Date: Thu, 6 Apr 1995 09:53:31 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: Is There a GLBT Race? This discussion of "race," or unique "people groups" is a fascinating one. As a TG person who is focused on how we try to fit transgender into this culture, the balance between our essential otherness and our essential sameness is a key question. It is one expression of the primary duality, wild/tame, i.e., I need to be wild and unique, I need to be tame and a member of a group. Just like all dualities, both of these things are true at the same time, and we need to find an active balance between these issues. I have been considering the model of the deaf community in this question, even buying Sacks _Seeing Voices_. For background, the April 95 Esquire article on TG, and the works of Anne Bolin make this point: In cultures with a strongly bi-polar gender system, rituals of crossdressing show our continuous common humanity (Bolin). Transgendered people are a reminder to the fact that differences we think are impassable are really just customs. The arguments for representing essential otherness (a unique "people group") are compelling: we get to create our own aesthetic, our own criteria for acceptance, we build our own unique community, we get to live a free life. The tradeoff is creating a ghetto mentality, living isolated from culture at large. The arguments for representing essential sameness are also compelling. We get to live in the mainstream, changing all of culture to be more accepting and more understanding. We have more choice. The tradeoff is much more discomfort and strength to overcome deeply held stigmas. The answer is somewhere between these two, creating a safe space for transition and growth, but taking that strength out into the world. For me, it comes down to a marketing decision. People can hate others, and I have recently seen another "You scumsuckers are against everything good and holy, so die!" message posted across the queer newsgroups. But they have trouble hating people they know. We need to be part of the world, and any new label, like "race" separates us farther. I like having the definition of queer be inclusive, not based on any specific characteristic or behavior. Anyone who is willing to call themselves queer can be queer, and all you have to do is be accepting of others individuality and unique expression. It lets us dream of a day when the majority of the country will be proud to call themselves queer. However, at that point, those on the edge won't want to be in the same group as the boring people, so they will create a new out group. As Charles Atlas said, dynamic tension to move things forward. Callan Date: Sat, 8 Apr 1995 11:17:28 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: Race Erasure My background is in marketing. I read this discussion about race, and then about how we actually become effective in the world, and I think of companies like Proctor & Gamble who have brilliant intelligensia working for them who understand the underlying constructs of society and then use those constructs to sell soap. Action without thought is destructive. But thought without action is impotent. It's a balance thing. Ries & Trout say "Marketing is essentially oversimplification." You take a true and complex thought and you package it in a way to make it digestible, in a way that people can take to their heart. The otherness/sameness issue is one of those thoughts. It's easy to discuss how to define the unique characteristics and experiences of various human groups. That is a tradition in academia, deconstruction of traits and behaviors. It is a supremely useful tool. The challenge today is the same as for P & G: How do we reconstruct messages based on that knowledge that make people want to take action? The action of accepting our essential sameness, so that we can accept the diversity that gives us flavor? The understanding of the naturalness of a wide range of human behavior? The moving away from autonomic responses towards stigmatizing any thing different (queer)? The action of embracing humanity, not being afraid of it? Everybody has their role. Some of us are great at taking things apart, showing the mechanism. Others of us want to work to change, rebuild mechanisms. But we have to work together on this, just like we have to work together on everything else in this world. The goal for me is trying to get to effectiveness. Respect each other's point of view. Balance thinking & action. Another day, another shift in balance! Callan Date: Sat, 15 Apr 1995 16:37:51 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: separatism and transsexualit Jane >Just curious - how do the messages about the difference in male and female discourse, >behaviour etc. relate to the issue of the Michigan music festival? >I think they do, since some of the M-F TSs still carry with them male ways of relating etc. >Also, judging by recent articles by Anne Bolin, in Esquire etc., transgenderists are >forming a culture of their own, and I wonder how that culture would impact on the >culture of the festival. Transgenderists are indeed forming a culture of their own, and one of the key topics dicussed is the importance of entering established exclusive space versus the power of creating new inclusive space. Both actions are very important, for different reasons. The women who want to be at Michegan identify as lesbian women, that simple. They want the freedom to be with other women. But for various reasons, separatitsts don't want them there. This was clearly because of what they represent rather than the numbers of TS attending, as there is no way they can represent more than a tiny minority. Maybe they are steeped in the patrarchy, having gone through puberty as a male, but certainly butch expression is not unknown at Michegan. Anne Bolin has noted that "In cultures where gender is rigidly bi-polar, rituals of transgender behavior show our continuous common humanity." The more people look at TG, the point seems to be to baffle those who want to separate us in any way. Clearly, this is Leslie Feinberg's message, and the message of many others who have studied TG. In fact, looking at the way TG people have created separation within our culture is fascinating in its own way: TV/TS/TG/Drag, etc. These are quickly eroding under the general outing of transgender. The TG culture is sparse and thinly spread, and I suspect that this will continue. LesBiGay is about mating, at least for an evening, but TG is not. We tend not to come together as easily, not to buid networks as rapidly. I suspect that the profoundly transgendred, those who need to completely cross gender lines, are also a statistically smaller group >I gather there was lots of support for the TSs being there, so maybe in future years they will be. >I still maintain that the festival is NOT about lesbian separatism, but about a woman-positive space. >Jane Yes, woman-positive, human-positive space, out of the traditional heterosexist pressure of this culture is important. If some want to talk about separation, someone else has to speak for our basic sameness and connection. That's the cycle, the balance. Some have noted that there are few lesbian separatists over 30. I don't know if that's even generally true, but I take it as a hopeful sign. Callan Date: Mon, 1 May 1995 09:12:46 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Your Plea for Unity Rachel As a transgendered woman, I do agree with your plea. I gave the keynote address at the International Federation for Gender Education this year, and one of my key points was how transgendered people remind all of us how much we are the same. If what seem to be essential divisions like man/woman are arbitrary, then all divisions are arbitrary. We are all essentially the same, and need to learn to share from our common hearts rather than divide on our common features. Anything that divides us is designed to give power to someone else. We cannot let fear be used to divide us -- and conquer us. As you also know, gender is a system of desire that is designed to keep us in line and breeding. The stigmatization of those who are not heterosexual is really the stigmatization of all who are outside the prevailing system of gender. Will Roscoe, author of _The Zuni Man Woman_ has written brilliantly on this topic. Viz: ___________________________________________ "I tend to think of homophobia as the irrational prejudice of individuals toward homosexuality and heterosexism as the institutional framework that produces that prejudice. For me, perhaps because I work in anthropology, I think of heterosexism as the ideology that there are only two sexes, hence only two genders, and therefore one sexuality, the attraction between these oppositions. This leads me to conclude that lesbian/gay liberation should be concerned with both attitudes toward homosexuality and with gender binarism." Will Roscoe, Q- Study L 4/5/95 "As long as men who manifest feminine qualities and women who do the same in male realms are seen as deviants to be criminalized and stigmatized, wholeness will elude both society and its individuals. At some level, fear of being associated with this deviant status stands in the way of every man and woman who yearns for psychic integration. We have a culture where it's essential that we become more cooperative and less individualistic and, I think, less gendered. I think the most important thing men can do is just stop being men and start being humans." The Zuni Man/Woman Native America's third gender, An Interview with Will Roscoe by Jerry Snider, Magical Blend #33, January 1992, pg 42-47, 96 _____________________________________________________ The problem in the transgender community is that their transgression of the bi-polar gender system is out and difficult. To keep effective in the gender system of desire, they must closet their transgender, deny themselves in order to find partners. While this premise may be clear for transgendered males who are oriented towards women ("heterosexual crossdressers,") note that there is also a great desire pressure for transgendered males who are oriented towards men ("gay drag queens") to maintain what the wives in the community call "healthy masculine expression," even if that is defined two vastly different ways. The CD phrase "I only do it to get off" and the drag phrase "I only do it for the show" mean the same things in each culture, a denial of the essential transgendered status. What does all this mean? It means that there is plenty of shame in the TG community, and in the large part, our relationships with others deny rather than affirm our status. Gay people are often with another affirming gay person -- in fact, in some ways that is the point. TG people have other issues. TG people are working hard to overcome this shame & stigma. But there is a long way to go. . In fact, many of us have to deny our queerness or lose our family & children, and this is a very painful choice. You are correct when you note "they are us and we are them" and that may be the essential message of transgender. Ah, but it take all of us a while to figure that out. Callan Date: Thu, 25 May 1995 12:13:25 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Stop Abusing Shame! For your comments.... Thanks. Callan ___________________________________________ Stop Abusing Shame! Callan Williams Copyright =A9 1995 We have a paradox. Many people in this country are concerned about our national lack of shame, how we seem to be self centered, shameless, with a failing morality that it driving this country into a criminal morass. Others, like those in the recovery movement, are concerned with getting rid of shame, an internal feeling that something is wrong with them and they deserve to be punished. They are working to be more authentic and whole, not shame based. Shaming people is a powerful weapon. We, as a human culture, have learned to use shame to stop people from certain behaviors. We want people to feel ashamed of theft, abuse, greed, violence and other behaviors that can be damaging to the fabric of this society. It is important that we work to limit these behaviors. Unfortunately, we have been using shame for other reasons. We have attempted to use shame to enforce not simply a code of deep, shared morality, but also to enforce compliance with an image of who we should be as Americans. As we became an itinerant culture, moving from ancestral homes in cities and farms, we became a suburban culture, where our worth was valued not from a deep knowledge of our roots and our inner lives but by our compliance with a set of images. TV and the media delivered these images, planted deep in our brains, and the vast malls, a homogenous merchandising structure, gave us a way to look alike. The pressure to keep up this front was, and is, shame. We are ashamed of the way we look, ashamed of our parents, ashamed of our kids, ashamed of our pimples, ashamed of out thoughts, ashamed of who we are. The problem with this is that it debased the value of shame. If we live with shame everyday, we can soon become sick -- so sick that we get ill, or so sick that we become shameless. Shame loses its sting when we don't have a strong context of pride in who we are to contrast it with. It is impossible to shame those who have lost their pride, or worse, have learned to take a perverse pride in activities that should be shameful. We can look at prisons, where shameful acts become a badge of pride, turning the entire moral structure upside down. If there is no building of pride, even in prison, there is no way to control prisoners with healthy shame about destructive behavior. Even in finance or politics, the excuse "everybody does it" signals that people don't feel shame about lining their pockets through behavior that is destructive, illegal, immoral -- behavior that should be shameful. Kids in inner cities are especially prone to overdosing on shame. They feel the shame that our moralistic, suburban, materialistic culture imposes, yet they have no way to buy the things that will stop the shame. They learn to live without pride, hardened to shame. To complain that they are without shame is to not understand how they have been abused by shame, forced to become shameless. Like creating resistant diseases by the overuse of antibiotics, destroying our weapon by overuse, we have created a shame resistant culture by overuse of shame. This process goes on. We see people who call themselves Christians pulling out the big guns of shame to stop behavior they don't like, such as birth control and homosexuality, and who then ask why the big guns don't work on the big crimes, like murder and rape. They don't acknowledge how the abuse of shame has left them defenseless. As a culture, we must come to an agreement on a set of core values that we can and must enforce. These cannot be simple lifestyle issues, or marketing tools. We cannot try to enforce homogenization, for that is unenforceable. People understand that the creation of unenforceable laws diminishes the respect for all laws, and we must also understand that the use of shame to enforce surface similarity will diminish the respect for shame. We must allow people to find and have pride in their lives, however diverse they may be, and however much they make choices that we find odd or unpleasant. Only then can we all find ways to enforce destructive acts as the truly shameful things that they are. Many of us are learning to move away from our legacy of shame, the pain of the constant humiliation that was applied to try to make us conform. We are trying to heal the hurt and find our true self, figure out what we really should be ashamed of enough to change, and what is simply an essential part of us that doesn't fit into the images of conformity that were pumped into our brain. As we do this, we must also keep in mind that all others deserve the same privilege to be proud of their own unique expression, and that we must be sparing with our expressions of scorn and humiliation, because they don't need to be ashamed of themselves. They -- and we -- simply need a healthy sense of shame. Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 16:21:45 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Gender Research // Chris Wientraub's request Comments: cc: CWEINTRAUB@athena.hood.edu, nosfer@yorku.ca I was interested in the exchange between Cathe Wientraub, who wants to do some gender research on people who are "truly ambiguous and can't be idenified on sight as belonging to 'either' gender", and Morgan Holmes, who chose to discuss the issues of the intersexed, noting that they do not consider themselves as of "ambiguous sex." My first thought was a concern for the conflation of sex and gender, as Morgan discussed people who, on physical examination could not be identifed as either sex, and also noted that gender was fluid. My reading of Cathe's message was that she was intrested not in sex organs but in gender cues, the mantles of gender we all take on. So, I was concerned that Cathe was looking at gender, Morgan at sex and that we have to keep those two issues, the cultural and the physical reasonably clear. However, as I continued thinking about this, I remember that when we see someone we want to idenitfy their sex, not their gender. We want to assign them sex organs, and there is a range of options, including male in a dress & female with moustache. When we are surprised about these culturally assigned organs, like the DC fireman who stopped assisting Tyra Banks after cutting her pants and finding a cock & balls, it gets tough. The concern seems to be people who can't be identified as either sex on sight, no matter what their gender expression -- though transgressing gender barriers will lead to that process of assigning sex, crucial in a heterosex culture, more difficult. True androgny or just bent gender? Another issue is the response of people who have found that they assigned cultural genitals that do not match the physical ones -- how do they handle it? I suspect there are also concerns there. For me, keeping the cultural structures of gender apart from the physical structures of male/female/intersex are important -- though I know many would disagree, noting that they are already irretrivably intertwined. However, if we don't separate gender expression, including desire, from the physical now, science will do it very soon, as the limits and "physical realities" of the body are destroyed. Callan Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 10:57:18 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: A *discussion* list I like this list, no matter how much Jude and some of the flame wars get very, very tedious. This is a academic discussion list about queer studies, and that doesn't mean that it is limited to texts -- we are writing the texts. How do we see current issues in the context of queer theory, from an academic point of view? While I disagree intensely with think Jon's deeply conservative voice, I understand that he raises many of the issues we need to face, need to discuss. I may love "Baywatch Barbie" Charles, but his voice is just one. I agree completely that the way to move a discussion list is to raise your own voice, not to tell others how to behave, but to shape the discussion. I am a digest subscriber -- to me, Qstudy is one long message a day, not a flurry in my mail box. It's easy to scan and easy to ignore what I find tedious. You can be a digest subscriber too. Do we need to limit people who are involved in discussions? Are we going to have some strong voices? This is a discussion. Let's discuss, and when things go off the edge, call people on that shit. People will use foul language, put out some foul ideas and generally make a mess. That's fine with me -- I think queer pizza (with or without sauce) is a fine dish. I learn, I get challenged, I get pissed, I ignore people. That's life. But do I want someone else to edit this mess? No thanks. Give me the raw material. I am a grown up, trained in how to analyize and critque data and opinion. I can think for myself. I want more queer thought and energy in the morning, and I will digest it as I choose. Callan (who may just be in love with Jill.) Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 08:46:33 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Raging, Outrageous, Outraged: Straw Vote Define, in a queer context: Raging Outrageous Outraged Compare and contrast. Use examples from this list. ____________________ I vote no to moderation, yes to open discussion. If people want an edited extract to be availible, that's fine. I'm used to being raw material, but interpret me in your own time. Callan Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 09:16:47 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Raging, Outrageous, Outraged: Extra Credit For extra credit, define, in a queer context: Flaming Flamer Flamed Compare and contrast. Use examples from this list. I still vote no. Callan Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 10:57:52 -0500 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Naming our Groups: Bi/TG John Hollister bb05246@bingsuns.cc.binghamton.edu writes: >For virtually all such projects, the distinction between 'gay' and >'bisexual' is really not relevant, and the split between these two >categories is just not happening everywhere at the same rate. >And it seems to me that the spokespeople for the bi and transgender >movements greatly overestimate the extent to which they really >represent their imagined constituencies. >I very much agree with Vera Whisman's post about how 'we' should not >be so quick to disregard the feelings of the so-called mainstream, >non-hip, frumpy, etc. >I would rather see us all increase our ability to mobilize the numbers >- which include the racists, the sexists, the closeted, the apolitical, >the street queens, the hustlers, the bardykes, the non-educated, the >rural, etc - than continue to restrict ourselves to tiny bohemian >activist enclaves. As a transgendered woman, if the point is that we must have names that are inclusive I agree. I also agree that laundry list names (LGBT) have serious limits. However, you have to realize that putting just the words "Gay & Lesbian" can be very exclusive, and not lead to coalition building at all. Those words can make TGs feel excluded and BIs feel excluded, because they are exclusive. For many gays and lesbians the question is "How Queer Is Too Queer?" They want organizations that address their assimilation, and not the embracing of a broader queer community (as in the people you list.) In fact, they are still uncomfortable with queers. For example, the Human Rights Campaign is fighting for a bill (ENDA) that protects from discrimination on sexual orientation, but not on gender expression. To many transgendered people this seems like HRC is saying that TGs are not humans to be protected. When the DSM was changed to eliminate Homosexuality, Gender Idenitity Disorder was included. Now we see gay kids disgnosed as "gender dysphoric" and put through incredible programs to cure them. The Religous Right has latched onto this, and is fighting for cures of gender dysphoria -- cures of homosexuality. Let's face it, gays are usually persecuted not because of what they do in the priviacy of their bedroom, but what they do in public -- persecuted because they transgress gender roles, don't act approppriately for a "man" or a "woman". We are marginalized with lots of other queers and left by the wayside because we "greatly overestimate the extent to which they really represent their imagined constituencies." Not everybody can assimilate, nor wants to assimilate, into mainstream society or even mainstream gay society. We need to find ways of working together that are inclusive not exclusive -- and the TG movement is doing that. In Albany NY, the Gay & Lesbian Comminity Council decided to add transgender to their mission statement without consulting one transgendered person. A good move for inclusion, simply politically correct words that will fall flat because there is no real committment, or a crafty assimilationst move to allow them to claim diversity and the money that goes with it without work? Good question. The stigma on those who clearly transgress gender is still great, and we don't have the same pressures to come together as people who primarily idenitiffy as gays and lesbians, for whom the pressure of the gender system of desire to find partners helps socialize and assimilate them. But to find areas of agreement, to find ways to come together we have to find language that is inclusive, and having someone decide that it is appropriate for us to be marginalized because we are marginal cuts off lots of fragments of people -- and creates the separations that keep the queer movement weak. Callan Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 08:24:50 -0500 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: GID Gender Disphoria Jen (SparkleM@AOL.COM) writes >I will stand by my original statement that if GID is being used in an attempt >to treat and cure homosexuals, it is a blatant misuse of the dx. and, IMO, >malpractice. >In the first article, GID is seen as associated with the availability of >certain drugs to some women and has nothing to do with the proper use of the dx. >term. Agreeably a misuse of the diagnostic tool, but, a technique often >found to be useful, however dishonest and potentially harmful. I see no tie >to the issue of treatment/cure of homosexuality here. >I did not make the same conclusions as Michelle Maher in the second article. > I cannot make the leap of assumption that GID is another term for >homosexual. Most of the material she works from is either now outdated >and/or stilted. She sounds just a bit paranoid and hysterical in her >conclusions. However, if there are people (professionals?) who are using >this same leap in their dx. and tx. we have a big problem. But, I don't, or >haven't (or at least, recently w/i last three years), seen anything like >that around here in our mental health system. >Any "other sexuality" in any treatment setting I've been in, has been handled >without bias. In fact, any indication to the contrary has been met with >immediate education! Maybe we're just a bit more relaxed about it in >Raleigh now..... (or maybe I just haven't seen it .....) >Jon @ Serenity Lodge >Lake Wheeler Close, Raleigh There you go, defending the DSM again. At least you are consistent! OK, so the bulk of people *you work with* don't see GID as a subsititute for homosexuality. My point is that there are people who do see GID as the same as *queer*, whatever that means to them. Queer is gender transgression, n'est ce pas? From the Reverend Lou Phelps to the people running the gender reeducation clinics for teens in Utah, even to thereapists who claim they can cure transgresssive gender behaviors though therapy (or, if required, aversion techniques.) Can queer be cured? I know that we now have four gender roles: het man, het woman, gay man, and gay woman, but those who fall through the cracks, especially teens and genderqueers are still abused by GID therapy. It's nice for you to claim it's minor (because you don't see it) and it's malpractice (because you don't agree) but it's not nice for you to claim it's not important. It is important to all of us as queers. You want to know something? Many of us who are transgendered don't think we are ill either, don't think we are a diagnosis. On the other hand, I see the primary purpose of the DSM as defining what insurance companies will pay for, and we don't invest in wellness in this culture, so if we want hape we have to have a sickness. But that doesn't mean that transgender is anything more than a way some people are born, just like homosexuality -- but both groups have to emerge from crippling and disfiguring stigma. And now, when that stigma is less for nice "normal" homos, it's the gender queers who get the crap -- and the diagnosis. This is the issue: How queer is too queer? I, for one, refuse to allow people's interpretation of the DSM, some of which are quite draconian, as the answer. Callan Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 08:54:06 -0500 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Little Ol' Hysterical Me! Jon writes: >I think my post must have missed something in the transmission...I did not >mention the DSM in my reply, nor attempt to defend it. And, I thought I was >saying that I disagree with any attempt at "curing" homosexuals. I said >nothing about transgendered people. You said plenty about people who transgress gender, though. >And if you have problems with a professional therapist and/or the type of >treatment being used, can show the malpractice, then there are mechanisms in >place to deal effectively with that, professionally. Histrionics and >hysterics will get you little credence in this field. Drama is useful in >some settings, but, have your ducks in a row for this one. I read passion >and energy in your post. Why not put it to some useful business......It >sounds as if you have an ax to grind, but, I don't think it's with me. LOL! I have often heard stories of how medical professionals categorize women as "hysterical" when they come in, and give their complaints less credibility than men -- but it's always more fun the first time it happens to you. Sorry, Jon if I was responsing to your history as well as your current post, but when you publically dismissed out of hand the "cases" you asked me to send (and I sent privately), I thought I should make the point that I think you have your head up your. . . Oops, that sounds hysterical. Trust me, honey, I know I have work to do, and having professionals send me back to "get my ducks in a row" is not part of it. Yes, I took the opportunity to talk about bigger issues than your dismissal of the issue of GID being used to label queers and your quick reliance on "malpractice" to solve all the problems of the medical community. What! Oh, excuse me. I must just have had the vapors for a moment. I can't believe I said that! (as Kathie Lee titled her last book.) Would you like another glass of punch -- and a nice cookie for such a strong professional man like yourself! You're right, QStudy is no place for emortions, and you are just working as hard as you can to help people. Maybe I'll just lay down a while. . . Callan Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 20:26:45 -0500 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: Naming our Groups: Bi/TG John Hollister writes >All "queers" are assimilated, whether they like it or not. We may >latch on to a few small markers of distinction, but we are all >entangled in the same economy, the same society, the same ideological >and political structures. And the poorest North Americans and >Europeans benefit mightily from the severe oppression of the world's >peasants and workers. A basic fact US radicals have forgotten in our >retreat to issues of sensitivity. My definition of assimilaton is "taking on the shared characteristics of a target group in order to be accepted as a member of that group." There is no doubt that there are levels of assimilation. Simply being born in the US gives characteristics that Mexicans, for example, have to work for. The question is, however, how assimilated is assimilated enough -- or to put it another way, how queer is too queer. America is a country that has an enormous system designed to drive assimilation, from education to media, we are all driven to take on shared characteristics, and stigmatized and humilated if we don't share those characteristics. Look at how teens are torn to shreds if they don't fit the image of the group! No wonder they feel free to assault queers for transgressive behavior -- they are assualted everyday. Marketers play on this drive to sell us things that will help us fit in, blend in, be liked and not humilated -- be assimilated. We have a mobile country where looking right and acting right are more important than being good and caring. Image, baby. But some have real blocks to this assmiliation: blacks, handicapped, fat, sissys, whoever. Others refuse to assimilate because taking on the shared characteristics means they have to deny too much of themselves. The primary duality is wild/tame. We all want to be wild and free and individual and unique, we all want to be accepted and safe and part of the group. Assimilation is the taming process and for many of us we see tame as being caged. Queer is about transgression of the cultural structures, the taming structures, the assmilating structures that shape our lives -- limiting and enabling us. Transgressing class, race, gender. The line between destroying all that is tame and good, and liberating people so that they can be more authenitic and effective can be tricky -- but most queer activists know that there will be plenty of people to defend the status quo, so they need to go far out -- and end up moving the center. Believe me, I understand the luxury of living in this culture at this time, and I am not suggesting that we all move back to primitive conditions. >Most gays want their assimilation to be recognized: to maintain their >most meaningful personal relationships (sexual, romantic, whatever >matters to them) without jeopardizing their jobs; they want to be >welcome, non-ostracized members of the communities around them. Ah. The question: "We have taken on the shared characteristics you have asked us to, we have learned to blend in, fit in like everyone else -- so why won't you let sodomize each other in peace? We just want to be married like normal people!" This is buying into the myth that if you just fit in nicely, follow the rules, they will let you win. Look at Madonna, Mother Theresa, Donald Trump. They all knew that the rules just stop you from losing -- you have to break them to win. The point is that you transgress the norms of the gender system. Andrew Sullivan's "conservative" attitude -- "Look, do whatever you want in your bedroom, but I just don't want to hear about it. If we start talking about that stuff out loud, family values will go to hell, and we wouldn't want that, would we? Just act like a man in public and do whatever else you do in private and we will all be fine." You are opressed because you transgress a deeply entrenched gender system. It's not about what we do in our bedrooms, it's about what we do in our lives. >Now the most vocal 'queer' activists seem to invest more time and >words in attacking these "assimilationists" than in addressing the needs >of most gay people. A movement that would exclude the majority of its >own constituency - the dreaded assimilationists - in the name of >asserting its "inclusiveness" has simply lost touch with reality. The reality is that if queers hadn't stood up, been out and proud, said "fuck you" to assimilating nicely, then the center wouldn't have moved and we couldn't even talk about the possibility of nice "normal assimilated homos." Queer is about transgressing the norms of society -- and assimilation is about living within them. Maybe we can all agree that we want to change the norms so it is easier for people to live within them -- but that process *requires* transgression. As John Albanese asks in his post: >Is it "too queer" to demand equal treatment/service in a restaurant, in housing, >on the street, in one's community while being openly queer? We can all choose to pass, to follow community standards, to take on the common characteristcs -- to assimilate -- and we can end up with the status quo, where the gender defenders can use oppression, harassment, where humilation will be accepted, and where we can lose jobs or get denied service or other indignities, designed to help us understand that we will suffer if we are not assimilated enough. I don't dread assimilationists. Go blend in, be tame. That's OK. But don't assimilate and then complain what you had to sacrifice to do it -- including, for example, the right to marry whoever you want. Don't force others to assimilate -- help them move the status quo, through cash, through emotional support, through teaching, whatever. I believe that queer is an inclusive word for all those who feel limited by the social constructs of our culture. Queer & Assimilated are complimentary aspects, just like masculine & feminine, hot & cold. You are not one or the other -- but you do have to watch the balance damn hard. I will agree that being too unassimilated leaves you ineffective -- but being too assmiliated leaves you ineffective too, worrying more about fitting in than about changing the world even a little bit. How queer is too queer? How assimilated is too assimilated? If most gay people don't want to ask these questions, they don't have to. Choose to be assimilated and not to be queer -- it's your choice. Enjoy the sodomy laws, though. Callan Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 04:51:51 -0500 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: Naming our Groups: Bi/TG Terry Goldie writes (from Canada): >Does someone who talks about conquering the nation-state realize how strange >that seems to us who are interested in protecting our little nation-states >from that big one where so many of you live? The issues of assimilation are all connected, from queers, to immigrants to other cultures being drawn into the global media swirl. I think it is very possible that my experience as a Canadian and Canadaian Studies major has influenced the way I think about the choices of assimilating or transgressing. The history of assmiliation is not a short one -- even to today's "ethnic cleansing." Canandians have had to work very hard to keep a unique and somewhat coherent view of their country in the face of the US assimilation machine -- from "54' 40" or Fight" to cable TV. However, you can guarantee that around the dinner table -- or around the bar, you will be sitting with other Canadaians. As a transgendered woman, I know that one difference is that queers (GLBT) and the handicapped are seen as so different from their family of origin. Old joke: I'd rather be black than queer, 'cause no one ever had to tell their mama they were black. ( I guess it also works with "I'd rather be Canadian than queer. . ." ) We don't have (as easily) the option of assimilating in the workplace while carrying on our unique traditions and culture at home and on the weekend. I think this is the basis of the quest for community and the queer ghetto phenomenon. Somehow being queer is just un-American. "Why don't you go back to Sodom & Gommorah where you came from!!!!" To build a culture that endorses diversity means that we have to believe that there are deeper things that tie us together than what we chose to do last night. Oy, what a challenge! Callan (who recently heard that Canada's National Magazine had a contest to find the perfect phrase for "As Canadian as. . ." and the winner was "As Canadian as possible under the circumstances, eh?") Date: Thu, 22 Feb 1996 10:02:32 -0500 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Republican Addictions to Moral Superiority The clinical profession defines addiction as the dependence on mood altering substances to the point where it interferes with living your life. I think the Republican Party has an addiction that is now interefering with their life, an addiction to moral superiority. This all started easily enough, with some simple beleifs that God was on our side -- after all, Pat Robertson kept saying it. But all it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to think they are perfect. And Rush and the rest of his cronies kept telling each other how they were perfect, how others were wrong, and the grass roots republicans liked the message. They snorted a little Rush with lunch, did a little Buchanan with dinner. This was good stuff, pure and it made them feel powerful, like they could do anything. White men who saw their perks leaving them -- but a little dose of moral superiority kept them right up there. Newt saw that this was powerful medicine and he forged an unholy allianance. He took the fiscal conservatives, the corporations that want less government, and got money from them, and he used it to fund outreach to the moral conservatives, doping them up with moral superiority, and turned them out in droves. Great. But the signs that this addiction to moral superiority was costly in the long run, had impacts and consequences began to show. Moral superiority lead to "natural law" courts, convicting people and carrying out sentences. It lead to more belief in any conspiracy theory -- the world was against them, and the more it was against them the harder they had to fight it.. It lead to complete arrogance towards the corrupt government -- and a bombing in Oklahoma City. Yet politicians believed that they could control this moral superiority addiction. It wouldn't go too far, was just a martini in the evening, not a crack addiction. But now they are staring it right in the face. Pat Buchanan is talking the line of moral superiority and winning primaries. Pat Buchanan, about whose prime stime speech at the 1992 convention Molly Ivins commented "It would sound better in German." And the pols who thought that they could use the addictive tool of moral superiority without consequences are finding that it is not so simple. Moral conservatives don't want less government -- they want more government, but only if it reflects and enforces their own moral values. Pat Buchanan, for example, is a conervative who wants to keep sodomy laws on the books, to put the government in people's bedrooms -- as long as it enforces his beliefs. And if it enforces something else, many of his followers will break the law anyway, following "natural law" that comes from their own moral superiority. Moral superiority has been the basis of every great totalitarian regime. And you can't imagine that the fiscal conservatives who were happy to fund the motions while it was designed to support their causes aren't uncomfortable. Should we try CEOs who move work overseas as traitors under natural law? It seems a natural extension. The Republican Party has dosed up on moral superiority. Barney Frank: "In the Log Cabin ideology, if a Republican is less than terrible, it's a cause for celebration. If a democrat is less than perfect that's a reason for condemmnation. Well, that's just wrong." Moral superiority. And that addiction to the wonderfully mood altering substance of moral superiority is going to cost them. It was a great high -- but the price to our democracy is just too costly. But like any addict knows, you have to hit bottom before you kick. And in this case, they are taking the country with them. Callan Date: Wed, 28 Feb 1996 08:43:41 -0500 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: They All Deserved To Die. . . (Permission to repost this message as appropriate is granted.) On Saturday Night Live, February 24, 1996, Norm MacDonald, as the last item on "Weekend Update" reported on the sentencing of John Lotter, the killer of Brandon Teena and two other people. With a one paragraph clip about the sentencing from USA Today behind him. MacDonald's joke went: "In Nebraska this week, a man was sentenced to death for attempting to kill a female crossdresser who accused him of raping her. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but in my opinion, everybody in this case deserved to die." If you want to comment to NBC on your feelings about this joke, the addresses are Warren Littlefield, President, NBC -- 3000 West Alameda Avenue, Burbank, California 91523 -- entertainment@nbc.com or nbcshows@msn.com Information about the Brandon Teena case follows. ________________________________________________________________ Brandon Teena Murderer Sentenced (February 21, 1996, Falls City, Nebraska) John Lotter, convicted of 3 counts of 1st degree murder for the deaths of :Brandon Teena:, Lisa Lambert, and Philip DeVine was sentenced to death this morning in Falls City, NE's county courthouse. Lotter's accomplice, Marvin Thomas Nissen, cut a deal for life imprisonment in return for testifying against Lotter. The victims' families feel that the sentence is appropriate. Brandon Teena, whose birth name was Teena Brandon, was originally from Lincoln, Nebraska, and moved to nearby Humboldt in 1993, shortly after beginning to live full-time as a man in preparation for eventual sex-change surgery. Brandon passed easily as a man in Humboldt, but was discovered to be biologically and legally female by local police who arrested him on a misdemeanor check forgery charge two weeks prior to his slaying. Police then publicly released this information to the local newspaper, the Falls City Journal. One week later, on Christmas Day 1993, Brandon was raped and assaulted at a Christmas party by two men, whom he identified to local police as Nissen and Lotter, despite the fact that they had threatened to kill him if he reported the incident to the police. However, charges of rape and assault were not filed against Nissen and Lotter until after Brandon's slaying despite the fact that his sister Tammy Brandon had called Richardson County sheriff Charles B. Laux four days before the slaying to ask why Lotter and Nissen had not been arrested even though Brandon had identified them as his attackers. According to Tammy Brandon, Sheriff Laux had responded to her inquiry by telling her that "he didn't need [her] to be doing his work." Laux, who has also been quoted as stating of Brandon that "you can call it *it* as far as I'm concerned" hasclaimed that he had been "pursuing" the rape charges at the time of Brandon's death. During preliminary hearings, Sheriff's deputies testified that they were convinced that Lotter and Nissen had committed the rape and sexual assault, but had been directed by Sheriff Laux not to arrest them. Laux was defeated in his bid for re- election as Sheriff in November 1994. Local authorities have denied that their outing of Brandon in any way contributed to his killers' motives, and have declined to classify it as a hate crime. However, Lotter's sister has confirmed that both Lotter and Nissen were enraged after learning that Brandon was anatomically female, but had been living as a man and was even dating a local woman, Lana Tisdale. Witnesses for the prosecution at Thomas Nissen's trial testified that both Nissen and Lotter were enraged at and resentful of Brandon after learning that he was anatomically female but had been living as a man. Testimony during that trial also revealed that the Sheriff's office had interviewed dozens of people and prepared an extensive report on Brandon's rape and sexual assault during the week between the rape and the murder. After learning Brandon had reported the rape, Lotter and Nissen coldly and calculatingly plotted and searched Brandon out for an entire week to kill him. They drove to Lincoln (2 hours from Falls City) looking for him. They carried rope and a hatchet in their car, along with a change of clothes for each of them, because of the blood splattering they anticipated. When they finally found Brandon at the farmhouse, he was hiding under a blanket -- totally defenseless. After killing Brandon, they allowed Lisa Lambert to put her baby in a crib before they shot and killed her. Philip DeVine was pleading for his life when they put the gun to his head and killed him. Marvin Thomas Nissen, 22, also of Falls City, has been convicted of one count of first degree murder in the death of Brandon Teena and two counts of second degree murder in the deaths of Lisa Lambert, whom Brandon was living with at the time, and Phillip DeVine, a friend who was visiting them on the night of the murder. Nissen was also convicted on one count of first degree burglary. Nissen was convicted on Friday; 3 March 1995, following eighteen hours of deliberation over the course of two days, by a jury of ten women and two men, all from Omaha, Nebraska, and sequestered in Falls City throughout the course of the trial. According to reports in the North Platte Telegraph, even Nissen's supporters felt that he was guilty. John Lotter plead not guilty to involvement in the murders, claiming that although he was with Nissen on the night they were committed, that he was outside asleep in the car while Nissen was committing the murders. Lotter's attorney stated in his opening arguments on 15 May that all of the evidence linking Lotter to the murders was circumstantial, and sought to prevent Nissen from testifying against him. . The small (pop. 5200) farming community of Falls City has had to pay $488,000 in court costs, with more in store because of the endless appeals process whenever the death sentence is handed down. When the news interviewed Thomas Nissen after Lotter's sentencing, he said some pretty interesting things. He talked about knowing Brandon as a friend and said he didn't know what went wrong the night of the murders. He kept calling Brandon "he" and said he had no idea that "he" was a woman. "We went drinking together, talked about girls, and even wrestled together!". When one is willing to kill a "friend" who violates the gender binary system, it makes one realize how strong it is. Leslie Feinberg, along with the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project has called upon the United States Justice Department to investigate possible violations of Brandon's civil rights by local authorities due to their failure to arrest Nissen and Lotter prior to Brandon's death. "It's fair to ask if Brandon Teena would still be alive today if authorities and the local newspaper had not forcibly outed him after he had successfully passed as a male in a small town," Feinberg stated. Transgender activists are also concerned because there are people proceeding with book and movie projects on this case who see Brandon Teena as girl who liked to dress up like a boy. Aphrodite Jones, who is writing a book called All She Ever Wanted called him "Teena Brandon" thoughout the memorial service sponsored by the transgender community in Kansas City. Riki Anne Wilchins of Transexual Menace says "He died for the right to be a man -- to be Brandon Teena -- and members of the Menace, FTM International, the Menace Men and the Lesbian Avengers have vowed to do everything they can to honor his memory and his sacrifice." (Reporting from Davina Anne Gabriel, Janeway) Date: Sat, 9 Mar 1996 09:38:29 -0500 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Five Minutes On Transgender A friend is putting together the TG presentation at the SUNYA Student GLBT Conference, and I wanted to set a context. I put together this five minute speech on TG. I figured it might be interesting to see what y'all think of it, see what comments you have. Callan ___________________________________________ An Intro to TG for LGB Students Callan Williams Copyright ) 1996 You have a list in your brain. I know it's in there, but you have never probably looked at it as a list. It's a list of the things that boys do and boys don't do, a list of the things that girls do and girls don't do. You even have lists of things that good girls and good boys do, and lists of things that cute boys and cute girls do. Those lists are a description of your view of gender. They describe what the gender roles of man and of woman mean to you. You may think that those differences are natural somehow. But most of them are constructions you have been taught. After all, is wearing pantyhose somehow "naturally" female or not "naturally" male? In most people's lists of what boys shouldn't do, "wear dresses" and "sleep with other boys" are on the same page. And girls aren't supposed to sleep with other girls or swagger about with a dick packed in their jeans. To do things that are not on the list for your gender, the one you were assigned at birth after people saw the shape of your crotch, is to transgress gender. If you had a penis, within hours of your birth your parents may have talked about how tough, how strong and how invulnerable you would be, how you would be a "good little soldier." If you didn't have a penis, they thought about how you would grow into a graceful woman and get married to a nice guy, have cute kids. They assigned you a entire gender path. The system of gender is the visible part of a heterosexist school of thought, one designed to promote breeding. Heterosexism uses gender based limits to separate what is assigned to men and what is assigned to women, to force men and women to come together in relationship if they want to become a whole person. Men face the requirement to be tough enough to take their place in the hierarchy, to not show vulnerability, sensuality, or other seeming weaknesses. This limits them, causing more addiction, disease, stress and death. The Women's Movement has been a rebellion against this separation -- after all, men got the money and the property. Feminism has been about redefining women's gender roles, about removing arbitrary limits placed on people just because they happened to be born female. The reason people have homophobia, feel the need to stigmatize and berate homosexuals is because homosexuals transgress the heterosexist gender system that is designed to enforce breeding. But times are changing. We have enough people on this earth, enough warm bodies. What we need now is ways to get more brain power, more ideas, not just more muscle. As in early hunter-gatherer civilizations, we don't need a focus on breeding, we need a focus on creative and individual thought. We need to empower every person to be their own unique selves. People simply can't be the best they can be if they are focused on living within arbitrary limits and rules about what girls are supposed to do, about what boys are supposed to do. Gender is always about generalizations -- and enforced generalizations are always wrong. Who are the transgendered? They are the people who transgress gender limits, some in small ways, like changing clothes, and some in profound ways, like completely changing the gender role they were assigned at birth -- women born male & men born female. They are butches and fags, drags and femmes, writers and players, crossdressers and transsexuals, old and young. What they share in common is that they break the rules they were taught about what a man is and is not, about what a woman is and is not. These people push the edges, the limits of gender. For many, transgendered people are too far out there on the edge, just too queer, too transgressive. Some gay activists want to convince people that "we are just like everyone else" -- but they think the way to do that is to look like everyone else, to fit into a nice, tasteful, presentable gay or lesbian gender role. They want to create their own arbitrary gender limits that simply include homosexual desire, to mimic the limits of heterosexism. The transgendered also say that we are just like everyone else. But our message is a bit more profound. It doesn't matter how we choose to look, the color of our skin, or anything else -- we are all the same. According to our DNA, we are all 99% human and 1% added ingredients, including race, sex, gender, language, nationality, ethnicity, religion, appearance, size and more. To truly let individuals blossom, we must remember that we are all alike in our hearts, and not simply be coerced to look alike on the surface. This is embracing true diversity by embracing the core humanity of each one of us, focusing on the human spirit and not on the externals. We transgendered people don't wish to end gender and gender expression -- most of us love to play with gender symbols -- only to end complusory gender. To empower yourself, to become all you can be, you have to look at how the system of gender -- that system that is enforced with humiliation and stigma, calling us sissies, faggots, or even getting people angry enough to bash us -- how that gender system limits you. How being who you are expected to be, shaping yourself in a way you have been told that others will find pretty, rather than in a way that is powerfully, uniquely and authentically you, limits you. This is the message of the transgendered. The barriers that we see -- even the barrier between men and women -- are all constructed by humans. And every wall that protects us also limits us, so we have to carefully examine the tradeoffs. The transgendered have walked through walls of gender, some in small ways, others in large ways. We have shown that we can transcend the limits of culture, of expectations, of biology and of history. We do this now, and have done it in other times and places in human culture as shamans. And for the culture to get better today, more people have to break down the arbitrary walls between humans and learn to share and work together. Or, at least, that's how I see it. Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 05:21:07 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Power & Lust in Womens Studies at The University of Alabama Tangled Triangle in Tucaloosa Power & Lust in Womens Studies at The University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa Alabama, April 10, 1996) What happens when a brilliant graduate student comes between two faculty members who are still playing out the dance of their sexual relationship? When Dale Gray, a student in the nationally known Women's Studies program of the University of Alabama, in Tuscaloosa, came between Women's Studies Director Alice Parker and Dale's mentor Elizabeth Meese (Alice Parker's former lover of 14 years), both out and copiously published as lesbians, she claims became the object of an incestuous game of power and sex. In the process, she is about to lose a career, a fine reputation as a rising feminist scholar, and a huge investment of energy and money. Gray is suing The University of Alabama and Alice Parker, in the U.S. District Court in Birmingham. Dr. Parker has stepped down from the Women's Studies Chair at the U. of A. for violating various federal anti-discrimination laws and the University's own sexual harassment policy. "Telling the truth comes at a price," says Gray. "I have at least one year to go until the trial date of May 1997, and the University keeps building the pressure on me to not to come forward with my version. Their latest tactic is to recall $15,000 of federal student funding, and then declare me in arrears on my account. This means that they won't release my transcripts until my account is settled -- and that means that I cannot go on to Union Institute in the fall, where I am hoping to continue my studies." S/he adds, "What this means for my career is that I cannot even apply to any Ph.D. programs until this case of flagrant sexual harassment is settled, my account is cleared, and my transcripts are released." Dale Gray isn't your average college student.. At 40, and after a life filled with changes, including raising three children and being a dancer, Gray is in the process of changing her sex. She has lived as a wife and mother, being abused by her ex- husband, when there were no laws in South Carolina against a husband raping his wife. As a psychology major, s/he finished at top of her class. S/he came into academia by way of South Carolina's Vocational Rehabilitation. That agency helped he/r through undergraduate school because s/he was disabled due to major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. As her education took her into Women's Studies, Gray immersed herself in it deeply -- as she has into everything in her life. S/he graduated as president of the University of South Carolina's Women's Studies Association. "I came to the University of Alabama as one who had gained some recognition as a scholar, working mainly on my own steam, doing difficult work with feminist and gender theory at the University of South Carolina. I arrived as a lesbian coming to write with and for famous critical dykes--challenging myself to do my best, putting my work and love to the test of their rigors," says Gray. "Elizabeth Meese was my academic advisor, and Alice Parker was a professor working in the fields of French feminist theories that I am interested in, Nicole Brossard's work, in particular. In getting caught up in Parker's bitterness and Meese's rivalry, I became a pawn in their game of dropping powerbombs on students." "Alice is brilliant. Alice told me that I was the most brilliant student she'd ever seen cross the threshold of U of A. She compared me to Elizabeth and said I was smarter. I never understood why she said these sorts of things to me, but nevertheless by her praise, I was seduced, big time. We tried not to be lovers, but when we became lovers in November of 1994, my world exploded. She forbid me to talk with my mentor, Elizabeth, after we made love once. When I wrote Elizabeth once, Alice threw the letter in my face and kicked me out of the house. Alice's University politics always came before any consideration of my career as a college graduate student. It was so upsetting that I saw a University psychotherapist, who told me from the start I was being sexually harassed." Even though Parker and Meese had published works based around their own personal experience as lesbians, they wanted Gray to keep quiet about this particular relationship. "I was repeatedly told to be good, to wait, that all would work out after a while. They told me to say nothing to the men outside the department, -- that they were the enemy. Anything male was the enemy. I suspected, even butch me was their enemy after a show of their ranks closing around me." "Two weeks after falling in love with Alice, I was told by both Alice and Elizabeth, that I could not "set foot on campus" to complete my degree, not as long as I had an open sexual relationship with Alice." "What I didn't know at the start was that these women had been lovers for 14 years, and it had ended badly, for Alice. When Elizabeth fell in love with Sandy Huss, director of the MFA program of the English department, she publicly dumped Alice, and then published the dump letter and the love letters to Sandy, in [SEM]EROTICS, (1992), her most (in)famous text. Alice countered with an essay called, "Under Covers: A Synesthesia of Desire (Lesbian Translations), in Sexual Practice Textual Theory, ed. Penelope and Wolf, 1993. The mess of their relationship had been played out in public. I had seen these texts and noted how they related, but when I mentioned it in a letter to Elizabeth, she acknowledged that they were ex-lovers, but never explained the depth of animosity. "I now believe that Alice used me to plot a course of revenge against Elizabeth -- taking a student Elizabeth was moved enough to offer to direct an independent Ph.d. in Queer Theory for, the first degree of it's kind at U of A. I had been corresponding for two years with Elizabeth before I ever considered coming to the University of Alabama. Alice's course of revenge razed through Elizabeth's prize students -- and I was simply one of the pawns." "When, going against Alice's orders, I told Elizabeth that I had fallen for Alice, I was crying, scared. Elizabeth told me she wanted me to be happy, but that I would have to pick either women's studies or Alice -- I couldn't have both." "I was faced by powerbombs whichever way that I turned. On one hand my mentor told me that it was her or Alice, while Alice told me that she would protect me and make sure my work and my degree were made and kept safe. Alice's power as director of Women's Studies infiltrated our bed. I chose her, trusting her to use her power to protect me. She expected me to be subservient to her both at school and at home. I wanted to trust in her authority and power -- and so I did. But Alice, who she said she'd handle the system and protect me, did not even once try to do such. In fact, much of the slander of me was done by Alice's secretary, a self defined fundamentalist Christian, married to an assistant District Attorney. Rumors flew about my student and sexual status, about what was going on -- and many of them came through Alice's assistant. Alice did nothing to stop her. I asked her to do something repeatedly. "Rumors would fly, like that I was vandalizing a women's studies classroom. The logic was that I was a scorned lover of Alice's retaliating. But I was STILL Alice's lover. Our relationship lasted from November to May, only she hid me. "My kids and I were to move in with Alice over Christmas break yet after we were packed and my home closed, Alice suddenly changed her mind. I had given my interest in the family home with my former lover, and now my kids had no place to come to for Christmas, or to live. "Even with the pending suit, I finished my thesis with a male director from Religious Studies, William Doty. We wrote a theoretically flawless thesis that was to have been recommended for thesis of the year. Unfortunately, due to academic delays casued by Alice's and my tortured relationship, the thesis did not get completed on time to submit for the honor. It wasn't easy -- I've been hospitalized over this." "Queer professors called me as late as the night before I filed the lawsuit threatening me and my new lover that if I follow through with my claims I alone will ruin lesbians everywhere. They say that if I continue to tell my truth, my story, it will collapse the only free standing masters in women's studies in the nation. I am afraid that I am thought of in my own profession as a traitor to our causes. "My answer is simple: a good program does not do this to their students." "I will not pretend about who I am. I almost lost my kids, whom I adore, in South Carolina because my abusive husband came back and made an issue of me being a dyke. The first thing I was asked in court was "What is your relationship to Bette, Deborah?" I answered straight forward, "Well, your Honor, I consider her my wife." "Alice wanted me to lie about our relationship. She repeatedly accused me of wanting everyone to know about us, as if it were a sin. I kept reminding her, I do not lie. I will not pretend. I am no good at it. I flip out emotionally if I try to do it. I am not capable. I cannot reject myself that way Alice, I'd say, I do not choose to live in an economy of shame and guilt because those are major issues I must face, the shame and guilt people have piled on me over who I am." "I consider myself a role model for my children. I have to stand up for what I am. That means I have to be the man who is in my heart, the man who I have been shamed into repressing. I never could get femininity or womanliness right. I failed miserably at it, even though I gave it my best shots. "But the more I honored the man inside me, the more women studies scholars, the lesbians, rejected me. And the more rejections I felt, the more of the man I became -- and that meant the more I had to tell the truth. And much more hostility from people and rejection. "I didn't want to sue. I wanted to write, not fight. I kept to my degree and wrote and did not fight except to get my work done - - after all that was what I was at Alabama to do. "It was when the secretary's lies about my character got to the Dean of Arts and Sciences, end of August 1995, I knew I had to make a stand. If those stories got to places outside of the department, it could ruin my Ph.D. chances internationally. I decided to speak to the Deans and ask for them to intervene and stop the retaliatory harassment, the tales being told about me. They started an investigation in September 95. It was clear to me that they were after Alice. "The University sacked Alice Parker as Chair of Women's Studies, but as Alice once told me via e-mail, she "took the position reluctantly and it [was] a sacrifice of time/energy," anyway. But that does not undo what Alice, the Department, and the University put me or my career through. And the jealous secretary was completely exhonorated, which piled on insult to injury. The University continues to deny a systemic breakdown in its enforcement of a policy that purports to condemn the conflation of sexual and academic in the form of institutionalized power games. Nothing could have been more wrong than that. "I was asked to come up with a proposal to resolve the complaint, and I went to an attorney. She looked at the facts of the case and came up with a proposal that the University then decided to fight. There has been some media attention, where the University is attempting to focus on my age and now transsexuality rather than on the fact that in 1994 and 1995, The University of Alabama's system broke down and allowed Alice. Elizabeth, and various Women's Studies Department hirelings to play sex and power games with my scholarship and career. "I will never buckle. I am not fighting for just me now, but I am fighting for all people who can be abused because they don't fit in. I fight so my kids can see me not taking it on the head, so they see me shouldering a burst of courage when my character is tested. I want them to know that you do not let people do this to you." For more information on this case, write to Dale Gray at Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 10:19:58 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Transgendered not Queer? The GLMA says, in its letter to transgendered members: > What the Board struggled with was its desire to be inclusive of > transgendered members and issues while making it clear that GLMA's focus has > been and continues to be on sexual orientation. The fact that many > transgendered individuals do not also identify as gay brings in a separate > set of important issues that are not necessarily part of GLMA's core mission. > > The Board believes that having "transgendered" on our letterhead would be > potentially disrespectful of transgendered members because it could mislead > people into thinking that, for example, heterosexual transgender issues are a > core focus of GLMA's activities. The Board believed that keeping the word > "transgendered" on our letterhead would morally obligate us to take on such > issues as a core element of our mission, when we are not able to embrace that > commitment, given the organization's limited resources. Are there "heterosexual transgender issues"? What defines a heterosexual transgendered person: one who has relations with someone of the opposite sex or the opposite gender? If a man dates someone who lives as a woman and has a penis, is that gay or straight? If a man dates someone who lives as a man but has a vagina, is that gay or straight? If a transgendered person who lives primarily as a straight man only has relations with his wife when dressed as a woman, and does not engage in penetration with their own penis, is that lesbian sex? When gender goes into play, so does homo and heterosexual idenitification. Homo and heterogenderal relations may be a better word -- but even that has issues when gender is seen as preformative, and an individual shifts gender in ways that are broader than what is defined by woman or man. Virginia Prince invented the model of the Heterosexual Crossdresser in the early 60s, someone who could have "healthy masculine expression" through the week and "express their femininity" on Saturday night. Prince spent years preaching that there was a difference between homosexuals, drags, transsexuals and what Prince liked to call "femiphiles" men who love the feminine and were proudly heterosexual. That was a survival strategy that the gender community is seeing the limits of now. If you are not intergrating yourself, you are disintegrating yourself. -- and the culture seemed to require a closet at that time. But was it ever true? Jim Bridges (a makeup artist who works with TG people) tells the joke: What's the difference between a heterosexual crossdresser and a gay crossdresser? Answer: Three Drinks. The histories of TG and gay people are intertwined -- yet there are many on both sides who want to jump at any chance for separation, to say that somehow "We are not like them." This is one reason I honor the word queer. Whatever else you can say about a hetro transvestite, they are very queer -- even if they don't acknowledge that part of themselves. But that is changing, and changing rapidly. Is it possible to be transgendered and heterosexual? Only for a moment or two. I tend not to fight some of these naming issues. I know that TG people have to stand up and take their place in order to claim their power, and that is still difficult -- after all, we don't have the natural networking process that having a network of ex-lovers gives gays and lesbians. But, on the other hand, I see transgender and heteosexuality -- or for that matter, hetrosexuality's shadow homosexuality -- as inherently contradictory. If it's about performance in the world, then it's also about perfomance in the bedroom. Separations are just petty -- and wrong. Callan Date: Sun, 28 Apr 1996 09:06:49 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Is TS pathological? - A propos the German TS conference... Is TS pathological? Is it an illness that must be treated, or simply a way that some people are born? This is the biggest question in the gender community today. There are wars flaming between the "we have a choice" groups and the "we have no choice" groups everyday. The "no choice," or pathological group argues that TS people are really men or women with the birth defect of being born in the wrong body. This is a direct outgrowth of the medical model of the last 40 years or so, since doctors "cured" Christine Jorgensen -- after she has gotten herself some hormones, they cut off her penis. The technology got much better later, and doctors learned how to change a male appearing body into a reasonably well functioning female one (changing female to male is still tough) and set up structures to act as gatekeeper on this procedure, to make sure only people who were really "gender dysphoric" got the procedure. At first this even included tests like putting a strain gauge around the penis of candidates, showing them erotic pictures and making sure they only responded to men. Transexuals who wanted SRS learned how to buy into this system. Riki Ann Wilchins, the Transexual Menace Herself, wrote about CCD in the glossary in Read My Lips: The Writings Of A Radical Transexual Woman: "CCD - short for Childhood Chromosomal-Sex Disorder or (transexuality); a congenital genetic disorder in which physical sex and gender are in disagreement." This whole illness model was comforting. "Mom, it's OK because I'm sick, but the doctors will put the whole thing right and I'll be fine." Illness removes the respnsibility of choice -- and telling people about the choice. The illness model was also productive. Insurance companies pay to cure illnesses, and not to fund choices. The model for transgendered males many years then was a three track one, with clear separations: A Virginia Prince style heterosexual crossdresser, usually in the FPE/Tri-Ess system, a gay drag queen, or a Harry Benjamin styled transsexual, diagnosed, treated and cured. The Benjamin/Prince model of transgender thrived. But there were people who felt that the whole system was just wrong, that these were not three separate categories, but rather a range of behavior. They also felt that the grwining visibility of transgendered people born female, like Lou Sullivan and Rupert Raj needed to be put in the mix. About 1990, Holly Boswell published 'The Transgender Alternatives," saying that it was OK to express transgender without being sick or agressively heterosexual. Les Feinberg and Kate Bornstein's voices came to the fore. Kate, who had gone through the traditional SRS path started to kick. In "Gender Outlaw" late writes: "Transsexuality is the only disease for which the cure is to lie. "When I was a little boy. . ." becomes "When I was a little girl. . ." Those of us who had been going though our own personal recoveries flocked to this model. We didn't want to have to lie, to "pass" (lie about how our body was born) and wanted to take responsibility for our choices. About a year ago, I did the keynote speech at the International Foundation For Gender Education in Atlanta and called for an end to the Benjamin/Prince models of transgender, which were designed to allow transgendered people to survive in the world, but stopped them from thriving, because they required us to surrender our choices and not become integrated. Dallas Denny plans to publish this text in the next Chrysalis. I got lots of flak, and continue to. Transsexuals, both post-op and pre-op are very vocal about not having any choice in changing their bodies. I point out that option has only existed for about 30 years and that somehow, people born "TS" before that had to find a way to live. As Les Fineberg points out 'It's not transgender that is new -- it's passing." Transvestites have trouble too. I met one this week, 30, single, dressed in a skintight black cat suit (though there was more than her own skin under it) and spike heel granny boots who declared "I'm straight." I smiled and said. "Oh, you like women! Great! But in that outfit, you don't look straight!" Some get it, some still hold on to idenitity props for dear life. I put out an essay "Do Transsexuals Have Choice?" this January, and was surprised the periodical "Transformatie" asked to publish it in Dutch in March. So, is transsexuality a pathological disorder? Yes, I think it is, because that is the way it has been defined by the medical and gender community. When they took homosexuality out of the DSM, they put in Gender Idenitity Disorder -- and many don't want it out because one of the key uses for the DSM is to justify what illnesses insurance will cover treatment for. But is transgender -- the urge to transgress traditional gender roles -- a disorder? I would argue no. The anthropological record is clear that people have been born TG forever, and have had a wide range of choices -- from ritual body changes to alternate gender roles. I see SRS as simply a plaitic surgery procedure, like getting a new nose -- and that is also the model Riki Wilchins uses now, when she does her satire on "Rhino Idenitity Disorder." Gender is a pervasive system, heart of the herterosexism of this culture. To change the meaning of gender roles is a very explosive area -- they are at the core of people's idenitity. Minnie Bruce Pratt writes about the old days when she would argue for feminism and her opponents would accuse her of starting the breakdown of all gender roles, leading to unisex bathrooms, and how she would fight them -- and how now, she realizes that this is the point, and she embraces it. I suspect that we will find that the illness model of transgender is a transitional stage -- but I think it's a bit to early to declare that as historical truth just yet. Callan Date: Sun, 28 Apr 1996 02:31:19 +0200 From: Kai Weber Subject: Is TS pathological? - A propos the German TS conference... This weekend, the association of transsexuals in Germany, Transidentitas e.V., has their annual conference in Frankfurt. The event was picked up by the state tv station, HR3, in a pretty short item, which was both uninformative and non- committal. However, one thing struck me as disturbing: A spokesperson for Transidentitas was interviewed, and she said one purpose of the conference was to achieve public acceptance of transsexuals, so that "people with this predisposition are regarded like people with any other disease." I was irritated to hear a TS person claim TS as a disease, as if that were something positive to boot - that's the way it sounded to me, anyway... Could someone on the list fill me/us in on what other major opinions are "out" there? Given the history of homosexuality and its repeal as a recognized disease, it would seem to me that claiming TS as pathological could at best be an intermediate, strategic stage, to be transcended as soon as possible. Or am I missing a fundamental difference here which makes TS not only an identity, but a disease? Wondering, Kai. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Kai Weber "Then I gotta face the wind American & Scandinavian Studies And join the band J.W.Goethe University And let the wings of music Frankfurt, Germany Carry me on again..." kaiweber@informatik.uni-frankfurt.de --Dusty's Place, "No Corners" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 10:22:19 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: Transgendered not Queer? In a message dated 96-04-29 00:13:17 EDT, Willie Walker writes: > I think, however, that heterosexuality is the shadow - >its definition and boundaries of behavior were set up to distinguish it from >homosexuality. I wasn't talking about the original definition of homosexuality -- which, I think was also set up to define a shadow, small and dark in contast to the bigger "normal" pie -- but rather to describe how gays define homosexuality. One current working and shared definition about homosexuality is not about the freedom to love anyone that you want, but rather about loving those of the same sex/gender as you. Rather than encompassing the ground around heterosexuality, it sets out to be the opposite of heterosexuality, and creates structures to enforce that definition. The GLMA controversy is a case in point -- if you can't prove you are homosexual, then what's the point? Bisexuals and transgendered people argue that the the point is not mearly jumping from opposite sex/gender to same sex/gender, but to getting past having to have those arbitrary limits at all. Heterosexality is the norm in this culture, and that makes homosexuality the shadow. And the way that many gays and lesbians approach defining their idenitity shadows the way that heterosexuals define themselves -- by the sex on the dirvers liscence of the people they sleep with. I, of course, tend to go for a queer position of transcending those limits altogether. Callan Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 10:22:34 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: TG Hypothetical David has said some nice things about my e-mail to him on the GLMA issue -- I guess I should share it with the list. Callan _______________________________________________________________ Let's do a hypothetical here. A male in a dress walks down the street at night. A gay basher comes up in and: a) says "Oh, I'm sorry, I couldn't tell you were a heterosexual crossdresser in the dark." b) yells "Faggot!" and hits him There is no transgendered male who has not had to deal with homophobia -- or maybe, more accurately, heterosexism, that lets angry people humiliate and trash anyone who violates gender norms. We are beaten by the same system that tries to make a man out of gay boys, a lady out of lesbian girls. Now some of these people have survived by denying their queerness, by trying to separate themselves from others who may be attacked. Of couse, this is not unque to TG people -- there has been more than one gay man caught putting down gays to create a false separation to avoid stigma. Closets are something we share. Go to a gay bar. Look for the queerest person in the place. Don't be surprised if it's a heterosexual crossdresser in the corner in a shiny mini -- and almost visible genitalia. I like what Will Roscoe said on this list about a year ago: "I tend to think of homophobia as the irrational prejudice of individuals toward homosexuality and heterosexism as the institutional framework that produces that prejudice. For me, perhaps because I work in anthropology, I think of heterosexism as the ideology that there are only two sexes, hence only two genders, and therefore one sexuality, the attraction between these oppositions. This leads me to conclude that lesbian/gay liberation should be concerned with both attitudes toward homosexuality and with gender binarism." Will Roscoe, author The Zuni Man-Woman, 4/5/95 However, the key notion behind this -- that boys who bugger other boys, or girls who lick other girl's pussies are as clearly transgressing the gender system as males who wear dresses or females who walk into men's rooms, is tough to sell to nice whitebread homos who simply want to get an Acura, a house in the suburbs and commit sodomy every Saturday night while proudly claiming "We are normal, just like them!" This is the basic issue of queer: is GLMA for gays and lesbians, or for queers? I suspect that they have decided that they are not queer -- and if they could find a pretty way to distance themselves from AIDS activists and Drag Queens, hustlers, pony-boys and leather-queers, they'd do that too. Are their choices more about distancing themslves from queers, which would be un-PC, than about distancing themselves from titular heterosexuals, who they can abandon without being called callous yuppies? Call it putting you best foot forward, or distancing yourself from radicals, it's all the same. And frankly, I can't see a good way to fight them until transgendered people stand up and demand recognition. Until TG people are comfortable standing up and calling themselves queer, it will be hard to not be abandoned by queers -- and most are not. What is the mission statement of the GLMA? Is it a fraternal social group, or a group to address the medical issues of a community -- whatever that is? Are they going to look at medical issues in fistfucking, or just to network for jobs? How do they deal with gay people in the closet? Do Bisexuals only get a half year membership -- one that doesn't include the elections? Thanks for indulging my hypothetical. It just though it was an interesting aside to your discussions with the GLMA about gays and TG people are intricately connected -- if we want to be or not --although, frankly, I like the company. A bartender I know says that he thinks he was born gay to make him more interesting -- and that TG people are a freakin' circus! I chose to take that as a compliment. Callan Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 08:33:07 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: WHO ARE THE REAL QUEERS? Comments: To: DIETRICH@vm.temple.edu In a message dated Fri, 7 Jun 1996 13:20:22 EDT, Ralph Thomas Taylor writes: >Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 13:20:22 EDT >From: Ralph Thomas Taylor >Subject: WHO ARE THE REAL QUEERS? > >Since I was as guilty as anyone for bringing down the recent discussions >to perhaps a new low, let me try to say something less emotional to bring >it back to a reasonable level of civility. > >Whenever I read most postings >on this list, whenever I read the queer press, I am faced with people >whom I will call radical queers telling folks like me -- an ordinary >out-of-the-closet GWM who wants to see GLBT people integrated but not >dissolved into a multifaceted social fabric -- that we are uptight, >repressed, self-righteous, traitorous do-nothings. > >Whether the subject is >pedophilia or strategies for furthering GLBT equality, people like me >are disregarded because we do not overtly challenge gender constructs >in the same ways as radical queers. > >My opinions are just as valid as any proffered on this list! > >I have no desire to set myself up as the arbiter of the GLBT socio-political >agenda, but since that agenda includes me, > >I think it only fair that I be allowed to participate without having my >queer credentials questioned. > >+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ >| | >| RALPH THOMAS TAYLOR DIETRICH@TEMPLEVM | >| UNDERGRADUATE-RELIGION DEPARTMENT DIETRICH@VM.TEMPLE.EDU | >| TEMPLE UNIVERSITY 215.731.0246 | >| | >+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Oy. So you think that your opinions, as an undergraduate in the religion department, should carry the same weight as one who has been fighting or studying all their life? "All men are created equal," and all that? In the world of academic discourse -- and in the world in general --people get to decide on our credibility. They look at our credentials, our history, our study, and then they assign a weight to our words. Having your crdentials questioned is part of proving that you know what you are talking about, that you have done the work to build a compelling argument. Your view is clear. You want to find a space for yourself as a nice, pleaant non radical queer. And this is difficult for you, because it is radicals, changemakers who are the most visible members of the queer community. Nice GWMs tend to only show up as subjects of sociolical studies about gays in the workplace or things like that. Worse, you see radical queers putting you down, saying you are not doing your part for queer liberation. You don't like that. For me, being queer is becoming comfortable in my own skin, where that comfort level transgresses the norms of culture -- and even where it doesn't. I build my identity from positive components -- "Who Am I?" You are still building yours from negative ones. "I am NOT like them." You buy into the key psychic trap of American culture, the demand for separation, for having to claim that you are not like queers so you can avoid the pain of being humilaited and separated from the group. You look not at how you are like other people, but how you are unlike them -- and that creates a shallow and narrow identity. We see this in the child love issues. Some simply say "We are not like them,. and they should be shunned, imprisioned, treated, cured." Others say,"While non-consensual acts of any kind are wrong, when I was 12, I might have consented, with knowledge. I can see the humanity in these connections. How do we accept that while keeping children who cannot really consent from being pressured by adult power?" The visibility of radical queers is not going to go away. They perform on a level to gain visibility, while you perform on a level to avoid it. And they will not stop saying that people should join them -- they wish to lead, and they have. Add to that that even the most assimilated out gay men -- like Barney Frank -- are considered radical queers by Strom Thurmond and Dick Dornan, and it becomes impossible to lead without being seen as a radical queer. The point of queer, in my mind, is accepting other realities. It is moving beyond thinking that because I live in the dominant reality in this world -- American, white, hetro, protestant, middle class, able bodied, male, whatever -- that other realities are missing the point. Rather, I accept that I live in my own reality, and that is transgressive of those expressions of dominance --and that other people live in their own reality. Each of these is very human and very real. I define myself by who I am, and not by who I am not, and accept the twisted paths of humanity that are beautiful -- and know that diversitity is deviance. As long as people don't engage in non consensual acts -- of bodily harm, sex, property crimes -- they have the freedom to live. Or at least to me. Who are the real queers? I would venture to say that they are the ones who aren't shooting at other people for being too queer. And is your opinion as valid as anyone's? Maybe. But that doesn't mean it carries much weight -- especially for those of us on the list who have spent years doing the work on understanding and creating queer idenitity. And will your credentials be questioned? Welcome to the world. Callan _________________ "Queer," of course, has in the recent past been almost exclusively a pejorative label for gay men and, to a lesser degree, for lesbians. Only in the last few years has there been an attempt to recover a prior set of meanings also associated with that word. Queer, as Eve Sedgewick has pointed out, is an ancient word with an Indo-European root. It has cognates in most of the Western languages -- the Latin "torquere", to turn or twist. The German qver, meaning transverse. The English athwart, meaning to straddle. It is a relational, non-separatist, anti-assimilationist term that takes its meaning in reference to the boundaries it crosses, the standard it transcribes and recodes, the straightness it alters and transforms. "Being queer," in the words of an influential pamphlet that circulated on both coasts in the summer of 1990, means leading a different sort of life. It's not about the mainstream, profit-margins, patriotism, patriarchy, or being assimilated. It's not about executive directors, privilege, and elitism. It's about being on the margins, defining ourselves; it's about gender-fuck and secrets, what's beneath the belt and deep inside the heart; it's about the night. From "Queer Safe Space: Scholarship and Solidarity in an Age of Diversity" by TG Scholar and Activist, Susan Stryker, Keynote Address, 7th Annual Conference, University of California Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Association, 2/17,/96 Date: Sun, 9 Jun 1996 09:33:00 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: WHO ARE THE REAL QUEERS? Ralph Why do you assume it is only your ugly & agressive sig that makes people think you are gay but not queer? Couldn't it be your words? I know those are what tipped it for me. Your bio shows you are a well-assimilated, concerned, caring, and well intentioned gay man. I'm just not sure it shows you are queer -- or even that you understand why queer is different than just being homosexual. Callan (who thinks it's interesting that her concepts weren't discussed, just her tone.) Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 12:43:51 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Unnatural Identities Ralph Taylor Thomas says >I also want to differentiate between natural >radical and constructed radical. By the latter I mean the construction of >a false persona the only value of which is shock value and getting attention. and David Hennessee, in an excellent message, replies >Have you ever considered that for some of these people >you claim as "play-actors," their embodied identities seem to them as >"natural," inherent, God-given (oy), as you claim yours to be? Have you read >Feinberg's *Stone Butch Blues*? Can anyone who has still say that her >"persona" is "false" and only for the purpose of "shock value and >getting attention" Obviously not. The whole construct of naturalness leads us to conclude that some things humans do are natural and others unnatural. This has been the agrument used against homosexual acts for many years -- does the phrase "unnatural acts" or "acts against nature" ring a bell? Queers however understand that for humans the social is natural. Is it possible for anything done by a human to be against their nature? How can they do that -- nature is the bounds they live in, the bounds they have of construction. We may see a cantilevered building or a solar eclipse and declare it unnatural -- but that just means we don't understand the bounds of nature yet. Clearly, some natural things are socially destructive and should be constrained (primarily non-consenusal acts of violence, dominance, agression and such.) The agrument does not rest on which acts (or identities) are natural and which are constructed, but rather on which acts are tolerable and which socially destructive. Art is the purified expression of some natural instinct or emotion. Is the very act of creating art -- even performance art -- the act of violating nature, or the act of assigning new symbols to it? We each construct our identity as a work of art. Culture wants us to use the standard paint-by-the-numbers scheme -- don't color outside the lines! It just makes things a lot more simple and managable. But we have to be who we are. Some of us just add a little lavender -- show our gay nature. Others choose other, brighter colors. Are either of us violating nature? Or can we agrue that the ones with the bigger pallette are in fact being more authentic to nature, more openly expressive? Identities are constructed. That construction is natural. And to decide that someone else's identity is false & unnatural is to open the ground to have you identity deemed false & unnatural. If you can decide that about someone else, someone can decide that about you. To embrace queerness, at least for me, is to embrace the freedom to construct identity out of the whole rainbow of humanity. It is to embrace the naturalness of diversity and deviance -- while still being against non-consensual relationships. I assure you that I do nothing but express my nature -- no matter how long it takes to construct the gown. Callan Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1996 10:29:31 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: WHO ARE THE REAL QUEERS? Ralph You seem to be arguing that if people conciously perform something that they know to be radical, then they are merely reacting to the heterosexist world and that is bad. The only way to do it properly is to be unconcious of our impact on the heterosexist world -- and by extension, be unconcious of the hererosexist's world impact on us. Performances that we conciously know may flip out hetereosexuals are "basically adolescent." This all sounds suspiciously like a way to rationalize the removal of drag queens -- those who transgress gender in the street and not just in the bedroom -- from gay pride marches. They have just become too queer -- and too concious. Is it possible that their performance gives us all a clear and stylized juxtiposition of straight and queer? That their response to "homphobes" is actually targeted at motiving gay people into more queerness, and not targeted at straights at all? A form of "conciousness raising" that you reject? The question for me is: Is life a performance? Do we perform our expression, in gender and other ways? I (and queer theory) would agrue strongly that we do. And we are always responding to our environment and our history -- if we are concious of that or not. And is the way that culture would like those performances to go is in an unconcious way, where we follow the script programmed into us. We still respond to the stimuli, but without concious thought. Becoming concious of our performances is a key to changing how we as an individual acts, and to how we affect change in culture. Steven Covey: In the moment between stimulus and response lies freedom. To call for less conciousness in our actions seems to be to continue the problems that got us here. Now, that still leaves you with the problem that there are going to be radical queers who will be pushing the limits, moving the middle with actions you find distasteful and counter-productive. And the agrument about who is too far out is not one that will be solved in human culture anytime soon -- the fringes will always be with us. But arguing that if their actions weren't constructed -- were somehow "natural," and not concious, they wouldn't be bad and adolescent. The notion that our actions -- the way we perform our lives -- are better when they are natural and thought about is better, strikes me as being basically adolescent. Maturity seems to me to be when you actually think about what you do. Callan __________________________________________________ Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 12:32:58 EDT From: Ralph Thomas Taylor Subject: Re: WHO ARE THE REAL QUEERS? >I agree that we cannot control how others perceive our actions nor should >we allow concerns over others' perceptions to determine our actions. Our >actions should be guided by our own sense of integrity and identity. > >To flame out for the sake of irritating heterosexuals is understandable at times >but basically adolescent and reactionary. > >It seems to me that constructed radicality is saying to heterosexuals >"You think we're bad ... so we will show you how bad we can be." > >What matters is our motivation not how our motivation will perceived. > >If our motivation is effecting some kind of meaningful social change in >even a small sphere, then we need to ask if our tactics are effective. > > Does constructed radicality work? My argument is that >it does not and demeans the constructor because the behavior is based >on the actions and perceptions of homophobes. > >As for the question of my view of queer theory, I envision queer theory >as something alive and evolving, an unending process. I hope that the >pursuit of queer theory includes mutual respectful criticism and careful, >honest self-evaluation by theorists, so that we do not end up engaging in >meaningless ivory-tower philosophizing. > >With respect ... Date: Sat, 15 Jun 1996 09:38:20 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: WHO ARE THE REAL QUEERS? In a message dated Fri, 14 Jun 1996 14:24:07 EDT, Ralph Thomas Taylor writes: >Let me confess that (as Damion repeatedly reminds me) I am uptight >about the whole transgender issue and still sorting it out. One does not >cure oneself of heterosexism overnight! I understand. You are feeling your way, making some statements that others may see as outrageous in an effort to understand both your own feelings and the responses of others. You swing the pendulum a bit far in order to find a new center. It's a behavior that we all need to do to accept our own queerness, that which we have been taught to hide by socialization. But transgendered people do the same thing. They "play" as Damion said do well, and as you do, in order to break their own limits of heterosexism and find their own center. Their play may seem outrageous sometimes, too. >I am less uptight with drag queens who drag for fun or because it expresses >their identity more fully than traditional gender specific dress. But I have >problems with dragging for the sake of scandalizing people or from the notion >that it makes some kind of political statement. I contend again that that is >reactionary and wasteful. To be homosexual, you can only transgress gender lines in the bar and bedroom, in private. Those who were born with a transgendered nature have had to face a different kind of issue, expressing their gender transgression more broadly. Some have noted that the difference between homosexual and gay is that homosexual describes individual acts, while gay describes a role/lifestyle/micro-gender. You can engage in homosexual acts without being outwardly gay. Some transgendered people do it in a concentrated way -- working hard to be "normal" for months and then going a little nuts at Halloween and Gay Pride. Others are going though a costume phase, like adolescents, exploring a variety of looks and behaviors that they were denied to explore in their own adolescence. And some are very concious of the effects of their actions for political purposes. This makes it hard, if not impossible to assign motivations to a class of people defined externally -- those appearing to be scandalous in dress not appropriate for the gender assigned at birth. But I would argue that all of them are simply trying to find a way to express their queer, transgressive nature in a culture that rejects transgression and individual diversity. We perform for ourselves, we perform to explore, we perform to attract others, we perform to defend against others -- who can trace all the motivations? Isn't it better just to accept the underlying meaning that people are trying to put into symbol by performance -- the meaning of the need to transgress gender limits? Often the act of assigning a motivation to actions we see as extreme is simply a way to denounce the motive we assigned, thereby denouncing the act. I prefer to trust that people are doing the best they can to express their nature in this repressive, heterosexist world -- even if I find their actions distasteful or tasteless. (as long as it is consentual, of course.) >What I am seeking in this issue and others is that queer theorists subject >queer theory to the same kind of healthy, skeptical critical analysis as >we apply to heterosexist theory (if there is such a thing). With respect ... It is not queer theory you want analyzed, but rather queer behaviors -- especially the behaviors of the people you see as "too queer for our own good." Are they expressing their own flaming nature, deliberately and with forethought taking actions to move the edges and therefore move the center, or simply being extremetly reactionary? I suspect they may be doing any or all of these things and more. To categorize them in general is not "healthy, skeptical critical analysis of queer theory," but an attempt to tell them to stop without understanding their position is to ignore the fact that respect for individual choice and deviance is at the heart of queer theory. Getting to cases may be interesting -- it certainly is the heart of many queer scholarly books published over the years. We can look at specific people and (to some degree) see their motivations and the effects of their actions. But sweeping statements that some people who engage publically in transgressive acts are "reactionary and wasteful" seems just to be an attempt to throw a wet blanket on behaviors that make you "uptight." Nobody gets warm and comfy with intense queerness overnight. But you do appear to be trying to understand -- and that can lead to acceptance, of both other queers and your own queer nature. Callan Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 08:28:54 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Identity Politics? It is interesting to ask if queer theory -- clearly the decendent of women's studies -- is a flip of "group" identity to individual identities, or if it just continues the the tradition by adding groups. I have enclosed an outsider's view of this. It's a collumn, so it's designed to be entertaining -- but his quick impression is useful. How can we use labels to transcend labels? Where is the separation of terms we need to talk about who we are, and labels that limit our identities with group characteristics? Interesting questions. From Carl Strock's collumn "The View From Here", The Sunday Gazette, Schenectady, June 16,1996 I got myself up to Skidmore College the other day for the national women's studies conference there, and it was quite an experience. I don't go to church very often, but in some ways this was similar, so I felt this made up for the lack. They were all believers at the conference, and they all shared a sacred vocabulary to express the great truths. Actually, since the conference consisted of academic feminism's leaders more that its followers, it would be more accurate to compare it to an ecclesiastical convention. That is, it was a gathering of the clergy -- pyschology professors, womens' studies lecturers, lesbian journal editors, feminist authors -- not of the laity, if indeed there is a laity. They came from prestigous universities and from rinky-dink community colleges alike, all to bow to their great deity, which is tribalism. They call it "identity politics," but I think tribalism is more accurate. It is the doctrine that is the most important thing in the world is group identity, down to the finest degree -- whether one is white, African-American (rarely "black" anymore), Latino, Jewish, "of color," Christian, lesbian, physically challenged, and so forth. It's absolutely the most important thing to them, as indeed it is to most academics, as far as I can tell. At the level of the ordinary person this way of thinking gets called diversity or multiculturalism, but at the rarified academic level of women's studies, it's known as identity politics, and the soundness of it is no more questioned than the divinity of Christ is questioned in the Catholic Church. It is Article I in the creed. I attended a session at which I listened tp five clergywomen hold forth, one after another, on such subjects as "the destabilizing of disabled people" and "sexual morality and women's bodies in Africa," and no one ever simply reffered to a woman or a man, and certainly never to an American, which I believe is a taboo word in this religion, but always to an African-American young women or a teacher of color. The topics were oriented the same. The all consisted of the scrutiny of human affairs in strictly tribal terms -- what it means to be heterosexual and disabled, and so forth. One woman wasn't sure how to introduce herself. She had been invited as a lesbian, but was also a Jewish activist, so she settled for "lesbian Jew" and marvelled at "the communities we span." It was seen as an amazing thing, like one of the holy mysteries, that you can belong to more than one tribe at a time. From the lecturer on the desexualization of disabled people, who actually teaches "disability studies," I learned we need a "disability reading of scholarship." (I don'y understand this preoccupation with disabilities among our academics, but it's Article II of the creed: Disabled is Good.) From the preacher on women's problems in Africa I learned that western opposition to clitordectomies is seen in Africa as "a smoke screen for economic opression," so if we want to end genital mutilation of women we should get after multinatioal corporations to estabilish economic justice. From a psychology professor at City University Of New York, who is working on a book about "the social construction and pathology of whiteness," and who is of course white herself, I learned ... well I don't remember what I learned from her. I go so distracted by all the constructing and deconstructing, I couldn't concentrate. It's part of the sacred language, and they all use the words ritually. "Construct this," I was tempted to say, in a moment of weakness. Likewise with turning mass nouns into countable nouns. That too is part of the sacred language. Not behavior, behaviors. Not knowledge, but knowlesges. Not sexuality, but "sexualities," which was the subject of the session I attended. If you are not a member of this church you feel like an agnostic walking in on a convention of medieval mumblers, Holy smokes, is what I kept thinking. How can people who are so intelligent be so stupid? Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 11:15:22 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Drugs & Sex I have been following the Lung Cancer / AIDS concerns. I wonder if part of the difference is that smoking is a drug addiction, so that lung cancer comes from chronic use of something that is known to be both mood altering and destructive. . . while AIDS comes from sexual contact, possibly only one sexual contact, and sexual contact is supposed to be natural and postive, not destructive. Of course, those who claim gay sex is unnatural, see AIDS as vindication. We reduce our risk of AIDS with safe sex, but we do not eliminate it. So it's not about not taking responsibility, it's about the fact that we define drug addiction (even to nicotine) as unhealthy and unnatural and we (those fighting for AIDS funding and support for PWAS) define sexual contact as healthy and natural. So sexually transmitted diseases taint something natural, force us to see sex as unhealthy and unnatural. That's why moralists like them -- it "raises us up from the level of the animals who fornicate at will," when we see sex as something unnatural for humans -- required only for procreation. "Close your eyes and think of England, my dear." So we keep AIDS PC because we want to keep sex PC -- and let lung cancer become dammnable because we find cigarettes dammnable. We tie the response to the illness into our beliefs about the goodness or badness of the causation. It's a whole mythic thing -- related to our beliefs about causation. Did you anger the gods, or are they spiteful and vindictive? Now how all this applies to breast cancer, I don't know. I supect that the invisbility of breast cancer has more to do with women being taught to keep their tits covered up -- and illnesses of them covered up too. Our myths about breast cancer aren't as clear to causality, though that is changing, as Miss Sasha notes -- to her, it's the environment. But issues like genetics are still a factor -- many think it's just the fickle finger of fate. We can be sure that breast cancer activists will be focusing on causation, to help politicise the disease to get priority for funding in this sick system where the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Do you have any idea how few people are afflicted with Muscular Dystrophy -- or how well known & well funded it is, thanks to a clown? Just a thought. Callan Date: Wed, 2 Oct 1996 17:42:54 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Queerism, Queerists? Marxist studies focuses on Marxism & Marxists. Women's Studies focuses on Femininsm & Feminists. Isn't it nice that Queer Studies doesn't focus on Queerism & Queerists? I suspect that the reason for that is because others focus on shared belief systems, and grouping people by the belief structure is the basis of much of the studies. But Queer Sudies is about individuals and individual choices. The only thing that is required for being queer is not being straight -- not subscribing to a list of beliefs or separations. I love celebrating individual choices. But heck, that's just me. Callan Date: Sat, 4 Jan 1997 11:38:15 -0500 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Are Queers A Group? (was Ethnicity) In a message dated 97-01-04 00:05:15 EST, JGChampgne@AOL.COM writes: > I understand ethnic groups as imaginary collectivities that >impose homogeneity on a heterogeneous group of individuals in order better to >code them into a position in the international division of labor. > >In many cases, so-called "ethnic" struggles are a >legacy of European colonization, which imposed an imaginary collective >identity on very different peoples. Are queers a group? The feminist viewpoint seems to be focused on groupings, on the groups we belong to and the groups we don't, the various powers and privildges of various groups. But the queer viewpoint, at least from where I sit, tends not to be about queerists, but about individuals and not groups. My working definition of assimilation is taking on the characteristics of a target group in order to be accepted as a member of that group. Most assimilation takes place before we are old enough to look at it with a critical eye, but it is there. For example, look at the fight for race-bias in adoptions -- if black children are placed with white parents, will they come out black? Is their blackness inherent in their genes, or is it created by effective assimilation into a black family and community? How do we retain group identity in the face of falling walls -- or do we even want to? Is queer studies about group identity and how to create it, or is about transcending group identities as limiting and the cause of divisions & strife? Do we all assimilate into a group to be queer, becoming a sort of ethnic group, or do we learn to be individually empowered and accept others as the same? The identity notion that allows gays & lesbians to be discriminated against as a group evporates when people accept gays & lesbians as indviduals. We have specific protections for blacks because they had specific invasions that need to be compsensated for. Women made the same argument, and got relief. But how many groups can have special protections? Where do we draw the line? Isn't it more effective to say that everyone needs to be seen as an equal individual and not discriminated for (priviliged) or against (prejudiced) for their group identity? For me, the questions about being an ethnic group are the issues of being any kind of group that demands assimilation for entry, rather than respecting the inherent diversity of individuals. Callan Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 08:58:36 -0500 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Are Queers A Group? (was Ethnicity) In a message dated 97-01-05 00:08:49 EST, JGChampgne@AOL.COMwrites: >Date: Sat, 4 Jan 1997 17:17:56 -0500 >From: JGChampgne@AOL.COM >Subject: Re: Are Queers A Group? (was Ethnicity) > >What is interesting about Callan and Tony's replies to my posting is that >they do not respond to what I feel is its most important point: the term >"queer studies" perhaps covers over a very fractured and internally >contentious body of work. Absolutely. But I believe that we have to start with the fractured and internally contentious view of what queer is before we can talk about why queer studies covers a "very fractured and internally contentious body of work". Does queer mean gay? Gay & lesbian? Transgressive? Is it an individual or a group term? Is the goal to create more queers, or to create a consistent queerness? And if queer refers to transgressive indvidual expression, then having the label be inconsistent -- be very fractured and internally contentious -- is the obvious outcome. For me the question is how to build connections in the face of this diverse expression. Is queer studies possible? To me it is required, but the assumption that what comes out of queer studies should ever be smooth and non-contentious seems to miss the point of individual empowerment, to expect the model of group assimilation -- which I don't feel fits well. Callan Date: Sat, 11 Jan 1997 09:29:43 -0500 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan@AOL.COM Subject: Re: passing, complicity & oppression To me, the issue of passing with queers is directly related to the issue of choice. Black people have no choice not to pass. We demand that they be normative, in the way society demands normative behavior from all its members, but because they can't be normative in skin color, we have to start moving the bounds of what is normative. That doesn't mean that there is no pressure on blacks to pass. In fact, the pressure of blacks to pass as a member of the black culture and the contrasting pressure for blacks to pass as part of the dominant culture can often create problems. It is easy for a black to be seen as too white by blacks and too black by whites -- and that has to do with passing behavior in two cultures. Society assumes that queers are normative too, demands they make normative choices, even if those choices are only on the surface. Even many radical right leaders will acknowledge that people may be born gay, but they will not agree that anyone should act on that predisposition any more than a born murderer should. Society assumes people are normative until that is disproved by people showing non-normative behavior, and then they put pressure on people to bring them back to normative. This is the pressure of heterosexism, racism and so on. And the question of choice is key. If others assume that you didn't have a choice in your non-normative behavior -- skin color, whatever -- then they may (and I repeat may) give you some slack. They may also get crazy and isolate themselves from you, but that's another matter. Could Jews choose to be Christian? This was a common pressure until our definiton of normative started to include Jewishness. Now, we have expanded the bounds of normative to include being Jewish, and we, as a culture, accept that. The pressure of assimilation -- to take on the normative behaviors of a group to be accepted as a member of that group is key. So what does not passing do, in any context from appearing gender transgressive (and this includes swishy males and butch females) to discussing our lives? It attempts to expand the envelope of what is normative and accepted. It attempts to prove that the display of this deviant behavior will not harm society, that there is no good reason to force compuslory gender roles that include heterosexuality. We try to prove that the family will not be destroyed if participation is not compulsory -- as if compuslory participation is working all that well anyway. In any given place, the pressure to be normative can be strong. Gay men in the Castro can see themselves as normative and make others feel deviant, unwelcome. Lesbians in Northhampton can see themselves as normative and make others feel deviant, unwelcome. Many of us get to a place where we finally can fit in as a member of the group, and we then start to defend the boundaries of that group rather than defending the right to be a unique individual wherever we are. We defend assimilation, not queerness. We will all feel the pressure to pass. Society will assume we pass until we show otherwise, and when we show we don't pass, we will become objects of interest and scrutiny, often being objectified and abstracted -- one of "them." We will then feel even more pressure to pass, wherever we are. Passing ain't all bad. Often it allows us to build connections, feel safe. But if we just pass, never stand up for our own uniqueness, diversity, power, then we don't give all we can to the group or culture, and we suffer the pain of denying ourselves. Remember, for example, that in a group of beuraucrats, passing involves not showing anyone else up. There are all sorts of normative pressures. Passing is about choice -- the choice to be tame and fit in, or to be wild and stand out. To be a member of a group or an individual. It is a choice we all make. Callan Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 13:14:59 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan@AOL.COM Subject: Transgender Desire Matthew has spoken a lot about "transgender desire," including trotting out some personal ads that speak to the fantasies of some men who wish to be in dresses. This is not the first time people have tried to study transgender desire through personal ads. One researcher at the Clarke Institute in Toronto argued that "gynandromorphophiles" (those attracted to males changed into women) are a real category of desire because he listened to some personal ads on a voice mail system and determined that they really wanted relationships. Of course, ask any queen and she knows that most of them want to suck or be fucked by a woman, and some want to be made women. Ada has noted that there are women who also love 5" heels, for whatever reasons, and others have chatted about the limits of using fantasy statments to categorize the reality of desire. The reality of desire for transgendered people is usually simple: expressing transgender drops you out of the system of desire. Most people mainipulate their own gender cues to be attractive to a partner, whatever that means. Women wear skirts to attract men, Lesbians wear slacks and haircuts that are attractive to other lesbians, and men do the same thing in their sexuality. The asumption, therefore, when we see a someone wearing clothing that is usually designed to attract the "opposite sex" is that they want to do that. It doesn't quite work that way for TG people. Many drag queens know that they are much more likely to meet gay men as a gay man than as a crossdresser. Queens who have had breast augmentation and hormones, who dress as women 24-7, often still refer to themselves as gay men, because if they become women, then they have to start relations with straight men -- and that isn't who they see themselves as being. The hardest part about gender shift is desire shift. A straight man writes to me, wanting to become a woman. I tell him that he will have to desire shift. He still wants to love women. That's fine, I tell him, but you can't put on your prettiest dress and go to the lounge at the Holiday Inn to meet women. You have to be positioned as lesbian, which entails its own challenges because most lesbians want women born female, or find a way out of the system of gender all together. For males who love women, and who often discover that their sexuality at puberty conflates the erotic desire for women and the desire to be a woman, the choice to conflate sexuality and gender is sensible. It's not OK to want to be a woman, but sex fantasies are supposed to be dirty, and they know that their transgendered urges certainly seem that way to them. This is the world of the closeted crossdresser, full of fantasies about being a woman in some way or other, but unable to renounce the priviledged normative life as a man that he has been trained for. Gender shift is power shift -- we have to realign our personal power, take power in new ways, and that is hard. Add that to desire shift, and the knowledge that with gender shift, unless you assimilate (pass) extroardinarily well, you can easily find no one to love you, it's hard. So CDs hold tight to being men and pay for fantasy moments with a touch of anal penetration, and TS hold tight to being women and get very upset that anyone could love their penis in any way. In fact, people who desire women with penises, she-males (gynandromorphophiles) are held as very, very suspect by both groups. Transgender desire is not simple. I know one TG person born males who gets her strokes by sleeping with married crossdressers -- they share a moment of fantasy, with the knowledge that relationships are impossible. I believe that all TG people are by definition bisexual, no matter what position they claim. Certainly they demand their partners be bisexual, even if they pass very well, because without acceptance of bisexuality, one is forced to deny part of ones seilf. I know one TS woman who is about to get married to a man with the proviso that her in-laws never discover her history. She has to go into hiding to get her fantasy, but at what cost? Is the solution for desire TG on TG, that only gender transgressors can love each other? Maybe, but many TG people are still heterogenderal in desire -- they want a partner with some sort of contrasting gender expression. That may be butch/femme "same sex" partners, or may be some other form, like heterosexuality, but they don't crave being with same, they crave being with balance. When heterosexism divides everyone into two sexes, and therfore two genders, and says that the only desire can be between opposites, and homosexism says that the only appropriate sexuality is between same pairs, then it's still all about enforcing sex/gender matings, and not about transcending binary desire. The problem is that we like desire, love the cues, positions, symbols, behaviors and other performative effects of gender, love having desire stimulated by the potentialites between those opposite poles. Andy Warhol: "If you see someone walking down the street who looks just like your adolescent fantasy, it's somone who had the same fantasy as you and decided to be it rather than to chase it. So forget it." In the context of class issues, sexuality and class have always been conflated. Sex is an earthy, working class thing in general. Treat a lady like a whore and a whore like a lady, and all that. We have a perception that being working class allows more open display and enjoyment of sexuality, that upper class classes "close their eyes and think of England." All that sweating and animal noises -- not very refined, eh? I suspect that means that there are always class component to fantasy, from the lady and the chaufeur to the hooker and the prince. Why should odd, closeted transgender fantasies created primarily by people who were trained as and live primarily as white men be any different? The issues of gender transgression and desire are far from simple. The issues of gender transgression and identity -- are gay men actually gender transgressive -- are also complicated. But grabbing some fantasies and cobbing them down doesn't seem to help clairfy the case. Callan Date: Fri, 25 Apr 1997 07:36:08 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan@AOL.COM Subject: So, This TG Person Walks Into A Gay Bar. . . So, this TG person walks into a gay bar, and one of the first things people want to know is "So -- who are they looking to meet anyway?' After all, what is the hallmark of the bar scene than meeting new partners? Old joke: "I walk into the bar and the lesbians see a guy in a dress, and decide I am a drag queen. The gay guys see I am wearing sensible shoes and decide I'm a lesbian. Poof, right down the middle." This is true of all TG people. Lesbians who identify as femme (and they do still exist, quite happily, thank you) are often warned when they try to enter a new gay bar, questioned as to their intentions. They violate the gender norms for lesbians in that area and are therefore suspect. The generalization that most people dress to attract people they are interested in is clearly just a generalization, and not true of everyone. Yet the notion that "I don't think I do that, I just dress to please myself and other people get it or not," seems to only skim the surface of the social meaning of clothing. What do we feel comfortable in? What do we see as appropriate ways to be ourselves? Can we wear a doublet and tights, or always wear a sweatsuit? Clearly, our idea of comfort has a lot to do with the current social norms of our group and our culture. I believe that people dress for a mix of four reasons: Self Others ------------------------------------------------------------- Comfort | Ease | Uniform |__________________________________ | Expression| Sensuality| Costume When we dress for our self-comfort, we want easy clothes, like a sweatsuit. When we dress to be comfortable in a crowd, we want to fit in, show we are part of the group, well assimilated, so we want a uniform When we dress to self -express, we want clothes that communicate to us who we are, often sensuality When we dress to express ourself to others, we want clothes that convey our uniqueness, show us as individual. Every outfit has a component of all of these facets. We don't want to be physically uncomfortable, don't want to stand out too much, don't want to betray our own identity, want people to see us as unique and special, all at the same time. But we can't do all these things perfectly at all times, no do we want to. We don't always want to be at the center of the graph. Sometimes we want to express our art (like at a big elegant party) and other times we just want to wear sweats for a weekend, because no one is going to see us. Talking about the components of expression that go into the style of lesbians in general, or even of one lesbian in specific is an interesting discussion. But saying that our expression is purely and totally motivated by our own self expression begs the questions of desire, assimilation, power and ease that we all face, the balance between being true to self and connected to others, between comfort and expression. Callan (who is on the digest plan for this list.) Date: Sun, 27 Apr 1997 08:42:45 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: So, This TG Person Walks Into A Gay Bar. . . jon> Date: Sat, 26 Apr 1997 06:44:11 -0400 jon> From: JGChampgne@AOL.COM jon> Subject: Re: So, This TG Person Walks Into A Gay Bar. . . jon> jon> One of the things that has perhaps been lost or at least jon> displaced in this thread is the question of how queer jon> theorists are to read the claims made by post-op jon> transsexuals that, through surgery, they have managed jon> to align their physicality with their "true" gender. jon> The discourse of "I always felt I really was xx (or jon> xy); now that I have had surgery, I am the real me" is jon> quite prevalent on the tv talk show circuit. One of the things that is hard inside TG theory at all is how to cope with people who have accepted one of the two "classic" (around since the 1960s) approaches to dealing with transgender. The Harry Benjaming model for transsexuality demands that you announce not that you want to be female, but that you ARE female with seriously misshapen genitals. This approach makes male doctors much more comfortable about destroying a perfectly good penis on a whim, and allows them to correct a congenital malformation to ease suffering. Of course, it also makes the TS play out a script to satisfy the gatekeepers to get the body-modifying hormones and surgery that they need. The script is clear to all TS people, and they learn it well. Does it represent who they are, or the best shot at who they need to be to get what they desire on a deep, deep level? The other model is the Virginia Prince crossdressing model, where "normal healthy heterosexual males" are "femiphiles" loving the feminine so much that they want to wear feminine things. These people belong to Society For The Second Self (SSS or Tri-Ess) and pledge that 1) They are men and never have thought about being female 2) They are heterosexual and never have thought about being with a man. Needless to say, the fantasy life of these men are active, and a large number of them go on to become transsexuals. Joke: What's the difference between a straight crossdresser and a gay crossdresser? Three drinks. jon> Obviously, the fact that it circulates in this jon> particular discursive arena alerts us to the jon> difficulties of simply seizing upon it as the authentic jon> expression of (a) transsexual understanding of gender jon> identity. jon> However, I am concerned about the jon> theoretical move to tell transsexuals "Well, regardless jon> of what you think, you are actually performing gender, jon> all gender is a fabrication, you may think you are jon> being 'real,' but you're actually being 'parodic'" and jon> so forth. (I admit that I continue to be mystified by jon> a discussion of parody that jettisons the problem of jon> intentionality. If parody is a problem of reception, jon> then, yes, everything can be read as parody, but I jon> don't see that subsuming everything under this category jon> gets us very far. When I brush my teeth, is this a jon> parody of brushing my teeth? If it is, so what?) To me, everyone is performing gender. Most of us just learned it in the official rehersal period, adolesence, rather than having to go though adolescence again in another gender. The key question to TG people is how important body configuration is to that performance. Can only females play women, only males play men? Why is this true? I agree that finding the line between authentic intent/inborn callings and constructed expression/outward symbols is important. To call gender constructed is NOT to miminize the call to that that comes from somewhere deep inside. One big issue that TG people have is that people ask them to keep that calling inside. "It's OK to feel TG, but why do you have to show it? Isn't it a spiritual thing so symbolizing it is just petty and surface?" What is a human that cannot express their inner self? jon> I am not suggesting that transsexuals can simply speak jon> for themselves or that it takes one to speak for one jon> (yes, that familiar question of can the subaltern jon> speak). I suppose I am wondering aloud about the jon> question of the queer intellectual, who can speak for jon> whom, and so forth. For example, I have no problem jon> problematizing (!) the popular discourse of "I always jon> knew I was gay (or lesbian)" because my own jon> subjectivity was/is produced through this particular jon> discursive myth. I tend to think these days that jon> certain "youthful" violations of gender norms get jon> recoded by a cross-gender phobic culture as sexual and jon> then internalized by the subject. The connection between sexual urges and gender expression is important. Frankly, I'm more concerned about children who have youthful gender callings and then feel forced to be assimilated into any set of gender norms -- straight or gay. The assumption that transgressive gender expression always indicates "inverted" sexual desire is groundless. TG people have a full range of sexual desire, from het cds to transfags, men born female who id as gay men. jon> When such subjects, jon> through coincidence or something else (okay, I'm a bit jon> foggy here) self-identify as adults as gay, they are jon> telling themselves a narrative that helps them to jon> understand the happy coincidence of their refusal of jon> both gender and sexual norms. jon>However, if I apply a jon> similar logic--as undertheorized as it may be at 6:00 jon> AM on a Saturday--to transsexuals, and then attempt to jon> interpellate them into a political constituency--what jon> are the "politics" of this move? jon> jon> Part of the original thread concerned political jon> affiliations. What does it mean to claim a political jon> affiliation with, say, a post-op transsexual who views jon> herself as a "real" heterosexual woman, and one who is jon> perhaps hostile to "queer" politics? I ask this as jon> someone who admittedly knows very little about the jon> transsexual community (forgive that inadequate term) jon> and wonder about the "politics" (for lack of a better jon> word) of affiliating transsexual with "gay and lesbian" jon> or even "queer" against the expressed interests--which jon> may or not be the "actual" interests--of "real" jon> political subjects. Yup. Thats why transgender is usually affilated with gay and lesbian, people who are clear about their gender transgression and their queerness. Transsexuals who are following a path of assimilation resist this notion of gender transgression, in the same way many people who participate in homosexual acts resist being labeled queer. This is exactly the same issue as people like Roy Cohn, self professed straight men who like to fuck boys. But as more and more there is language that suits them, and more acceptance of gender transgression, more transsexuals come to see themselves as transgendered. jon> Here again, one of my hobby horses: the danger of jon> removing the problem of intentionality from the jon> formation of political constituencies. I suppose this jon> is the now familiar materialist critique of a certain jon> version of poststructuralist theory that seems to jon> trash--rather than interrupt--reason and rationality, jon> for example. I am perfectly willing to let intention stand as crucial. Personally, I let people decide on their own if they want to march under the transgender banner -- and that includes not only transsexuals but gay people like Gabriel Rotello who has claimed his own gender transgression in The Advocate. Are all people who engage in acts of homosexual sex queer? Are all people who enage in acts that transgress gender transgendered? Only if they want to be. Callan Date: Sat, 26 Apr 1997 10:34:52 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: It's All Drag, It's All Constructed, It's All Gender. Michael J. Murphy notes: >The reengineering of the body to correspond to an internal desire seems >to counter this idea. In a way it's heterosexual drag. The purposeful >alteration of the body to fulfill criteria of desire seems antithetical >to purist heterosexuality. > >It would seem that transgendered heterosex would not qualify as >heterosexuality according to the essentialist rhetoric of heterosexuality. Agreed. The division is between the essentialist rhetroric of any kind of sexual orientation and the constructed manner in which it is expressed. Does the rehetoric actually mean that homosexual behavior and appearance is not at all constructed? The seeds exist in the hearts of Kinsey 0 hets, Kinsey 6 gays and Kinsey 1-5 bisexuals, and they then have to figure out how to express that desire in this culture. That means a whole range of social pressures, customs and mores come into play, constructing a "reality." I'm sure Jerry Falwell will tell you how natural it is for women to wear pantyhose, or men to wear BVDs, but 100 years ago when these items disn't exist, in the same form, they may easily have been seen as un-natural and scandalous. They may have been seen as way too revealing, for example. No matter how much someone wants to take an essentialist position about the physical expressions of their desire/status/beliefs, those expressions are ALWAYS constructed. It's all drag, it's all gender. Paul Tupper notes: >I hate to say it, but Judith Butler said it best: Gender is an imitation >for that which there is no original. This applies to sexuality. There is >no original heterosexual, nor an original homosexual. Sexuality is that internal feeling we have, gender is the way we express it. Butler's comment does not apply to sexuality, it applies to the constructed expression of that sexuality, or what we tend to call gender. Our gendered behaviors and choices are the way we express who we are. We try to imitate others like us, but there are no others like us. So, no matter how much hets want to believe they are not performing a gender, or that gays want to believe they are not transgressing gender norms, it seems to me like it's all drag, all performance, all constructed, all gender. Callan Date: Sun, 27 Apr 1997 10:15:44 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Ellen Should Be Ellen -- but not at my expense. My position on Ellen: She should be whoever she wants to be. I don't think that she is modeling anything bad -- there are plenty of "girl-next-door lesbians" (as Entertainment Weekly called her) and if I am not one of them, that's fine. I don't think that any queer performer has any obligation to be a spokesperson for the whole community, including me. I assume that she will be very different than I am. However, when she decides to say that she is normal, not like the freaks you see, and that she wouldn't want to show those freaky people on TV, then I get uncomfortable. What is the lowest common demominator of queerness that is visble to kids? Is "too much" queerness perversion and therfore adult only? Why is Het sexuality and desire visible to kids while queer expressions aren't. ABC nixed an ad for Olivia Cruises, a lesbian tour operator, showing pretty women chatting with each other, because it was "not suitable for children." (you can see it on Eentertainment Tonight on Monday) Ellen should be Ellen. But Ellen shouldn't be Ellen at the cost of putting down other people to prove she is normative, and they are not. I am aware that TV cuts the edges off of lots of things, has to find the center. I suspect that one of the best definitions of "normative" you could give might be "that which appears on network TV." Ellen's coming out expands that denfinition of normative another inch, and should be celebrated. I know why the fascination at this time isn't with gay men -- all those penises and energy. I am also aware that Ellen has had an effeminate gay male couple on her show in the past. But I don't think that means Ellen has to prove her "normalcy" on the backs of people she ends up categorizing as extreme -- as