In considering Sedgewick’s analysis of binary constructions in sexuality, her arguments center on disrupting ideas of homosexuality only in relation to its perceived adverse of heterosexuality, in or out of the closet, rather than questioning the discourses which locate binaries as a means of structuring and controlling people. In questioning knowledge systems and how queer is interpreted, Sedgwick troubles ideas of static sexuality or literature only meant to be heterosexual or homosexual rather than reading particular things as queer regardless of the intentions of the text. Things are not just queer or not, gay or straight, in or out of the closet in Sedwick’s arguments, and I think this is especially important in critiquing contemporary literature and activism. Much of dominant white gay activism is not just focused on the binary of gay/lesbian vs. straight, but it operates from an assumption of having institutional protection and recognition within policy and being safe and supported or having neither and being unsafe and oppressed. Rather than recognizing the debilitating nature of the binary in which sexuality is reified as either gay or straight rather than potentially gray, complex, and fluid. Sexuality can be read as queer regardless of being straight or gay in Sedgwick’s context, and structuring activism around the concept of protection both assumes inclusion within imperial systems as an end to oppression and assumes an inherent binary and division of sexuality rather than a complex system of socialization and definition that assumes either/or circumstances. Following from the binary has not only overlooked intersectional oppressions, bisexuality, and trans identity, but it also supports a system which assumes an inherent and innate identity—a born this way mentality that reinforces the sex binary and the invisibility of those with intersex variations and the notion of normativity. Inclusion within institutions built on heterosexuality as the norm takes the institutions as alterable for the better rather than fundamentally flawed. Inherently, there are queer people excluded from binary-focused activism due to defying the expectations of being queer in the correct way. Just as queer teachers in the beginning of the book couldn’t sue for being fired because of the assumption of them not being out and that thereby being unrelated info, there is a deeper insinuation of the proper way to be queer within US social and government institutions which offer protections based on the manner in which queer is performed.

Similar issues with binary constructions of activism are seen now with people pushing for legislative protection of trans people, arguing the binary between trans and cisgender, enforcing definitions of trans and non-trans, and policing those not doing trans correctly enough to be considered protected by legislation. Most of these discourses and the discourse within Sedgwick’s work as ignore the complexities of ethnicity and queerness, the specific barriers and oppression faced by queer people of color, and the control of racialized bodies within an imperial state. Trans protective legislation has done little to protect the bodies of trans women of color and has been a part of a system overwhelmingly focused on policing and imprisoning trans women of color through the criminalization of sex work and through profiting off of prison labor as with Dean Spade’s theories (2014). As the queer movement early on during the Compton Cafeteria riots and Stonewall soundly excluded the activism of queer and trans people of color represented in Screaming Queens and the accounts of activists like Sylvia Rivera, the binary constructed in a way that acknowledged white gay men and lesbians but not queer people of color, trans folks, or bisexual folks (2002). Groups continue to perpetuate systems of violence through the cooptation of identity within the ever-expanding acronym which people often lengthen to include the intersex community and two-spirit indigenous people, but, as Dr. Driskill has argued, have done nothing to confront system settler colonialism or systemic violence to intersex bodies—these groups have often argued for becoming a part of those systems rather than questioning the violence of the settler colonial state and the medical industrial complex.

Spade, Dean. 2014. Normal life. Brooklyn, NY: Southend Press.

Rivera, Sylvia. "Queens in Exile, the Forgotten Ones." GenderQueer: Voices from Beyond the Sexual Binary. Nestle, Joan. Clare Howell and Riki Wilchins. Los Angeles: Alyson, 2002. xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/21904777/.../name/Rivera+article%5D.pdf

I like the way that Sedgwick deconstructs categories of homosexuality and heterosexuality by describing the way that a multitude of sexual behaviors or acts are reduced into this particular binary, such that the gender of peoples’ sexual partner becomes what constitutes their sexual identity/identifier. I am thinking about how Sedgwick is engaging the concept of queerness or queering as a verb here, such that queerness becomes about exploding these categories of normativity. I think that this connects to thinking about the potentiality of queerness to re-imagine the world and to explode our ideas about what is possible. This connects to the work of many black and native theorists whose work I am interested in, particularly in thinking about the imperative from native scholars and activists to imagine futures in which the united states does not exist. I think that for many folks this may be difficult to imagine or may seem like an impossible future, but I think that Sedgwick’s work in this text illuminates the way that normative ideas about what is possible are shaped through things like language.

