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.