Queer Theory

Dean Spade singles out many shortcomings of the anti-discrimination law reform for trans people.  One of these shortcomings is the anti-discrimination laws inability to make an effective change to the exclusion of marginalized groups.  He argues that in the efforts for inclusion in discrimination regime, the campaigns rely heavily on “rhetoric that affirms the legitimacy and fairness of the status quo” (Spade 44). He allows goes on to explain how it is hard to prove discrimination for people who have more complicated relationships to marginality.  For example,  immigrants are particularly difficult to protect against discrimination if they are facing issues of being undocumented, as well as facing discrimination based on race, disability, and gender identity.

One shortcoming in hate crime laws that Dean Spade expresses, is the use of the criminal punishment system as a method to stop transphobia since the “criminal punishment system is the most significant perpetrator of violence against trans people” (Spade 47).  To use the criminal punishment system would thus be backwards and ineffective in battling transphobia.

Citations:

Spade, Dean.  Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law.  Durham & London: Duke University Press. 2015.

In Dean Spade’s essay, “What’s Wrong With Rights?”, Dean Spade identifies the shortcomings of both current law reforms and shortcomings of hate crime laws. For example, current law reform such as discrimination laws takes into account what is called the perpetrator perspective. This perspective fails to take into account the historical context of discrimination such as racism. Additionally, it seeks out those who are overtly biased rather than those who discriminate due to systemic or institutional systems in place. It fails to take into account daily disparities due to race, class, gender, disabilities, etc. These discrimination laws also increase the idea of colorblindness which does not take into account the systemic issues that shape this discrimination. Spade goes on to argue that the perpetrator perspective creates a false sense that marginalized groups are now equal and will be treated fairly. This does a disservice to the individuals the laws are trying to protect.

Spade goes on to highlight the shortcomings of hate crime laws. Hate crime laws oversimplify the issue and have no deterrent effects on criminals who commit the crimes against marginalized groups. Spade goes on to argue that people do not read law books and choose not to engage in bias motivated violence before committing a crime just because it carries a harsher sentence. Therefore, these laws do not increase the life chances of the people they aim to protect. Further, hate crime laws strengthen and legitimize the criminals that target the individuals and communities that these laws are made to protect.

Citations

Dean Spade, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2015), selected pages.

With respect to recent anti-discrimination law reform for trans people, Dean Spade identifies several reasons why anti-discrimination laws are ineffective in actually improving the quality of trans lives.  Working off of Alan Freeman’s critique of the perpetrator perspective, Spade notes how the imposed view of discrimination as something which occurs between a perpetrator and a victim completely ignores larger structures of discrimination which have existed in the past and will continue to exist without more powerful reform.  Spade argues that anti-discrimination laws cannot address disparities in life conditions “that we know stem from and reflect long term patterns of exclusion and exploitation cannot be understood as ‘violations’ under the discrimination principle, and thus remedies cannot be won” (Spade 43).

With regard to hate crime laws, Spades primary critique is that ultimately these laws do more to reinforce and expand the prison system which so often falsely holds and abuses trans people.  Simply put: “Criminal punishment cannot be the method we use to stop transphobia when the criminal punishment system is the most significant perpetrator of violence against trans people” (Spade 47).  Spade notes, “Could [the veterans of Stonewall] have imagined that the police would be claimed protectors of queer and trans people against violence, while imprisonment and police brutality were skyrocketing?” (Spade 46).  Prison abolitionists argue that prison reform, rather than addressing unfairness and injustice in prisons, more often lead to prison expansion than anything else.

 

Citations:

Spade, Dean.  Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law.  Durham & London: Duke University Press. 2015.

Spade identifies the idea that anti-discrimination law perpetuates “the false impression that the previously excluded or marginalized group is now equal, that fairness has been imposed, and the legitimacy of the distribution of life chances restored” as a shortcoming in current law reforms (Spade, 43). This idea cuts off room for further growth because it, inaccurately, portrays the struggle as over.

He also identifies the conceptualization of how hate crimes are motivated as a shortcoming in hate crime laws (Spade, 42). By thinking of a hate crime as a bigoted individual versus a trans person, the proposed hate crime statues ignore systemic transphobia (Spade, 42). Additionally, this conception of transphobia reflected in laws would mean that only individuals who overtly, and provably, considered the victim’s gender expression could be legally punished (Spade, 43).

 

References

Dean Spade, What is Wrong with Rights?

 

As I understand it, the “antisocial thesis” refers to the notion that queerness exists outside of societal expectations and sociality, first postulated by Leo Bersani in the 1995 book Homos. (Caserio et al. 819) Naturally, there are many different ways to read this, with some readings being that queerness exists in opposition to mainstream society, others saying that it should redefine mainstream society, and some saying the two shouldn’t be compared.

When Rodríguez speaks about “politically incorrect erotic desires” (Rodríguez 342) she uses fantasies as a way to discuss internalized ways in which society affects the desires and needs of oppressed individuals, specifically addressing the nuance behind how our sexual identities are formed.

