Author: SL

To me, this image relates to sex panic because often times the people perform sex acts that fall outside of the “Charmed Circle” are often villainized for being ‘deviants’. To those inside that circle, these people represent something they cannot understand; and fear is a common response to things people do not understand.

Asexuality complicates the message a bit because there is a lack of sex acts being performed, but even that falls outside of this “Charmed Circle”. If it is ‘unsavory’ sex acts that are deemed as ‘unnatural’ or ‘deviant’, then a lack of sex acts should not illicit a similar reaction. However, that is not the reaction to asexuality that we see.

Allison Reed’s comments about the fetishization of blackness deal with an overarching issue of white queer politics to appropriate or present blackness in a way that furthers white political injury. From my understanding of the reading, when Reed says “embodiment in post-racial terms” she means the way in which blackness is represented in so called ‘colorblind’ politics.  These colorblind politics often depict race in a manner that downplays its importance in our culture, both presently and historically. It glosses over all of the challenges faced by people of color both in the past and currently in favor of focusing on another issue, in this case LGBTQ+ politics. It exploits the visibility of blackness to promote the narrative of injury put forth by white queers. In doing so, whiteness is ignored as black people and other people of color are used to further a goal that affects people of all races, while ignoring and smoothing over many of the issues faced specifically by people of color. This dynamic promotes the idea of white supremacy, as in this dynamic white queers politics are taking advantage of queer people of color in order to help their own cause, while not giving anything in return to those they take advantage of; it still promotes the idea of white dominance. The ‘hypervisibility’ of black bodies for a ‘white queer politics of injury’ can be understood as utilizing the struggles and stigmatization faced by black queers to further the image of white queers being victims as well by appropriating their struggles as their own. By co-opting the idea of colorblindness, the struggles they face become one under the umbrella of ‘queer’, ignoring the fact that race is a very real factor in oppression. It erases all of the suffering caused to black bodies via systems upheld and promoted by white bodies and claims those hardships for white bodies themselves under the banner of queerness, despite the fact that those people would never and have never faced those issues because of their whiteness.

In class, I defined Queer Theory as the study of identities and orientations that fall outside of classically accepted heteronormative ideas and how they interact with and shape our culture, society, and the individuals who compose society.

In Computer Science, perspectives from Queer Theory have very limited applications. Human identity and orientation has no impact whatsoever on computational problems, nor any practical application of computing technology or algorithmic problem solving. It is interesting to consider these perspectives in regards to sentient Artificial Intelligence, but that would fall more into the realm of philosophical thinking rather than the actual science that is the basis of intelligent systems. The only facet of this field that any perspective from Queer Theory would have an effect on would be software development, but even then it would depend on what kind of program is being developed and for what reason. However, once again those kinds of perspectives would fall more under the realm of marketing or design, rather than the actual coding or development.

In Cohen’s writing, she lists the banning of interracial marriages as one of the ways that marriage promotes white supremacy. She argues that the goal behind restricting interracial marriage was to preserve racial ‘purity’. Considering that much of the underlying motivation for segregation could be construed as something similar, its a reasonable assumption to make that marriage would be no different. By both keeping mixed couples from the social benefits of marriage, as well as, at the same time, restricting non-white couples from those benefits, the institution of marriage would help in promoting white supremacy.

This segregation of people among intersecting groups, this case being heterosexuals, causes rifts in those groups that would otherwise be united. In a way, it relates to her statements about coalition politics. Because people can have many different identities and belong to several different marginalized groups, it can cause separation between those groups. These coalitions rely on solidarity and mutual support to unite people, and when that unity is threatened it can greatly damage those groups. For example, within the LGBTQ community, I have seen some people pushing to drop the T. Regardless of the reasoning, the desire to distance and separate from each other shows a lack of unity and support as well possibly damaging future support within the group. It makes the entire group weaker when not everyone can trust each other for support, and dividing the group entirely would make both parts not nearly as strong as the whole.

