Critical Response 5

In Epistemology of the Closet by Eve Sedgwick, Sedgwick argues that the western binary that is not sufficient. The author states that there is a third sex, ‘queer’. She goes on to say that the homo/hetero labels formed are insufficient and do society an injustice. She then goes to define the two ideas that guide sexuality. The minoritizing view states that people are either born gay or straight and then battle with demons differently. The universalizing view states that peoples are not parts of a solid sexuality, that sexuality is fluid, and that though not everyone is bisexual in physical behavior, peoples are bisexual, to some extent, in their behavior.

I agree with Sedgwicks idea that there are three major sexual axes of identity that should all be viewed and regarded as separate entities. Chromosomal sex are the biological differences between a human with an XX and an XY chromosomal arrangements. Gender refers to the socially constructed ideas and behaviors between men and women while sexuality is a grouping of actions based on attraction and genetal sensations which forms identities and knowledge. The terms sexuality and gender now are too strict and do not allow for the fluidity that accompanies the sexuality. By creating binaries which tie certain genders with chromosomal sexes and sexualities, we limit society to two hard options whereas there is truly a larger, fluid, sexuality among peoples. My own sexualities will vary from day to day, year to year. It is important to attempt to dissolve this binary.

I agree with the universalizing view of sexual behavior. In my own experience I have found that I do not lie within the sexual binary. The binary amongst the three sexual identities has proved to restrict me. I battle not only with others about lying outside of the norm, but also with myself; I restrict my own behavior and beliefs because they are not fit for the social strata in which we now live.

Heterosexuality was only created through the rejection of homosexuality. I believe this is an incredibly important insight into power structures. By defining a ‘race’ with souls rooted in sin it allows those who conform with the normative society to oppress the others. This is a reenacted manifest destiny. It is the belief of those that do not agree with homosexuality that it is their god given duty to perform exorcisms, or genocide, in order to save savages from themselves. Though less blatant, the establishment of the sexual binary allows for the dehumanization of a large populous, creating racism among different substrates.

Critical Response 5

Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria is a striking example of how heteronormative and whitewashed our entire culture is, even in our recording of historical events. Susan Stryker’s dedication to seeking out the truth of what happened and listening to the stories of all the people involved whose voices had been silenced is commendable. However, even after this riot it still took the government 25 years to finally repeal the law against crossdressing, which shows how long it can take for a social movement to finally spark legal change. What I also thought was really interesting, and it was something I never realized, was the separation between gay and transgender back then. The gay community pretty much rejected the transgender community as “others”. Their ability to eventually come together into the larger LGBTQ movement gives me some hope that someday we’ll finally figure out a way to sort out this whole mess.

In relation to that, I think Sedgwick definitely has the right idea in Epistemology of the Closet, about rejecting standard binary structures (such as homosexual/heterosexual). If you really think about it, binaries are such an unrealistic way to view the world, there’s so much variation in every aspect of our lives. I know that I personally have always considered a very black-and-white viewpoint to be a negative personality trait, but I’m finally starting to see how deeply that kind of thinking is integrated into our society and power structures. This is what queer theory is all about, rejecting this unrealistic oversimplification and exposing the power structures that use binaries as a way to manipulate and control. If Sedgwick is right and “the language of sexuality not only intersects with but transforms the other languages and relations by which we know” (3), then reinventing the language of sexuality would be very effective in transforming our overall worldview and interaction with the power structures that hold influence over us. 

CR #5

Kimberly Brown

Qwo-Li Driskill

Cr #5

          Reading Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Epistemology of the Closet made me think quite a bit more about the different binaries that our society uses to determine the division of power. The binary Sedgwick talks about the most is the homosexual and heterosexual binary. The idea that they are two opposite categories and that they cannot exist on their own. Heterosexuality did not exist until homosexuality was recognized as the opposite of the norm and given a name in order to more adequately extract that group of people from positions of power. Sedgwick addresses this matter often in her book as the main binary in the power structure that gives and take privilege in our society. I disagree with this.