I am thinking about the work of theorists and scholars writing in the field of queer of color critiques, particularly the work being done suggesting how processes of constructing homosexuality as an identity and a deviant one at that, are implicated in racialization and maintaining white supremacy. I am interested in thinking about what Sedgwick’s argument means if we consider racialized bodies as already read as embodying deviant sexualities or how racialized queer folks have to constantly navigate the way that queerness is always already connected to racialization.

In response to Sedgwick’s problematizing of the hegemonic discourse of ‘coming out’, I am thinking about how this imperative of coming out functions as if doing so somehow reveals some greater truth about the person coming out, even though it seems like in doing so, the constructions of particular sexualities will be read onto the person coming out. 

Critical Response 5: Epistemology of the Closet

In reading Epistemology of the Closet, by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, I had difficulty being engaged as I had with previous texts.  This was due to the academic tone of the piece.  I frequently had to look up words to follow along with the meaning of the passages.  I had to reread passages to comprehend the different syntax than I am used to.  Thought this piece did not feel as accessible to me as others, there were many messages that made me think critically about the subject.

The Epistemology of the Closet covers the discourse surrounding sexuality.  Sedgwick constructs sections of the book based off of classic literature and philosophers.  They analyze sexuality and especially gay men as it appears in the texts.  This was not what I was expecting when I approached this book.  But as we have talked about in class and in many other readings, literature is a version of human theory.  Even literature that is produced without the intention of sending a message about sexuality often does.  Literature can be used as a measure of specific culture at a historical moment.

One line that I could really relate to was in the introduction.  Sedgwick is discussing the complications of doing theory and states: “It is only by being shameless about risking the obvious that we happen into the vicinity of the transformative.”  I have experienced this personally.  The greatest take transformations I have had about my own socialization and perception of others comes out in words that make my friends say: “yeah, duh.”  This phrase can also relate to what Cherrie Moraga spoke about when she visited OSU this winter.  She was advising that we approach situations with the beginners mind.  That having that openness we will be able to see things that we shut ourselves out to when we are used to a topic or consider ourselves expert.  It felt unique to come across this passage in a text that was written very academically.  In fact much of Sedgwick’s writing is very humble and intentional about being undefining.  That is a challenge to the prestige that is associated with academic writing.  It is nice to see that power structure messed with.  It is also a reminder to me that I should not judge pieces based on their tone.  As Qwo-Li suggested in class, if we consider stories and oral histories to be theory, we also need to not antagonize academic work.  It is all theory.

Sedgwick spoke of the genocide against queer people, and that this complete genocide would mean the eradication of the whole human species.  This was a logical point, but she further warned: “The impulse of a species towards its own eradication must not either, however, be underestimated.”  This gave me pause.  It is hard to accept that humans as a species could compulsively eradicate themselves.  But it is also not hard to accept.  The logic behind genocide is simple.  It perhaps can develop from not engaging in complicated logic.

CS #5

Sedgwick’s book explains in the introduction, a main strand of argument is deconstructive. In other words, she attempts to demonstrate that homosexual/heterosexual, masculine/feminine, knowledge/ignorance, private/public, secrecy/disclosure, and a host of other symmetrical binary oppositions are inherently unstable and incoherent because each paired term is dependent on its opposite of its meaning. She also discusses the ongoing debate about whether homosexual identity is a product of a person’s essential position or of one’s personal and cultural experience. For me, “Epistemology of the Closet” is not a single discipline or field of study. Sedgwick across the boundaries of gay and lesbian studies, cultural studies, and literary criticism. Many terms and concepts I need to absorb and digest.

When I read the Sedgwick’s book, it makes me think gay/lesbian/queer studies in Taiwan. I thought about many questions such as What defines a homosexual? Distinction between sexual practice and sexual identity – the cultural construction & meaning of sexuality, from the past to present day. What Capitalism has an impact on sexuality? In Taiwan, the society sees the term homosexual more emphasis on its medical roots from the turn of the last century (early 1900s). So, when the first AIDS patient appears in Taiwan, people think about homosexual equal AIDS. Homosexual is taboo, people should not talk and discuss it. Homosexual was thought as a kind of disease and sex pervert, most homosexuals like to play the opposite sex and define as AIDS. When the first homosexual groups establish in 1990, we finally went through the last stage as fight for human rights. In this stage homosexual’s human rights step by step get some esteem and gain attention from Taiwanese society. The freedom and equal rights theory that was quoted by civic society became the major discourse of media. Does it mean people accepts gay/lesbian/queer groups in our society? The answer is no. Until now, Taiwanese society still hold the myths and stereotypes that dehumanize gay/homosexuality such as:

·         Sexual Attraction: Gay men are attracted to all men and can't control their desires.