freaks. Callan (who never got over the dumping of Holly Fulger, who was so brilliant in "Everything But Love.") Date: Sun, 27 Apr 1997 16:40:11 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Sex as Theater Mr Williams notes that the personal ad where he posits a situation laden with power differentials recieved lots of response. I, for one, am not surprised. It is, in my opinion, the differences between us that make for hot sex, the sameness that makes for warm sex. Hot sex is theatre incarnate, playing out ritualized and stylized fantasies of identity stripping, the peeling away of layers of power and protection to get to raw, nude energy -- the zipless fuck, where all falls away without even the sound of a zipper. It is rare that pornography moves past stereotype because stereotypes are so effective in hitting the base images and feelings that our lust is composed around. Lust is rarely a nunaced and subtle emotion, but rather a basic and simple one. What is desirable in a hot sex partner? Technical profiency is nice, and a fine, limber and well muscled body doesn't hurt, but if our primary sex organ is between our ears, then an excellent sense of fantasy, of play -- of theatre -- is crucial. People who read personal ads read personal ads, so they are drawn into the scope of verbal communicatin, so it is probably more likely that they would want this theatre than men who are simply looking at images, real or digital. To offer people the opportinity to play out fantasies is a lovely thing. But to judge people's lives on how they respond to one fantasy or another dangled in fron of them only tells you something about their fantasy life, and not the choices they make everyday in their life. Unless one has an excellent algorithm that lets someone deduce actions and choices from fantasies, they will continue to appear to have no fixed relationship. I suspect that personal ads that offer theatre, offer fantasies, offer stylized types will always draw better than ones that merely offer the complexity of a real person seeking relationship. People are attracted to that stylized theatre. I'm just not sure that tells us any more than that. Callan Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 07:20:46 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Copulate or Be? Is the ultimate goal of queers to: copulate with whomever we want? or to be and express who we are? Is homosexuality about sex acts, with all our expressions leading to sex acts, or is queerness about gender, with our expressions leading to a fuller understanding and communication of self? This is important because it determines WHAT WE CAN SHOW THE KIDS. If the goal is to lure people into the bedroom, have sex, then that is considered adult material, not to be seen by children. It is erotic and private. If the goal is to sing the song God taught us, to express the truth of who we are, to develop relationships, to simply express our own nature, even if it violates gender norms, then that is public material, and we shouldn't have to hide that from anyone, even children. So, if it's about sex, Ellen's right -- keep it from the kids. But if it's about gender, Ellen's wrong -- we need to be open. Is queer liberation about what we do in the bedroom or about what we do in life? Is it about sex or about gender choices? Ellen doesn't speak for me, nor do I think she should. But if she speaks against me, then I will challenge her. I would kind of prefer her to speak for herself: "I am showing children what I am. We, as a show & network decide what we want to show children, and we have decided that it should be normative, sweet and non challenging.. But that doesn't mean we judge what others show children." Judge not, lest ye be judged. Are homosexuals so sexy they have to be kept away from kids? Or are they just honest about who they are, whatever gender conventions they break? For me, until I can stand up and feel safe exposing my nature to kids, because I know that I am not simply about lust but about the whole range of human emotion, just like anyone else, know that my fight is not about who I fuck but about who I am, then I will keep hiding and saying: "Well, at least I'm not a perv like them!" Queer people can be the biggest bigots, but I see that as part of a failing quest to be normative by defining the line of weirdness right behind where they are. "well, yeah, sure I stick gerbils up my butt like a normal person, but he sticks squirrels up his butt, and that's just plain sick! let's all get him!" Our quest to be normative is interesting, but the cost is high -- it means cutting off the edges -- the dykes on bykes and men in dresses that Ellen is uncomfortable with, doesn't see herself being like. For me, though, the question is if we should be ashamed of those deviants, want to keep them from kids because they are adult, sexy, dirty. Or should we simply assume that they are just trying to be who they are, trying to express their own unique gender path? Is it about copulation or about being? I know which answer works for me. Ms. Callan Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 07:09:27 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Jon: Homonormative, Not Queer? > Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 08:03:46 -0400 From: "Jon > (NCSilverBear)" Subject: Re: > Copulate or Be? > > Cute....but, what the hell does it mean? I can't make much > logic out of this rant. > > Perhaps I've lapsed into senility, but, Callan, I think > you've taken this "Ellen" thing to the utter limits of > absurdity. > > Jon (NCSilverBear) Serenity Lodge, Lake Wheeler Close, > Raleigh SerenityLodge@bellsouth.net >Subject: Re: Copulate or Be? > > J. Christopher....forgive my laughter, but, when your twice > as old, and then considerably more, come back and read > your post again. . . > > > > Jon (NCSilverBear) Ah, Jon. If you don't understand it, it must be stupid, illogical. It's been a pretty consistent theme with you over the years, that you are the center of the known universe, the abribiter of comfort. Let me tell you what I think queer means: Queer is belief that each one of us performs their own individual reality, transgressive in personal ways. To be queer is to accept the individual realities of other people, if we understand them or not. Transgression makes you very uncomfortable, Jon. So you use little power games to put people who seem too transgressive down, to stigmatize and belittle them. You apply homonormative presures to queers to get them do something you are comfortable with -- even just to shut up. You are homonormative, not queer. And that always makes me wonder what you are doing on a Queer Studies List. Callan Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 07:09:39 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: Objects Of Desire (was Copulate or Be) Kelly asks > callan, > > why should we separate who we want to fuck from who we are? > or better yet, how can we? sexuality & gender are 2 > things that make a big impact on how we define ourselves > and how others define us. i think its always been about > our objects of desire. We should ABSOLUTELY not separate who we fuck from who we are. I never advocated this, nor do I think it's possible. But what are our objects of desire? Sure, they are other humans, but they may also be children, lawn mowers, sequin dresses, comfortable shoes, those tiny little squash, Cris Williamson tapes, Acuras, more equitable distribution of resources, a Democratic congress, and so on. These are NOT desires it is shameful to show to kids, and they are the truth of our lives. Our history as queer people affect those desires, inform our choices in unique ways, and we must show that to the world in order to fully participate in it. Homosexual. "Gosh, Marge, are those people gonna get on TV and be homosexual? Are they going to homosexual all over the place? Do we want the kids to see anything sexual?" A culture that comes together around sexual desire is expected to be about sex. I personally believe that homosexual is an act, but that gay and lesbian are gender roles, the expressions of people whose gender choices are informed by their own homosexuality, in the same way hets gender roles are informed by their own herterosexuality. The assumption that is made -- that Ellen made -- that some homosexuals don't know how to act around kids, to be nice and polite and appropriate, is offensive. But if you assume that homosexuals are out to be sexual, you might make that assumption. I assume that homosexuals are just out to express who they are, to talk about their objects of desire in all their forms, from a world where people aren't stigmatized for who they love to a great china pattern to cute, low maintinance hair cuts. I believe that very few homosexuals will actually be inappropriate for children -- probably about the same percentage of heterosexuals that are inappropriate for children. Sexuality and sexual desire is part of who we are, no doubt. But is it the biggest part of who we are? Maybe at 18, yes, but we are not all 18. Yet, a community that only has in common sexual desire will naturally focus around sexual desire and that sexual desire will be how people see that community -- and most people don't think kids should be immersed in sexual desire, so keep it off the TV. I was moved by J. Christopher Newman's discussion of how, while he loves men and sex, he also wants to have relationships that emcompass the other desires in his life -- and that he believes he has to leave the gay community to find those relationships. Ellen's desires are not just sex, and she wants to assure people that he show won't be about sex but about the feeling we all share of being left out because we are different. I understand that, because I believe that this is the essence of queerness, embracing others for who they are and not who we want them to be. Ellen reassures people that she is not all about sex in a way that is innappropriate fir kids like some other people. Well, I believe that we are all "not all about sex," that we are all full and complete humans. I have noted that the only thing that all TG people share is being forced into the closet by the heterosexist, heteronormative pressures in this culture. A lesbian friend noted that she believe that is all gays and lesbians share too. This is the nature of queer people, what really binds us together -- that we have been told we are too queer to shown to the public. It's not about our sexuality per se, but about our choices. Some of us have decided that the way to deal with this is to act just like everyone else in public, to put on an apporopriate surface, and then only be transgressive in the bedroom, behind closed doors. I think that ignores the fact that our queerness, our transgressive nature and how society pressured us to be normative, informs all our desires. For me, the goal is to be who we are, not simply aligned by who we sleep with. It's a question of gender choices, not just sexuality. I believe that all humans are 99% the same, as shown by our DNA, and that our differences are merely flavor. That means that we mustn't be embarrased to be who we are in front of the kids, as long as we don't feel the need to scandalize the kids just to make a point to the world. Our objects of desire are the things that shape our decisons, make our lives what they are. And those desires are NOT for 24/7 homo-sex-acts, not in any of us. We are all just humans with lots of desire, lots of choices, that all make up a gender. Callan Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 07:09:52 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: So, This TG Person Walks Into A Gay Bar. . . > Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 08:17:42 -0400 > From: JGChampgne@AOL.COM > Subject: Re: So, This TG Person Walks Into A Gay Bar. . . > > Lots of interesting stuff to think about in Callan's > response to my queery. Just a few questions: > > You write that the Harry Benjaming model "makes the TS play > out a script to satisfy the gatekeepers to get the > body-modifying hormones and surgery that they need. The > script is clear to all TS people, and they learn it well. > Does it represent who they are, or the best shot at who > they need to be to get what they desire on a deep, deep > level?" This is precisely one (actually, two) of the > problems I was referring to in my original posting. > First, you as a theorist are reading the "false > consciousness" of the transsexual person who speaks this > discourse. I am troubled by the gesture of the theorist > who says, "Well, this is what they say, but what they > REALLY mean is...." Second, if gender is all a > performance, then isn't the phrase "who they really are" > nonsensical in this context? Am I reading the conciousness or the story, the meaning or the symbol? I believe that transsexuals who say "I was all was a woman, just with a little birth defect that I had to get fixed," believe that story, that it is aboslutely true and real to them. It is how they have conceptualized a deep meaning into symbols that are accessible to them. It happens to be the same symbols that have been sold to them since doctors chose to make available the technology of genital reconstruction, and happens to be a set of symbols that has real limits, forcing them to change the truth of their upbringing in an attempt to pass. It happens to be the same symbols that many feminist scholars have noted maintain a heterosexist gender system, but it is the story that they believe, very very true to them. It is who they are, no doubt, in the same way that men who patronize she-male prostitutes in South America are straight men, because that is who they believe they are. (This makes it difficult for AIDS outreach workers to reach all men who have sex with males, because many of them are straight.) > You write, "The assumption that transgressive gender > expression always indicates 'inverted' sexual desire is > groundless. TG people have a full range of sexual desire, > from het cds to transfags, men born female who id as gay > men." Again, this was one of my initial points: the > initial posting asked about the gesture of "including" > transsexuals in a "queer," if not "gay, lesbian and > bisexual," political agenda. If in fact this connection > is "groundless," what makes a transsexual "queer"? I am > not exactly equating homosexual with queer here, but I > take seriously Leo Bersani's question: does the term queer > risk the disappearance of two people of the same sex > fucking (gloriously)? Is this another version of the > "lesbian continuum," in which the image of two women > eating pussy is made more "palatable" for the anti-sex > crowd? What about the so-called political ramifications > of this? What does it mean, for example, when "straight" > people attain jobs in queer studies? Who gains, and who > loses, and what are those gains and losses? Ah, yes. Is queer just a blanket word for homosexuality, or a word for transgressive? What are transgressive sexualities, and beyond that, what are transgressive lives? At a time when homosexuality is becoming, on some level, normative, finding ways to assimilate into the mainstream, what does transgressive mean? Are people who only do leathersex with opposite sex partners queer? Are transgendered people queer? I, of course, tend to the school that sees queer as transgressive, and in that case transgendered people fit right in, while some people who consider themselves homosexual don't. Does queer = gay & lesbian studies? Not in my book. Your mileage may vary. > Finally, I am troubled by your closing remarks: > > "Are all people who engage in acts of homosexual sex queer? > Are all people who engage in acts that transgress gender > transgendered? > > Only if they want to be." > > This comes dangerously close to conflating > self-identification with identification,a s well as > simplifying the production of subjects in discourse. > Discourses will "produce" some bodies that engage in > homosexual sex as "queer," and this will sometimes have > little to do with the way those bodies name themselves. > In other words, in some discursive contexts, yes, Roy Cohn > will be "queer." My understanding of the term "queer" is > that it is "performative"; it attempts to perform certain > discursive moves, but the conditions of possibility of > this performance are precisely the "undecideability" of > language. In other words, it is a bit, well, > "heteronormative" of us to try to re-claim the term > "queer" by stabilizing its meaning. For me, there is a difference between political and theoretical queerness, and you have asked questions on both. To study queerness, we study people who fit into categories, or who perform acts that we identify as as transgressive. To create queer political movements, we ask for people who are willing to self identify as transgressive. Can we really claim queer politics from people who do not choose to see themselves or claim themselves as transgresive? We can, of course, study them, to queer them and see them as transgressive, but does that make them politically queer? Research can assign queerness, but poltics demands the persoal claiming of queerness. > Thanks again for your thoughtful response. Two other > queeries: > > 1) How many people who are re-claiming the term "queer" > were ever actually called this? If this term is ripe for > appropriation, might it not be in fact because it has > fallen out of use? Personally, I would find it much more > "troubling" to call myself a fag, since this was in fact a > name I was called for as long as I can remember (and > undoubtedly one that played a role in the formation of my > subjectivity as I am able to grasp it.) I know people who have reclaimed both words. For me, claiming the words that label me transgressive is a key part of claiming my own transgressive nature, moving away from a desire to be normative and to a desire to be my own person, whatever that means and however that crosses lines marked normal. I know that if I do it right, be wild enough to be free and tame enough to have standing, that I will be hit from both sides. The primary duality, where we have to do both: be assimilated and individual, same and different, tame and wild, normative and transgressive. > 2) What about the way the term "queer" excludes some forms > of same-sex desire? I am NOT making a plea here for the > Andrew Sullivans of the world. I am much more concerned > about the way the term works "politically" among people of > the same political persuasion. Can/will/is the term being > used to differentiate levels of political correctness? > "Well, you may think you're queer, but you're just not > queer enough for me, given that I perform my politics in a > way that is superior to your own?" This is the question. "How queer is too queer, how queer is not queer enough?" Its the same as "how transgressive is too transgressive, how normative is too normative," and so on. I beleive that the answer to this is very individual, and that people who have claimed their own answer will be comfortable with others answers. In other words, the answer is not "I've got it right, they have it wrong," but "I have it right for me, they have it right for them." Of course, there are lots of pressures that make us want to change or categorize other people -- to justify our own actions, to claim normativity, to persude people to support us, and so on. There are lots of reasons to say "You've got it wrong! They've got it wrong!" Of course, this is the basis of normative pressure, and when we choose to use it, we tacitly condone the use of that normative pressure to shape our choices. With all of my answers, I suspect that I am coming at this whole queer thing from a different place than lots of people. For me, that's fine -- I think thats what queerness is about. I thank the people who have worked hard to understand what I am saying, even if they don't see it in the same way. For me, seeing things though your eyes has helped me better understand myself, and I thank you for your posts and discussions over the years. Callan Date: Mon, 5 May 1997 09:43:48 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: Beyond Sexual Orientation David Bianco says: >So when the guy who wrote the song "Glad to Be Gay" and Harvey Milk's >one-time lesbian aide tell us they are now happily heterosexual, we can stop >scoffing and insisting that they're either self-hating or "really bisexual." > We can accept and respect the identity and community they choose for >themselves as we expect them to respect ours. > >P.S. I am fully aware of the dangerous *political* implications of >abandoning "orientation" and talking about "chosen identities." But just >because they are dangerous doesn't mean they are wrong. I should think that >a very strong defense of sexual freedom and equality can be made even if we >abandon the "born that way" line of reasoning. A TG artist has a show called "It's Not About You, It's About Me." It's my belief that the entire chase of identity is political -- the question is less what it means about Eddie Murphy or any ex-homosexual, it's how that reflects on me. Should I chastize Murphy, see his movies? How will I be considered in how I respond to this event? Do ex-homosexuals reflect badly on me? Was my mother right, can I change? Do out queers make us all look bad? What happens if I sleep with someone and then they go after an opposite sex partner? How can we get enough money and political suppport if this person doesn't see themselves as whatever? Do I become invisible in the shadow of stories that I am not reflected in? One fascinating thing on Q-Study is the difference between people who comment on other people's narratives and ideas in the context of reaching a greater understanding, and those who comment in the context of how those ideas threaten their own worldview. Do they bully (shut up, enough!), enlighten (this is the way I see it) or just let it pass? I believe that we assign identities to others because we want to know how to act towards them. Are they with us or against us? Am I with them or against them? Are they my enemy or my ally? We assign identities for our own purposes -- political purposes -- and no other reason. Otherwise we would just delight in the story and wait for the next one. Of course, seeing our refllection in other people is a key way we learn about ourselves. I just like to remember that it's me I'm learning about -- not them. Their actions are about them, not about me. But my response to their actions is about me, not about them. Categorizing others choices, actions and identities is always political -- that's why it's so appealing to see them as the problem rather than to see us as the problem.. Callan Date: Mon, 5 May 1997 09:43:41 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: Queer Science/Linguistics Fiction Jill wonders >How might we discuss our sexuality if we were all forced to speak >E'(E-Prime), a variant of English that disallows any forms >of the verb 'to be'? We could no longer say "I am 'X'"; we'd have to >describe what we *desire*, and what we *do.* >What would a post-identity "culture (or loose collection >of subjects) -formerly-known-as-queer" look like? If we couldn't essentailize who we are with labels, we would be forced to drop back to the metaphors that those labels represent. Inherently, language is about using symbols that represent shared concepts to communicate meaning, so we are limited to communicating using shared concepts. These shared concepts that start as metaphor eventually get summarized as labels, quick codes for well accepted concepts that are inherently limited. This chain -- meaning, shared metaphor, labels --means that we move away from meaining with every step, losing nuance. The work to find new metaphors that are both nuanced enough to convey meaning -- and that usually mean sharing the experience, either directly or though story -- is darn tough, especaily in a culture where we love the notion of categorizing, essentializing How do we keep people still to listen and understand our stories, how do we know that the meaning we take from them is the same as what other people take? I tend to think of the challenges we have in being a country of laws, rules, rather than shared principles. We developed that system to be explicit about meanings, but it allows the meaning to be obscured, to have people spend more time manipulating symbols than manipulating meaning. The big complaint about the government and the legal system is the fact that meaning is lost in the morass of symbols, but no one has suggested a way that we can manage an enormous and diverse system without it being rule-based. If the question is how we move away from symbol, the easy assignment of symbol that the verb "to be" gives us, and to meaning, then, to me, the question is how we develop new ranges of shared metaphors that allow less precision and more nuance. When I managed sales staff, I told them that when the truth and the facts were contradictory, be true to the truth and not the facts -- trust in the meaning. This was hard for many who were expert at displaying facts that were misleading -- the facts were correct, but the impression they gave, the meaning they conveyed was false. In other words, I told them to care about meaning, not symbol. But this is hard. For most people in this culture, symbol and meaning are conflated -- they are they same thing. "Let me tell you the symbols I choose and then you will know me." I just saw a t-shirt called "Here I Am" in the May "In The Life" which has a list of symbolized identity statements on it, front and back, and you check the ones that apply to you -- true friend, good cook, dancer, vegetarian, new ager, love my wheels, prayer helps, and so on.. To move away from essentialized symbols we must move to shared metaphors and stories in order to get closer to the messiness and nuance of meaning. Now, how we fit all that stuff in check boxes on forms, I don't know. Callan Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 09:17:16 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Some notes on being transgendered. --What is Transgendered? Does the word "transgendered" mean the same as the same as "non-operative transsexual?" I understand self-assignment as a non-operative transsexual, one who has changed her/his sex chemically/hormonally, but chooses not to surgically alter the appearnce and function of their reproductive organs, except possibly by castration. I also understand Virginia Prince's term of transgenderist, developed in the late 1980s, one who changes gender without changing their body's sexual characteristics, although this usually does include hormone use. This definition is one that Prince has espoused, using herself as the prototype, and is codified by the organization Prince started, now called Society For The Second Self (SSS.) I always find it interesting that they refer to the transgenderist as acceprting "his" genitals, keeping the genitals and the person a man for political reasons that are key to an organzation of self diagnosed "hetrosexual crossdressers" who vow to remain both men and heterosexual. Having discussed this topic with Prince in 1995, I also understand that Prince never chose to use the word transgender or transgendered, only transgenderist, feeling that using transgender as a modifer is "meaningless." It is clear to me, then, that the word transgender was developed separately, and does not come from Prince's definition of transgenderist. To me transgender is a word that indicates transgresive gender, is used to describe actions, words, choices and behaviors that are gender transgressive. If you accept queer as also indicating transgressive behaviors, they are closely linked. I see gender role as a social construct that is assigned to people based on cursory examination of their genitals at birth. To me, sex defines the body and gender defines the mindset and choices that are deemed appropriate for that gender, which in this culture means people of that sex. Anthropological studies have shown that not every culture has had such a rigid and bi-polar definition of gender as we do today. I define simply a transvestite as someone who chooses to change their clothing and a a transsexual as someone who chooses to change their body, chemically and/or surgically. Oddly enough, the conicides with the LA Sherriff's definition of transsexual as announced in the Eddie Murphy case: From UPI: "Seiuli was described by Deputy Mark Bailey as a ``transsexual.'' ``Someone who had undergone some sort of physical altering -- either surgical or with hormones,'' Bailey said. He gave no further details of the suspect's gender other than to refer to Seiuli as male. " To me sex is male or female, gender is man or woman. I define transsexuals as male-to-female, female-to-male, but I describe transgender as man-born-female, woman-born-male -- the change is in the gender role, not in the birth sex. I see "transgender" as meaning gender transgressive, and many transsexuals have told me that they are NOT gender transgressive -- they are simply expressing themselves in harmony with their gender, not transgressing lines. To those MTF TS, it would be gender transgressive if they dressed in clothes that are attributed to men. To me, because queerness denotes transgression, if those people who feel transgressive in their heart never choose to express their queerness, they are not effectively queer. Because they themselves deny their queerness, go to their death bed with their secret, that they are not queer by their own definition. If one identifies as transgendered, yet is not on a "gender-transgressive path" but rather has a goal is to be a normative man or a normative woman (albeit with atypical genitals) then what does the word transgender mean in their definition? For me, the word transsexual in representing people who believe that they want to change sex in some way in order to accept a normative gender role denied them because of their physical body seems like a sufficent title. I believe that Lorber is right in "Pardoxes Of Gender" when she says that classic transsexuality merely reinforces the heterosexist gender system rather than changes it. If the goal is to become normative, then they are not queer. Do people who feel transsexual yet do not act on it, people like "women trapped in mens bodies" consitute "silent queer majority" who need to believe that the dream of becoming normative women is possible to come out and be a force? Many people have some seeds of transgression in their hearts that they deny -- that is the purpose of the heterosexist system, to keep people from following their hearts and keep them following the rules because of fear of stigma and separation. The potiential for transgression exists widely -- but when those people choose to be normative, possibly even enforcing normativity by their response to queer people who embrace what they are denying, then I don't see them as queer at all. -- Normative or Die? The agrument, that in this heterosexist world, where people assume there are only two sexes, therfore two genders, and the only apporopriate attraction is between them, that people really must fit well into one of the two fixed gender roles to be normative enough to survive, is well known to me. I know well the pressure to be normative, and the costs that we pay, in lack of standing and in stigma, for being transgressive. To me, that is what queer studies are all about, looking at the benefits and costs of transgressive behavior. Do we assimilate as well as possible, fit in, become who we are expcted to to be, or do we stand unique and separate, following our own hearts? This is the balance that everyone has to make -- how assimilated is too assimilated, too much denying self, and how assimilated is not assimilated enough, losing standing and support? In other words, how queer is too queer, how queer is not queer enough. Is to be transgressive is to drop out of the binary system of desire -- either heterosexual or homosexual? I believe it is. I believe that all gender transgressive people are at least politically bisexual, even if they are only attracted to one gender or gender/sex combination, because they demand that their partners accept their own mix of gender, crossing of gender lines. Of course, this does not include transsexuals who do not see themselves as gender transgressive -- they can concieve of partners attracted to them solely as the woman they are, whatever their body configuration. --Why Queer Theory? For me, queer theory is one of the tools that has helped me examine my beliefs and assumptions to see where there are conflicts, paradoxes, and then to help resolve them by getting to a more holistic and intergrated viewpoint. I use queer theory to inform my self exploration, and to help explain my own choices, beliefs and actions to others who might also question why I transgress gender. Is queer theory is pointless and misleading? I agree that ideas without practice can lead us to strange places, remembering the Shaw quote, "Some men think of things as they are and ask why. I think of things as they can be and ask why not." However, this perception does not take into account my own immersion in the day-to-day "real life" of not only myself, but a large number of gender transgessive people that I correspond with and have met over the last 10 years. I do not teach, and many on Q-StudyL find me less than academic -- I tend not to be immmersed in others theory with academic references, but attempt to bring what I see in the world together with a set of ideas that tie that together. Is my theory isolated from reality? It may be isolated from some particular realities, but one thing being queer has taught me is that there are many realities -- we each live in our own world with our own visions, our own reality. Truth is, after all, a subjective thing. --Who Are "We?" For me, the we is queer people -- those who transgress norms. I am always moved by people who are transgressive and yet show themselves as human. The Today Show this morning had a piece on Kathy Buckley, a stand up comedienne who happens to be hearing impaired and speaks of her transgression in her act. In seeing the humanity behind people many want to catergorize as "circus freaks" we stop the separations that allow people to see some others as less than fully human. My "mission statement" as a transgendered person was spoken by anthropologist Anne Bolin, author of "In Search Of Eve." She said, "In cultures where gender is rigidly bi-polar, rituals of gender transgression remind us of our continuous common humanity." Anyone who speaks for the connections between people, the essential humanity that we all share, speaks for all of us -- in my opinion. To discover and speak for shared truths, shared challenges, the shared reality that no matter how different we appear, how transgressive we are, we are all simply humans expressing our shared human nature in our own way is the heart of my own belief system. I believe that we must find new ways to connected based on our inner similarities rather than demand outer conformity, that transgressive behaviors bring new life to a culture in change. The heart of my beliefs about transgender are not from Christine Jorgensen/Harry Benjamin, but from a long history of transgendered people that existed in every recorded culture in every time, and who served a special role in most of them as mediators, shamans who walked between worlds. I see my gifts as outside the very binary system of gender that we embrace in this heterosexist world. I am not simply a feminine spitit in a male body, a sort of birth defect that can be corrected by living in the feminine gender we call women, but as someone who is called to their own gender path. I know that I will never be simply another woman -- to deny the lessons of my transgender path is to swallow my own gifts rather than share them. For me, it is important to find ways to talk about gender transgression -- to help the "silent queer majority," as some call them, finally embrace a bit more of their own transgressive nature. Christine Jorgensen, was transgressive as hell. She broke all the rules of gender, and by breaking those rules, she created a new set of rules, the rules for transsexuality that many have lived by for these many years. However, I and many others also find those rules oppressive and limiting. I don't advocate any particular path for anyone. None of my writing is meant to criticze anyone's choice to be as normative as possible -- we all have to be normative in some ways to live in the culture I simply feel that sacrificing too much of self for normativity is is also a limiting choice, one that keeps us from thriving.. I have agrued, in a keynote speech to IFGE, that the Benjamin/Prince models to deal with gender dysphoria/femiphilia are models that allowed us to survive in a rigidly heterosexist culture, but they are not models that allow us to thrive -- and it is our thriving as gender transgressive people that will allow new models to arrive and allow more of those people who deny their own transgressive nature in order to act in a normative manner to become more authentic -- to let the "silent queer majority" to actually become queer. --Media as Teacher Does entertainment television provide "information" as in factual data, or "information" as in new emotional and intellelectual reactions? In the paralance of teachers, does it address cognative or affective goals -- hitting facts or emotions? I know, for example, that the government has always had an interest in the content of entertainment shows in the way they verbalize the concerns and feelings of their characters. This includes everything from current work with social issues all back to the propaganda agencies during WWII. The stories that we tell each other are very important -- they are the power of myth, distilled wisdom. While it is true that the stories on TV do not represent cutting edge ideas, rather somewhat more middle of the road information, they still must be new and relevant to hold interest. If they serve a purpose affirming, energizing and giving conversation hooks to the converted, that is still an important purpose. The notion that entertainment television does not inform the conversation, set some norms for conversation, seems to me to be an unssuportable idea in a country where we watch much more entertainment TV than news, and we complain that many news broadcasts get tied up in storytelling. Is this all hype? Sure. But hype has always been a major source of social motion, of setting norms. If hype didn't work, large companies would not invest in it -- they believe in the power of hype to create social changes. After all, what do we call changing people's behavior though information today? Usually we call it marketing. It can easily be argued that marketing messages are our chief source of information, either directly, or though PR efforts to create press. It is the stories and expriences we share that provide a basis for communication, and for good or for bad, in this culture, it is the mass media that provide us with those stories. Date: Fri, 9 May 1997 08:53:28 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: Some notes on being transgendered. A note: If a transsexual person, whatever they choose to do or not do to their body, chooses to identify as a normative woman, I have no bone to pick with them. We all make choices about our body and our obligations, and we each make the best choices we can for us. We find our own mix of assimilation and transgression to meet the needs of our life. Identifying as a normative woman while not modifying their body is just another choice. If they choose to call themselves a "transgenderist," a "full time man-in-a-dress" according to the definition of the progenitor of the word, that's great too. But if a non-op transsexual woman who claims to be normative also wants to identify as transgendered, which I define as gender transgressive, then I might question that identification, might work to find a shared vocabulary. If, further, she sees the word "transgendered" as only reffering to people like her, I will question her claim on that word. If they also claim to identify as "queer" and claim a "silent queer majority" of closeted transsexuals, I will also question what they mean by that word, because that doesn't jibe with my understanding of the word "queer." Words mean what we think they mean. If a word means one thing to me, and another thing to someone else, then we just have to be careful when we listen to the other person to understand the word in their context, not in ours. But if someone claims they have the one true meaning of any word, then I don't see them as honoring the words of others. Callan (who was not happy my earlier private message was published both without permission and without attribution by Ms. Dee.) -- "If a transsexual wants to live the life culturally assigned to him or her as a result of his or her anatomy, then I wouldn't call that individual queer." Roberta Angela Dee, 5/8/97 Date: Sat, 10 May 1997 07:52:33 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: On (not) Being Transgendered I find it fascinating that on a list called "Queer Studies" that we have such difficulty agreeing what "queer," or even "studies," means. Jon calls on his memory to define queer, rather than his studies, and is happy to define it as being about him, about gay men. As an umbrella term, not so much. Of course, that would mean that Queer Studies is the studies of gay men -- something I am not sure fits nicely in a curriculum guide. Matthew wonders if queer is eliteist. I agree that it is, in the same way that anything studied in an academic context is elitist. For example, the study of economics is done by an elite, even if everyone participates in the economic system. Entry to that elite is gained by study, and by learning the basics of theory and shared language that allows one to participate in the discussion and study of economic theory. Of course, study of economics includes the study of power differentials, of an elite that controls a lot of money, but I'm pretty sure that the elite of economists and the elite with great economic power are not the same elite. And Roberta wants to use words to describe herself that she finds "useless" to communicate. >I use the word "transgender" implying that somehow I am moving >from one gender to another. > >Yet, I define gender mostly on what I am in mind, heart, and spirit. > >By my definition, I am already a woman. > >Therefore, it is a contradiction to say, "I am transgendered." > >And this is why I do not personally like the term at all. >I find it useless. > >I use it only to communicate on lists such as this one. I suspect that using a term one finds "useless" to describe oneself actually hampers communication on lists "such as this one." When we similtaneously call ourselves "transgendered woman," and find that term "useless" do we mislead others into thinking we claim an indenity that we actually find useless? Does it make sense to use a term if you find it useless? How does calling yourself something you don't agree with or find useful enhance communication? Prince loves transgenderist, like transvesite and transsexual, but says that the word transgender is as silly as the words transvest and transsex. Therefore, Prince does not use transgender to enhance communication in any forum, because she considers that to use it would actually limit communication. To me, enhancing communication requires finding ways to express what we think, feel and believe, not simply chucking out "useless" words that happen to be accepted in the forum we are currently in. Does having discussion on "queer" topics actually require that we work to engage a shared vocabulary? Can we actually study queerness if we tend to believe, as Chevy Chase might have said, that "I am the definition of queerness, and you're not?" How do we communicate on those grounds, if we believe that everything people say is about us? What does "queer studies" mean to this list anyway? How does that provide a shared context for our discussion here? Callan BTW -- If Jon wants a line from Ellen to TG, in the show with her parents, when asked about gay people, her dad says "I loved "Tootsie" and Nathan Lane" -- the connecting line that labels gay and "inverts" with the same mark is well drawn in culture, for good or for bad. Date: Sun, 11 May 1997 08:16:57 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Feeling Like A ________ What do testicles feel like from inside your body? Is your sensation of your having a penis the same as for the male you are in bed with? Can you describe how you make masculine choices, or feminine ones for that matter? It's easy to examine someone's anatomy in an objective way. In fact, the best time to do it is when they are dead and you can take it apart to examine without moral objections. It's not so easy to examine someone's thoughts, feelings and spirit. In fact, we only know two ways -- we can either have them use shared symbols to describe them, with all the limits of those symbols, or we can examine their choices and try to infer something from them. In either case, the bias of the observer is key. And when we examine those thoughts, feelings and spirit, how do we know if we are examining something that is rooted in biology or in society? How do we know if it is nature or nurure? When the question comes up "How can you feel like a woman with a male body?" the first question is "What is feeling like a woman?" Is it simply the shared experience of having functioning female reproductive organs? How do we know how shared that exprience is cross culturally? I have trouble defining the essence of womanhood as reproductive organs, because to me, the cultural layering upon that basic difference is the tale, the story of gendering. We don't know what is natural, only what is conventional. Only through cross cultural examination can we begin to find what meanings about having ovaries are biological and what are cultural. Where does transgender come from? Where does the urge to have relations with your own sex come from -- surely an urge to transgress gender norms in heterosexist cultures, cultures that place a very high value on breeding? Is it in the testes, ovaries? Is it in the erectile tissue? Is it in the hormones? The anatomy of the brain, as researchers in the Netherlands have suggested? Is it in brain chemistry? Does it stem from genetic differences or from a hormone shock? How does a brain that leads people to gender transgressive actions compare to a brain that does not? Is the brain of a transgendered male like a non-tg female? Good questions -- but unless someone on this list is doing breakthough work in brain biology, not questions we will answer soon. That leaves us looking at cultural influences. Do TG males feel like women, or do they just not feel like men, and in this bi-polar culture, that means they assume they are women? Is this the essence of defining women as the shadow of masculinity? How are we to interepret the symbols of transgender when that is the only way we have of communicating about it, when we can't directly examine the similarities and differences? Gender is a social construct, no matter how rooted it is in biological differences, and simple cultural examinination, either over time or between cultures will show you that the definitions of "what a woman does," "what a man does," and "what people who are not simply men or women do" are far from constant. How does a man feel? What makes him a man? What is manly and what is not manly? Is there any simple consensus on this? If we can't answer these questions, how can we answer how a woman feels? I personally believe that sexuality has an enormous amount to do with gender -- that we contextualize our sexual urges in the context of appropriate gender roles, in the choices and words that we are given about who we are -- our gendering. Gender roles are used to regulate sexual behavior, to define appropriate sexual behavior for people like us. Yo me, it is not the study of the fraction of time we are actually engaged in sex acts, lost in a moment of passion, that teaches, but the dance around those sex acts, the courtship and mating rituals that expose our choices -- and these rituals are richly gendered. I guess the thing that concerns me most is the apparent underlying assumption "Well, I don't feel like a woman, so how could any other male ever feel that way?" To try to understand queer, transgressive behaviors in the context of if we would do them seems limiting. The nature of transgressive behaviors is that they are not normative, they are not standard issue, not easily understandable to the mass of culture. "Why would people want to do that when it makes me feel sick? They must be sick." To understand transgressive behaviors requires first accepting the the words and choices of the people who do them at face value. It requires accepting that in their reality, their choices are pleasurable and correct, that their choices come from some genuine thing deep inside of them. If we don't accept that, then we try to find how someone is so damaged, so twisted, that they would allow some other male to insert a penis into their own anus, for example. I believe they do that because they love it, no matter what my choices are about that behavior. If we try to examine other people's choices in the context of our feeling and our morality, rather than in the context of their feelings and their morality, our observations will be hopelessly biased, and we will never figure out what is going on. This is a real challenge of queer studies -- it will bring up everything that squicks you and demand that you be able to see this as just another form in the rainbow of human behavior. If you see others choices though your eyes, as about you, it will bring up all your stuff. What does a woman feel like? Can anyone born with an antomically male body actually think like a normative woman (whatever that is)? What does a man feel like? Can a man who engages in homosexual acts actually think like a normative man (whatever that is)? The challenges of what normative means, and how our body, it's urges and the choices we make reflect on that are the questions of transgression, of queerness. All I know is that the narratives of transgendered people, and the extereme measures that they will go to in breaking out of the gender role assigned at birth has assured me that they have a deep, in-born knowledge that they are different than other people with that genital configuration. They face incredible stigma and still come, and I choose to see that as their own truth rather than some sort of warped behavior. Does that mean that they are or are not a _______? I don't know -- but I do know that the magic of assimilation and transformation means that, with enough work, they can enter any social role they want -- maybe not perfectly, but enough. In other words, I accept their own individual narratitive that drives their own mix of transgression and assimilation, even if it doesn't feel like the one I would ever choose. Callan ____________________________________________- John asks > I have a question--and please forgive my ignorance in > asking it: but, without having a womb-implant and > ovary-implants, how can any trans-gendering ex-male feel > like a woman? As several people have observed in various > messages contributed to this long thread, personal, gender > identity does not have to do exclusively with what's > between your legs, or what kind of sexuality you prefer. > That's the whole point of queerness (as I see it, and in > answer to Callan's question): sexuality often (but not > always) has very little to do with gender, especially for > those of us who are forced to classify ourselves in these > discussions as gay or straight or queer or whatever. Queer > implies the desire and the willingness to explore (maybe > in fact, maybe in theory) all the possibilities that arise > when sexuality is detached from, separated from gender; > and when old notions of gender and sexuality are > deconstructed. > > Please will someone answer my question about implants and > feeling like a woman. It's a serious question. > > Cheers to everyone who's struggling to sort out their own > ideas on these matters. > > John > And Jon concurs > Forgive my medical ignorance, too, Roberta....but, the last > time I checked, ovaries DID have something to do with > being a women (of course, I'm not in the habit of > separating the words "woman" from "female" (contextually), > although I do understand some people insist on separation > of the two words (politically) as somehow mutually > exclusive.) Although I don't know what this has to do > with whether or not a female/woman is a lesbian I > certainly understand how, from what you have said about > your own "transgendered" structure, the absence of ovaries > is particularly relevant to you. > > Perhaps you did not mean to say ". . . have *nothing* to do > with . . ." Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 06:08:24 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Changing Manly, Changing Womanly Why was it important for the women's moment to redefine the word "woman"? Why is it important for queers to redefine the words "woman" and "man"? Because, in this heterosexist world, where divisions were made and roles were created to encourage breeding -- we'll give the men the money & property, the women family & love and if they want it all they have to come together -- the definitions of both man and woman were not of whole people, but of partial people. The intent was that two halfs make a whole -- yet cutting the world in half (in have) creates power inequities. Are lesbians women? Are gays men? Are lesbians feminine? Are gays manly, masculine? Clearly, from the point of view of heterosexist pressure, no. The taunts of children do not call someone a faggot when they engage in homosexual acts, but when they are effeminate. The gender rules are clear -- having sex with another man seen as effeminate, having sex with another woman is seen as butch. In some cases, only one of the coupling is seen as gender transgressive, but in any case, someone has been seen that way. One man acts like a woman, one woman acts like a man. In short, is gender transgression a form of homosexuality, or is homosexuality a form of gender transgression? Ask Gabriel Rotello. . . One of the key trends in the last 25 years in gay & lesbian culture has been to reclaim normativity. Gay men are not all swishy, gay women not all mannish. This is true, of course -- gender transgression in one area (the bedroom) does not connote gender transgression in all areas. But it is also true because men who could pass as manly men and who still love other men are now more comfortable identifying as gay -- they can be out and not just seen as inverts, women in pants. This is because there has been a movement by the gay community to redefine what man means. You can be gay and be a man, no problem. In fact, if you are "straight-acting" you may be even more desirable as a partner. The gay community has demanded that the definition of a man does not simply exclude anyone who slept with other men -- who may have previously been seen as "unmanly" in the bedroom. Good for them! In the same way, the women's community has demanded the definition of women not be based around coupling, around serving a role in the reproductive system. Women have demanded a much broader definition of what constitutes being womanly, about what makes a good woman. This includes the acceptance of loving other women. Good for them! The decoupling of gender roles from reproductive roles has been a big part of gay liberation since Stonewall. The redefinition of choices that were formerly considered gender transgressive is important to allow all more freedom to follow their heart. What this means is that we want to acknowledge that the gender roles constructed around having any particular genitals are not natural, merely shared conventions. We must have the capacity to change them to meet needs, to remove the pressure to conform so that we can allow more freedom of expression, more room for individuals to bloom. In a machine age, we needed people to act as machines -- in an information age, we need people who are free to think and act in diverse ways. In short, gender transgression leads to gender redefinition. Gender redefinition leads to freedom and inclusion. Note that I am not saying that we want to get rid of gender. As codes for desire, codes for identity, even codes for creating families, it serves a purpose. There is brilliance in people coming together around complimentary roles that can help provide a whole. It allows the luxury of taking contrasting positions to create compromise, rather than forcing everyone to wrestle the ambiguity and tradeoffs of life alone. What do profoundly transgendered people, those who cross gender roles, either forever like a transsexual or transgenderist, or just for a moment like a drag or crossdresser, have to do with all this? I believe that they swing the pendulum, remind us of how much we are all the same under the gendered poses we choose to take, the gendered expressions that we choose to express the feelings in our soul. Are transgendered people just confused, dysfunctional, lost in the mire? If they merely were reducated about what it is to be a man, what it is to be a woman, would they stop their transgression, the transgression they take on in the face of great stigma? Why not ask those who have sought to cure gays and lesbians of their transgressive behavior? For after all, their viewpoint has always been that if the relationship with the same sex parent was resolved, if the gay person simply learned how to be a man, the lesbian embraced her femininity, then they would see the transgression as much as an anethema as normal people did. Are gay men, who transgress gender rules around desire, merely confused about what it means to be a man? Gays have spent the last 25 years fighting that notion, noting that homosexual behavior has existed at all times and in all cultures, and that there has never been a successful cure. They agrue that it is just a natural way some people are born. Are transgendered people born male, who transgress gender rules about expression, merely confused about what it means to be a man? TG people have spent the last 5 years fighting that notion, noting that transgender behavior has existed at all times and in all cultures, and that there has never been a successful cure. They agrue that it is just a natural way some people are born. The problematic challenges of decoupling sexual certainty from gender roles is something we have to face. How will we know who is who and what is what without men being male, women being female? Of course, this is also the agrument of those who are immersed in heterosexism -- if some men are gay, some women lesbian, how will we keep them apart? If we allow this, how can we have same sex barracks, allow people to serve closely together? Gays and lesbians demand the decoupling of sexual certainty from gender roles, and are facing those challenges even today. Transgender people ask for the same thing -- that the assumptions of sexual availiablity not be rigidly tied to gender. And today, bisexual people are questioning what it means even to identify as gay or lesbian. Is bisexuality also a confusion, something that is not queer, a transgressive behavior that gay people should not support? How do they create problematic challenges of desire? What is a woman? What is a man? Why should I want those things redefined? Maybe because the process of gender transgression and redefinition is key to the acceptance of all queer people -- including normal old homosexuals. Callan > Date: Sun, 11 May 1997 21:25:13 -0400 > From: "Jon (NCSilverBear)" > Subject: Re: Feeling Like A ________ > > I'm having some difficulty coming to an understanding about > why some find it necessary, or even desirable for that > matter, to redefine the words "woman" and "man", > "masculine" and "feminine", "female" and "male". > > As you (some of you) know, I don't think it is necessary to > make us all into some generic package which we then > attempt to sell as some sort of contrived "solidarity" of > human sexuality or civil rights platform. > > I do believe in the broad spectrum of individuals. I don't > care for labels, but, I can't understand what it is about > calling a woman a woman and still understanding that that > woman may exhibit and feel mostly the way which is > generally attributable to the masculine. I see no reason > to call a woman a man when it is not physically or > psychologically correct. > > I do not believe one can separate this discussion of sexual > identity attitude from what is medically pertinent. I do > not understand what logic there is in attempting to ignore > what is the historically accurate usage of words. > > I can not help but identify such reassignment, of commonly > defined words, as somehow psychologically dysfunctional-- > a profound confusion. From what I have read here, of the > arguments, it seems that some are having great difficulty > coming to terms with the broad range of feelings within > themselves and are attempting to somehow transfer that > discomfort to the responsibility of others outside of > themselves. To change what we are called to satisfy an > inner conflict is not an answer. I see this whole issue > as a mental health issue. > > It is not necessarily confusion about one's sexuality. > But, I have not heard a sound physiological or medical > reason to necessitate for reassignment of commonly > acceptable terms. > > I also have great difficulty understanding what is so > vitally important to the "gay" community that we should > embrace these confusions as a part of our "agenda", when > in fact, as many have stated here, they are NOT gay. > > I believe this is fragmented gay people. We are NOT all > the same. > > Understand that I support other's in their own need to be > recognized. But, I cannot understand what this has to do > with being "gay". > > I also still hold out that "queer" is NOT all these things. > I still remain in the "old school" which believes that > "queer" means "homosexual". And that some others, having > jumped on the band wagon, are now attempting to drive the > show. For instance, I can't help but wonder at most of > the vocal of authors here on this list/subject seem to > deny a homosexual identification -- if not in actuality, > then philosophically. I am not sure I have read anyone > who can identify as being "gay" who holds to these > re-definition theories (i.e. "man" <> "woman", etc.). I > certainly can give no anecdotal or incidental evidence > that "gays" are interested in spending vast amounts of > energy supporting such ideas. But, I am very new to this > thinking and realize my limitations. Some of you will > surely seek to inform me of my misconception. > > A good discussion. Perhaps if I continue to converse, I > will become better informed and in the process, convinced > that I am wrong. I struggle to keep my mind open to these > points of view. > > Jon (NCSilverBear) > Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 11:47:49 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Is Gender Bad? It has been interesting to watch the feedback on this list. Some have questioned the constructed nature of gender. Some have questioned the entire existence of gender. Is gender a bad thing? Should we be working towards a gender-free culture? I don't think so. Does erasing racism require the erasing of racial and ethnic identity? Should people be able to proudly stand and say "I am Black" or "I am African-American?" Erasing racism requires the erasing of non-consensual, of compulsory racial and ethinic identity. Should anyone be able to say "They are black, so they are X?" To say that means that we exert pressure on people to conform to norms for a group that we assign them to, for good or for bad -- we exert normative pressure. There is a difference between people outside of a group making those assessments and those inside a group doing the same, but they are borh normative pressures. Clearly whites who said "They are black, so they can be enslaved" were wrong. Are blacks who say "They are black, so they must not speak out against affirmative action" right or wrong? I think, for example, of blacks who speak out against conservative black voices -- is this a simple discussion of what the group who all call themselves "blacks" believe or a racist attempt to enforce stereotypes? This difference between sterotyping and assimilation is key. Do we work to be precieved as a __________ by acting the way people outside the group expect _________ to act -- that is, do we execute sterotypes? Do we work to be perceived as a ________ by acting the way people who also identify as a _________ expect to act -- that is do we assimilate into a group? This is one complaint that women have always lodged against transgender people born male, that they often excute a stereotype of women as seen from outside (by men) rather than assimilate and act as women expect other women to act. However, to respond to that behavior by stereotyping that person as a man, because they were born with a penis, is also a limiting behavior, the executing of our beliefs about another group. Normative pressure is powerful, and it will always be part of human socialization. We want kids to respect family morals and behaviors, we want the tribe to be able to come together and hang together to work together, we want others in society to follow basic rules of courtesy and fairness. However, everytime we have normative pressure we are faced with a choice -- to follow our hearts, or to follow the group. If we follow the group, we gain standing, recieve the rewards of being tame. If we follow our hearts, we gain personal integrity, lead the group into new areas, recieve the rewards of being free. Both are required. Is race bad? No. Is racism -- the sterotyping of members of a race -- bad? Yes. Is normative pressure to assimilate bad? I think this is where things get tricky, because it is up to every individual to be free to make their own choices about where to fit in and where to stand out, where to be normative and where to be transgressive. Where does normative pressure become coercive? How can we build alliances, work together without shared choices, beliefs, values and words? But how can we allow those shared choices to erase indvidual freedom, diverse thought and belief? Is gender bad? No -- people like being able to express themselves though gendered choices, need shared symbols to commuinicate with. Is heterosexism -- the sterotyping of people by birth sex -- bad? Yes. Is normative pressure to assimilate into a gender role bad? Sometimes. Most people love the play of gendered symbols, cueing desire -- from the sharp cut of suits to the silky play of lingerie, from the butch expression of well clipped hair to flowing tresses, from warmly hairy faces to red painted lips, and so on. Gender is a way to express our own desire and choices by visual, olfactory, verbal and tactile cues -- and that can be wicked fun. There are so many things we convey by symbol, gender, class, and much more -- to attract people to us, to communicate with them. Sometimes, though, people see those symbols and decide to reject us on the basis of them. Honest communications or simply stereotyping? When we choose a richly gendered path for ourselves, like butch/femme, we are faced with the lines of normative pressure. Are we simply copying limiting heterosexist sterotypes, or are we recreating gender roles with our own thoughtful mix of assimilation into shared symbols and transgressive choices that allow freedom of expression? From what I have seen, it is mostly the latter, though we must be aware of how easy it is to slip back into classic patterns that are oppressive and limiting. Kate Bornstein writes "I was man, I was not man, I was woman, I was not woman." This is her progression of assimilation and transgression, for without assimilating, learning the rules, we don't know which to break. Executing the sterotypes of a woman may allow being not man, but assimilating as a woman is required to be a woman -- and transgression of that role moves to not woman. Gender allows the claiming of idenity by using shared symbols and beliefs, the same as race, ethnicity, religion, political and so on. It is a form of communication of self, to say "I am like this, and not like that." If gendered symbols are not shared, don't have meanings assigned, then they do not serve their purpose of communications. When we see gendered symbols, do we assign our own meaning to them -- sterotype them -- or do we take a moment to figure out what the person using those symbols means by them? Do we understand them in our context or in theirs? Do we, if "we don't get it" think that we are not working hard enough to understand, or that they aren't working hard enough to be simple to understand? The challenge for me is freedom of gender expression, the right to claim those personal gender choices with shared beliefs but without sterotypes -- without the imposition of expectations based on cues. Don't make assumptions based on skin color, eye shape, last name, or genital configuration. The issue of choice always comes up. Clearly people cannot choose their skin color, though they can choose the level of ethinicity they display. People cannot choose the calls of their heart towards sexual partners, though they can choose how to express that. People cannot choose their birth parents, though they can choose to change religion or name. How much do we demand that people deny the call of their heart, the facts of their birth, the strength of their nature so that we will not make assumptions about them? In other words, we are all free to create our own expressions of self. We can choose to follow our heart -- be transgressive -- and suffer under the pressure of sterotyping and normative pressure, or we can choose to follow normative pressure and suffer under the pain of denying our heart. To force people to make that choice is where social pressure turns coercive. Is gender bad? Is the choice to take a certain role in a relationship, to make choices that are designed to attract and satisfy partners bad? Is the choice to express the call of your heart, even if it goes against norms, bad? I don't think so. But is being stereotyped for making those choices, by people inside or outside the group you choose to call yourself, bad? Absolutely. It's frustrating to be faced with the decision: be normative or suffer the consequences. It's frustrating to see images of people we think are like us and see those images as being sterotyped, without an acknowledgement of the full breadth of humanity in every one of us. To me, queer studies is not the study of a group, but of individuals. It acknowledges the notion that every one of us makes individual decisions about what we choose to express that is the same as the group, and what we choose to express that is different, transgressive. Is expression bad? No. Is the response to that expression bad? Only when that response is to assign a stereotype based on cursory examination, and to respond to that internal sterotype rather than to the individual in front of us. It is wrong to judge a person by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character, as a wise man once said. Where is the line between normative pressure and coercion? If gender is about coercion, it's bad. If gender is about individual expresssion, it's good. For me, that's why my agrument is not against gender, but about compulsory, coercive, gender -- the automatic assignment of a role based solely on genital configuration. We are all just humans, all individuals. I'm not sure what a gender free culture would look like. I worry that it might include a lot of Mao suits -- ick.. Gender is good. Heterosexism --even when practiced by homosexuals -- is bad. Or, at least, that's the way I see it. Callan Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 07:04:49 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Doing The Work. Does it require work to post on Queer Studies List? I have been on this list for a few years, and have had months go by without me posting,. I don't feel I have the obligation to reply to everything or right to use this bandwidth friviously, without thought, without work. I work to succinctly and clearly contribute rather than just shoot the bull. For me, I like doing one post a day, and then only if I there is some open topic I need to say something about. Doing one post gives me the challenge of saying what I think, offering my own work, rather than simply telling other people where they are wrong. It's easy to say "that theory is wrong" but it is hard to say "this is what I think is right." However, to me, this is the difference between an amateur and a professional attitude. A professional speaks about their own work in queer studies, offers their contribution to the field, and hopes for a critique from others based on the work that the others have done. An amateur -- or maybe a dillettante -- offers their opinions and not much work, not their own contributions, but their own feelings. Does queer studies involve work, if we do it as a vocation or an avocation? Does it require the work of understanding, researching, thinking, organizing, writing? I believe it does. But, as many have noted, we have many on this list who believe simply that being queer, in whatever way they define it, is sufficient standing, sufficient work to be able to tell people they are wrong, even in a bullying way. Much of what we hear on this list is "that's not true for me, and I'm queer, so you are wrong." What kind of study does that reflect? Does it even reflect study of self? Often times it does not -- there have been times when people have "flamed themselves," have posted contradictory ideas about who they are without any identification of those contradictions, any notice or work to resolve these contradictions. The "You're Wrong!" ball is one that once it starts rolling will roll faster and faster. "You're wrong!" "No your're wrong!," "No you're wrong!" and on and on. Of course, there are many times when that looks like a good game. It's so simple to pck apart many of these arguments, to point out contradictions, to identify bullying and coercive normative pressure, that I want to join the game, tell people where they are wrong. I want to question the thoughtless responses, the limited point of view. But I know that it's like a bar fight -- once you even defend yourself, you are seen as part of the fracas. I joined this list because it is an academic forum to talk about queer studies, not a gab session about our lives and our beliefs -- there are many other very good forums for that. I want to be able to talk about how we see the world working and not have someone jump in and say "Well, it shouldn't work that way! How can you say that!" I say that because this is not an activism list, though we study activism, not a list focused on how things should be, but on understanding how things are, and where change is occuring. For me, without having a clear picture of the forces in our lives, everything from the effects of the closet, which include dissociation and dissimilation, to the role of the media, which we may think "gets it wrong," but is still an enormously powerful force, is the key to queer studies. Sure, most of us want change in the world, but that change requires first thoughtful understanding, not just heated opinions. For me, the challenge is doing your own work. What study have you made that allows you to talk about the topics that are raised? What is your contribution to understanding, rather than your view of error? How can you engage the ideas of others rather than parrot your own beliefs? When transgender and the pressures around that come up on this list, I believe I can contribute. I can't contribute to the study of gay men very much, for example, so I don't even try -- I just listen to the discussion, learn something new that may help my own work, my own understanding of other topics, maybe ask a question here or there. I know that I can get bashed for this. Some of the posters have made it clear that they feel academics have no place talking about their lives, that Ph.Ds are by definition too immersed in theory to understand their lives. To me, this is insulting and offensive on what is clearly chartered as an academic list, much like walking into an electronic meeting of Black people and saying "Black people just don't get it, are all misled." Most of us are both queer and "studiers" -- scholars -- and having both our queer and academic credentials dismissed in a forum dedicated to queer studies is simply rude. In any case, in the roil of posts, I find it hard to understand what people are trying to say. Often, I supect it is because they don't know what they are trying to say themselves. They are simily trying to convey some sort of feeling of being dissmissed, lost, invisible, offended, squicked, or some other emotion, and wrap some instant "logic" around that to make the point -- or maybe just to kick back at the person they felt kicked them and hurt their feelings. Do feelings play a part in queer studies? How can they not? But do we have the obligation to understand those feelings of ours, keep them in check so that the forum stays safe for others to express their thoughts, rather than a minefield of hot headed people that can feel like an enormous political correctness committee ready to censure "improper" thoughts? I work hard to collect my thoughts, separate them from the flares of emotion I feel, and check them to see of they hang together, are coherent and not fragmented. Then I put them together and write them down. I know my posts are long, and some don't read them because of that, but I work hard to also keep them concise and succinct. I reread and edit them, focus them. Maybe this is easier because I get a digest, all the posts of one day in one message, so I can see some sort of context rather than just disjointed messages. I do this because I respect the time and work of others, my fellow scholars engaged in queer studies. Would it be nice if others gave this respect to the list and the other 1000 or so people on it? I think so. But I suspect that some people feel differently about their right to their own voice. Callan Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 15:50:22 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Untwisting The Pretzel A therapist friend who works with a lot of TG people argues that all TG people have a dissociative thought disorder. She sees this as by-product of being closeted, rather than as some basic disfunction, that the challenge of having two (or more) lives that often barely touch lead people into some really disconnected thoughts. To be out and TG in this culture requires a great deal of ignorance of the social stigma against expressing TG, to be able to believe that you are fittting in while also knowing that you are breaking all the rules -- or at least some of the big ones. Every TG person has to build their own mental structures to manage this trick -- after all, how else do you live in the face of constant rejection and humilation? When every teenage kid who is being humilated to be gender normative every day in school feels empowered to laugh at you for your transgression, you have to have a thick skin, strong defenses to be visibibly transgendered. There are two primary models. In one, the Prince crossdresser model, the TG person is a normal man in a dress, and in the other, the Benjamin transsexual model, the TG person is a normal woman who happened to be born with a big dick. There are other models, of course, from drag queen to Lou Sullivan FTM, but they all involve some sort of twisting to simply survive in the world. In most cases, the goal is "passing" as being born the appropriate sex for your gender -- lying about your body and your history. It becomes very easy to ignore when people may be noticing that lie. Personally, the biggest block for me in expressing transgender in this world has been looking into the faces of other transgendered people and seeing how unpleasant the dissociative disorder, that self centered life, looks on them. I knew that I didn't want to become insensitive and unresponsive to culture, but neither did I want to be forced to live a lie by humilation and stigma. This is still the challenge I face. I can look in people's eyes when they fear me, and I know the basis of that fear: "If this man -- for he must be a man if he is male -- is crazy enough, so beyond normative pressure, that he can actually wear a dress, then he is probably capable of anything. He is so self centered, so disconnected that he is terrfying." Add to that a fast mind and a good eye, and I can terrify anyone, without any attempt on my part. When a certain person showed up here, I sent her a private mail, both inviting her to conversation, and talking about what I liked about Queer Studies, sharing traditions and tips. In other words, I reached out to someone that I suspected was a sister with some feedback, some help. Not only were my comments ignored but my private mail to her, stripped of my name, was copied to the list in her reply. I told her that I felt this was a breach of nettiquette and she replied that she did not see it as a breach of netiquette, except by my defintion. She was further offended that I would even think about having a private conversation. In other words, she ignored my feelings, decided I was against her, burned me off, pushed full speed ahead. She acted like the worst image of transgender, a person who was so unable to hear what the culture, what other people, were saying, so deep in her mental closet, that she was beyond being held accountable for her choices. I very much understand where this anger, rejection, and inability to hear comes from. In many ways, it is required to survive as a TG person. But it must also be balanced with intelligence, with knowing what to ignore because it is coercive pressure and what should be listened to because it is constructive feedback. This is VERY hard, for me and for every transgendered person. I work hard to try to keep my thoughts connected. I did point out a few places where they were not connected, not the least of which was claiming that she was transgendered and she was not transgendered but normative at the same time. I do understand this in some way. I am transgendered and normative at the same time, and get pressure from both sides, find it difficult to keep my own balance between transgressive and assimilated, between wild and tame. It's hard for me. On one hand, I believe that we are all individuals, and any individual's many posts and disjointed thoughts reflect only on her. But I also know that some people were seeing her as a transgendered person, creating or reinforcing stereotypes based on her behavior that seemed anti-social, unreponsive and out of control. When she ignored the messages of propriety, refused to let ettquite stop her -- as she has to everyday to just show up in the world -- she may reflect badly on all TG people. I suppose I should take some solace in the fact that this person has claimed she is not transgendered, merely a normal woman with a penis, a non-operative transsexual. But the truth is that I feel badly -- both for this list, this community that I respect and honor, and for an individual TG person who has had to face unspeakable pressure just to be herself. I believe in transgendered people, in their essential gifts, their capabilty to contribute a great deal from their special perspective. I believe that they are very valuable, wonderful fascinating people. But I also know that to simply survive in this culture requires TG people to twist their emotions, thoughts and beliefs like a pretzel, to fit in the boxes and ignore the walls at the same time. They can easily get beyond being responsive, tied up in their own defense, locked in their own barbed wire, as Minnie Bruce Pratt calls it. This is why I agrue strongly for acknowledging our transgression, something that people who have spent all their life working desparately to be normative, and failing -- like having potential partners reject us because of our atypical gentials, or having people be afraid of us -- find this acceptance very hard. I am very compassionate to people who make these claims - to be seen as transgressive is very hard. But I also know that unless we take responsibility for our choices, we will always be beyond society, alone and apart. I claim that only by giving up the limits we have taken on to survive can we actually thrive. If we are not honest and open, we will always be lost. It's probably true -- but I assure you that it ain't easy in a culture that demands people be one or the other. I understand I have been flamed me for simply saying that we should honor the charter of the list, the rules of the forum, the consensus of the group or shut up. I understand the underlying challenge -- how many charters that do not include us must we honor, how many rules against us must we obey, how many consensuses that say we are too queer, too scary, must we respond to? In other words, won't being normative erase us? But will being transgressive -- even against the traditions of the list -- lose us standing, disconnect us? Hard choices. How queer is too queer, how queer is not queer enough? How socialized is socialized enough, how socialized is too socialized? Where must we respond to culture and where must we follow our own heart? I, for one, don't have any easy answers But I do know that each individual must find their own answer, their own mix of transgressive and normative that is right for them, and both reap the rewards and suffer the consquences of that choice. Callan (who accepts responsibility for these words and any flames that come because of them.) Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 09:51:54 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: I'll take "Short Attention Spans" for $100, Alex. Where does behavior turn from distinctive to deviant? from atypical to abnormal? from marking to separating? from normative to transgressive? Where does socializing turn from persausion to pressure? from influence to intimidation? from fedback to force? from criticism to coercion? from differentiation to discrimination? from taming to bullying? This is, to me, the heart of queer studies. I will agrue that when you call writing an "absurd rant," as Jon did to me, or an "elitist rant" as Roberta did to me, you have crossed the line. Rather than engaging & honoring the thoughts of anothe, you trash them to try to shut someone up, engage coercive pressure -- as you also do when you call them "simply useless." Viz: > Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 17:55:08 -0400 > From: "Jon (NCSilverBear)" > Subject: Re: Callan is right > > I happen to agree with Callan on this one (Sorry to NOT > disagree, Callen, but, I think you are correct. And I > appreciate several of your last contributions, having > saved them for future reference. I thought to myself > after reading through one of them that you must have taken > it from something you'd already done -- not many people > are able to respond as quick and also be that articulate > -- and for the life of me, I cannot remember why we used > to go 'round! ). > > However, Hilton.Brown, it would be helpful to me if you > could point out where my academia has failed to meet your > particular standards. > > This outright "flame" is not helpful to me and certainly I > would have difficulty in amending my way based on it. > > Now, should it be that you simply disagree with something > I've written, then that is another story altogether. Or, > if you just don't like my style, that is a point I can > understand. > > But, otherwise, your post is simply useless, Hilton.Brown. > > Hugs anyway. > > Jon (NCSilverBear) > >Hilton.Brown@MVS.UDEL.EDU wrote: >> >> I've not entered into the discussions here before, but after weeks of >> frustration and immediate deletions of any postings by Roberta and >> Jon, I must add my voice to this list to say that Callan's last post >> is right on target. It's an outright flame, in Jon's book, to say that someone is "frustrating" and that one chooses to delete their posts. But, "alleged transgender," calling words "utterly useless" is not a flame. Saying "What the hell does this absurd rant mean?" is seen by Jon as "productive dialogue" and confronting "fabrications of prejudices," according to a post of his from 4/29/97. What allows the maintinance of oppression, be it racism, heterosexism, or any other ism? It is the firm belief that we, as an individual, aren't doing it -- we are just being honest, true and helpful. It is the ability to say two separate and contradictory ideas without ever seeing the contradictions. It is the twists in our thinking that come out of our socialization that maintain the status quo, however oppressive it is. If we live completely in a situational world, then the ethics of our actions will always be unquestioned. The role of academics is critical analysis to discern patterns, see constructs that are invisible in the moment, but show themselves over time or across groups. It is also the role of a therapist to help clients identify the limiting patterns in their own life that they do not see in the moment. I'm pleased that Jon now sees my comments as valuable, and I will tell him that no words that I have posted on this list are from my previous work, though the ideas have been worked on for some time. I also suspect he will remember why we tangled and be less than thrilled with me after this note. But when I see obvious bullying behavior in the list digest, three messages after a promise to be more considerate, I see a disconnect between thought and action, the ability to miss the patterns of one's own life. I see an unconcious kneejerk reaction, rather than a concious and considered response. Steven Covey: "Freedom lies only in the moment between stimulus and response." How have we internalized the normative pressure of culture? How do we just spit it back out rather than working to negotiate our own blend of transgression & normativity, of wild & tame, and to accept & embrace the blends of others? How do we learn to make concious and considered responses rather than preprogrammed and disjointed reactions? How do we learn to be open to feedback and use that information to help us become more clear, less tied to old behaviors? Whatever the answer, a short attention span, a purely situational approach, avoiding seeing the patterns we repeat, doesn't seem to be the best tack. Callan (or as Jon has often written it, "Callen") Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 10:20:23 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Avenging Angels There are some theories that say that the world stays in balance though the action and reaction, that a push one way always creates an opposing force in the other direction. This is not an easy world for queer kids to grow up in, caught between the shame and humilation of their differences and the implanted dreams of normativity that are given to every child in this culture. At the same time they are told that they should be rich and famous and that they should be ashamed and humilated. A friend works with kids, and he has given up on sociopaths, the kids who will kill for a pair of Nikes. "The only problem with these kids is that they have internalized the lessons of the world," he says. "They know what they should have, so they go and get it." Most queer kids find a middle ground, a way to be both true to themselves and to be effective in culture. But some don't -- they end up living in their own realities, realities where their pain and hurt and abuse are only assuaged by thier anger and manipulation of those they see have kept them from what is rightfully theirs. They strike out in pain and anger, in all different forms -- manipulation, deceit, assualts with phony logic, and sometimes even with a .40 caliber handgun. In some ways, I see these children, now adults, as avenging angels, strking back at a society that tore them apart. This is NOT to say that they shouldn't be held accountable for their actions, but it is to say that their actions are not incomprehensible to me. Their desire for a better life and their anger at that life being denied means that they can strike out at those who they see as taking away what they deserve. I would love to be able to ease the pain of each of these children, to see that they do have the power to build a good life for themselves if they transcend their abuse and take responsibility for their choices, but the truth is that some of these kids have been twisted so badly that they are unable to see those possibilities, to move beyond their own hurt. When I look at people who strike out, lash out with words, actions or even weapons, I often see not simply a warped human but the system that left them that way, the structures that tried to bend them against their own heart until they snapped, cracked like a timber that couldn't stand the strain. These avenging angels remind me that our system, the one that supports and socializes children can break them, leave them shattered and in so much pain that they see no other way to get what they felt was promised them than to take it. Rather than building their own lives, they attack the lives of others, become destructive rather than constructive. I can understand their anger at the system and the symbols that represent it. I can even understand their choice not to contribute but to destroy. If there is any value in these avenging angels, it only comes if we look at them as human, not just as cowards or monsters or insane. We cannot approve of their actions, but we can look at a system that triggers and then denounces such behavior. Very few of these avenging angels will ever take another persons life, but I suspect we all know people who we see as striking out, acting from their pain and anger rather than from a real urge to enter dialogue, an urge to destroy to build rather than to build. We see their words, reel from their behaviors, and learn to stay away from them. The