       For much of my college career I have spent time pondering the power structures and how they impact me. I have come to the conclusion that the main binary that impacts my life, and the lives of many like me, is the male/female binary. Many cultures use this binary as a division of power and labor. The assumption is that there are only two sexes and the traits are vasty different between the two. Although the homosexual-heterosexual binary certainly plays a role in this, I feel the male/female binary is the primary mode of division. Just as without homosexuality would not exist; sexuality in general would not exist without the assumed difference between the sexes. Without named genders and sexes sex would just be sex and there would be no need for naming the different ways people love and show love.

      The gender binary serves the structures of power in many ways. The male is assumed to have the dominant traits and is able to hold that above the female of the same standing. In many situations, past and present, a male is put in charge because of traits they are expected to possess because of their genitalia. This is the primary mode of division amongst the people. It is the way power and labor is divided most often and is the most accepted form of predjudice.

Critical Response #5 Sedgwick and Screaming Queens

I found the movie for this week, Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria, to be very interesting. It always interests me to see how queers from earlier decades, or even centuries, lived their lives. Because you don’t hear as much about queer people from those eras since those people had to be more secretive about their sexual identity than most people are today. It was sad that there was so little, basically none, tolerance for transgender people back then. Though there isn’t very much nowadays either. Some of the people that were interviewed, I would have assumed were women anyway. The riot that occurred at Compton’s cafeteria seemed to have such a change in the police response to the transgender people, shows me that the queer community just needed to band together and unite more. It was nice that after the riot they were able to go buy women’s clothes and wear what they wanted without being harassed about it. I don’t think this would really work today though, with the police today, I think riots would be handled with much more brutality and more people would be imprisoned. It was also interesting to learn a bit about the first sex changes that were made available for the transgender community, and to hear about how this helped so many people become who they were truly meant to be. I was also pretty surprised to hear that the police officer interviewed for this film, had gotten fired after his enemies planted narcotics in his desk. That made me angry, because he was this one good cop, that was actually doing what police officers should do, and he gets set up and fired.

            In Epistemology of the Closet, is largely a response to other writings, but presents its own arguments about the queer community in its responses. The “closet” argument is probably the one that interested me most. Because even as someone who is straight, you hear a lot about this “closet” that people may be stuck inside, and about how hard coming out can be for people. I do believe that that would be hard, especially if you don’t feel that the people you love and know well would be supporting to you. But as Sedgwick argues, I do believe that the ‘closet’ is a bit contradictory. To be stuck in the closet is to be oppressing yourself almost, hiding a part of yourself that is just as important as every other piece of your identity. But coming out could lead to oppression from others, even rejection. As Sedgwick argues, this separation of sexualities, and the connotations presented by both identities, should be destroyed. I think if people stopped putting so much weight on heterosexuality or homosexuality, and didn’t think of heterosexuality as something that is more ‘normal’ while homosexuality is weird or even sinful, the world could be a better place, really.

Universalizing and broadened queerness

Sedgwick’s idea of the universalizing view of sexuality reminds me of Cohen’s claim that we need “a broadened understand of queerness…based on an intersectional analysis that recognizes how numerous systems of oppression interact to regulate and police the lives of most people” (Cohen, 2007, p.26). It makes sense that for many the idea that sexuality is unpredictable, unstable, or fluid would be scary, of course if this were not the case we would not live in a heteropatriarchy. Yet, if we are to get past this fear the idea of the universalizing sexuality could be very helpful for social justice movements. Especially if we were to take some of the points Sedgwick explores in the Epistemology of the Closet and combined them with Cohen’s application of queerness to intersectionality and systems of oppression and privilege.

