Vice and heteronormativity

[loneraven]

I just caught a passing glimpse of myself in a full-length mirror. Barefoot. Jeans that are torn to shreds at the ends and don't fit particularly well. "Bleeding Heart" t-shirt from Threadless. Little female-symbol ear studs. No bra. I'm listening to Ani DiFranco and I'm reading an article - the article - by Carol Hanisch

Comments

[outintherain]

"One strikes me as kind of melodramatic, and the other sounds like sexual attraction limited to half-man-half-goat creatures with a taste for the flute. Neither of which I am especially keen to endorse."

I wish I wasn't feeling entirely too slow witted to adequately respond to this today, but the above statement resonated with me particularly because I've been studying concepts of gender and sexuality, and the tagging of these concepts a lot lately (no, I never do any reading for my own degree...) and what particularly frustrates/amuses (my reaction alternates here) me is the need to go around tagging every possible sexual preference and behaviour, every method of gender identifying.. or not. I've long been bemused by mankind's need to categorise absolutely everything, but it's even gotten to the stage where the LGBT society at my Uni are going to end up being an 8 letter acronym!

[loneraven]

I've often wondered exactly how large the backlash would be if all LGBT societies retagged themselves "queer". I mean, it's accurate in the vast majority of cases. Maybe "queer and questioning" would cover it?

[outintherain]

The LGBT at my Uni are considering adding queer and curious at least... I think... it certainly does cover all bases. Is there a particular objection to queer, or is it just the backlash of having to retag that you're talking about?

[loneraven]

The thing is, I'm not quite sure of the extent to which "queer" has been reclaimed. It's a word that is definitely uncontroversially used by queer people about queer people, and I actually had a conversation with my awesome political theory tutor about "queer" in the academic context, but I'm not sure it's a word that can be used by straight people about queer people without some eyebrows being raised, you know? I think opinions may vary on this point.

[outintherain]

Ah yes, I understand you in that sense. It's a thing of context really; I still don't always feel right calling my gay friends gay; as though I should be phrasing it in some more PC way... it's daft really. They call each other gay all the time and it's fine.