queer community, in a very real way, has many of these twisted and shattered people, and we all know some of them -- some who destroy community, some who destroy themselves, some who destroy others -- and all who destroy love and caring. Most of us can probably find a bit of that feeling in our own hearts, know it well. In my view, we must both give these people compassion for their history and demand that they take responsibility for their actions. We cannot let the unhealed avenging angels set the tone for us, to allow them to run free. However, we cannot ignore the fact that these people are a direct reaction to a system designed to mold and shape people into normativity, a system that often cracks and splinters poor kids, queer kids, ethnic kids, forcing them to do much more healing than those whose hearts fit easily into the molds. These avenging angels are a sign of a system out of balance. I just want to help reconstruct the system so it gives more support to the diverse hearts of children -- and breaks fewer of them in the process. Callan Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 20:47:46 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: RuPaul & The Queer-O-Meter It's true. RuPaul is as queer as a three-dollar bill. On second thought, that might not be true. I bet we can think of queerer people than Ru -- people like FFloyd and Tribe8. *They* are as queer as a three dollar bill. But, still, Ru is at least $2.73 worth of queer. And that's a heck of a lot of queer to be on a regularly scheduled and widely available TV program. Not all homosexuals are as queer as a three dollar bill. Barney Frank, for example, is only about $1.56 worth of queer. But put that up against Jesse Helms' $0.32 cents worth of queer, and it looks very good, especially for an US representative who has a whole district of people to work for. The problem comes if people think that because Ru is queer as a three dollar bill, then every queer must be like that. I don't buy that. I think people like Ru set the edges of queerness, of diversity, and by pushing those edges they open up the space for the rest of us. "Well, Joe is gay," says a straight coworker, "but he's not as queer as RuPaul, for example." There is a story of a group working for intergration. "I was yelling 'Intergration Now! Intergration Now!'" said one man, "and Sam comes in and says 'No. Let's do it in stages -- we'll do the pool on Monday, the rink on Tuesday, and so on.' After me, that sounded like a reasonable compromise to them, so we got what we wanted!" A friend, who tends towards cocktail dresses and pearls with his own balding hair and no makeup, went to a gay men's retreat. He noted that lots of men came up and talk about their own gender challenges. He guessed they felt safe because he was a 9 on the gender transgression scale, and these 3's felt safe talking to him because their own queerness seemed managable and small in comparsion -- though they would not have opened up if the queerest person there was only a 4. He's the mascot now, invited back to bring a bit of fun and a taste of queerness to the events. Does publically showing that people can be as queer as a three dollar bill mean that people will assume everyone is like that, or does it open up space for people who are maybe $2.14 worth of queer to feel safe and healthy, to know that the edges are already pushed out a bit for them, and that success is even possible? Well assimilated queers serve a great purpose in making the world safer for queers. I also think that way out queers, in their own way, also serve the important purpose of moving the boundaries and making more room for the political & social workers to do their jobs. A symbiotic relationship, as it were. Wild or tame, we all do our job -- and the more focus we put on complaining that another isn't doing their job well, the less focus we put on doing our own job well. Callan (who wonders how others scale their own queer-o-meters) Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 02:11:47 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: is pedophilia queer? Pedophila is very queer. However, it is not consensual, because the objects are below the age of consent. This makes it, in my mind, both queer and unacceptable. Conversations about the ability of people below the legal age of consent (which varies from juristiction to jurustiction) to actually give informed consent to sex, or to even intiate sexual contract are hard but important. Some have argued in the past, that nobody who consents to any queer sex, expecially that involving pain, is clearly not thinking right and is not able to consent. To try to cut pedophila off from queerness seems to be to try to create a false separation. To talk about how queers have responsbility to those who cannot truly consent, to not coerce people into sex without their real consent is a key issue. Callan In a message dated Sat, 26 Jul 1997 16:49:29 -0400, Big Dog writes: >On Saturday, July 26, 1997 4:31 PM, Robin Maltz[SMTP:ram3616@IS2.NYU.EDU] >wrote: > >> I was reading an article about the Roman Catholic diocese in Dallas which >> was held liable for the cover-up of the sexually abusive behavior of one of >> it's priests towards young boys. I was wondering if dykes and queers think >> of him as gay or as a pederast or as both. My opinion is that pedophilia >> falls outside of hetero/homo/queer identity. > >I agree with you. It is a totally separate issue from sexual identity. > >C >-- >"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent" - Eleanor Roosevelt ><> >http://www.concentric.net/~abigdog/Butch Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 07:43:37 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: The Constant Question: What is Queer? What is queer? To me, queer is transgressive gender behavior, particularly sexual behavior that transgresses the normative forms in the culture -- men doing things that men are not supposed to do, women doing things that women are not supposed to do. This makes homosexuality queer, although that seems to be changing as it becomes more normative and accepted. Questions of assimilation often pop up in this discussion. What is pedophila? To me, the notion of someone molesting a three year old is much different than a 30 year old man having a relationship with a 15 year old boy, but in many states they are seen as the same. Even the 18 year old boy who got his 15 year old girlfriend pregnant in Wisconsin has been labeled as a sex offender for life. Because culture tends to lump all these "deviant" behaviors together, Queers, by definition, have to sort out the messy threads between destructive and unacceptable desire -- "sick desire" -- and what is not normative but yet is not destructive. Remember that for many years, and still in over 20 states, same-sex relations between "consenting adults" are illegal, sex crimes. In short, queers don't have the luxury of using a broad brush to paint people as sick, for they are the ones who have been splashed by that brush. To me, the line is simple: healthy relations demand consent. This is not an easy or simple question -- the British have said that there are certain acts that cannot be consented to, for example. Can one ever consent to being a prostitute, or does that always come from economic, emotional coercion, or does consent to being a prostitute show an sickness that means you cannot really consent, a Catch-22 situation? There is no doubt that people who molest young children should be stopped and punished. Their acts violate people -- children -- who we agree cannot consent to relations, who must be coerced. But their acts are clearly transgressive sexuality, out of the gender norms, no matter how much we want a nice line to separate ourselves from these people, separate our actions from theirs. My suggestion of where to draw this line is the line of consent, that it is when we force people into sex that we break the rules, if that sex is homo, hetro or anything else. This, of course, brings up the discussion of what consent can mean, who can consent, and can consent to deviant sexuality -- even sodomy between two mature adults -- can be consensual. I don't want to be in the same boat with people who molest children, by definition molest them against their will, either. But because we face the same laws, same social pressures, and same stigma as people with deviant sexuality, we are in the same boat, and it is our job to start finding lines that divide "heathy" deviant sexuality from "unhealthy" deviant sexuality, and I suggest that line is consent. Any kneejerk line that says: "But they are sick!" means that we do the same to them as many moralists do to gays & lesbians: "But they are sick!" If we want more than that from culture then we must give more than that to the people who *we* wish to have controlled and stopped because of their deviant and transgressive sexuality. Callan Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 09:36:12 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Edges of Coercion In my view, deviant sex is fine, but sex obtanined by coercion is a violation and the offender should be punished. What does that mean? It means that the 15 year old boy who gets on the internet and trolls for an older sexual partner is one case, and the 15 year old boy who is being raped by his hockey coach is quite another. People who act in positions of power that can be coercive -- a boss, a therapist, a parent, a teacher, a pimp, whatever -- must be held to a higher standard than those who do not have such power over their partner's lives. I have no problem with defining coercive sex as rape, using a force -- physical or otherwise -- to induce the unwilling consent of a person. One issue, however, is how much deception constitutes rape. If you believe things about your sex partner that turn out to be false, or you find out things that you did not know, and these things, if orignally known, would have caused you to deny consent, is that rape? In this case, age becomes an issue. Beyond the age of emancipation, we are expected to do our own due dillagence on our potential partners, but young people have an expectation of some social protection becuse of their dependant status. While there are some laws to protect people who steal property by deception, it is very hard to make a law that protects our dignity in the same way -- we have to protect that for ourselves. These issues of coercion become very hard. If someone promises you money for sex, and you need that money because you have none, are you being coerced into sex? Clearly, if that someone stole your money, you are being extorted for sex, but if they didn't then you are entering into a contract to trade something you have -- sex, intimacy, dignity, your body, whatever -- for something you need, which is money. Moralists might tell us that this is always wrong, that no one can actually enter into this contract because it is illegal and immoral, any more than they could enter into a contract to be killed. They will say that by definition, prostitution is an act of coercion, and that any one who enters into it has been coerced and should be protected by society because they are clearly incapable of rational thought because they are under duress. Others might tell us, however, that people have a right to their own body and can do what they will with it, trade it for what they need, and point out that many marriages are just that, the trading of a body for access to money and property. They will say that the entire heterosexist paradigm, where females get sex, emotion & family and males get money & property is inherently a coercive system -- both must enter into contracts to get what they want, what is denied to their gender by the system. These, to my mind, are the issues of queerness, the questions of coercion and sex, of gender rules and boundaries that we face everyday. The answers are far from black and white -- many couples marry for love, many people succumb to the coreceion of culture without any attempt to resist it, many people feel both internally compelled and coerced at the same time. It's very easy to say "Normal sex is what I do, and deviant sex is what they do," but that is very simplistic and limiting, because it does not acknowledge and honor the diversity of people. If we wish to be respected in our diverse & queer expression, than we must respect the diverse expression of others, even in their sexual practices Others will make sexual choices that we find odd or even repulsive -- like some of us find het-marriage -- but we need to honor them. How do we, though, make sure that we don't support sexuality that damages other people? It means that we must demand that sex be between people who can and do consent to the practice, who are not coerced in their choices. This also means acknowledging that people have the capacity to make their own choices, that they have free will. We cannot assume that anyone who makes a deviant choice is acting out of some childhood trauma or sick impulse and should be stopped for their own good, as many moralists would agrue about gays, lesbians and bisexuals. The world cannot be set up to protect people from themselves, from their own deviant impulses, or we will not be able to act on our own choices that society does not approve of. We often hear of people who, after the fact, say that they must have been coerced into their actions, that their partner was unfair and manipulative. They pass responsibility for their choices off to another person, to a system, to a world that forced them to do someone elses bidding. They gave to get a return, but when that return did not materialize, they felt manipulated and coerced. In this case, we may feel forced to make a judgement, to decide if this is a case of coercion or one of misplaced expectations, or even of someone rewrititing the facts to remove their complicity. We make these estimations all the time as humans, because we understand that mainpulation is what humans do -- we work with others in order to get what we want. We trade, share, bargain and convince to build a culture, a community, a life. Our skills at both sides of this manipulation are a key component of what we expect from an adult, and much of business law, for example, is about these very aspects of the negotiations we make everyday. We demand a sense of morality in this manipulation, usually asking that someone state their true intent rather than deciving us, that they play fair and honor the other person, that they take responsibility for not coercing people, but the line between concvincing and coercing is always one we dance around. Where does coercion start? Clearly, 5 year olds must be protected by culture, but should 40 year olds expect the same level of protection from their own ability to make that decision? We must protect those we consider vulnerable, like the mentally challenged, but we must also allow freedom of choice to those we consider mature adults. Can people actually sanely, thoughtfully and with reasonable understanding of the conseqences agree to deviate strongly from the norms of culture, even into the areas that some would call "sick"? As a queer, I would agrue strongly that they can and must be given that feedom. Must we protect people from untoward coercion? Yes, there must be some element of protection, of watching out for the good of the tribe and its members by the rest of culture. It's just another challenge of wild and tame, of freedom versus order, of individuals versus the mass that we face everyday. Callan Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 07:02:33 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Emotion and Queer Studies. Robin Maltz writes: >The shape that this argument on pedophilia can take (and did take last year) >is a case in point why dykes and queers need to be regarded as separate. >Dykes overwhelmingly see pedophilia as tantamount to rape and queers are >much more open to discussing it on a much less emotionally fraught level >(any detractors?). Perhaps some queers think about their own experience >coming out as a teenager and being mentored by an older man and some dykes >think about being fucked by their male relatives. Maybe not. Either way, I >have yet to read on this list a male's account of horror at pedophilia and a >dyke respond unemotionally. > >Dykes and queers have separate histories, sexualities, and dykes are >subordinates to queers within the persistently male-focused field of queer >theory. (Would men be included in a discipline called "dyke theory?" Is the >term "lesbian" all-inclusive like the universal "gay?") Why should females >tolerate the subsumption of their sexualities and identities under the >rubric "queer"? > >Robin Maltz Much of the actions of pedophiles, if not the vast majority of them, is rape. Lots of lesbians feel that way, and lots of homosexuals feel that way, and lots of queer scholars feel that way. The question is not belief that abusing a child is rape and must be stopped, the question is what is queer studies. I believe that one of the key points of scholarship is being able to discuss issues that are emotionally charged without succumbing to the emotional content, to use both ration and emotion to look at powerful forces. Anyone -- dyke or fag -- who gets so emotionally tied up that they can only denounce or be revulsed by something is probably not studying it, but rather is politicizing it. There is a need for poltics, no doubt, for succumbing to the gut wrenching emotion that much transgressive behavior brings up, for acting from somewhere other than rational thought. I'm just not sure that place is called "studies" of any kind. It is not just women who are squicked by many topics of transgression, as Jon and others will be happy to tell you. However, to assume that because women have emotions their studies have to be "fraught" with them is, in my opinion, to limit the thought and analysis of women. Emotion is a kay componnent in any analysis, but when rational thought is completely subsumed into emotion we all lose. Why should females be denied their capacity to theorize beyond emotion by a set of belief that demands that they remain horrified and afraid of the material that they are discussing? Callan Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 08:59:42 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Emotional Thought, Thoughtful Emotion OK. I'll admit it. As cool and calm and rational as I am, I find the abuse of children stomach-turning, nauseating, vile. I have sobbed at the novels of Andrew Vachss, who writes powerfuly about the abuse and adultification of children. I have fumed at emotional stories on TV news magazines about criminals who have abused children. I have seen kids I just wanted to scoop up in my arms and give them a safe place away from the horror of their lives. I find the rape of children despicable, totally inexcusable and certainly totally irrational. I suspect that I am not alone in this. Most of us have some sort of parenting instinct, some instinct to protect and nurture children, male or female. It is a natural, healthy and good thing, and will always be a part of me. Emotions, though, are a funny thing. They kick in pre-programmed routines, tend to make us stop thinking and play out some behavior of the body. They press our buttons and make us dance from some forgotten memory, some limbic response. For me, as a transgendered woman, I knew one thing -- that my emotions were tearing me apart. On one hand I had the emotions that told me to express my femme heart, and on the other the emotions of fear and shame that told me that expressing that heart was horrible. I had dreams and the feeling that following those dreams was sick, depraved, destructive, damaging. In other words, between the two knee-jerk emotions I had wired into me, I was kicking myself to death. I found that I had to start to use my mind to explore my heart, the seat of all that raw and tumultous emotion. I did this though intelectual rigor, though I have many friends who did it another way, often though s/m or other sex play that allowed them to experiment with emotions and feelings. Up from the crotch or down from the heart, it is a journey into the same dark heart of emotion. My goal was simple: to unwire those buttons and start responding from a considered place rather than simply reacting by kicking out. Steven Covey says "the only freedom is in the moment between stimulus and response," and I knew it was true. If I wanted to be free I had to take that moment and use it well, not just play out old emotional tapes. In many ways, I was an abused kid -- coerced into a way of life by a society and family that "knew what was best for me." The Japansese say "the nail that sticks up gets pounded down," and like many queer kids, that pounding left me with plenty of fear, pain and raw emotion. I have come, in the long run, to honor my emotions, to know and trust what I am feeling is my own true voice and not canned bits of fear that others wired in their years ago. By listening closely I learned to hear the difference between my voice and the voice of my parents, of society, of those around me. This is my link to queer studies, to the discipline of understanding the emotional voices in the culture and sorting them out, letting us see patterns, erratic and erotic, that limit us, keep us in old ways that do not allow the blossoming of diverse thought, ideas and actions. It is my call to the examination of the transgressive to see where the lines of freedom and order are drawn now, and how to change those lines of wild and tame so we can have a more diverse and empowered future. I see many people who also struggle with these torn hearts, these crises of emotion, and they respond in a different way. Many of them seem to simply channel their knee-jerk reactions, simply rationalizing without being rational. They rework their visceral responses to include themselves in some chosen group and to include anyone who disagrees with them -- anyone who pushes their buttons, triggers the knee-jerk -- outside their circle. Rather than expand their own comfort zone by going inside, they attempt to keep people and ideas that make them uncomfortable outside that zone with walls and defenses. Maybe I am lucky, for there is no simple place for a bisexual transgendered woman to go inside of these enclaves, these big closets -- we tend to push too many buttons, make too many people uncomfortable. That means that I either had to live only inside my own walls a small closet, becoming self-centered and egotistical, or to learn to live without walls. I need other people, so I had to learn to unwire my buttons rather than just to find a way to keep people from pushing them. Does this mean that I don't have emotions? Absolutely not! What it does mean though, is that I do not simply succumb to my emotions, that they are only part of my response to any idea, person or situation. I try to stay open to learning, even if what I am learning about seems distasteful or queer. I want to know that I am not being lead by fears and responses that do not serve me, to open myself up to the possibilities of life. I also know that closets put people into their own little worlds of rationalizations, beyond social control, and sometimes I wonder if deviants who desire abusive behaviors could openly speak about them, rather than leaving them in the closet, if then there would be more healing and less abuse. What does my gender have to do with all of this? Can you determine that I can think rationally because I was born male and raised (without my consent) as a man? Can you determine that my compassion and emotions come only because I am transgendered with a femme heart? Does my sexual history -- whatever that is -- define who I am? What does define who I am is the path I have taken to learn who I am, to intergrate and harmonize body, heart, mind and spirit. For me, that path required facing the emotions that tore me apart, required taking control of them rather than letting only those visceral responses determine the course of my life. This requires thoughtful understanding of emotion with the goal of creating emotional thought that honors all parts of who I am. Stepping away from emotion to learn the discipline of thought was an important part in my process. It is what allows me to discuss and deal with even that which I find emotionally offensive, rather than simply acting like a fundamentalist who does not think and feel together. This is important to me, because it is what I need and demand of people I meet -- that they not simply cut me off because I make them uncomfortable in my transgendering, but rather that they use all parts of themselves to find where we connect, that they stay open and accepting enough to allow space for my diverse expression and my essential humanity. I suspect that many queers want the same thing -- a society where people, rather than just reacting from their emotions to transgression, respond with all their capactites, and though that open and many layered response, build a world that is more diverse, more healthy and safer for all of us. Callan Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 08:24:21 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Opening The Door David Barnett writes >The issue is less clear to me with the example of the 15 year old girl and >the 18 year old boyfriend but I am uncomfortable with opening the door to >make it easier for those who want to prey on children to get access. This, I think, is the heart of the agrument anyone makes against deviant sexuality: if we open the door to deviant sex, or any sex outside of sanctioned marriage, becoming accepted, don't we open the door to things we don't want? Doesn't acceptance of homosexual behavior, of sodomy, start us on the slippery slope to moral and social decay and the abuse of people? In other words, won't change allow abuse of that change? Won't accepting more diversity allow people who shouldn't be tolerated to slip through? We, as queers, fight this agrument everyday. "Better safe than sorry -- even though this individual may be OK, acknowledging their rights would open the door to even more people that we would not accept. Better that we just not change things, that some people suffer the denial of dignity and rights than one abuser slip though." My point is simple: If we want change, change that allows more freedom and maintains social order, then we have to take the risk of opening the door to that change. We have to take the risk that opening the door to more open discussion of children's sexuality, of adults desire to sexualize children will allow light in and will help disinfect the sickness of adults preying on children that we all abhor. To say that the solution to a problem is more social control, more isolation, more emotional slamming of the closet door so it stays firmly shut means that we don't take responsibility for what happens in the darkness -- and like it or not, that dark space is part of this culture and is affecting many children who grow up to be adults everyday. The only way that we can get a handle on that dark blight that drives people to molest children is to start to talk about it, to underststand the motivations, to address the causes and not just the symptoms. We cannot let our very real and very visceral loathing of the actions of pedophiles to both stop us from getting to the heart of the problem, and much worse, deny the rights and truths of people by keeping the door closed in the process. I have NEVER said that sexual molestation of children was anything other than rape. I have NEVER spoken for these abusers not to be dealt with and the abuse of children stopped. I have spoken for the notion that the way we deal with this is to bring it into the light, to respond in more than an emotional way to solve the problems. I have spoken against the notion that the best way to deal with this is to keep the door firmly shut on all areas of sexuality and people we define as children. And I have also spoken for the notion that queers, those who practice what is defined in many states as deviant sexuality, don't have the luxury of demaning the door not be opened. We, of all people, know the costs of the closet, and know that the only way to heal, even heal things as abohorrent as an expidemic of sexual abuse of children, is to bring it into the light, look at it, and sort out the pieces. In many ways, we get what we expect. To expect people to be abusers, to treat all men as child abusers, or as rapists, can mean that we get more of that behavior. WE need to raise our expectations of humans, expect that they can act with respect and dignity towards others. We need to focus on those who do violate, not to fear everyone who might violate, or we live in a society where fear of deviants reigns -- a fear that may create even more behaviors that we do not want. Accepting me is opening the door to the possibility that the next person will come out, starting down the slippery slope to look at all deviant sexualities. I don't believe the goal is to let me out of the door and then slam it behind me, leaving all the others in there. We need to let them all out where we can see them, then to find a way to intergrate "them" into the social order, which means that "they" do not violate other people behind closed doors. I agree that we must deal with the gut-twisting issue of the abuse of children. I just don't believe we do that by slamming the door shut in an emotional rage -- and letting polticians use that rage to slam even more doors of fear shut. I believe we have the hard work to do of opening that door, sorting out the pieces and healing what we can, rather than simply trying to patch up the effects. We need to open the door to grow and become healthy -- even if that means we expose that which we would rather not see. Callan (who doesn't believe that pedophiles are part of a "queer community" either, even if they are queer because they are sexually transgressive -- but who is also not sure there is a "queer community.") Date: Wed, 30 Jul 1997 09:54:46 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Rape vs. Childrens Sexuality Michael, Terry I would like to thank both of you for fighting for a separation of the issues of rape --sex without consent -- and sexuality that involves children, either the sexuality of children themselves or the sexuality of people who see children as objects of desire. I think this kind of examination is crucial to opening the doors to so many issues, not the least of which is looking at how children's sexuality is affirmed or denied though their development and how that response to sexuality in children affects the development of healthy adults. There are indications that adults who sexually abuse children were often sexually abused themselves, and this means that understanding how children develop sexuality might allow us to help these abused children. To conflate the issues of sexual preditors with children's sexuality means that we avoid looking at issues that will allow us to help children. For example, I know sex researchers who are very circumspect about having photos of children because they are concerned about child prornography rulings, when their interest in these images is nor purient at all. What all this means is that we avoid dealing with issues that might actually help queer kids find better ways to grow up, to become centered in themselves. We do maintain power inequities that sustain abouse of children. I suspect that all of us are against sexual prediation of anyone. Yet, to let that fear stop academic explorations into sexuality is to simply release the field to the preditors -- and that is something I would rather not have happen. Callan Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 11:42:33 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Assigning Motives Why do we, in this very strange culture, assume we can always sucessfully understand the motivations of another human? Or even more, understand the motives of the universe? It wasn't AIDS rage that motivated Andrew Cunanan, we discover, as medical records sealed by law, even in death, are violated as we look to find a motivation. We could understand if he was going to die and wanted some kind of misplaced revenge. But the answer isn't that simple, no matter how much law enforcement and the media want it to be. And, as a queer, I'm not sure it's ever that simple or that reducible. The only reason to assess the motive is to stop others, a preventive thing -- but it is clear that Mr. Cunanan was an abberation. There are lots of other kinds of crimes we understand better, that affect more people -- all sorts of personal abuse -- but because they don't draw the attention, we focus on stopping one more person who might go nuts. In a population of 265,000,000 people, though, you have to figure that a few people are going to go nuts every year -- and you can no more stop them than you can stop someone so committed to a cause that they are determined to die for it, even in a crowded subway car. Maybe, in this culture, death is the ultimate taboo, and our incredible loathing of death makes it impossible to effectively talk about life. In any case, this determination to assign motives is rampant -- and destructive. As queers, we are asked to tell stories about how we got this way -- and if the stories aren't good enough, don't fit into the victim conciousness enough, then people will make up their own motivations for us, and then judge us not on our actions but the motivations they have assigned us. For example, people wonder why anyone would transgress gender lines, so they assign a motivation. It amuses me that people assume transgendered women become women so their desire will be normative, that they assume that transgendered women are gay men who wear dresses to attract men. Anyone who knows about men will know that the majority of gay men are attracted to men, so lots of queens have to butch up to get a date, and that the majority of straight men are attracted to females -- they care about what is between the legs of their partner. To be a transgendered woman is not to enhance your position in the system of desire, but most often to fall out of the system of desire. Yet, most people, who understand gender cues as desire cues, assume that transgendered women use gender cues in the same way to attract a man, so they are gay men. This is the assigning of a motive that is wrong, yet it fits into people's thought system and answers the question -- in effect, erasing the pieces that don't fit to preserve the system of thought, to fit the facts to the theory rather than the theory to the facts. I have come to believe that people do things because they do things. To address individual events does not solve the problem -- you don't solve an insect problem by killing the ones that bite you, you stop it by changing the cycle of growth and development that leads to the problem. If we want a system that cracks fewer people, that is more civil and gracious, then we have to change the system, the theory, rather than just by trying to avoid abberance. This is the whole premise of Total Quality Management or TQM -- the place to erase defects is not by tracking them down after they are produced, but to care deeply about not creating defects in the first place -- and helping to keep kids from growing up defective because of bad manufacuring processes seems important. Civility, after all, requires an acceptance of wildness. We can only be civil to each other when we accept differences. The attempt to deny individuality, to homogenize a group, is virtually always done in ways that are not civil but are coercive, without respect dor diversity. Yet, we want to look at the defects, the abberant, and rationalize their actions, find a reason to dismiss and control the aberations rather than than accept who people are, respect our differences and know that we will never really know or feel what goes on in someone elses head. We cannot judge people on their motivations unless they ask us to do that and work to explain their motivations -- in any other case, we only judge people on the motivations we assign to them , which are likely to be wrong. Judge people on their actions towards others, on their respect, caring, effort and success. Don't judge them on group assignments, assigned motivations, or anything else you care to assign to them. But still, police and media are frustrated because Andrew Cuanan, even in death, resists their attempts to assign a "logical" motive to his acts, acts which only make sense in his own destructive logic. I mourn the passing of Mr. Cunanan's victims, feel for the sorrow of those who loved them. Death is a fact of life, and when it comes we are affected in how we live. But understanding the why of death, putting it in any human, rational framework, neatly pidgeonholed only lets us rationalize it, believe we can control it, when in the long run, we must accept it. The motives of the angel of death -- however capricous or horrible we may feel them to be -- are beyond our comprehension. The prediliction to assign motives is also the predliction to judge people -- and gods -- on our assignment of those motives. And sometimes, when the mysteries remain, we are reminded that the only thing we can do is live our life in the best way we can, work to make the best, most open, most respectful and most loving culture we can, and trust the rest to the universe. Callan Date: Sat, 2 Aug 1997 08:23:06 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Specious Sex Changes >Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 20:08:13 -0400 >From: Terry Lawton >Subject: Re: Assigning Motives > >Those of us in the queer community have a very different view of tg >issues to those of what we might think of as "the rest of the >world". Most of the "straight" men that I know, simnply think of tg >women as surgically mutilated men and would no more think of having >a sexual relationship with them than they would with another man. >It may be an unpleasant and unpalateable reality but we need to >face facts - that's the way a lot of people still think about tg >issues and no amount of theorising among queer academics will >change it. > > The notion that tg people >ever truly become "sex changes", however, is specious. They don't >- or at least they certainly don't in the popular imagination. To me, it is only transsexuals who claim to change birth sex though hormones, surgery or other means, not the broader category of transgendered people, who change their gender role by transgressing gender norms. The level of success that these transsexuals have becoming accepted another sex is a tricky issue, because those that have success will not be visible for examinination. I remember someone using the example of a judge who announced "I have never heard a quiet mortorcycle" -- of course -- you don't notice the quiet ones you don't hear! It seems clear that some of the sucessfully assimilated transsexuals who have been outed, like Tula, do "pass" quite well enough to attract heterosexual men. They prove that the notion of being accepted is not "specious" -- though they do not form the visible component of transexuals. The percentage of TS that can pass is not well deteremined however, and the majority of MTF TS probably do not pass -- while the majority of FTM TS do, except for genitals. My personal opinion is that all profoundly TG people are inherenly bisexual, for they demand bisexual passion from their partner, the capacity to love a body of one sex that occupies a gender that doesn't simply fit that body in the public conciousness. The challenge of changing the public conciousness, to my mind, is simply to say that reproductive determinism is as wrong as racial determinism -- people are no more their genitals than they are their skin color. We cannot simply pigeon hole people by knowing their genital configuration -- it is their choices that determine who they are, and the mind/heart/sprit that determinine those choices rather than their crotch. Sex is between our legs, gender is between our ears. The transsexual "cure" for gender dysphoria that changes apparent birth sex has limits, is a construction less than 40 years old. The transgender appoach, which involves both finding gender expression that fits without regard to the size of the erectile tissue -- and doing plastic surgery/body modifications if desired -- is much older, but requires a cultural acceptance that people are not simply defined by their penile status. I don't believe people can be easiliy reduced to two groups, the penised and the non penised. Now, can society understand that individuals should not be limited by the utterance of the doctor at birth: "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!"