            I’m definitely on board with the limitations of a binary view of sexuality. Sexuality is simply to complex to be set within a binary, not to mention the effects a binary system has on those that fall within the “subordinated” term homosexual (p.10). In fact, I think it may be good to do a close reading on Sedgwicks’s description of one of the main arguments of her book. She states that “heterosexual/homosexual…actually subsist in a more unsettled and dynamic tacit relation according to which, first, term B is not symmetrical with but subordinated to term A.” So in this instance homosexual [term B] as part of the binary of sexuality is not balanced or an interchangeable term for heterosexuality, because homosexuality is seen as less than or secondary to heterosexuality, and this is because the relationship between the two terms while not expressed explicitly are actively changing. She then goes on to state: “second, the ontologically valorized term A actually depends for its meaning on the simultaneous submission and exclusion of term B” (p.10). Here heterosexuality is specifically named as a term of value, and status, as a commodity that was brought to existence through the coinage of the term homosexual. Without the term homosexual, heterosexual would mean nothing, yet at the same time the term heterosexual depends not only on the term homosexual from being seen as inferior or lesser than but it also depends on homosexual as a term becoming external, separate, and apart from the essence of heterosexual. Lastly, Segwick states that “third, the question of priority between the supposed central and the supposed marginal category of each dyad is irresolvably unstable, an instability caused by the fact that term B is constituted as at once internal and external to term A.” Here we see the debate between which word has the right to precede or come before the other word in terms of rank or privilege is impossible to resolve because the words themselves are not fixed to be broken down into steady parts that can be knowable. They are unsteady precisely because homosexual is apart of heterosexual but at the same time it is outside, external and excluded to heterosexual.

Visually, when I think about this concept I picture the word heterosexual sitting large and proud on the page with a large backslash between itself and the smaller homosexual, so that it doesn’t have to see and can exclude homosexual from it’s presence. Yet unbeknownst to heterosexual its own shadow gives it away as being connected to but removed from homosexual. Homosexual is there but also not there, and this connection that it can’t quite ever shake off is what will cause heterosexual to crumble one day. 

This is a perfect example of Segwick and Foucault’s claims that silence is just as important as non-silence (p.3). Here we see that the word homosexual is silenced largely from entering into discourse related to heterosexuality, yet it is there we just need to search through the silence to find it and illuminate it’s significance. This also connects well with Morales call for an illumination of silences. It seems to me that through analyzing, deconstructing, and bring forth silences we are restructuring power dynamics so that where silence originally held little power, it now holds much power and potential for liberation.  Sedgwick’s illumination of the complexities and silences around the hetero/homo binary in the end actually shows that homosexuality as a term in actuality has great power.  Once this has been established we see that looking at queerness through a broadened lens and in conjunction with intersectionality (also axiom 1 that people are different from each other and that axiom 2 that gender, sex, and sexuality are related but not the same), as Cohen calls for, holds a lot of potential for social change.

cinco

The idea of "coming out" has always been a personal enigma.  I have always struggled with the coming out process because I have continuously felt that telling someone, "Hey, I'm pretty gay" and then having a serious conversation around my sexuality is often times more beneficial for them than it is me.  For me, the hesitancy to come out to everyone I know, is not bound within  fear of possible oppression and rejection from those I love, but rather furthering myself into oppression from the heteronormative society for which we all live in.  I guess what I mean by this is I don't ever want to be subject into a behavior forced upon me by the heteronormative groups to justify whether I'm in or out of the club; I don't ever want to be subject into a behavior that is not expected for heterosexuals as well.  I refuse be confined into a double standard action.   Like Sedgwick, I believe that the hetero/homo binary sexuality bit causes plenty of oppression to all persons because it forces people to choose a very rigid, this or that lifestyle.  A binary sexuality system creates a detrimental environment where one sexuality is deemed as normal and one the other.  This system also perpetuates a hetero/homo culture, in which someone can never be anything but these two things (and if they are, then they further need to marginalized, ridiculed, and oppressed).  Sedgwick argues for the deconstruction of these binaries, in which looser definitions around heterosexuality and homosexuality can be explored, sexuality in general can be explored.  As cliche as this may sound, I cannot agree more with this argument.  I truly believe that there needs to be a deconstruction of this binary and a creation of a different dialogue that allows individuals to be whatever they want to be, to be something outside of the box that society subjected them into.   And maybe coming out is a way to do this, to push against heteronormativity, to educate people that there is a strong LGBTQ community, that we are here, we exist.  However, I would like to believe that not coming out is also a way to push against heteronormativity-by not playing by their rules, by not choosing to be straight or gay or even declaring it, but by simply being me.  Coming out like Sedgwick said is a double bind and hopefully, I won't be damned by not choosing to do so.