Hollibaugh describes how the Gay Liberation Movement morphed in its form and direction over time. From a staunchly radical movement that strove to gain freedoms by challenging society’s notions of normalcy to one that tried to gain some of those rights by conforming to those notions in order to gain a seat at the table. She talks about how the movement began to “parody”  heterosexual middle/upper class families and while the gains from this have been significant, it has been at the cost of ‘othering’ people and identites that don’t fit in to the image that we are “just like them”.

In a way, the movement has lost its identity. From a movement filled with strong contrast to society as a whole, to one that tries to reconcile queer identities with the pervasive ideas of heteronormaltive culture. She states that in doing so, the movement has lost some of the power that it once had. The power of our individuality, that ‘otherness’ that gave us unique perspectives. She argues that being the same will not win us sexual, economic, and social justice, being different will.

Riki Wilchins discusses how American culture often splits gender and sexual orientation into two independent categories and that this distinction is somewhat dubious. One of her examples of this is how crossdressers are often looked down upon or even spurned by transsexual activists. This is often because they view crossdressers as ‘putting on a costume’; they choose to do it rather than need to. Many trans activists also look down upon it because in many cases it is a fetish or source of sexual pleasure, and fear that this sexualization of gender presentation could delegitimize the cause because of its perceived ‘perversion’ being associated with transsexuals as well.  The view of the two being separate could very well promote the idea that one is ‘better’, ‘more important’, or ‘more pure’ than the other. It causes a rift in the LGBT community, where LGB activists view gender issues as “their problem” and vice versa with trans activists. It divides the strength of the community on issues that are inextricably linked, regardless of how culture tries to separate the two.

In my life however, I have found the opposite to be true; American culture lumps sexual orientation and gender identity together. In my experience though, the two are completely independent of each other. Through most of my life gender identity has been touch and go, flip flopping from identifying as a man, to a woman, to a feminine man, to a man who wishes he was a woman, and so on. But through all of that, my attraction to men has stayed constant. This is probably a misinterpretation of what Wilchins means by a distinction between the two or a fixation on the more personal aspects of the two issues rather than their broader meanings in the context of social activism, but it nonetheless makes it difficult to provide personal examples supporting the contrary.  All of my experiences have shown me that the two are distinct from each other. In my own personal case, my sexuality has flipped back and forth from heterosexual to homosexual, depending on how you define gender. If the two were linked together, wouldn’t one affect the other? Again this could just be me missing the point and getting hung up on the terminology, but when it comes to discussion, language is very powerful.

Our language to define our sexuality is based off of gender. When describing one’s own sexuality, the words heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, etc are all based off of the gender of the person they are describing. A heterosexual man and a homosexual woman are both attracted to women; the terms change but the target of sexual attraction stay the same, it is dependent on gender. This is important because language often shapes how things are viewed. If the only words we have to describe our sexual orientation are based off of gender, than the two become intertwined whenever we attempt to describe them.

A good example of how this language links sexual orientation and gender identity together in our culture is when the topic of non-binary identities comes up. Take the case of a non-binary person who is exclusively attracted to women. How would someone else describe their sexuality? Are they homosexual? No, that would mean that they are attracted to people of the same gender. Assuming we are accepting gender identity as whether someone is a man/woman/other rather than biological male/female binaries, then a non-binary person who is attracted to women couldn’t be defined as homosexual. A similar issue arises if you try to define them as heterosexual. Strictly speaking, the prefix ‘hetero’ means different, so in terms of the etymology it is applicable, but in practical usage people use heterosexual to refer to people who are attracted to the opposite gender. In that case, what is the opposite gender of a non-binary person? The point is, the popular usage of these terms promote a rigid connection between gender and sexuality that seems to fall short and even become confusing when addressing identities that fall outside of conventional gender roles. The language can make it confusing even for people who are educated and experienced with LGBTQ matters, it is much worse for the majority of our society.

You could say that it is silly to care so much about the labels used to describe and categorize people, and I would very much agree with that thought. However it does not change the fact that labels are powerful. They change how people view you. Its a basic human need to categorize things and organize them in some way so they can differentiate them without much effort. If the language used to describe these things is connected to another type of categorization, it only reinforces the connection between the two in a person’s mind. The majority of people do not stop to consider all the nuances of sexual orientation and gender identity, so at the end of the day the way our society will view these things will be influenced by how we describe them.