·         Health: HIV/AIDS is primarily a disease among gay men.

·         Relationships: Gay men are not relationship-oriented.

·         Childhood: Male homosexuality is caused by parenting or trauma in childhood.

·         Sexual Behavior: Gay men are promiscuous and obsessed with sex.

Homosexuality issue in Taiwan is the transformation of cultural configuration. Heterosexism and homophobia are the result of ignorance about sexual orientation and gender identity issues. Education about GLBTQ issues can help combat fear and discrimination, enabling gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people to be authentic and not to live a lie of false heterosexuality or gender identity in order to be safe. When talking about Sexuality and social construction, people like to ask are “homosexuals” born or made? As Sedgwick states in her book, the study of sexuality is not coextensive with the study of gender; correspondingly, antihomophobic inquiry is not coextensive with feminist inquiry. The incoherent of sexuality/identities as it transforms to different races, classes, nations, and cultures, the unfamiliar, and unintelligible into the recognizable form and content in the values and institutions, the act of translating is readily forgotten neglected and repressed. 

Critical Response 5

In Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick analyzes various texts in order to point to the dichotomous ways in which Western society has arranged sex, gender, and sexuality. While I’ve been exposed to arguments that suggest that narratives of the closet have and continue to limit the ways in which queer identities can be conceptualized, I appreciated Sedgwick’s use of literature as a way to point to language as a regulating factor. In other words, how do our imaginaries of the realness of homo/hetero binaries affect the ways in which we might be able to conceptualize any type of narrative? I share Sedgwick’s fear “that there currently exists no framework in which to ask about the origins or development of individual gay identity that is not already structured by an implicit, trans-individual Western project or fantasy of eradicating that identity” (1990, 41), and find myself constantly thinking about whether or not I too in my own writing and work perpetuate these very binaries that I am looking to eradicate since I am also imbedded within a culture where power continues to constantly move.   

I think in putting Sedgwick’s work in conversation with the GLQ Journal and the Black Queer Studies Anthology I am also reminded that these types of systems did not always exist and don’t have to continue to do so. And in some ways I think that Sedgwick does this when she rereads the work of Melville’s Billy Budd as a novel primarily focused on the “sexual definition” of its main character’s infatuation with Billy Budd (1990, 92). In this way, Sedgwick is not so much concerned with the intended audience or purpose for Melville’s novel and instead points to the queering of particular texts that otherwise could be assumed to be heteronormative. In this way, she highlights the unreality of the binary which positions homo and hetero as oppositional in the first place. Nevertheless, I also think that Sedgwick complicates her discussion about binaries by suggesting that it’s not just the binaries that are a problem but also the ways in which Western society is imbedded and dependent on binary thinking whereby nothing outside these binaries is able to exist (1990, 91). 

While I agree that Western society is very much driven by binary thinking, I also think that there have been and continue to be other ways of knowing that can in some ways inform how Sedgwick talks about knowledge production. Sedgwick’s Foucauldian analysis of binaries leads her to only think of binaries, just as Foucalt did, in terms of Western knowledge as a legitimized and always assumed way of thinking and knowing, thus in a way also positioning this type of knowledge as more legitimized than others even while trying to deconstruct it. In thinking about how Sedgwick’s work can help me with my own writing and theorizing I am reminded again of how easily it is to fall back into binary thinking even when we try to step away from it. 

Critical Response 5

my own perception with words such as "gay" and "queer" have both been at odds with society, and that creates an interesting dichotomy in my mind. On one hand these words are things that I identify with and what I interact with on a daily basis. However, society has always had an odd association with these terms because they fall outside of what is viewed as normal. This is not to say that "abnormal" things are bad, but the Westernized, Christian society that I live in has a habit of labelling normality and shunning the abnormal. This is (obviously) toxic because it becomes mainstream- the normals and the not-normals. It's a little bit like that Dr. Seus book about the creatures with stars on their bellies who think they're better than the ones without stars. It's never that simple, but oversimplification for the sake of understanding can be toxic to those who fit into neither category.