Closet Conundrum

    In reading “Epistemology of the Closet,” by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, the argument that resonated most strongly with me was that “the closet” created countless contradictions both at personal and societal levels. In society, if you don’t publicly come out, then it’s almost like you are lying to the people around you, but if you do come out you can be shunned and have to deal with any consequences that arise from that. It’s a bit of a Catch-22. I see many of the same parallels in the way that society treats women in basically everything. For example, when a woman wears too much makeup, she’s fake, but if she doesn’t wear any she’s not trying. Both of these situations arise from the repressive power (the non-queer majority and male-dominated societies, respectively) trying to maintain control over every aspect of the minorities’ lives in order to keep their power in place. On a more personal level, one of the hardest parts about coming out is the reaction of those that you hold dear. There’s the usual stuff about family shunning you and stuff, but sometimes comments that aren’t meant to be harmful can be quite damaging also. In my experience, I look rather butch to begin with, but I’m neither lesbian nor straight. If I date a guy, I’m hiding something or using him as a the lesbian equivalent of a beard. If I date a girl, some of the people in my life say they “knew it” all along. It’s like the people around you have formed their own opinions about you and no matter what you say or do, nothing will change that. This is where bisexual and pansexual erasure stems from, I think. Even within the queer community people still like to put other people in boxes and the biggest ones are straight and gay/lesbian.
    Something else that was worth noting was that Sedgwick said that coming out was akin to wielding a double-edged sword in that both you and the people around you can get hurt. The person coming out obviously has to deal with the repercussions of people knowing that they’re queer and how it will affect their family, job, and relative safety. On the other side, family and friends can sometimes feel betrayed, disappointed or angry that that part of the person’s personality was hidden from them for so long. However, I feel like that is a bit of false equivalence, and that the hurt caused by a person coming out is much less than having their relative safety and livelihood compromised by who they choose to love. In order to have a healthy society for all, people who feel threatened or hurt by those who choose to come out later need to realize that it can be dangerous to do so, and that the person is still the same, just with another layer known.
    And finally, another part of the work that I found interesting was the separatist gender models. This was the first time that I have ever heard of them, and I found the bit about making lesbian and gay people the “norm” because they identify with who they love, in this structure kinda awesome. However, it still slightly excludes fluid people, and is still using the whole idea of putting people in boxes for classification, just flipping the system upside down. I believe that in order to be truly equal and just, society will have to deconstruct systems of separating gender and gender preferences entirely, rather than just changing the current systems that we have in place.

Critical Response #3

            While reading Loving in the War Years, I especially resonated with the section titled "Traitor Begets Traitor," on page 90. "Chicanas begin to turn our backs on each other either to gain male approval or to avoid being sexually stigmatized by men..." While this seems, on the surface, to be specific to Chicana women, and more specifically, non-heterosexual Chicana women, what woman doesn't this apply to??? Women learn early, as girls, to turn our backs on each other to gain male approval. We push away friends, become people we don't recognize, do whatever we have to do to gain the approval of a man. Does this occur for women pursuing other women, as well, or is this something we do just for men? I tend to think it is probably an occurrence across the spectrum. To give up a piece of oneself, in giving up our friends, the women who are our allies, for this piece of ass.