This relates to the “antisocial thesis” discussed in the PMLA document because our fantasies are mostly antisocial and exist within niche queer communities (such as BDSM and various communities under that umbrella) that organize under the guise of discreteness when not in the position of activism/pride. An example that she brings up is “daddy play”, in order to highlight that people argue that it “does not condone, engender, or map easily onto actual accounts of coercive incestuous relations” (Rodríguez 342)—this method of looking at problematic fetishes provides agency for the consenting individuals involve while also detangling the systematic pressures that created these desires in the first place. She brings up many different points that argue either for or against it, saying that certain fetishes (another example being race/power relations and their role in BDSM play) have inherent contexts no matter what the intent, but ultimately ending on the notion that “everyday trauma constitutes our lives.” (Rodríguez 345)

REFERENCES

Caserio, Robert L., et al. “The Antisocial Thesis in Queer Theory.” PMLA, vol. 121, no. 3, 2006, pp. 819–828. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25486357.

Rodríguez, J. M. “Queer Sociality and Other Sexual Fantasies.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, vol. 17 no. 2, 2011, pp. 331-348. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/437415.

 

This week’s readings present the antisocial thesis in queer theory as a renunciation of redemptive and futuristic thought. In Judith Halberstam’s position statement, they note that Lee Edelman argues that the antisocial thesis’ embrace of negativity and antisociality is natural because queerness is structurally antisocial due the inability to reproduce that is associated with homosexual sex. Halberstam describes this antisocial thesis as  “be[ing] willing to turn away from the comfort zone of polite exchange to embrace a truly political negativity, one that promises, this time, to fail, to make a mess, to fuck shit up…” (The Antisocial Thesis in Queer Theory 824). The premise of refusing to work and speak in ways that are polite or are connected to a greater system that operates under the capitalist regime of production is especially interesting because of the meaning/activist stance that emerges from what some might identify as passivity at first glance. Another intriguing premise is Leo Bersani’s theorization of the antisocial thesis’ exploitation of the threat of homosexuality as a political tool. This involves the confrontation of homophobia as a destructive force and can be used to interrogate the social.

Just as queerness is seen as non-normative, sexual and romantic fantasy also often falls into the category of what is taboo. Rodriguez writes about fantasy rather than sexual practice because even benign fantasies—”love, marriage, and domestic bliss (whether hetero or homo)” (Rodriguez 342)—are subject to the systems of racialized power difference. Rodriguez feels it is necessary to point out that race dynamics inform how play out in both queer and heterosexual and “perverted” or standard fantasies. While Edelman and Bersani seem to locate their theorizations in the vacuum of whiteness, Rodriguez attempts to enter consider race and its implications in her work.

References:

Caserio, R. L., Edelman, L., Halberstam, J., Muniz, J. E., & Dean, T. (2011). The Antisocial Thesis in Queer Theory. Modern Language Association, 121 (3), 819-828.

Rodriguez, J. M. (2011). Queer Sociality and Other Sexual Fantasies. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 17 (2-3), 331-348.

From my understanding of the readings, antisocial thesis in queer theory is a thesis that presents queerness and queer people as being deeply conflicted, contradictory and incompatible with normative sociality.  It is a thesis that coincides with Leo Bersani’s definition of sex as “anti-communitarian, self-shattering and anti-identitarian” (PMLA 823). This way of thinking about sex creates a “shift from projects of redemption, reconstruction, restoration, and reclamation and toward what can only be called an antisocial, negative, and anti-relational theory of sexuality” (PMLA 823). Societal imposition has formed a heteronormative narrative surrounding sex and sexual practices which is where queer theory becomes antisocial in nature as sex is centered around pleasure rather than reproduction.

So how do we begin to make sense of our politically incorrect erotic desires? (Rodriguez, 342)

In relation to the “antisocial thesis,” “politically incorrect desires,” as Rodriguez terms, reinforces the negative theory of sexuality and belief that queerness is incompatible with normative sociality as there exists many sexual desires that do not fit into society’s norms and that are considered “unnatural.”  The sexual fantasies that Rodriguez refers to almost always contains a power dynamic, whether that be a racialized one or one centering around gender and hyper-masculinity. These sexual fantasies are largely accepted in society and have become the norm to the point where they are no longer seen as being antisocial or damaging. She seeks to disrupt the narrative and calls into question the very nature, nuance, and connotation of what antisocial means in regards to both queer theory and heteronormative discourse on both sexual practices and fantasies.

Sources:

Caserio, R. L., Edelman, L., Halberstam, J., Muniz, J. E., & Dean, T. (2011). The antisocial thesis in queer theory. Modern Language Association, 121(3), 819-828.

Rodriguez, J. M. (2011). Queer sociality and other sexual fantasies. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 17(2-3), 331-348.