Sedgwick talks about the normalization of heterosexuality and its affect on people who are non hetero. The fact that there's a proverbial "closet" speaks to a long line of assumptions and heteronormativity that have existed for a long time. The assumption that one is heteronormative is a position of power held over anyone who identifies otherwise, forcing them to "come out" as different. Because people who already fall into the heteronormative category don't have to come out as such, they automatically hold more power than those that must in order to be recognized. It's not just a matter of who are you, it becomes a matter of what you must do to become recognized, and with it comes shame. The obsession with sex has always existed in the conservative Christian society because people are not allowed to have a sexuality (especially not women). In this society, if your sexual practices differ it is something that must be brought to life for EVERYONE ELSE YOU EVER COME OUT TO when, for heteronormative people, it is never required to reveal itself.

I think that's why "queer" and "gay" are at such odds with pride and shame. There's an obsession with sex and coming out both helps person be recognized within the gay community and reveals the divergent sexual practices of that person. Even though words like "homosexual" are standard in most areas, they still carry with them an undertone of sexual divergence.

Critical Response #5 E.N

            Back when I was in my home country, words like ‘queer’, ‘gay’,  ‘homosexual’, ‘lesbians’ and etc, these words sounds very simple and easily defined to me, based on my knowledge about them. However, little do I know there are people that are actually living under the domain of these words, which I was only fully aware of it until I came to US. Back in where I was, I was only in contact with words like ‘heterosexual’ and ‘straight’, because that is common within the society that I was in. To me, somebody that has rarely seen such phenomenon or never had close contact with these words, I was shocked, worried, evasive, angry, distressed. Unlike culture shock, which I will be able to adapt when given some time, things such as ‘queer’ and ‘homosexual’ is like an alien, and I fear that if I move further in depth to discover the world behind these words, I will change, and not be able to integrate back to where I was.

            In Sedgwick’s piece of literature, her book explains that the reason I perceive ‘homosexual’ and ‘queer’ in the weird way is because this perception is being universalized, that the ‘heterosexual’ is normal and the ‘homosexual’ is abnormal. This ideal has become the trend and it is common for people to learn and follow it. As a result, there will be more people like me, thinking that we are normal and they aren’t. However, by having this kind of thought in mind, I also notice that there are details that aren’t covered. Just like every good thing, there must be a shadow, and the shadow can sometimes be overlooked because it’s not in plain sight. In this case, since most people is following the universal meaning of the words ‘heterosexual’ and ‘queer’, they have overlooked the fact that these words are just tools of labels.

            In my opinion, based on what I have perceived of Sedgwick’s piece, people are falling into the trap of the trend, because people are prone to conform to the majority, to not be left out alone and to be cast away from benefit. The creation of the term ‘homosexuality’ and ‘heterosexuality’ has lead people to choose a platform to stand on, and each platform represents a certain benefit and meaning. However, the presence of these 2 platforms has created a boundary between the 2 sides, and the power flows between them through the flow of trend. If the trend takes the upper hand of one side, then that side possesses the most power.

             

Las paradojas del Closet CR#5

El closet es para la comunidad gay uno de los atributos más distintivos y definitorios de la identidad individual y política. Ignorar las historias del closet, del secreto y salir del confinamiento sería para muchos ignorar una parte crucial de esta identidad. Sin embargo, a qué se debe ese carácter tan fundamental del closet? Es el closet en realidad una fuente de resistencia frente a la heteronormatividad? 

Durante mucho tiempo los académicos en el campo de estudios de gay/lesbianas han dedicado sus esfuerzos y discusiones políticas a cuestiones relacionadas con el carácter construccionista/ esencialista de la homosexualidad así como de posicionar la orientación sexual no heterosexual como blanco de opresión y marginalización. No obstante, en Epistemología del Armario Sedgwick hace énfasis en la necesidad de hacer análisis que vayan más allá de dinámicas de poder lineales y oposicionales entre heterosexualidad y homosexualidad. La autora destaca el análisis del closet no solo como una estructura opresiva y foco de resistencia principal en la experiencia gay, sino como un fenómeno que responde la reiteración del dominio de la heteronormatividad.  Así pues, cuando el closet  que contiene la relación secreto- ignorancia se torna visible, una nueva relación surge entre conocimiento-poder-aceptación del sujeto gay/lesbiana que lo hace perceptible y susceptible de ser vigilado. Como lo expresa Foucault en Historia de la Sexualidad, la confesión (salir del armario)  es un mecanismo de poder que hace visible y conocido aquello que está oculto con el objetivo de mantenerlo bajo control y vigilancia.