           In this way that we give up a piece of ourselves, are we losing part of our voice? I do not know what it is to be a part of a culture who has had their language taken from them. But can this be compared to women, or really anyone who has ever been a victim of any kind of abuse or neglect, and the piece of you that you lose to someone who chose to take it? Does this voice of your people before you compare to the voice you yourself once had but have lost? Can that voice you lost as a victim of some kind of abuse be compared to the voice lost as someone who has moved to another country, done everything they felt they needed to do to assimilate (including give up her language), only to become an old woman, dependent on men who treat you as though you no longer matter? Who decides which of these scenarios counts the most?

       As I read these pieces, I couldn't help but think about what voices I have lost over the years. I say voices deliberately, as opposed to voice, because I believe we all have multiple voices, which grow and shrink and sometimes disappear altogether as others become more prominent as our days go by. I have, of course, lost the voice I had as a child. The voice which allows you to ask silly questions, to say silly things, and not be looked down upon. As we "grow up," that voice disappears. What about the voice I had before the rape? Who was I then? Did I sound different? Did my vowels and consonants roll off the same? I don't know. I don't remember that person. Now, the voice of a mother with two kids, a wife, whose voice is this I hear? Have I completely lost the voice of the woman I was before, when I got to care only of myself? Will that voice come back one day?

     Where did those voices go? Did the person who took it from me become the owner of that voice? Will they give it to someone else, or let it die? Do they realize that they have that voice now? Do their words ever feel funny on their tongue, but they don't know why?

Critical Response #3

As a white, heterosexual male I am incredibly aware of those that are disadvantaged (or worse) as a result of the privilege I have. I am stricken with guilt and I attempt to be ever cautious of others and the way I impact their life. Though I may never properly empathize with these peoples, I can battle my ignorance through knowledge of their cultures and connecting with their struggles.

While reading through the essays I couldn't help but internalize the plight of the Native American, feeling ever sad for what people from my home-land had done. Through eugenics, genocide and settler colonialism my ancestors have wiped out not one, but many nations. Then, they have the audacity to define, dictate, and declare these peoples extinct.

In media today the plight of the cultured is often forgotten. Through the linearization of community and global societal norms peoples are coerced to disregard their heritage, and are taught that success is found through a level of ‘whiteness’. Growing in an impoverished area with many folk that were not of white descent and lack a proper education I was taught to speak in slang with a drawl. However, I quickly learned that if I assimilated to a modern, linearized culture, I was praised. Soon, my ‘whiteness’ had gotten me several jobs, scholarships and opportunities.

Assimilating to societal norms also severely affects my sexuality. Though I identify as a heterosexual male, I believe that my sexuality cannot be defined and is much more fluid than this. Defining your sexuality limits you as a person, but is constructive to societal groups and promotes success within a modern culture. As with sexuality, attraction is much more fluid than identified; as men we are often too scared by social exile to recognize this and disguise our emotions through cold shoulders and “no homo”s. Though puritans attempt to find god through ‘cleanliness’ it is this same ‘cleanliness’ that strips us of the spirituality that is within us all, keeping us from discovering our bodies, our personalities, and the strength within.

The high, the low, and the intersectional

Through their discussion of theory, silences, and voice Virgie Tovar, hooks, Morales, and James Thomas Stevens all remind us that we must push against the constructed identities placed on QPOC by colonialism, and white supremacy. Tovar points out that this is particularly the case within academia when she states, “academia is a game of whiteness… you’ve got to figure out how to survive.” For her surviving has consisted of bridging high theory (frequently white academia) with low theory (pop culture/life experiences).  Bridging both worlds is crucial for buy in, for enlightened consciousness, for continued growth, and for liberation and healing. At the center for Tovar is knowledge for the common good. This is very similar to what hooks calls feminist researchers and activists to do in Teaching to Transgress. Melding high and low theory can be very powerful, especially if one is strategic. Take Tovar’s work for example. While she has been working on various issues around Fatphobia for years, she was very intentional about what particular subject she chooses to push into the public discourse. This has led to success for herself as well as to push the conversations forward on this important subject.