To me, antisocial thesis in queer theory is the, at least partial embracing of homophobic views of homosexuality in order to contend and undermine the socially constructed heterosexual view of self. That is not to say to agree with homophobic view of homosexuality, but to use the views against themselves. As Tim Dean put it in “The Antisocial Thesis in Queer Theory,” “The burden of ‘antisocial thesis in queer theory,’…is not that lesbians and gay men are unsociable but that some aspect of homosexuality threatens the social and that it might be strategic politically to exploit that threat. Homosexuality can be viewed as threatening because, insofar as we fail to reproduce the family in a recognizable form, queers fail to reproduce the social.” In order for homosexuality to be threatening, there has to be an intrinsic homophobic stance taken as a starting point to completely demolish homophobic views. Furthermore, the concept of utopia stands out to me as particularly moving. As Juana María Rodríguez put it in “Queer Sociality and Other Sexual Fantasies,” “The work of utopia must always be both a casting of possibilities and a tireless critique of the present.” By viewing queer theory in an antisocial frame, antisocial in the sense that the concept of queerness combats the heterosexual patriarchal hierarchy, and by imagining a utopia in which these hierarchies cease to exist, the conditions of the present can be critiqued from the theoretical framework of a “perfect” world. As a utopian society does not exist, all theorizing from the utopian viewpoint must be fantasy. As Rodríguez put it, “Fantasy offers a venue for exploration and pleasure that is available to anyone who dares.” By also looking at sexual fantasies rather than sexual practices, sexual possibilities rather than sexual realities can be taken into account in the queer narrative.

 

The antisocial thesis in queer theory is stated as the idea that LGBTQ+ people are incompatible with society due to societies heteronormative ideas. A particularly interesting premise of this idea that stood out to me was how this theory related to the AIDS epidemic and that 56.8% of News of the World readers thought that AIDS carriers should be sterilized and given treatment to curb their sexual appetite. This is obviously pointed at members of the LGBTQ+ community who, at the time, were seen as one of the only populations that suffered from AIDS (Bersani, 199). Additionally, societies thoughts on sex are based around procreating which causes this inherent struggle between LGBTQ+ individuals and society at large.

Politically incorrect erotic desires can been defined as acts of social deviance as these “incorrect erotic desires” do not fit in with societies ideas of sexuality at large. This connects to the antisocial thesis because these erotic desires also do not align with societies ideas of sex and sexuality. Rodríguez focuses on fantasy rather than sexual practices because fantasies allow for sexual possibilities outside of just the culture norms of white able bodied men. Rodríguez’s idea of sexual fantasies allows the inclusion of a spectrum of race, gender, and power within sexual desires as opposed to Bersani and Eldman’s focus on sexual acts and practices which revolve mainly around anal sex.

Citations:

Robert L. Caserio, Lee Edelman, Judith Halberstam, José Esteban Muñoz and Tim Dean, “The Antisocial Thesis in Queer Theory,” PMLA 121, no. 3 (May, 2006): 819-828.

Leo Bersani: “Is the Rectum a Grave?” October 43 (Winter, 1987): 197- 222.

Juana María Rodríguez, “Queer Sociality and Other Sexual Fantasies,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 17, no. 2 (2011): 331-48.

Lee Edelman, “The Future Is Kid Stuff,” in No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 1-32.

The antisocial thesis in queer theory is the idea that being queer and queer people themselves are fundamentally incompatible with the social order currently in place, the most apparent example of this being gay sex which unlike heterosexual sex doesn’t serve a reproductive purpose and thereby subverts the social notion of family.  This antisocial thesis is often thought about in conjunction with negativity and follows up on Bersani’s definition of sex as “anticommunitarian, self-shattering, and anti-identitarian” (PLMA 823). One particularly interesting aspect of the antisocial thesis in queer theory is Bersani’s discussion of the media and “its capacity to manufacture subjectivity itself” (203).  Effectively emphasizing the social separation of gay people from the “general public” Bersani notes “the family identity produced on American television is much more likely to include your dog than your homosexual brother or sister” (203).  Another premise which stands out is the connection between queer people and antisocial politics such as anarchy and its parallel in punk music – begging the question: do all queers share the same or at the very least, similar negative and antisocial politics?

Rodríguez’s discussion of “politically incorrect erotic desires” (342) adds some fresh perspective to the antisocial thesis.  These desires are related to the antisocial perhaps in their subversion of power or gender structures also in their multiplicity and limitless possibility.  Rodríguez discusses fantasies to include those not included in Bersani and Edelman’s writings, almost everyone besides gay white men.  Whereas Bersani and Edelman both focus on sexual acts, specifically anal sex between gay men which Edelman links with the death drive, Rodríguez discusses fantasies on a spectrum which brings race, gender, and power into the sphere of erotic desires.

 

Citations:

Leo Bersani, Is the Rectum a Grave?

PMLA, The Antisocial Thesis in Queer Theory

Juana María Rodríguez, Queer Sociality and Other Sexual Fantasies