Por otro lado, las narrativas acerca del closet sirven a la ratificación de la oposición heterosexual/homosexual en donde la “otredad” del individuo gay/lesbiana es un aspecto fundamental para definir la norma que es en últimas el sujeto heterosexual. De manera similar ocurre la relación masculino-femenino en donde para mantener la dominancia masculina es necesario constituir lo femenino como lo “otro”, aquello que se distancia de lo valorado, sin embargo sin la otredad no es posible definir la norma. De esta forma, la masculinidad se constituye a expensas tanto de las mujeres como de los individuos gay dado  que ser hombre implica distanciarse violentamente de lo femenino y negar las posibilidades en el continuo del deseo homosexual.  El homoerotismo se vuelve una amenaza para el orden heterosexual y la masculinidad y en consecuencia se genera el pánico homosexual y la homofobia.  

Los discursos y debates acerca de la experimentación del deseo homosexual como algo que ocurre a la minoría o por el contrario que está de forma latente en la mayoría se convierten en el foco de ansiedad social e histórica que permea las fuentes de producción de conocimiento. Finalmente, la construcción del closet no solo sostiene la dominancia heterosexual por su carácter confesional sino que anida  la relación dialéctica entre el deseo y el miedo que nace del homoerotismo y en el que se reflejan los sujetos masculinos.

CR#5

It is very difficult to maintain coherent comprehension about such complex interactions when discussed in a context of reference to books that one has never read. That being said, the main ideas in the Epistemology of the Closet, still came through. The themes behind each of the books or prose discussed encompassed the intersection of gender and sexuality (in the form of orientation) while emphasizing the power behind secrecy. I can't help but think of Foucault when knowledge (or withholding if such) becomes a point of power. That being said, there does seem to be a sort dichotomy to the closet. While the person is in the closet, they do hold a powerful secret, but at the same time when one’s sexuality is shoved into a closet. without the ability to have free expression it takes power from the individual as well. This dichotomy seems to almost parallel the existence of binarism discussed in reference to each of the prose chosen by the author.

Much as the closet encompasses the duality of both creating and seizing power from those within the closet, binaries have the dual purpose of using themselves to describe their opposite while that opposite describes them. The two, although opposite, do not exist part although when denied they seem to be completely separate. The author makes this point clear in the discussion on the binary of homo/hetero - sexual. The term heterosexaul was not used until the use of the term homosexual became part of canonical language. Similar binaries exist in the form of secrecy/disclosure, same/different, masculine/feminine, natural/artificial, and health/illness to name a few. Within the context of the works discussed, each of them is related to a set of binaries that create, describe, or deconstruct the characters in each of the books/prose. All of these binarisms exit on an internal level, as much of the time in these works, the characters are ‘in the closet.’ Most of the characters don't even realize that they do have an attraction to the gender that they are attracted to.

The complexity of the intersectionality between gender and orientation comes from an infinitely entangled history, definition, and performance. This is described by the author in terms of the tendency to invert gender to ‘match’ sexuality do that an individual is always truly ‘heterosexual.’ That is a man attracted to men is truly a woman so that their sexual orientation is described within the heteronormative matrix accepted by ‘polite’ society. At the same time there is an opposite tendency (which has more modern origins) to alter sexuality to match gender. At this point the discourse becomes not easily understable, which in part is due to the fact that gender and sexuality/orientation have become inextricably linked with the framework of heteronormative matrix.

As discussed in class, this may be cleared up if one looks at the discourse from the framework of the ‘minority’ or in this case homosexual perspective. Of course, trying to separate the two would really just ;ead to the separation of intersectional discrimination that has been the theme in most of the other readings assigned thus far. So the problem becomes, not how do we separate gender/orientation but why do we need to. Rather the deconstruction of the binaries all together would be more useful. In that case, why not get rid of all binaries black/white, homo/hetero, man/woman, female/male, Anglo-Saxon/And Anglo-Saxon, on which most discrimination appears to be based in the first place.