There is a connection often between those who call for us to bridge the high and the low, the academic and the lived, those who call for an intersectional framework, and those who want to connect and collaborate with others with similar mindsets. This is all interrelated, and often almost oppositional to the “white academy” where people steal ideas, where competition is bred, where knowledge is produced for the sake of knowledge but not for transformative change, where essentialism runs rampant. Why is this, and how can we change it?

I think Tovar gives a little insight to at least one part of the piece of the puzzle. She reminds QPOC that our stories and our theories are of value. That we must demand that they been seen as valuable. Morales works to illuminate voices, which have been held in silence, because they are important, because they are worth paying attention to. Similarly hooks has worked for years to bridge theory and praxis within her work, but is often regarded as not academic enough to be credible. Experiences of silencing and dismissing are not uncommon to marginalized voices. Yet, Tovar shows us that we must be fierce, that we must protect ourselves, and to do that me must demand that our voices be heard, we must demand that our time be acknowledged, we must demand to be seen as legitimate, and we must demand that our work be seen as valuable – we must demand to be paid for the work that we do, and not feel bad about it. I think this is a point that frequently gets ignored, and quite frankly makes many of us uncomfortable. But it is true that if we put a price to our work then it does have value, and people begin to see it as something of value. 

Critical Response #3

Critical Response #3: King & Justice et all

            Reading media such as Sexuality, Nationality, and Idigeneity is always fun for me because different authors and values and beliefs can be represented in one volume of a work. These articles were interesting to me, because it made it clear to me how little I ever hear about Native Americans. Before this class I hadn’t really realized how little Native people of color ever get represented in the media, I just hadn’t ever noticed it, and I suppose this is how the media wants it. For people to not notice the lack of representation that exists for certain portions of our “equal” nation. But I definitely feel as though I’ve seen more representation for African American people that I have with Native Americans. It was also odd hearing about the queer movement being compared to that of the Native Americans, but I suppose that it does make some sense since both of the movements seem to be minimalized and attempted to be ignored.

            A common topic of discussion in the articles was that of settler colonialism, and how this relates to queer theory. Settler colonialism involved the murder or control of native peoples when new colonies came to settle into their land. This was common practice against the indigenous Native Americans back in the colonial times, and isn’t really spoken of much now. This compares to how even now the LGBTQ movement is attempting to be quieted even now. While there are finally more frequent mentions of the queer community in the media, there still isn’t nearly as much attention as there should be. There is even less attention paid to the Native Americans, obvious in the fact that I live Oregon which has more of a Native population than a lot of places, and I still don’t have a lot of knowledge about the tribes and reservations that lie around me.

           

            The interview with Virgie Tovar was interesting; I did enjoy her term ‘bohedonist.’ I also liked that she brought to light all the different forms of art that exist. When most people think of art, mostly what comes to mind is paintings and drawings, maybe poems and music. But to me art is really anything that allows for self expression. Artwork can be a very powerful form of political statement, and Tovar tackles some serious issues with her art such as gender politics and fatphobia. A point she makes in the interview, that “education is the key to ascendency” struck me the most though I think. Because that’s basically how I’ve felt from high school on, and my father was always a big believer in me and my sister going to college so that we could have better than he had. So I’ve definitely lived with that sort of mantra for most of my life. And like Tovar says, that attitude has helped me a lot with a lot of things, and has helped me gain a lot of skill sets.

intersectionality and using voice

The GLQ journal Sexuality, Nationality, Indigeneity gathers several articles that focus on indigenous queer perspectives and forms of resistance to settler colonialism.  The introduction sets the tone for the collection and sends a great message.  While the original cover art was rejected due to being unsuitable for the publication, the editors expressed their resistance to this decision in the introduction.  By doing this, they not only gave an example of resistance, they also raised the point of what is deemed acceptable to those in positions of power.