? Somehow, I think that is still an imporant goal to work for, no matter how hard it may be. Callan Date: Sat, 2 Aug 1997 10:14:08 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: Assigning Motives >Date: Fri, 1 Aug 1997 19:13:57 -0400 >From: Robin Maltz >Subject: Re: Assigning Motives > >Callan, I'm glad you brought up the issue of partnered tg identities. >I have never been clear who the partner/love object is for a queen. >I would think it would be a straight-appearing gay man or a butch man, >or a very specific subjectivity like the femmedyke is to the butchdyke. The old joke: How do you know who drags like to sleep with? Answer: Ask them. I would say she could sleep with anyone she wanted, that you could not simply determine her objects of desire from her self expression, and attempting to infer from your perception of her expression has real limits. What she expresses with gendered symbols she chooses means what she thinks it means, not what you think it means. While she might want a partner that compliments a constructed sexuality, that assumption might well be wrong. She may, for example, be looking for someone exactly like her. Or she may be open to anyone who is attracted to her. Andy Warhol: "If you are walking down the street and you see someone who looks just like your high school fantasy, they are just someone who had the same fantasy and decided to be ir rather than to chase it. So forget it." >I've wondered if drag queens have become acceptable as American comic >figures because they are not a partnered queer identity >which de-sexualizes them by making them object to no one in particular. > >Are we thinking the same thought when you say that a >tg woman falls out of the system of desire? Yes, I suspect that we are. They are liminal, beyond the pale, in the no woman's/no man's land of gender, so they can be assigned either total, preditory sexuality or null, cartoon sexuality. Between these choices, I think RuPaul, for example does both -- being both very sexual and not sexual at all. Falling out of the system of desire is falling out of the simple codes -- het/homo -- that make up much of the gender/desire cues, to express gender in a way other than to code what partner you are interested in, what role you play in desire-dynamics. Example: Lesbians look at me and see a male in clothing assigned to women, so they assume I am a gay man in drag. Gay men look at me and see sensible shoes, so they assume I a lesbian -- no drag queen would wear those!. I fall out of the system of desire. As for me, I simply follow my heart, and look for people who honor that, who are interested in me because of that, someone who has a flexible map of their desire. Not easy to find -- but worth the effort. Callan Date: Sat, 2 Aug 1997 12:13:39 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: The Pleasures of Determism What do terms like racism and sexism mean? To me, they mean racial determinism, sexual determinism, the notion that some part of your anatomy determines much about you. We have been fighting this notion of determinism for years. The idea that the color of your skin determines what water fountain you can use, or even if you can be owned by another person is anethmetic today, no matter how widely accepted it was in years past. The idea that the shape of your repoductive organs determines your capacity to vote, or you ability to do any other task is one that women have fought against. The problem comes, though, not when we see determinism that limits us, but when we see determinism that comforts us. When we see determinsim that we can use as a reason for our lack of sucess, or determinsm that keeps us separate in a way that we like, we often embrace it -- and embracing determinism in any form maintains determinism. There was a woman on the Today show who was happy being called "the Black Martha Stewart." What separation by race meant to her is that she didn't have to compete with the "Martha Stewart" Martha Stewart but had her own separate ladder to climb where she could be the black version of someone who made a name for themselves in the broader culture. Separatist feminists, while saying that women should not be limited by their sex, also say that women should be able to limit males by their sex. The agrument is simple: "We have been separated so long that we don't stand a chance of success in the culture at large, so we deserve our own space to develop beyond cultural pressures." This, of course, is the agrument for Affirmative Action, the notion that there should be separate ladders based on anatomical characteristics that have social implications. What comes after affirmative action, though? Do we really want a society where there is only one big ladder, or do we want to continue the separations based on sexual & racial determinism where they benefit those groups? The answer from almost everyone is that we do want an equal playing field, that everyone should have a fair chance. However, some argue that now is not the time for moving beyond determinsim, that more change has to come, more wrongs redressed before we can move beyond determinism. Determinism was "negative" for so long that it must be continued as a "positive" force for longer until we can drop the walls and boundaries. The chalenge we have is not giving up the deterministic separations that oppress us, it is in giving up the determinstic separations that comfort us. White men resisted stringly giving up the benefits of racial and sexual determinsm that benefited them -- why should women or people of color want to give up their benefits from the same systems any easier? To be on an open playing field is to lose our edge, our benefits and our excuses. We want to believe that our actions and choices will only be seen in our own context, that we don't really have to deal with people and situations that challenge us and make us uncomfortable. The truth of dropping determinism, though, is that we will be challenged by everyone. We will have to play in the big world, not just on our isolated playing ground. Just as American business had to face global compeditors as boundaries dropped, and white men had to face women and blacks as barriers dropped, everyone had to face the challenge of the whole world when the barriers drop. I think of the reaction to bisexuals by both homosexuals and heterosexuals. If your partner is bisexual then you don't just have to compete with other women, but with other men too. This can be a scary concept, and rather than focusing on how you can make your relationship so good that your partner won't look elsewhere, often we look to ways that we can wall off our partners so we won't have to compete. This is the question that we have to answer: Do we really secretly like the pleasures of determism, of separating people by sex, race or any other way? Are we arguing for a truly boundary free world, or simply arguing that determism that limits us should go away? This is the secret of heterosexism: people gender themselves not simply to avoid the stick of stigma, but to gain the rewards of compliance with the system of separations. By fitting nicely into a group, assimilating well, we get the benefits of that group identity, including people who desire us, support systems, and our own separate ladder to climb on. Desire is a primary force in creating separations -- to be normative -- is to be open to being desired by your counterparts. There is a cost to being a good woman, but there is also a benefit, for when the costs outweigh the benefits people start fighting. As long as we keep listing ourselves as the "first woman to," "the highest ranking black," "the only gay man who," we maintain the separations that also limit us. We continue a determinism that says our gender, sex, race, sexual orientation, or any other factor make us different from the people around us. People can then use that difference to give us benefits or to deny us those benefits. Prejudice is simple: it assumes that we can use some sort of deteminism to know something about a group, that we can prejudge people on their classicfication. Blacks are this, Methodists are that, Lesbians are the other thing. When that prejudice leads us to decide to benefit that group, it is priviledge, and when that prejudice leads us to decide to deny that group, it is discrimination. Prejudice depends on grouping people along some deterministic lines. To erase prejudice, to accept people as individuals, is to erase both discrimination and priviledge. Are we really ready to give up determinism, grouping of people by a single characteristic and assigning values and prejuduces to those groupings? Does giving up determinism simply mean changing all the prejudices about a group to positive ones, or does it mean dropping the prejudices altogether? Are we ready to be judged on our individual characteristics, or do we like having a group identity to defend? These are hard questions. Deteriminsism, like any other separation, is often very comforting and useful, while also being limiting and destructive. To drop determinism and the prejudices that come with it is to drop bot the pain and the pleasures. And for many, the pleasures of the separations of determinism are too hard to give up. Callan Date: Mon, 4 Aug 1997 10:12:52 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Natural Sex & Gender To me, sex is reproductive biology -- innies & outies, penises & vaginas. Gender is the social constructs we build around that biology, to manage and tend that desire. Male and female are sexes, describing cross-species biological constructs. Man and woman are genders, describing human roles built around reproductive status. Men are men, for example, because they make the choices of a man, the choices that are prescibed for men in this culture. They respond to both the rewards of being a man, and to the stigma against not being a man that is placed on males. What does this mean? To me, it means that being a woman and being male are not neccessarily antithetical. A male who acts in society as a woman -- and there are many examples of this in anthropological history -- is a woman. It also means that there is no such thing as female clothes or a female name. Clothes, names and other choices are constructs, part of a role, and not part of the underlying sexual biology. This means that names are women's names, clothing is women's clothing -- assigned to the gender role of woman in this particular culture. I am not female. I am not convinced that any human intervention at this point -- hormones, genital surgery -- could make me female. Personally, I believe that no one born male can become female, though we can do a very good simulation, given "the right raw materials to work with," as SRS surgeon Stanley Biber said. I am woman. I am woman because I make the choices of a woman in this culture, because it expresses something in my heart that doesn't agree with my crotch. I am a woman because I don't believe that we are defined by our biology, that biology is destiny, because I don't believe in reproductive determinism any more than I believe in racial determinism. I am woman because other women accept me as a woman, even if not all women do. If we believe that our genitals define, without exception, the social role we are assigned, then we are all boxed in, limited. We end up twisting hearts to fit them nicely in a box marked "women" or "men," and that is prone to break them, prone to create separations that will keep us fighting amongst ourselves rather than working together to thrive. Whatever the form reproductive determinism takes -- like the heterosexism that divides men and women to impose separatons of "family values" -- I feel that rift between males & females, men & women running though my heart, and that leads me to the call to speak about our continuous common humanity, to try and affect a bit of healing. Can we determine all we need to know about someone by knowing their reproductive biology? Are all people who have the same biology more alike than anyone with different biology? Does any biological trait form an absolute deliniating line between humans? Can we really separate the world into black and white, penised and non-penised? "We don't know what's natural, we only know what is conventional," as Dr Harry Benjamin said to Christine Jorgensen. Repoductive sex is natural, gender is conventional. "One is not born a woman -- one becomes one," Simone de Beauvoir. "Women, it is true, make human beings, but only men can make men." Margaret Mead I am male by biology, a woman by following the choice of my heart, and human by nature. I am liminal -- both and neither, all and nothing. I am Callan Date: Tue, 5 Aug 1997 18:11:20 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Differences Between Men & Women There are lots of studies about the biological difference between males and females. After all, with such an easy differentiation to make, especially in a world whre Heterosexism is the norm, we can get some gross differences. But every study comes with the following caveat: "Differences between any two individuals in one group may be larger than the differences between the norms of the two groups." What does this mean? That two females, for example, may be much more different than the difference between a "normal male" and a "normal female." One female may be bigger than 90% of males, and one male may be smaller than 90% of females, for example. We all know this to be true: that norms tend to erase deviation. Men in general make better firefighters because in general they are bigger, but we all know some males we wouldn't trust to get us out of a burning building and some females that we would. Women tend to be more nurturing, but we all know some males we would be happy to leave our baby with and some females we would prefer not to entrust our child to. To make and enforce sweeping statements about the differences between males and females is to limit all of us -- even males who want to take hormones and live as women with a penis. Norms are just that -- norms. We need to allow room for the exceptional people in culture, not limit them by some normative center. To me, that's what queerness is all about. --Some notes on Sex & Gender & Harrassment In this country, we believe that sex and gender are synonymous. That means that all women are female and all men are male, by definition. Kessler & McKenna, in "Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach" say that we assign a genital configuration based on gender identification: if they are a woman, they must have a vagina, if a man, a penis. We rarely, if ever, see someone elses sex organs, so we deduce sex by gendered cues. We believe this because we believ that gender is primarily about desire and breeding, a heterosexist notion to separate males and females and to make them come together to be whole. Men and women are gender roles that come together in relationship and effect breeding. This is, of course, not universally true, but it does define a basic expectation. This means that sex and gender are linked in the mind of most people. Het men court women assuming that they are female. Gay men court men assuming that they are male. If we are treated differently, or in some inappropriate way, based on our gender cues, and by them on our percieved sex, we are discriminated because of our gender and/or sex. If the CRA requires answering the question of desire as a component of harrassment because of gender/sex -- that we only harrass someone who is the object of our desire ie that gay men can only harrass men, straight men can only harass women, and bisexual men don't exist -- then it has the limits of desire. Date: Sat, 9 Aug 1997 08:29:11 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: The Problem With A Flame War The problem with a flame war is simple: most people don't like conflict. They would rather that conflict just not happen around them. They end up getting a message like "would you two just shut up" or "can't we all just get along," or "you are all beling childish," from people who would rather not have to sort out the details, who just want the conflict to end. It's kind of like a bar brawl. Once the punches fly, people don't notice who threw the first blow, or how much taunting and baiting came before, who started the fight. They just see the conflict and want it stopped. Of course, there are some who love to watch a good melee, think it is great entertainment, so they just cheer. If you ask the people who dislike conflict how to deal with a baiter, they say walk away, or call the mangement. The management of this list has been clear that they choose not to intervene, prefering it to play out on its own. Does that mean we simply ignore the person we see as a baiting the list, someone who keeps pissing in the punch bowl and then blaming others for pointing that out? There are a number of people on this list in both camps. Some say "It hasn't affected me, so leave it alone and maybe it will go away." Some say "It is not good for the atmosphere or the process, and we have to deal with this to restore the order that allows us to be free to speak." Ms. Dee has cited references from a very odd source, and when the credibility of those references, and the quality of scholarship shown by not understanding the context of those references was raised, she attacked. In one note, her response to my posting of the information from the Neo-Tech links, she made a formal appeal to the list manager to stop "formalised attacks" on her, after calling me "hostile, juvenile, malicious, unprofessional, discourteous and vindictive," engaged in "personal attack and provocation" by "distorting and taking out of context" her references in "retaliation" for "disageeing with an opinon," and that she lives in "fear of a personal assult" from me simply for "presenting her ideas." I feel these are pretty strong characterizations of me and my motives in presenting, without any characterization at all, information from one of her references. She does claim that the title of the post, in which I wrote "following the links of Ms. Dee" was an attempt to characterize her, rather than simply to identify the source of the reference to this material. Personally, though I may be blind, I can't see where I ever made the kind of flaiming characterizations of Ms. Dee that she has made about me. All the list posts are is open and available on the Archive web site, and I encourage anyone who can find such flames in my posts -- usually defined as attacks on character rather than ideas and words -- to show them to me. There are people on this list who have been on two lists that Ms. Dee has been removed from for flaming and baiting behavior. A pattern of attack rather than open discussion was the cause both times, and the listowners, after much consternation, took rare action against her to maintain the order and intergrity of the lists. Two other texts are enclosed. I have never called publically for the removal of Ms. Dee, though I have called for it in two mails to the listowner, which he did not directly reply to. I did this because I did feel the list was not the place to have this inflammatory debate, when in the end, only one person could act on this choice. I attach my response to Ms. Dee's demand to have me censured. I also attach a response to the issue of how much we need to allow total freedom, and how much we have to enforce order to maintain freedom. I think that this is a key issue in queer studies, one that has broader consequences. If you know anything about me, you will know that both of these texts are long and dense. It is your choice to read them, as it was your choice to read to this point, as I am sure many chose to hit the delete button long before this. I do know that some few of you do appreciate my text. Nobody wins in a flame war. But nobody wins when a flame war is avoided and a flamer is allowed to run ramapant either. "The only thing worse than choosing to fight for something is choosing to never to fight for anything at all." Callan Subj: Ms. Dee & Me. Date: 08/06/97 To: AAMCIN0@UKCC.UKY.EDU (Andy McIntire) Ms. Dee has made strong claims against me, asked that I be dealt with by you, the list manager. Ms. Dee used a reference to bolster her claims that males and females, men and women are fundamentally different, and that we can determine what we need to know about a person from the existance of reproductive organs. How she, as someone born male and still with a penis, who also claims to be female and a woman, can proffer this notion, being herself an embodied agrument against the claim, escapes me, but so be it. As she suggested, I followed that reference to a commercial site that is all about a combined theory of how humans respond, a sort of religion. I then posted some of the other material at this site that Ms. Dee had directed us to. In my mind, it is as if she had referenced a paper by Jimmy Swaggert to defend the difference between men and women, and I pointed out that the other beliefs of this person tend to erode their credibility on this topic. It also puts into question Ms. Dee's scholarship, to use references without understanding their meaning and context. I see both of these questions -- credibility of references, credibility of scholarship -- as directly relevant to discussing her contentions. Does it give us any insight into Ms. Dee's personal thoughts? I don't know that. I don't know what Ms. Dee thought about the content of that site, other than she thought enough of it to use it as a reference to give authority and credibility to her claims of difference. I don't know what she thought of it, and never claimed that I did. She seems to claim that posting that material makes her guilty by association. I note that she was the one who made the association between her view and that site, not I. She chose to say that site supported her views, not I. If she was truly surprised and shocked by the content I discovered there and posted, she could have a addressed the content. "I am shocked, I don't approve, I didn't know, I'm sorry I quoted them" would all have been fine responses, as would "This is not relevant to their credibility on other issues, so what, just because they are wrong on some things doesn't mean they aren't right on what I quoted." Even "I agree with many of their contentions and urge all of you to examine them more closely," would have been a fine response. Instead, she decided not to respond to the issue of her use of references that some may see as tainted, but to respond with personal attacks, to the notion that this questioning of her words and choices is somehow beyond the pale. This is the heart of her behavior on the list -- that she is beyond question, and any questions that ask for clarification or point out weakness in her argruments are a personal affront. I believe that the questioning of the credibility of references and scholarship is at the heart of discussusion. I also believe that mocking screen names, innuendo about motives and bleating like a stuck pig whenever your ideas are questioned in ways you cannot respond to are far from professional. I understand that Ms. Dee very much disagrees with my view on transgender and being queer. It has always been my hope that instead of working to prove other people wrong, to intimdate them though innuendo, she will attempt to will attempt to prove herself right, by clearly stating her own views, showing them in full, and then responding openly to earnest queries about them -- that she will be open to the give and take that faciltates learning. Personally, I suspect that she does not do this because she understands that her views are not whole, comphrensive, or integrated. Her beliefs are disjointed and contradictory, full of holes and full of pain, and that makes them impossible to clearly state. Her strategy, then, is to simply go on the offensive, trying to silence critics rather than to address her own weakness of thought, rersponding from the gut with untenable "logic." Rather than focusing on unassailable logic, she focuses on assailing the character of those who question her -- the decadent perverts. I have worked very hard to put my ideas in the fire, to have them stand the test of rigorous questioning, to be open to debate and discourse that can help me sharpen and focus my beliefs. I have worked very hard to not simply attack others, but to say my own piece, to show my ideas fully and comprehensively. I know that the key for me is doing my own work, not simply trashing the work and beliefs of others. Ms. Dee will not accept this open questioning, the back and forth of discourse that forms the heart of any study. She attacks people who question her rather than attacking her own ideas to make them less open to question, less vulnerable to the revelation of their flaws. She somehow believes that pointing out the dissonances and disjunctions in her own words is rude and offensive behavior, rather than just good discourse. She refuses to stand behind her words and the meanings that they convey. I must also admit that with such a small transgendered presence on this list, that I am embarrassed by the presence of Ms. Dee, because she shows a view of transgender as a resistance to clear thought. While I embrace the diversity of thought among transgendered people, I do reject the lack of thought by anyone. It is important to me that she is not the ony visible image of transgender -- a word she feels is meaningless -- on this list. I quite enjoy having my ideas questioned -- I find it helps me develop them -- but I do not enjoy having my character impugned regularly, and then having the person who does that deny any such actions. I defend my questioning of Ms. Dee's references and scholarship. I also renew my request that her attacks be stopped by removing her from the list. While we can choose to try to ignore her and hope that she will go away, at some point we must actually confront the damaging elements of the community that cause problems and deal with them. I believe that time has come. Callan (who notes that Ms.Dee also must have never heard of fair use of excerpts, believing that a copyright will stop her own words from being used to point out the flaws in her thinking.) Subj: Decorum: Between Order & Freedom. Date: 08/07/97 The constant dilemma: individual freedom versus social order, wild expression versus tame community. If we take a step to curtail freedom to support order, do we start on a slippery slope to supression of expression, to some form of totalitarianism? If we take a step to ignore order to support freedom, do we start on a slippery slope to a place where only the loudest and meanest speak, an anarchy that drives community away? It's my view that this is the primary tension in culture, the one that will always be with us. The balancing of the needs of the many with the needs of the one is the challenge that every culture faces, and the challenge of assimilation versus queer is the same question, one that this list struggles with. I also believe that the people who are forced to westle with this are not children, as some have characterized them, but adults. It is the role of the parent in culture, the role of the host of the party to make sure that everyone feels free to have a good time, and that anyone who is out of control and making the party feel unsafe is removed. Anyone who has ever given a party knows that it is possible for one person to ruin a party, by simply acting in a brazen and thoughtless way, because it is the atmosphere of freedom & safety, of fun & respect, of openness & decorum that makes the space what it is. It may be true that some will find even the wildest guest, the one who pees in the punch, idosyncratic, bold, provocative & fascinating, others may be uncomfortable enough to leave early, avoiding confrontation by avoiding engagement. The hallmark of any of these wild guests is always the same: they seem to be out of social control, not responsive to the signals that keep order, often blaming the bluenoses & party-poopers for the response to their actions, rather than understanding it is their own self-focused behavior that is the problem. The question for the host of the party -- or of this list -- is "where are the limits of decorum?" While it is true that QStudy is far from the rowdy beer bash/frat party of some lists, where freedom is valued over order, neither is it as ordered as an invitation-only cocktail party at the 21 Club, where order becomes stifiling to expression. Maybe the model is a faculty congress, or maybe an open night at the hip coffeehouse. In any case, the challenge becomes drawing the line between freedom of expression, even unpleasant and unpopular expression, and maintaining social order. I believe that line is simple: people cross that line when they blame and attack people rather than simply focusing on what they have to say, on their own work. In any open discussion, we must expect our ideas, references and words to be questioned, to be held accountable for what we say. This is the nature of discourse, and the nature of this list. However, when that questioning becomes uncomfortable for us because it points up inconsistencies, errors, or areas where we are senstive, we do not have the luxury of blaming or attacking others to quiet them. It is at that point that we move beyond the bounds of social order to a self centered behavior that ignores decorum. It can be an extreme challenge, when you want to just slap someone, to remain cool and find a way to state your ideas, to show the flaws in their agrument, to speak for yourself, but this is exactly the civilized behavior what we must demand. It is the hallmark of academic communication for centuries, academia being a place where, because controversial and inflamatory ideas are being discussed, care is taken to keep safeguards on the order that enforces the freedom to be unpopular. Every professorial bully over the ages has been clear that they are simply exercising free speech, so it is when the faculty note that this free speech has moved into intimidation that decorum is enforced. Decorum should not be used to measure the quality of ideas, but rather to measure the quality of the scholarship that went into them, to assure that they are not bluster and intimidation, finger-pointing and blame, but rather considered responses. Decorum holds people responsible for their words, moving away from a free-floating situation approach to an accountability for a chain of statements and procalamations. I will quote myself: Where does behavior turn from distinctive to deviant? from atypical to abnormal? from marking to separating? from normative to transgressive? Where does socializing turn from persausion to pressure? from influence to intimidation? from fedback to force? from criticism to coercion? from differentiation to discrimination? from taming to bullying? This is, to me, the heart of queer studies. And all of these go to the heart of one question: where is the line between enforcing social order and allowing free expression? Just as traffic laws & diver courtesy ensure our freedom of movement, enforcing order, it can be argued, can enhance freedom because it allows everyone to have a voice, rather than simply letting the loudest person, the one with the most nasty invective, speak. Order is the foundation for freedom of speech, and the demand for decorum in an academic setting has always honored this. It is, of course, best when each participant is sensitive to the need for order, and takes responsibility for their own behavior, being responsive to cues and comments. Some people, however, for whatever reasons, have trouble seeing far enough past themselves to the good of the community. They are so focused on their own concerns that they don't have the capacity to stay in control. I once started a group called "Drama Queens In Recovery" for just these people. Our goal was simple: to actually be able to do a straight line or setup once in a while, rather than always having to have the punchline, the topper. We focused on how to move beyond being a child, self focused, to being an adult who had respect for others and a concern for the whole cast, the whole community, the entire production rather than just our star turn. This is the hard challenge of the parent, to enforce order to keep community on an even enough keel to allow freedom. Someone, in the long run, has to draw those lines, to make sure that even if the party isn't a elegant gathering of only the elite, it does not turn into a brawling beer bash. We have to actually make a stab at enforcing order, knowing that whatever line we will draw will be arbitrary. One of the hardest things about being a parent is knowing that there are no perfect choices, that whatever we choose will be wrong in some way, will have valid criticisms. Yet, being the grown-up, we know one thing: those choices have to be made, and that not making a hard choice is a choice in itself. Callan Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 09:13:52 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Sit And Spin Are you a spin doctor? Can you position your message well enough to push the emotional buttons that affect your audience, often using those buttons to stop them from rational thought about the issue at hand, thought that might prompt them to ask hard questions about consequences and results of your position? Can you use the knee jerk responses of others to support your cause without really thinking it through? Spin is the skill of the age. The tobacco companies, for example, wrapped freedom and the constitution around smoking in order to cover their deliberate enslavement of people to nictotine. The slaves of nictotine actually believed that they were expressing their freedom every time they spent another $2 on another pack of a product that, when used as directed, will kill them. Political events are all about spin, and all day Sunday we can watch politicians try to hit the emotional buttons that will get them support, knowing that a rational and logical appeal to the electorate is a waste -- and besides that, if they actually took the time to understand what was going on, they might see the special interests at work. Rush Limbaugh's spin is interesting, because he talks about how white men are the last oppressed minority in this country, about how freedom is the answer, and that the Republicans are the guardians of that freedom. Yet, all the time, the Republicans were taking economic freedom away from Rush's listeners, a theft that Pat Buchanan used to his advantage What are some good hot button issues? How about: --excluding particular ethnic groups --destroying our inherent purity --elitism --pretensiousness --pomposity --freedom of expression --colonization of our thought --the destruction of open forums --censorship --intelectual snobbery --ousting those with diverse opinions --kill files --the refusal to listen to others --"true academia" --speaking behind people's backs --denigration of an individual --intellectualizing --rationalizing --perpetuating the self-serving ideals of status quo --some being seen as more equal than others --pervasive and ingrained thought --ignoring ethnic perspectives --racism --the erasure of diversity by the white middle class --hypocrisy --bigotry All of these buttons were pushed as problems in this forum in one note by one individual, in what I see as a strategy to deflect attention from their actions by inflaming the emotions of the populace -- or in other words, spinning, just like the NRA, the tobacco industry or The Republican Party. (Did you catch that? I just did a little spin myself by identifying the most potent spinners in this country as those who people on this list are most likely to dislike. It's funny, but we tend to see a spin in a direction we agree with as good arguments, and a spin away as some sort of nasty trick, jerking the emotional ground out from under us in a way we can't simply respond to. On the other hand, fundamentalists have seemed to lead in this kind of emotional manipulation, because it takes a real conviction that the ends justify the means. "All it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to think they are perfect.") As anyone who has been in marketing knows, one of the key techniques of spinning is absolute sincerity, a deep and abiding belief that whatever you are saying in the moment is abosolutely correct. Spinning depends on a short attention span, because it is over time that you see the manipulation, and how positions change for expident and short term goals. I always liked academic study because it is designed to sniff out patterns, to look at the big picture rather than just the emotions of every moment. Call me a pomous intellectual elitist if you will, but I just can't help it -- I like to use my head to create a consistent approach, not just follow the momentary whims of my gut, snapping to every hot-button that gets pushed. As to me, when I see someone spinning hard, thumping every button on the console, wrapping themselves in the flag of free speech, diversity, anti-racism and so on, I tend to try to peek at what they are hiding behind that flag. I belive that spin short-circuts real thoughtful discussion, and to that end, I try to destabilize the spin, to let people see the attempts at manipulation so they can make a rational decision on what is going on, not just an emotional one. Is it really the behavior of one person towards others that has caused such an uproard, or is it a nefarious and internalized drive towards silencing the powerless to preserve the status quo? Is the issue the attacks, characterizations and emotional spinning of one individual, or is it the requirement to take into the ghetto every soul who has been trodden on by an oppressive and loathsome system? Or, in other words, is it the content or the spin that we should be discussing, the steak or the sizzle? To me, spin is the problem, not the answer. It is only when we can really get down to brass tacks and demand action, not just smoke, look at a pattern of behaviors, not just the fog of words, that we can make a judgement. I work hard to be consistent and to enlighten, rather than to be shifty and obfuscate the underlying truths, and frankly, those who muddle discussions with emotional and incoherent spin offend me. Life is complex, and as I know that there are lots of conflicting truths. I just want to do the hard work to sort them out, to embrace all the messiness that humans embody, rather than falling back on black and white, good and bad emotional responses. Our gut acts in ways that we don't understand, and that means it can easily be led astray -- he jumped on his horse and rode wildly off in all directions. Sure, all the problems in the world exist on Q-Study. But without having an open discussion about them, really looking at the facts and not just having them obscured by spin designed to create kneejerk reactions to them, we succumb to those problems rather than transcend them. Spin or content. You get to sort them out for yourself. Callan Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 08:18:14 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: Ms. Dee Offers Me An Introduction To Aryan.COM In a message dated 97-08-12 07:35:39 EDT, RADANGLE writes: > >So, Mr. Williams, you also post private mail. What a pathetic little >genderless twit you are. Is this why you log onto American Online (AOL) >without a profile? Your attempt at prose expose you as a vile creature -- >even without a profile. Men, excuse me -- individuals of an indeterminate >nature such as you -- make me want to vomit. And don't go running to your >buddies with excerpts from this letter. This is not an attack on being >homosexual or transgendered. It is an attack on being a thing without a >backbone and lacking even the semblance of character. > >You're truly a pathetic individual. Truly pathetic. > > Subj: On publishing the threat Date: 97-08-12 06:50:21 EDT From: TheCallan To: TheCallan Why did I choose to post Ms. Dee's private threat to me to the list? First, I feel no obligation to keep abusive mail private. The boundaries of nettiquette, or any ettiquette for that matter, are not designed to aid abusers. Not keeping the secrets of abuse is the best way to confront those who choose to intimidate. Second, when Ms. Dee copied parts of a private mail (which was not abusive) I sent to her to the list, I noted that I saw it as a breach of nettiquette. She did not see it as such, noting that she would never say anything in private mail that she would be ashamed of in public. In a message dated 97-05-08 10:50:41 EDT, RADANGLE writes: >I find it quite offensive that you would make any comments provately that you'd be >ashamed to have announced publically even without your name being a sscoaited >with that comment. > >Take care. > >Roberta Personally, I hope that all people who feel that private mail they have gotten from Ms. Dee is abusive make that mail public, so that we all have a clear picture of what is going on both on and under the surface. Callan (who notes that at this point, Ms. Dee seems to remember the previous conversations we had that she has forgotten when she misattributed my gender.) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 08:22:58 -0400 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Consistent Results From Humans? In a message dated 97-10-20 00:07:13 EDT, "Jon (NCSilverBear)" writes: >Date: Sun, 19 Oct 1997 14:04:32 -0400 >From: "Jon (NCSilverBear)" >Subject: Re: "Participant Observation" > >I'm still having some difficulty understanding how this kind of observation >can be verified for research purposes; >how do you (or other researchers) validate the results and/or conclusions, >for instance? > >I'm an "end user" of research studies. For me, if the method employed is >less than valid, does not adhere to classic and proven parameters then the >results are skewed and unreliable. > >Please understand that I am not attacking you. I simply have no clear >understanding about how this method of observation can support clear >standardization for outcome. > >IMO. > >Jon (NCSilverBear) Can we expect that any area of study that presumes to tell the truths held by human cultures, as anthropology does, can ever produce pure and perfect results? I have spoken on this list many times of my belief that the key to queerness is accepting the truth that people speak. Everyone of us has our own view of the reality that we share, much like the blind men all had their own view of the elephant. To think that objective reality exists in human culture, reality that is not biased by the point of view of the observer, is to believe in some sort of core normativity, some sort of fundamental and unchanging truth that can be held by one person. This is the key difference between people who are accepting of queerness, of the notion that we must accept individuals truth as true, and normative people, who believe that there is some proper, higher truth that people should be socialized into following -- like the "truth" that behavior that some would call promiscuous is bad and should be stopped. I think that we often see this difference, the shift between those who accept the cultural values and stories of a population as valid and honor the range of truths in the hope of discovering a fuller view of the human condition, and those who are looking to normalize, essentialize and reduce the range of cultural values to a world-view that they feel comfortable on. In other words, it is the difference between those who collect the facts and then try to see the connections, and those who have beliefs and then try to find the facts that are predictors of those beliefs, the choices that can enforce those beliefs. You can, on one level, see this as the difference between a scientist who is doing pure research, going where the experiments take them, and an engineer who is doing applied research, trying to achieve a desired result, but I'm not sure that is accurate. Great engineers respect the truths of what they work with, accepting surprises and feeling the system, adjusting their designs to the facts rather than ignoring or minimizing facts that challenge their design. In any case, I think that this is a key issue in queer studies. Do we accept the messiness of humans, the fact that consistent results and perfect predictions are impossible, or do we assume that humans will act in the way we expect them to, and variations to those expectations are deviances, abberations that need to be address and resolved by fixing those exceptions? I know too many queers who have been treated as sick deviants who need to be cured rather than just another expression of humanity that does not fit neatly into the expected results curve. To me, anyone who expects consistent results from any but the simplest social sciences is working against the empowerment of queers and for the imposition of a normativity that erases deviance. For me, that is something I must speak up against. Callan Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 09:18:21 -0500 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: The "Right" To Understand? Do we have some divine right to understand and maybe even agree with someone's motivations and details before we can help them? Is the truth that "equiring minds want to know" reason to believe that they should know, can know, are capable of knowing? Let's flip the question. Do you want people to totally understand you, grok who you are, understand all the nuances of your life before they choose to support you in your freedom to be who you are, to make the choices that you choose to make? Do you think that people have the right to know all about you, the obligation to see you stripped naked before they can support you? We are scholars, and intelectually curious. Curiosity is a key part of the human spirit. But so is judgement, the thought that we have to judge people before we are on their side. Somehow, we often think that if we can't understand someone's motivations or behaviors, they must be wrong, that our lack of understanding is a sign of their flaws, not just a sign of our limits in knowing and understanding. It's so easy to cut queers apart because they go past some line that we have drawn in the sand of where OK is and where OK is not. Here I am just a queer prof, there they are a token. This is one enormous shared world, and we will never be able to see, to be all of it. Sometimes we have to take people's word on their truths, and for me, that is much of what being queer is about, trusting the realities that other people see are real, and that they don't have to be our reality to support them. Clearly, we have to be prudent. No reason to bet the farm, our lives, or even our reputations on a situation where we don't understand the bet. But when the only cost is a moment of our time telling stories that may reflect on the situation, may help understanding, the cost is not too high. Yet some people demand to know more, crave knowing more, feel a right to know more. I'd like to know more, but I also would like to respect the process, allow the sancitity of privacy, let things be what they are. I don't think I have the right to pry, the right to demand details, any more than I have to fully understand the leather community -- outside of their committment to only consentual acts, without abuse and pressure -- to support their right to live their lives. You get to make your own choices about what you choose to do. But demanding that you understand and grok enough to make a judgement before you acknowledge the right of other people to be who they are is allowing others to make the same demand of you, to demand that you open the kimono before you are worthy of support as a human. Lillian Hellman "Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice?" Callan Date: Tue, 11 Nov 1997 11:23:42 -0500 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: The Point of Queer So, Jon, why, if you find the word "queer" so anethmetic, why would you join and participate on a list called Queer Studies? Would you go onto a list called Spiritual Studies and claim that it was just full of people who couldn't be Christian, who were trying to glom onto the success of Christians by using the inclusive word "Spiritual?" That somehow using that word, they were defaming the scared Holy Spirit which you hold dear? Would you demand to know the beliefs of every poster before you considered them, trying to find ways to discount and discredit them if they were not Christian? And if you did that, would you be honoring the space and the people in it? Would they have grounds to say that you didn't belong because you refused to honor the ground rules that were in place when you signed up? You have the right to not define yourself as queer. No one here will debate that right. You can just be gay and normative -- homonormative -- and see others as queer, beyond acceptance into culture. You can see "differently gendered" people as outside the scope of sexual orientation, beyond the scope of normativity. And we can see gay and lesbian people as gender transgressors, breaking the rules of gender, of what a man should do, what a woman should do. We can see homophobia as the fear of breaking gender barriers, like men who enjoy sodomy break barriers. We can see the heartbreak of parents who find out their child is gay as the mourning for normatively gendered dreams of having their children follow in their footsteps, but rather cross boundaries of gender. Maybe this list is for nasty people who want to piggyback their transgressive agenda onto the nice normal gays & lesbians who just want to be like every one else except that engage in fellatio or cunnilingus with people of their own sex. But that's OK -- it's clearly labeled as queer studies, not as gay & lesbian space, where you all can gather to plot how to claim your position as normative people, and deal with people who keep claiming queerness. Is queerness antagonistic to your personal freedom by raising questions of transgression? Maybe. But maybe ignoring questions of transgression in order to make a show of assimilation is antagonistic to true freedom. You are right. There is no need for people who don't identify as queer to support queerness. It's only if you see the benefits of freedom of expresssion, of assuming humans deserve that freedom, the benefit of the doubt, the trust that no matter how different they are on the outside they are the same on the inside that queerness is worth supporting. Normative people assume that non-normative people are deviant and should be fixed. Much of Gay & Lesbian liberation has been to convince normative people that gay & lesbian choices are normative. Once you get to that point, you get the normative privildge of assuming that people you don't understand are deviant, need to get with the program. You are there, and don't want the boat rocked. As a queer person, I assume that any person engaged in consensual acts is just expressing what they need to express, if I understand it or not. I assume that normativity is not the goal, rather building a diverse world that honors each individual, a world where everyone is free to give their gifts and take responsibility for building a shared safe space for us to keep growing. You may not believe in queer theories. That is certainly your perrogrative. But you show your lack of respect for human individuality and dignity when you choose to not honor the space of people who do. When you demand that people explain over and over again what they belieive in normative langauge you can accept, rather than simply allowing them to carry on their own conversation, you show assumption of the priviledge to understand and judge all that you see, a normative priviledge. There are more realities than any of us can admit. ot all of them are going to be comfortable and supportive of Jon. As a queer person, I know that globally, cross culturally, historically, socially, in beleif and in many other ways, I don't get to understand and approve of the whole circle of the world. I know that if I presume I can walk into any space and command it with a large quantity/volume of words demanding that it honor my view of normativity, I am missing the point of diversity, of acceptance, of queer. Start another list, Jon, "Not-Queer Studies." Put up a web site explaing why queer is bad. And think about why entering space that has a communal definition and claiming that people in that space, who believe in those shared goals, are wrong, wrong, wrong, is not an honorable and honoring thing. If you want to understand queer studies, then your questions are welcome. If you want to show that we are just freakazoids riding the coat tails of nice normative gays & lesbians, then I can't find a reason to see you as being welcome. Callan > Date: Mon, 10 Nov 1997 21:59:32 -0500 > From: "Jon (NCSilverBear)" > Subject: Re: The Point of Queer > > And again, I have to ask, Rebecca, who is it that is > pushing this agenda? Gay's or other gendered folk? > > The gay community of which I have been a part for about 35 > years (measuring from when I can identify my "coming > out") has always included self identified lesbians, in > large numbers. We had no need to include agenda's > superficial of political nuances that had anything other > than the wish to be let alone. Our only difference in > our "humanness" was with whom we had sex. > > "Queer" seems to, as some here have suggested, be something > else about which being gay has little to do. It sounds > "manufactured", even fake. > > Now, while I do not disagree for the need to be aware and > even united in common causes, we are different, and