Critical Response #5

           Reading Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Epistemology of the closet was yet another new experience for me. There were parts of the book where I felt totally lost and parts where I could possibly draw strong connections to my own thoughts,feelings, and experiences. One area where I felt lost was going through the long introduction, It wasn't sure when the actual book was going to start and some of the older histories of homosexual views. Not having a lot of background knowledge on these histories can be overwhelming as well as tells me how much society blankets such topics and keeps the conversation "In the Closet". 

         While reading the introduction section There was a reference to a book that I had read before but from a very different view. Axiom #6 brought into frame Oscar Wilde's " Picture of Dorian Gray" as an outspoken text of what a modern homosexual identity may look like. My first encounter with these book was in AP English as a senior in high school, I'd chosen to read it as an extra credit opportunity and loved the novel. Reading it back then I drew connections to false beauty and objectification but didn't touch to talk about the subtle description of Gray's sexual orientation. I found it scary and in some way intrusive to the character to try and analyze a characteristic that my place to give opinion. Using a lens of our class concepts thought I find the book to be just as captivating. Maybe now at an older age and more educated I can revisit the book and read it for what is said beneath words on a page. 

        

          In part 1 "The Closet" is describe as a parallel drawn to homosexuality and coming out which was created by our hetero society. Sedgwick says, " "The Closet" and "Coming out " now verging on all-purpose phrases for the potent crossing and recrossing of almost any politically charged lines of representation, have been the gravest and most magnetic of those figures. The closet is the defining structure for gay oppression in this century"(Sedgwick 71). It's disappointing yet completely believable that our power leaders are what setting norms of how homosexual identities are expressed in our modern day. I relate this to a spoken word poem " Dear Straight People" by Denice Frohman who gave the line " Dear straight people you're the reason we stay in the closet, you're the reason we even have a closet. I don't like closets but you've made the living room an un-shared space and i'm feeling like a guest in my own house". It is crazy to come to the reality that the parameters of non-heterosexual identities are made and boxed in by a powerful hetero community. Not to take any worth away from showing your real self to the world but what would our streets look like if we remove the pressure of "coming out". As s sweet white girl i stand never to have my sexuality questioned or to be interrogated to reveal my love to strangers on the street.these are known to everyone as luxuries attached to the hetero normative lifestyle but yet love and justice should be granted to everyone isn't that what makes america something to desire. While watching a talk done by Laverne Cox ( A trans women of color) on bullying of trans women gave  a quote which I find to fit a lot of what our class is about " Justice is what love looks like in public". It's frustrating to live in a community full of destruction based on demands for those not fitting unrealistic norms to  " come out"  such a statement tells me its purpose is so the persecution given can be more directed to how someone identifies. My hope is that Justice can be mere acceptance towards all other people where violence isn't committed based on where love lies. 

References:

 Denice Frohman " Deaar Straight People " 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWL3jfn6zNI

Laverne Cox's speech 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zwy5PEEa6U

Sedgwick,Eve Kosofsky. Epistemology of the closet: Updated with a new preface. Los Angeles. University of California Press.2008.

Critical Response #5 - The Epistemology of the Closet

            Eve Sedgwick’s “Epistemology of the Closet” gives insight into the binary sexual orientation classifications of Western culture. One of the first quotes to pop out from me was “Knowledge, after all, is not itself power although it is the magnetic field of power.” I found the quote powerful for a number of reasons. It brought me back to what Powell discusses in her book, how these definitions didn't come from the minoritized themselves but from those who perpetuate a power system over them. It was the white male academics who gave rise to these definitions and made them commonplace in academia. If you weren't a heterosexual than you were a homosexual, this binary system boxed in many when it came to having their voice heard. Whether that was the intention behind creating the word can be questioned; but what can’t is how those in the academia world and also civilized culture have become ignorant to the problems that arise with binary sexual identifications. Discourse on such issues have been pushed from public eyes, especially so back when the book was written. When minoritzed views can no longer be heard there’s a problem, any discourse, especially political or cultural that does not include a wide range of views can be flawed due the fact that you can’t get a clear-cut picture of the pie by just looking at one slice.