Much can be said about each piece in this collection.  However, one thing that was apparent throughout was the writing styles of each of the authors.  The voice chosen to write in and the personalization of the subject matter was consistent across the articles.  One standout example of this is in “Puo’winu’l Pryers”:

“Basically, our oppression is about being punished on a daily basis for not being able to conform to colonial/christian expectations of gender and sexuality.  We are pushed out of our families, ceremonies, languages, histories.  Maybe the thinking goes that if we are ignored and made fun of that we’ll just go away, or at the very least we’ll hate our true selves into non-exisitsnce.  Well, we didn’t and we can’t.  And though we are often scared, we are also fierce in refusing to go anywhere except back to the Earth we came from.  We continue to make love, transition our genders, create new ceremonies with remembered ones.  We create.  We love” (Cruz 2010).

This passage speaks to several points, yet uses a voice that can reach people beyond those in academia.  As with several other articles, the words have feeling and a life of their own.  By writing in this style, the authors breathe life into the theories they present.  These are not merely just words and a way to explain a point, they are words to tell a story and create a pathway to resisting not only academic writing styles, but also resisting the indigenous story to be told from the lens of the colonizer. 

Another component that stands out so much in Cruz’s words is that of being left out of stories.  This is another theme that emerged in other articles.  Andrea Smith (2010) discusses this in her article “Queer Theory and Native Studies”.  She argues how having a single scope leaves out much of the story, and by how looking beyond this single scope is a way to disrupt settler colonialism.  This opposition is further explored in “Doubleweaving Two-Spirit Critiques” by Qwo-Li Driskill (2010).  Through this article Driskill describes colonization as an ongoing occurrence indigenous people are actively resisting.  They further explain that when Native and queer studies come together, they create an interwoven connection of concepts that are much more complex than simply an intersectionality.  They exist separately, yet within each other. 

Sharon Holland (2010) describes how queer studies can change the direction of Native studies in the afterword.  The joining of the two is a way to create a stronger resistance to colonial power as well as challenge heteronormativity and “homonationalism”.  By doing this, the authors of the articles are showing that these subjects have a place in academia and a voice in the critiques.  

  

Critical Response 3

What does it mean to be queer? Native American? Or a women that has never felt feminine? These are the questions that has constantly been a part of my personal narrative all my life. While reading the essays within GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies; Sexuality, Nationality, Indigeneity, I could really identify with the colonization of Native cultures and how that plays into the notion of repression or the invisibility of queerness/Two-spiritness in Native communities and culture to the heteronormative of the western culture.

Growing up I never knew it was okay to be queer. In fact I never knew that there where people in my Native family or community that Identified as queer. I remember being told at a very young age how I was a girl and thus I needed to be more clam, gentle, not as active, I was told to dress a certain way that my clothes were only to be found in the “girl” section of the store. That pink and purple where great colors on me and that wearing dresses made me beautiful. This was always hard for me because I never wanted to be beautiful and I have never felt more uncomfortable then when I was in a dress. It wasn’t until I was an adult, a wife and mother and expanded my relationships outside of just my Native family and community that I met other queer people. People like me who did not fit the heteronormative narrative that was forced on me my whole life; same gender loving folks, people who didn’t fit what society said there gender presentation had to be. Reading VISIBLE SEXUALITIES OR INVISIBLE NATIONS: Forced to Choose in Big Eden, Johnny Greyeyes, and The Business of Fancydancing, put a lot of the struggle I have had with the intersectionality of my Native upbringing and always knowing from a very young age that I was a queer girl, even if I didn’t have the vocabulary.

 In my Native community the main focus is on family and cultural activities and in a lot of spaces the roles of men and women. Thus even now when I am back home I sometimes struggle with how I fit in. I am a women that is not feminine in the traditional sense, I date girls and don’t plan on getting married again anytime in the near future. In cultural dances I don’t want to wear a dress, which is the only option of women. So in a lot of ways when I go back home I feel like I am being asked to leave a lot of me behind, just like explained in The Business of Fancydancing.

