists. The effeminate gay man, ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ roles, and the butch-femme relationship all illustrate how gender roles continue to effect us, (and yes, Juni, how in many ways we remain boxed in). However, I’m particularly interested in how gender roles continue to effect transgendered people. Although in some ways, transgendered folks were the first to really cross gender boundaries, at a very deep level they enforce gender roles almost to an extreme. Yet, as Loren Camron (an amazing trans activist photographer who came to Carleton and went out to lunch with a few us) pointed out to me, the current genderqueer movement, created by transgendered people, practically forces out all of its original inventors by claiming that there shouldn’t be any gender.
I apologize for the wordiness and lack of a clear point here, but I am still trying to wrap my mind around how exactly we can navigate gender roles. But also, I think my ultimate question goes even deeper than that, and relates back to Juni’s comment in class because just as the current gender queer movement is pushing out the original transgender people, the modern gay movement which seeks to eliminate a gay stereotype is pushing out those inspiring 50’s activists. So when does removing ‘the box’ go to far, and to what extent do we need stereotypes in order to have a community? How can we eliminate the tension between those that want a box to fit in to, and those that feel the need to transcend them?

Preambling

After mocking the whole world of blogging, I feel both embarrassed and excited to finally have an excuse to start my own. While I still fail to understand the theory behind personal “diary” blogs, I am beginning to see the allure of a class blog, an electronic and open space to rant, rave, and indulge. So, with that mindset, and apologies to all the bloggers out there, I’m off.