            

           One effect of this was the creation of the closet. To many it is a necessary step in being yourself. If a child finds that he does not fit the “normal” category of heterosexual than he will assume that he fits into the other category of homosexual. Then it is up to the kid to decide when to officially reveal his true self, someone he has known forever, to those around him. I believe that many do find strength in coming out, when I came out I felt as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders but why was the weight there in the first place? It’s odd because in other circumstances if a kid finds out they’re different from other kids that difference is usually celebrated as a unique trait. But when it came to being different from the heterosexual norm than that unique trait is put into a closet. What caused this deviation is complex. The history behind the word homosexual is long, the very word used to bring fear to some people as it represented someone who was diseased during the late 1900’s. People who identified as homosexual were again put into a box that was hard to escape from.

            How can we escape this box? It’s hard because you have to look at in a realistic way. In my opinion, the perfect world is one where humans don’t have to categorize everything, if you love someone that person is your love, you have a partner for life. But this categorization, especially in things such as gender or sexual orientation, is deeply rooted into history so it would be an incredibly difficult mission to alter this cemented idea in the minds of everyone in the world. We have been making strides as a country, we have opened discussion on different types of identities that people have but there is still much resistance. That resistance isn’t always deeply rooted bigotry but sometimes it is simple ignorance, and that ignorance can sometimes be easily overcome.

I was actually having a discussion that related to this with friends recently. One guy brought up how as a straight male he felt bad when he would refer to someone by the wrong pronoun but didn't like how the people would immediately snap at him for not getting it right. He questioned how people who identify differently than what their outward appearance may convey can get mad when wrongly identified when he doesn't know before-hand. This has been a gray area for me topic wise because I partially agree with his struggle, unless we all go around wearing our sexual identities and pronouns around our necks than how we do we get that point across? My other friends and I basically gave the answer of being conscious of those around you because labels are complex. Like I stated earlier, if we could just get rid of them completely I think we would all be better off, there wouldn't be any way for the majority to assert this power over the minoritized. Unfortunately achieving that would be impossible, so it is up to us to realistically look towards alternative solutions to finally discarding these binary classification systems that our society loves so much and putting those views into different areas of society such as academia or culture.

CR #5 The Closet

Tricia M Ingraham

QS 462

Critical Response #5

5/4/2015

People who are not of hetero-normative are looked down upon because they are not “normal”. If you don’t fit into this “normal” box people try to change you and force you to change who you are as a person so that you fit into some kind of category. The thought of boxes and people trying to put others in boxes, are very restrictive and categorizing. People who are homosexual have to come out of the closet. Why do people who are homosexual have to tell others of their sexuality. Its like confessing a sin to a preacher. Straight people don’t have to announce who the like or explain the person they like. Homosexuals are forced to explain and are forced to come out to their families and explain why they like the same-sex. I have had to “come out of the closet” recently. This experience was demeaning in away but freeing also to just let out who I truly am. Why is it just because I like the same sex I have to tell people about it and try to explain my feelings. Every coming out story has one thing in common the fear of not being expected and loved by your friends and family.

From the book  Epistemology of the Closet, “Western identity and social organizations… has affected our culture..” (11) The use of labels and categories give people power to the group of people but it also demeaning to have to be labeled. I have really noticed Queer Theories revolves around this topic of labels and categorizing people. Personally I think labels are very empowering and I’m proud to be a scary lesbian, as you put it. Being able to put a name to what you are and identify with a group is very powerful in the sense that people can recognize who you are through the use of language and words. People who are in the white, middle middle class, male, don’t have to use labels which is very wrong. The use of language is a very powerful tool. Language is truly filled with ignorance.  Using words in a negative manner or used to hurt others is very wrong and hurtful.

The idea of gender stereotyping and roles in genders are so messed up. When I think of gender stereotyping my mind goes back to 50s tv shows. Where you had your stay at home mom. She cooked, cleaned and took care of her husband and children. The father would have a job, feed his family and protect and being home the bacon so to speak. And we can’t forget the children. clean cut, obeys there parents and stay out of trouble, they have there little school crushes. People wake up the world is not like this. Not every family is like this. people have two moms, two dads, stay at home dad or mom. Some kids might not even be raised by their biological parents. The world isn’t black and white. It is made up with every color of the rainbow. People who judge others because of their sexuality, race, gender identity, class, age, are just ignorant and close minded. I would much rather be thought of different or “the big bad lesbian”, than being “normal”. The reason people are so afraid of someone who is outside this idea of “normal” is because they are threatened by them or even the thought of someone who is different than themselves or are against their beliefs and lifestyles.