But then thinking even harder about the role that colonization plays in structuring my Native community is what stood out to me in the rest of the essays. The hetero-normative “man” and “female” life styles wasn’t the cultural structure of my ancestors. But why was the acceptance of queerness becoming more okay in the dominate culture but still in my Native community the bondage of the oppression imposed is so strong, that I can be myself and more excepted outside of my community and then have to almost completely change who I am in order to reenter it. Thus, using Queer theory parallel to Native studies to explain the colonization of Native people to uncover and analyze the reasons of settler colonialism as effects of all areas of Native life; was something I have been thinking about but not really being able to explain while working on my bio-power map and how I my intersecting identities held different levels of power in different situations in my life.

Political Bodies

Critical Response #3

As I began to think about how I wanted to tie together the readings from GLQ to the Virgie Tovar interview, I must admit I at first felt a little perplexed. Why would a woman of color tackling fatphobia, among many other systems of oppression, be assigned alongside articles deeply analyzing the relationship between queer theories and native studies? I knew there had to be a connection because the readings in weeks prior were so carefully orchestrated to illuminate a particular theme. Now, I try not to look at the themes outlined in our syllabus, because then it inherently directs my writing both consciously and subconsciously.  I prefer my critical responses come from a raw place; a place that is actively processing and weaving that knowledge into what I’ve already stored inside myself. It is through this process that I usually instinctually arrive at a variation of the theme in the syllabus that is unique my own.  As I was sitting here sipping my, at this point cold, chai tea, something Tovar said came pulsing through my memory.  Now I am paraphrasing, but she said her work was inherently political because of the body she inhabits. When people engage with her work they are also engaging with her body as a political entity. Her work is not political merely because she is writing about sex or about liking breasts a whole a lot, it is deeply political because she is a fat woman talking about sex and liking breasts a whole lot (which I would just like to say is pretty badass).  In our culture, specific bodies are politicized in very violent ways as Foucault says, “power is situated and exercised at the level of life, the species, the race, and the large-scale phenomena of the population,” (1990, pp. 137). The body we inhabit determines what we are allowed to say, and what spaces both political and geographical that we are allowed to occupy. By not putting two-spirit and queer of color critiques at the forefront of queer theories and discourse, by silencing and forgetting the most untold narratives we risk perpetuating this very same system. As Adrea Smith illuminates, “U.S. exceptionalism, in which a white queer subject reinscribes heteronormativity by positioning himself/herself in an imperialist relationship to those ethnic subjects deemed unable to transgress,” (2010). Therefore perhaps white queers are not the best people to move the LGBTQ+ movement forward, as our critiques often fail to queer the entire system enough.  The foundation and history of systems that oppress white LGBTQ persons are lost when the sole focus is on sexual identities, or marriage equality, which in one vein just assimilates queers into already existing idea of the nuclear family.  We must never forget it is this family structure is inherently interwoven with heteropatriarchy that has been historoically an enormous source of violence as, “when colonists first came to the Americas, they saw the necessity of instilling patriarchy in Native communities because they realized that indigenous peoples would not accept colonial determination if their own indigenous societies were not structured on the basis of social hierarchy. Patriarchy in turn, rests on a gender-binary system; hence it is not a coincidence that colonizers also targeted indigenous peoples who did not fit within this binary model,” (Smith, 2010). When we make space for bodies of color, for fat bodies, for indigenous bodies to not only enter the space of queer discourse, but lead, it intersectionalities illuminate in ways that were previously not possible. But Two-Spirit discourse does not stop at just this illumination, they move, “beyond a concept of intersectional politics.  Though intersections do take place in doubleweaving, the weaving process also creates something else: a story much more complex and durable than its original and isolated splints, a story both unique and rooted in ancient and during form,” (Driskill, 2010). As a movement we need these highly politicized bodies to constantly critique and reveal origins and connections between history, institutions, and the present day agenda.