Critical Response 5

Molly Harney

QS 462

Critical Response 5

5/3/15

I have always heard that Sedgwick's work was and is known as one of the most quintessential and important early works of Queer Theory; after reading her work I understand why. Language, Sedgwick argues, is one of the most dominant forms of power that is impacted on society in terms of relation to sexuality and gender. This idea to me really sets up the thesis for the book as well as the major ideology around Queer Theory. I have always been interested in how language controls and limits individuality and lived experiences. This made me immediately think of Foucault and his ideas around how power is mobile and never stagnant. Language is the same way; words are used in the English language (and western colonial society as a whole) to limit and designate who we are “meant to be”, this in and of itself is a form of biopower. Language is literally mobile. It moves from person to person, ear to ear. Definitions change and dominant powers are usually the ones in control of what language is seen as real or not.

As a whole, the term “coming out of the closet” has always been problematic. For someone who has had to experience the “coming out” process in a very white nuclear family, I can say firsthand that it is overly frustrating. The expectation that you need to make the effort (which for some can be very dangerous) if you are queer in any way or just simply not straight is an example of how heteronormative our language is, and it’s meant to be that way. This is why the reclaiming of words such as queer, is so important to resisting dominant societal ideologies. I had a conversation with someone the other day about the difference between gender and sexuality. It astounded me at how the majority of society sees these two things as being completely one. It took me a long time to explain to this person that these two ideas are not the same; gender is a construct that society places on every person the minute they are born. I have had many conversations like this in the past, but it never gets any less frustrating when I encounter dominant privileged societal norms in language. This lends to Sedgwick’s ideas about how the binary system is problematic. Limiting sexual identity to “homosexual” and heterosexual also limits our ideas on gender and sexuality as separate entities. This is also limiting to gender identity and we as a society need to get past the limitation that gender is only a binary system.

CR #5 ---Dakota Bloch

Dakota Bloch

QS/WGSS 462

CR #5

5/3/15

As I was reading The Epistemology of the Closet I couldn’t help but think about the words ignorance and language. Sedgqwick talked a lot about the power of ignorance. He says, “inarguably, there is satisfaction in dwelling on the degree to which the power of our enemies over us is implicated, not in their common of knowledge, but precisely in their ignorance”(Sedgqwick, 7). This sentence a long with the previous paragraphs about language and the example given about M. Mitterrand and Mr. Reagan trying to communicate in different languages got me thinking about the United States model of power and how pervasive it is in every system. For example, the attitudes around immigration and the common saying “you’re in America, speak English” or Americans traveling abroad assuming/expecting everyone to speak English and communicate with them. What I’m getting at is in Western Culture there is only one way of doing things, the dominant way. We must only speak English because it is what is expected of us. Other countries must communicate with US Citizens in English because we are the dominant culture. If we come across someone who does not speak English or English is not their first language, we marginalize, other, degrade, view them as lesser, and force them into learning English to survive. I think this model is also used when it comes to sexuality.

Our expected and “passing” form of sexuality is one of heterosexuality. If we come across someone who is not or does not classify as heterosexual we become uncomfortable, we marginalize, we other, we degrade, we view them as lesser, and we force them into this mold of heterosexuality to survive. In terms of forcing people into heterosexuality I am not talking about a single person, I am talking about our society and institutions. These two things are responsible for the forcing of the mold of heterosexuality. With the constant barrage of ads featuring male and female couples, the institutions of family and marriage, not to mention the benefits of being married, and the actual self protection of people who are heterosexual based on societally created attitudes to foster hatred and violence against those who do not identify as heterosexual and dare to show that in public. Those examples are what I mean when I say we are forcing heterosexuality on people. This is where ignorance comes in, the ignorance to not acknowledge that there are other ways of being than the dominant culture. This is also where power comes in and the want for people to identify themselves so we know the script in which to interact with each other. It isn’t until we begin to label experiences, beings, and sexuality that we begin to see the epistemology of the closet. The closet is the place created in which one can hide (forced/scared) from the pain of homosexuality and continue to pass as heterosexual or one can exit out from and into a world of hatred and violence because exiting the closet means going against the norms of society. By continuing and fostering ignorant attitudes and behaviors to other forms of sexuality, the closet will become deeper, darker, and harder to get out of.