I > happen to want us to remain defined as different. I am > a Gay Man. I celebrate this specialness. I do not wish > to be identified into a group called "queer", because I do > not believe in most "queer theories". > > I do not believe there will ever be a community united for > equality if this obstacle cannot be addressed with > respect for that feeling. > > I can see us as united under a banner of sorts, autonomous, > except where it effects our common goal: recognition of > freedom with responsibility. > > However, I will not bow to a non-gay person "queer" -- for > me that is a step back into enslavement by someone > "other than" and opposed to my personhood. > > I guess I see this whole thing as antagonistic to my > personal freedom. I am persuaded, especially evidenced > from some of the nasty private notes I've received, that > I not am far off the mark. > > Jon (NCSilverBear) > > ( I am enjoying the level of respect with which some of you > are replying in this thread. Thank you for > acknowledging my questions and my concerns.) > Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 07:03:29 -0500 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: The Point Of Queer Jon writes >It appears that my earlier tact with you and Callan, was the best route >for all of us . . . that I filter you out so that I am not tempted to >either read or respond to either of you. I get the impression that both >of you bristle at just the appearance of my e-mail handle! And that is >a sad state to come to on a discussion list like this one. I find it hard to see how this approach brings an open mind and an open heart to the pursuit of understanding about queerness. As any queer scholar knows, it is when you immerse yourself in material that challenges your sensibilities, that opens up the assumptions, pain and shame that you have felt that you begin to see why we need to look at transgression in a new light. Filtering out that which confronts you on a physical, emotional, mental and spirtitual level is one of the points of queer. Just for the record, under his current and previous addresses (SparkleM@aol.com), Jon Markle first posted on this list in January 1995, almost three years ago, and made over 160 posts since then, over 55 in the last four months. He first called me hysterical in November 1995. He is no newcomer, just trying to understand, rather he shows a persistent penchant to simply naysay, to declaim the value of separation rather than to find connection and speak of nuance. It's rather like the Monty Python skit, "This isn't an agrument, you are just denying everything I say." "No I'm not!" Jon's ideas of homosexuals being required to deny anyone who is not simply homosexal from study of them does not make me upset. I understand why, if he can't stand his own scruitiny, scrutiny from others would make him very uncomfortable. I don't bristle at his ideas or challenges, as I find little new in his work here. What distresses me with Jon is his persistent and consistent choice to ignore what challenges him and through that dogged ignorance to not honor the charter of the space as a place where queer is honored and can be discussed with and open mind and an open heart. Callan (confident Jon will not respond to this with some kneejecerk reaction because he has chosen to filter little old challenging me out, and has implored me and others who challenge him to ignore him.) (oh yes -- and I'm still laughing at his use of tact for tack . .) Date: Thu, 13 Nov 1997 10:28:13 -0500 Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: The Myth Of Identity Politics It seems to me that the great myth at the core of identity politics is that people in any defined group have more in common with each other than with anyone else. Gay men have more in common with any other gay man, blacks have more in common with blacks, women have more in common with women, and so on. That means that, from a political viewpoint, only another person in the group can effectively speak for and advocate the viewpoints of any given person in the group. This leads to all sorts of politcal notions, like set asides, where for example, the composition of a board is matched to the composition of a group, or to the ideal composition of a group -- half women, over half people of color and so on. It leads to the attempt to build voting blocks by exclusion, to cut up any electorate into groups who follow the rules -- and means that people who span groups are often left in the cold. Identity politics can mean that focused groups tend to ignore issues unless they are directly relevant to their group. As Riki Wilchins says, NOW is firmily against rape, but not strongly working against prisoner rape, because those are men who are being violated. The problem with this is simple, though: humans don't fit neatly into groups. The issues of black millionaire may be different than the issues of poor blacks, and a poor white may speak more effectively for them, but identity politics would deny that. Justice Clarence Thomas is a good example of the conundrum of identity politics, a black man who many blacks don't feel speaks for them, and therefore is branded as a traitor. Who speaks for gay men? Does Larry Kramer and his pull for assimilation, or Edumond White and his fighting for sexual liberation? Maybe Elizabeth Birch speaks more clearly for them than either of the men, or maybe Urvashi Vaid, or maybe even Madonna. For some gay men, Ollie North or Hillary Clinton may be even be closer to who they are. In the long run, people who only share the same sexual orientation don't have to share anything else, polticiallly, class, regionally, family, work, you name it. Now, if the only thing that we care about is human rights for gays (and maybe lesbians) that might not be a bad thing, but I suspect that the truth is that every human is multi-dimensional with lots of parts of them they care about, lots of objects of desire past just an anynomous cock or a stylized vagina. The political movements in this country tend to be identity politics based because it is easier to bring people together on focused issues, to create exclusive identitites than to find cross connections. Yet, democracy only works when we care more about what we have in common than what separates us. Any goverment is inherently the system for joint ownership, shared resources, hopefully making our life easier and less costly by solving common problems. Even helping the poor solves common problems, from being humanitarian to keeping a better quality of life by reducing crime that cannot be kept behind boundaries. In the long run, enagaging people in a postive system keeps car insurance rates down, for example, by keeping theft down, and having people more responsive to laws and courtesy. To me, this notion of identity poltics based on groupings versus the power of the individual to make many different connections across the community is the question of queer. Queer says that boundaries and boxes are illusory, and that we all transgress them all the time, that we are all individuals with many truths, not easily essentialized. This focus on the individual is great, but it is also hard, because it means that we have to find connection, coalition and caring on an individual basis, without the simplicity of identity props, the proper response to a sentry's "Halt! Who Goes There! Tell Me The Password!" Life with fewer fixed boundaries is life that demands individual involvement. Riki Anne Wilchins facilitated a panel in DC over Halloween weekend about queer space, and her comment after was that while it's nice to see the academics talking about embracing queerness, the gays & lesbians she runs into are still deeply immersed in their identity politics and getting to normativity by exclusion. This is the challenge that queers face. If we say that the clear and fixed lines of identity politics are not useful, then what is? How do gays, lesbians and other people who might identify as queer find a tool that works better than simply demanding of people to state an identity and ignoring or attacking them if that identity is not one they hold? How do we move away from a push towards being a normal gay or normal lesbian to being a person who accepts the individual humanity in every person? What are the poltical tools for queers? Clearly they are tools of commincation, to find connection, alliance and shared humanity across boundaries, but we still have trouble knowing how to make those tools easy to use. Is the myth of identity poltics, that separating people by groups means that people are better respresented, true and valid? Or do we need to move beyond that? Callan Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 09:59:42 EST Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Subject: Re: Transexualizing the Lesbian of Color Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Putting oneself in the position of a hypothetical "transsexual lesbian of color" appears to me to be a way to create a very tenuous, biased and artifical text. To me, the challenge is not sitting in the study and wondering what a hypothetical queer might do, but talking to real queers, understanding the choices they made and make, and then looking for patterns and challenges that occur in that data. Study requires immersion in the subject one is interested in before modeling that subject, and extending that model through hypothetical thought. That said, I suspect that the truth is that the vast majority of "transsexual lesbians of color" -- and I have no idea how many there are -- are much more concerned about day-to-day functioning in the specific communities that they operate in rather than the intellectual foundations of their actions. Transgendered people, like all queers, are chimera who, like a chameleon, take on the characteristics and coloration of those around them, making their own changing balance of assimilation and indiviuality in the moment. The question of if any identity is a truly individual, free and spontaneous creation of the individual or is simply a reaction to the environmental factors that exist in a person's life, be that a buying into the environment or rejecting the environment is a question that can be examined in anyone's life. It seems to me that we are shaped both by our own individual daemon and our social heritage, accepting and rejecting what society offers us for different reasons at different times in our lives, and trying to pick apart those threads of wild and tame, social and individual, commonalities and uniqueness is almost futile, especially in just a hypothetical sense. I personally find much of your language and many of your conjectures offensive, simply because it does not reflect immersion in the world of people you claim to study, the humans who are out there. I can tell that you have not walked a mile in the pumps of a transsexual lesbian of culture, who struggles with the fact that any identity statement is simultaneously true and a lie in the context of the culture. For transgendered people, the either/or constructions that society demands are virtually impossible to negotiate, which drives them into a variety of erasures and closets. We can understand others, but only when we do that from a basis of understanding the other rather than hypothesizing the other. Callan In a message dated Thu, 4 Dec 1997 18:16:57 EST, Bonwit35 writes: >Date: Thu, 4 Dec 1997 18:16:57 EST >From: Bonwit35 >Subject: Transexualizing the Lesbian of Color > >Dear Group, > >I've been doing some work recently in transexualization and >wanted to get some input about any perceived racist >structures of domination that you might find embedded >in my analysis. Let's say I was an African-American >cross-dresser but am self-identified as a lesbian. Is my >ethnicity and/or my sexual orientation determined by the elision >of oppressive cultural categories or am I entirely sui generis, >transgressively rejecting hegemonic straight white male absolutes >of gender identity? In other words, in an heuristic sense, am I "my own >special creation," to quote the horrible La Cage aux Folles, or am I only >sentimentalizing a bourgeois notion of individualism whereas in >fact I am simply a reified construct of the establishment >majority's accomodationist strategies of identity theory? > >Also, if I am African American, which do I prioritize on an >existential day-to-day level in the way I construct my identity >in terms of my own personal masculinist subjectivities: my >transgressive behavior as a cross-dresser or my marginalization >and invisibilization as the proverbial multi-cultural ethnic Other, >to wit, an oppressed lesbian of color, albeit male? How >complicit am I, in short, in the ideological apparatus >of the quote-unquote white patriarchal state and its re-sexualizing >colonialist institutions? How do I express my transexualization without >implicating myself in the heteronormative contamination of ready-made >categories of genderized identity? > >Also, out of curiosity, do you think that, as a white middle-class >academized male theoretician myself, it's presumptuous of me to >be working on the transexualization of people of color? Can we ever >legitmimize an heuristic analysis of the Other without lapsing into >colonialist supremacy? > >Any comments about transexualization and identity construction >that anyone wants to make would be really appreciated. > >Richard Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 21:31:58 EST Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Subject: Re: Transexualizing the Lesbian of Color Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Richard I am amused that you chose a gender for me by calling me "he." As has been discussed on this list, I identify as a transgendered woman, one of the components that you intend to theorize about. We all occupy positions, and multiple positions, and as I said in my post, which you chose not to reply to, it is the occupation of those positions, the immersion into those positions that allow us to create the mental models that allow us to theorize from those positions. My complaint was not that you have no right to put yourself in the position of your hypothetical transsexual lesbian of color, but rather that doing so with no understanding of that ground, no firm grounding in the stories and truths of that person, is pretty much guaranteed to lead you down the garden path. To me, queer studies is not looking at groups and their actions, but it is looking at the choices of individuals, of queers. It looks at how individuals transgress and/or maintain socail patterns in the creation of their own lives. The source material of queer studies is the lives of humans, and it is though immersion in that source material we begin to discern patterns, identify truths, create theories, enlighten the world, do the work. My point was simple: theories built without grounding in the source of queer lives are pointless and irrelevant. I discussed what I saw as the primary influences in the life of transsexual lesbians -- "male lesbians" as you discuss them. If you want more understanding of those influences, go to the source, not the airy what-ifs that might delight talk radio hosts but show little scholarship. I would suggest that you might start by reading TransSisters, the late publication of Davina Anne Gabriel, and continue by actually talking to the subjects you would choose to understand and theorize about. The essence of your posit is simple: are "male lesbians" transgressive & free or just dupes of the system? I have noted that I don't think the question can be made that simple. I could as easily ask for hypotheses about white male reseachers, asking: are they really trying to come to an understanding of the complexity of a life, especially a transgressive life, or they are trying to rationalze and justify some notion that they have already decided on? I encourage, no, I implore you to put yourself in the shoes of a transsexual lesbian of color, to understand her issues and her needs. I think it would be a wonderful thing for you to put on her mask, walk a mile in her pumps and/or Birkenstocks until you had the immersion that you could take that position and create a brillian theory that helps us all understand the challenges she faces and how she juggles individual truth and social artifacts, how she is free and how she is a dupe. I just don't think you can do that as a parlor game without going to the source and immersing yourself in it. Is asking people to understand what and whom they choose to discourse on before they pontificate on it dour and rigid? Maybe. But if so, honey, I'll take that, mix that with my lesbian drag mom energy and make something special. Callan > Date: Fri, 5 Dec 1997 20:20:19 EST >From: Bonwit35 >Subject: Transexualizing the Lesbian of Color > > I wanted to apologize to Callan for my insensitivity to > transexual lesbians of color and hope that he will bear > with me as I probe a little deeper into the problematized > issue of transexualized discourse, even though I am, > against my will (believe me, Callan), a white male. > In my previous posting, I queried the group by posing a > hypothetical situation: I pretended to be a transexual > male who self-identifies as a lesbian. My question was > simply this: have I, as a male lesbian, constructed out > of the tissue of ideologies (in which we are inexorably > enmeshed) a unique and entirely individual nexus of > transgressions, or am I simply just another dupe of the > system, another dull capitalist conformist, a sexual > tautology, an erotic redundancy, trapped in the infinite > reifications of gender, the Foucauldian hall of mirrors in > which Power and the State are the ultimate determinants of > selfhood, and originality is simply a revered yet vacant > signifier, a bourgeois fetish of the white middle class > who have the luxury to believe in such elitist fictions as > authenticity and individuality, toying with their facile > structures of a sentimentalized identity? > > Let me make a make a paradigm shift, from Foucault to > Baudrillard. Callan complains that by positing myself as > a transexualized lesbian of color, I am "hypothesizing the > other," i.e., I am pretending to be something I am not, > which he finds arrogant. Are we never justified in > pretending to be something we aren't? Isn't all of life > role playing? Don't certain members of this list suffer > from their own bourgeois notion of authenticity? Am I not > free to engage in the play of personae, of signifiers, > assuming one mask after the next? Judith Butler said, > after all, that gender is an imitation of that of which is > there is no original, and am I not simply acting on this > brilliant observation, indulging in the playfulness, the > jouissance, of self-creation by theorizing alternative > identities that defy bourgeois categories of normative > selfhood? I find Callan's notion of authenticity dour and > frankly rigid. I'd appreciate hearing what others have to > say. > Date: Thu, 1 Jan 1998 20:59:53 EST Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Subject: Re: What Are We Transforming? Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII In a message dated Wed, 31 Dec 1997 13:00:00 -0800, Ann Weinstone writes: > >Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 13:00:00 -0800 >From: Ann Weinstone >Subject: Re: QSTUDY-L Digest - 24 Dec 1997 to 30 Dec 1997 > >Hi All, > >A long-time lurker here. I loved many of the transformation >(transformative?) quotes in Callan's post, but a couple of them touched on >some issues that trouble me where the current trend to valorize >transformation, mutation, morphing, etc. is concerned. > >Here are the two troubling passages: >>Change takes commitment, both belief that change is possible, that we >>can transform beyond the limits of our social history and our biology >>to become something new and better and the discipline and >>endurance to achieve that change. >> >> >>Trusting the change, finding the mastery for which we are coded is >>our salvation. >I have some comments couched as questions. > >Isn't the rhetoric of these/our/some of our >theoretical/lived positions that of anti-salvation? > >Haven't we/some of us critiqued to death the >Western valorization of mind over body? > >Can we ever again approach biology as merely biology? >Can we ever again approach biology as something merely constructed? > >Will we ever again think of ourselves as having finally "overcome" our bodies? >As social constructions? >As organisms? > >Can we continue to perceive our bodies as our property to dispose of as we will? > >Do we still imagine that our bodies belong to us in the >liberal, free markeplace humanist sense? > >If "finding the mastery for which we are coded" is what all this >rhetoric of transformation, multiplicity, mutation, etc., is about-- >then what is liberatory about transformation? > >Mastery over what? Whom? > > >Happy New Year! > >Ann Weinstone Oddly enough, I see transformation issues around the issue of essentialism. I believe, as Hillman does in "A Soul's Code" that there are nascent inclinations coded into the souls of humans, not simply in the genes but in some sort of acorn or daemon. Socially, we tend to homoginize people in many ways, trying to get them to asssimilate, to take on the shared characteristics of the group, which in this machine age are characteristics that serve the machine of culture, including regular work as opposed to bursts of exceptional work, becoming good comsumers and so on. For me, the challenge of diversity, of embracing queerness and individual expression, is to trust in the feelings that we felt as kids, the pull of our callings, dreams & desires that society is much more comfortable in supressing in favor of normativity. We need to move past following the rules to following our hearts, even at the cost of breaking rules. The question in my mind is what our essence is: is it our body, our history or something else? What do we follow to our salvation: the call of society/socialization, the call of our body, the call of our emotions, our mind or our soul? I don't see the question as being limied to mind and body: I think heart and soul also come into the equation. Souls are messy things though, because they don't tend to be socialized nearly as well as minda that can learn to avoid discomfort, bodies that need sustinance. Souls have more of a eternal pull. Mixing the call of tame society and wild calling is the challenge I focus on in lots of ways, and I don't see it as simple. Thanks for your comments, and I hope you and all here have a Happy New Year Callan Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 18:02:26 EST Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Subject: Re: What Are We Transforming? Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII In a message dated Thu, 1 Jan 1998 21:59:28 EST, WalkerJar writes on the Queer Studies List: >The only world in Callan's paragraph that I can cling to firmly is "body." >Perhaps the celebrated bodily obsessions of gay men lie in the simple fact >that we all know what a body is -- notwithstanding our endless debates about >"the body", we all have one, and in experiences that are common to all bodies >we come as close as we can to a reptilian-brain confirmation of each other's >selfhood as one of our own species. I have, in the past few days, been listening to the audio-tape of Alan Gurganus reading his new book "Plays Well With Others," a tale of three artists in Manhattan during the first years of the AIDS crisis. The work is lyrical, and his reading is fine, as I had hoped after hearing he was one of the few authors who could get away with charging people to come to his readings. The stories in it -- starting with an episode of hauling a bag of dildoes out of the apartment of a friend with AIDS whose parents are arriving -- are both achingly funny and achingly poingiant. What moves me the most, though, is how life and art is suffused through this tale. "What did you learn last night?" one man is asked after his first night of gay sex in Manhattan, and he understands that no matter how physical the sex it, it is a pathway to learning on more than just the level of the physical, but also the mental, emotional and spiritual. It seems to me that the enduring gifts of queers are not for anonymous and hot sex, but for seeing something through that, and turning that sight into art. Art that reflects the beauty, the love, the fear and the rage, art that is commecrial and decorative, art that is challenging and raw, all this is a message that there is something beyond the body. I'm not sure I know what a body is, as Jarrett suggests we all do. As a transgendered person, my body is not where I live easily, and it doesn't work in the way I would like it to. I wonder how much other queers actually connect with bodies, especially because the way they use their bodies have been deemed "unnatural" by many cultures. As much as many press the meat -- and gay men are reputed for it, as are bisexuals, while lesbians are known for being less active, and trannies cover an odd spectrum -- I suspect that there is something deeper that exists. For me, the shared experiences that make me human don't come from a reptilian brain, but from some higher connection that allows meeting in spirit, in mind, in the heart and not just in the genitals. This connection is reflected in many ways by art, which always transformative, seeking to transform the world for a moment by transforming the way we humans see it. From festive decorations tosharp photographs to cutting performances, we transform ourselves and our world with our art. I don't connect with the bodies of many other people, but I do connect with their art, their expressions of self in a way that is uniquely human and well above the reptilian brain. It is their work that helps me transform, find the words, symbols, images and movements that allow me to trust and communicate my own inner nature, that calling coded into my soul. For me, the link between queers and art is one of the places where transformation is revealed in all it's power, and that is not just in the body, but in the heart, mind and soul. Callan Date: Sat, 3 Jan 1998 07:47:35 EST Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Subject: Re: What Are We Transforming? Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII In a message dated Fri, 2 Jan 1998 08:16:12 -0800, Ann Weinstone writes: >Date: Fri, 2 Jan 1998 08:16:12 -0800 >From: Ann Weinstone >Subject: Re: QSTUDY-L Digest - 31 Dec 1997 to 1 Jan 1998 > >Callan, et al, > >I don't know what you mean by seeing "issues of transformation around the >issue of essentialism," especially since later on in your post you seem >to take the existence of an essence as a given. >Is transformatoin wrapped around essence? Yes, it is to me. We have always known that people are different from each other, even different from their biological family, with different desires, different loves. It has long been clear that nuture alone is not enough to describe the diversity between humans, that some other factor, one we often call nature, comes into play The gay & lesbian movement has had real ambivalence about this. On one hand, it is desirable to say that these essential differences have benefit and should be honored, but on the other, we don't want these seen as simply biological mutations that should be "cured" to move everyone to some idealized normative state. Discussions around destiny/free will also fill the philosophy books, making it clear that while humans have free will, and learning to make different choices can change their life, that free will exists within the limits of many factors, including environmental factors and factors that reflect the essential talents, desires and predelictions that we are born with >I find it interesting that you see what you call the soul as "coded." I >think that code has become our newest transcendental signifier. > >Regardless of anyone's beliefs in a soul or essences, I am mightily >bothered by the idea that was expressed in your first post: >the idea that we are trajecting toward a destiny as Masters >that is coded into us. Doesn't this sound scary to you? >On political grounds? No, because I do believe in free will. For me, honoring the "codes" inside of people is not playing out some precanned scenario, with a destiny that is foretold, rather it is allowin everyone to be the best we can be because we trust that everyone has gifts to share with society. Erica Jong: "Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent where it leads us." I believe that by honoring that talent, rather than resisting it to become normative, we actually have more control of our destiny. We follow our own path, not the desitiny laid out by society for us. I tend to believe that social pressure is a bit more political and limiting than the pressure of any gifts given by the creator. >I feel disheartened that after all the miles we've walked, >we feminists, queers, people of color, poor people, etc., >that statements such as this might still feel acceptable >to some folks theoreticially, politically, or >in terms as a possible shaper of lived experience. And I believe that trusting, rather than erasing, the essence of those who have been cateorgized as deviant, is the most heartening thing thing I can imagine. It is, to me, a way to claim that, as Dr. Robert Schuller says "It's not odd! It's God!" To me, coding does not erase the individual responsibility, power and honor of the individual, but rather it accentuates it, demanding that individuals empower themselves to give their gifts, rather than simply follow the dictates of society, dictates that lay out a path for us that is normative and that supports order over idividual fulfillment and blossoming. Callan Date: Sun, 4 Jan 1998 08:29:53 EST Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Subject: Morals, Values, Beliefs Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII So, if people feel uncomfortable about any sense of divine essentialism -- as opposed to biological essentialism -- how do they feel about morals, values and beliefs? Power, to me, is simply the ability to get others to do what you wish them to do. Some have written that there are there are three basic types of power. One is the power of corecion, that a stonger force will use physical, emotional or monetary threats to make you do something. The second is the power of the market, where we trade to get what we want, strike a bargain that satisifes both parties. The third is the power of belief, where our beliefs are strong enough to sway others. We plant a seed in another and they follow not becauuse of fear of the consequences, or because they will get something in return, but just because they think it's the right thing to do. Each one of these powers can be abused, and each one can be used well. Having the state have corecive powers helps us deal with those who for some reason cannot deal with the bargain of society: follow the rules and you will be OK. But the power of belief is the scariest of all, because belief isn't simply conditional, and it isn't simply changed. Beliefs don't have to be logical, well thought though, or even positive. In this country, it is the moral conservatives, the fundamentalists who exploit the power of belief. Those may be right wing or left wing fundamentalists, but they are scary, especially to those of us who want to be able to reason together. Belief is a powerful force. An old Hungarian Proverb: "The doubter is wise, the believer is happy." So when I talk about beliefs, about the creation myth I hold, people get uncomfortable and see how those beliefs can be limiting and oppressive. Personally, I believe that we each need a creation myth, some explanation of why we are here and what we are to do. In the last years, the trend has been to venerate a scientific, biological myth, one that changes with each new discovery. We all can see the problems with having no basic beliefs, that every new discovery threatens to erase what we hold dear, no matter how much we know it in our hearts to be true, because we can't yet prove it emperically. And we also see the problems with having beliefs that are too set, too fixed, too fundamental, because they give people the righteous power of "God Is On Our Side!" the call that triggered many of the greatest slaughters and systematic oppressions of history. The challenge, as I see it, is not to be lead only by our beliefs, nor only by our thoughts. It is to find a balance, as we also must balance our emotions and our physical needs & desires. Body, heart, mind & spirit. To want to cast out belief because it is used against us is to be in a reactionary position. Rather than conciously using the tools we have to build human lives, we cast soem out because we have seen them misused, and that loses important parts of what we need. As I think of how to keep people to not do destructive things, I think of the three ways we can do that. We can tell them that their actions may bring a coercive reign down on them, subject them to the police and law enforcement system. We can tell them that if they don't do destrutctive things that they can trade for rewards, barter in the market for the fruits of society. We can tell them that it is simply morally wrong to be destructive. I like the third option. I like the notion that people feel that their character is not about avoiding coercion or trading up, but comes from some more basic urge, that character counts even when no one is looking. Yet, to do that, they must believe in something bigger than themselves. They must see themselves as part of something bigger than their momentary desires, that the pride and honor of their ancestors rides on their shoulders, and that their virtue wil carry forth beyond their own life. This is one of the discoveries of the recovery momvement. If you only believe in now, there is no reason not to take the drug to ease the momentary pain, no future to build for. Believing in something bigger than the moment is crucial to be able to renounce momentary pleasure for health. I have a friend who works with PWAs and is now, with the longer life of PWAs concerned with substance abuse in that community. Her challenge though is that moving beyond substances requires hope, and that is something that is often in short supply. To have morality and values, we have to have beliefs about something bigger than the moment. We have to have a creation myth that lifts us, gives us context, history and hope to endure the tough moments as just part of a life. I believe in morality & values. I do understand how terrifying morality and values can be to queers. I, like many of us, am very churchburned, having the coercive power of religion try to beat me into submission to some fundamentalist rules. I have moved past religion, whose goal is to build churches, to spirituality, whose goal is to build lives. And that spiritualty demands that I hold some sort of creation myth, some sort of unprovable belief, phrased as a mythical story, that explains what we cannot yet explain by facts. "We are not humans living a spiritual life, we are spirit living a human life," said Teilhard de Chardin. I think that we need to believe, and believing in divine essentialism, that people are born with a palatte of aptitudes that need to be honored, and those may form the basis of a calling of their heart, is at the heart of this belief. I like this belief because it give basis to honor the truth of other people, which to me is at the heart of queer, believing that we each tell our own diverse truths and each of those truths, however contradictory they may seem, help illuminate the circle of life, which we can only see one point at a time in this finite world. I agree that belief is scary. I just have come to the conclusion that lack of belief is even scarier. Callan. Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 08:27:40 EST Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Subject: Re: Morals, Values, Beliefs Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII > > Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 04:01:16 -0500 > Reply-To: Queer Studies List >From: Un Leash >Subject: Re: Morals, Values, Beliefs > > Callan, > > re: "the bargain of society: follow the rules and you will > be OK." But this is bogus and untrue. So why follow this > bogus bargain? And why have a coercive apparatus to > enforce something inherently untrue? I'm not interested in > following rules ; I'm not interested in making a bargain > with some reified entity called "society". I think that the bargain we each have to make with a society that we need for many reasons, from getting food and shelter to getting love is at the heart of understanding queer/transgressive and normative/assimilation. However much we want to reject the socialization we are shaped with, the socialization that teaches us the rules and the bargains that are the deal, the compact between the invidual and the culture, we are social animals and need the culture. Only thoise who are willing to live off the land, living the life of a hermit can move beyond any social obligation and social pressure. Society has a good and valuable interest in enforcing social order, even while they also promulgate individual freedom. Too much order leads to stagnation and even reversals of progress, and too much freedom leads to anarchy, chaos and an envionment where there are no social controls against the strong terrorzing the weak. The issue of the social contract, especially in this world where people are expected to be consumers and not owners, is at the heart of the questions I think are vital. There is no "Get Out Of Culture Free" card to anyone who wants to accept the benefits of living in a rich, comfortable and sophisticated culture. > I agree that we need to seek balance. I also agree that > there is much that is outside the discourse of the present > biological myth. > > I'm not interested in getting a person to not be > "destructive" through coercive, market, nor moral means. > That is treating the symptom. I would rather get to the > cause of what is motivating that destruction in the first > place. The line of where we see destruction being is key. I do want serial murders who destroy human life locked up, but I don't want homosexuals, like Oscar Wilde, who destroy societies conciets and the demand that we collude to keep challenging truths silenced. I sometimes watch "Cops" on Fox, and I do believe that there is destructive behavor that society needs to keep in check. I also know that the line between thoughtless, selfish and maclious destruction and creative destruction is sometimes hard to find, esepcially for law enforcement officials who are committed to a status quo. > And in analyzing that, I need to question whether > perhaps that destruction is NECESSARY. Somehow we've > gotten the idea that all destruction is bad. Can't make an > omelette without breaking a few eggs. Tearing something > down allows something else to be built up. So both of > these ought to be addressed. Yes, conflict is required. If the corporate practices of the "rightsizing" 80s taught us anything, it's that destruction is required for change -- and in this case, that destruction was of jobs, towns, families and dreams. The price of those changes still haunt us -- or at least haunt people who, like me, live in towns like Schenectady, which is crushed by that destructions. Death is required for rebirth. I believe that we tend to forget that, being too far away from the barnyard or the forest, where death is an eccepted truth. This society wants to cheat death, and that means we also cheat life. >Frankly, I don't think those > being destructive give a damn whether someone else thinks > it's "wrong" ; who wants to listen to a preacher anyway? > Yet helping a person understand the relationship between > their actions and its effects and the way that is nestled > into an entire network of relations, as well as their > historical precedents, allows them to draw their own > conclusions based on their values. We can also engage them > experientially in an attempt to stress new values. Here you appear to contradict yourself. Here, you do believe that it is important to "stress new values," appearing to care about some of the parts of a society you " that you "have no interest in bargaining with" to have people understand the effects of their actions. This is exactly the challenge we have when every action causes some destruction, when every choice means that we have to allocate finite resources of time, energy and materials to something and away from something else. Life, in my mind, is about learning to make hard decsions about what we keep going and what we let stand or decline. I agree with you that the challenge is to give people some context, some longer term view, some broader vision of the effects of their actions, and I believe that is what a belief system that supports morals and values tries to do. > I think it is important to integrate spiritedness into > our endeavours as well. But personally I am not grounded > in morality nor in beliefs. I am grounded in my > existential experience. From this basis, I engage in > praxis. This praxis, or active practice or methodology or > whatever you want to call it is essentially a way of > engaging the world. Through this engagement, I test > hypotheses, and come to certain tentatively useful > judgement calls and rules of thumb. Ideas do not determine > me ; I determine ideas. Your beliefs come from testing the world, building a belief system and then using that to guide your choices. Great. I'm just not sure everyone has the will, the intent, the capacity to do the hard work to create their own model of the world, nor do I believe that without shared understandings we can easliy come together to build a better world. Tribal values -- however we come upon them, though religious or other beliefs -- seem to have a value. You have done the hard work to know what you think, to have a long term view. But do you have any obligation to help others see things in a new way, come to shared understandings? On one hand, you claim to have no interest in what others believe, and on the other hand you know that you can help enlighten others by stressing what you call "values" (and not "morals" or "beliefs" which you say do not ground you.) We are back to the challenge you started with: What obligation do we have to engage society to make sure our core values are included? And what are our values (and beliefs and morals) anyway? >I think you're asking useful questions. Thanks. They seem important to me. . . . Callan Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 00:54:09 EST Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan Organization: AOL (http://www.aol.com) Subject: Re: Defining Heterosexism Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII In a message dated Thu, 15 Jan 1998 22:18:26 -0500, Sasha Normand writes: >Heterosexism is the behaviour of normalising >heterosexuality to the exclusion of other sexualities and/or of >being/acting ignorant of the existence of other sexualities. My definition of heterosexism is quite different. To me, heterosexism is the system that believes that there are only two sexes, and therefore only two genders, and then enforces the notion that the only appropriate sexual relationship is between them. heterosexism uses anatomical reproductive organs as a basis for discrete gender roles which are separate and distinct, asserting the only way to become a complete person is to join in a pair-bonded relationship with someone of the other gender. Homosexism believes that there are only two sexes, and therefore only two genders, but that there are two sexualities, so appropriate sexual relationships can be either homosexual or heterosexual. Queer moves past all that, past assumptions about sex, about gender, about proper sexualities. It opens up room for bisexuality, polyamory, intersexuality, gender transgression and more. Heterosexism: the system that supports heterosexuality by separating sexes and gender roles/attributes and enforcing those separations and constructed roles assigned by sex with severe social stigma. It's another way of looking at it. Callan Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 10:20:11 EST Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: Gender Roles Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Michael A question that comes up for me is: Which is more fundamental, our view of who we are inside or our object of desire? Your definition of queer is based around object of desire and/or around personal identification as queer, which I find contradictory. For me, queerness comes not in the selection of a desirable partner, but is rooted in how we transgress the gender norms of the culture. In my definition, a female person who is living as a man is queer on their face, without the added nuance of desire. Homosexual behavior has traditionally been queer because it violates the gender norms for being a man or being a woman. In fact, for many years only the gender variant partner -- the "wife" in a gay relationship, the "husband" in a lesbian relationship was seen as queer. That is changing as gay men and lesbian women become more normative, and there are accepted social roles for being gay or lesbian. What this means is that being homosexual is less trangressive than it has been, but at the cost of assimilation. I see the core of queer not to be in some "Queer Culture" but in the individual queering of culture, specifically the transgression of gender roles. There is no fixed role for queers, because once a fixed role exists, then the behavior and choices are no longer transgressive, no longer queer the status quo. To say that there are two genders, and we cross between them simply by changing clothes, as happens in your model of the self-identified heterosexual crossdresser who sleeps with his wife becoming lesbian, and therfore queer, is to put desire over gender. No human is sexually active 100% of the time, but we are gendered 100% of the time. That gender role we play and the way it interacts with the internal vision of self that we hold seems to be very powerful. Simply changing clothes does not change our gender role, as any transvestite or gay-identified drag queen will tell you. For me, self-definition of queer is the key to queer identification. If you see yourself as normative, even though you cruise rest areas for blow jobs, or you live in a homosexual relationship, then your interest will be in enforcing normative structures. If you see yourself as trangressive in some way, even though you may only engage in heterogenderal or heterosexual relations, you are. As a scholar, one can identify people who engage in homosexual activity, though because desire is subject to shift, it is often hard to identify someone as "homosexual" meaning exclusively homosexual or Kinsey 6. What we end up looking at, unless they have completely disclosed all their sexual behavior, is the role that people play in culture, the way their gender/normative/social aspects play against their queer/transgressive/individual aspects. It is this counterpoint that makes individual lives queer, when individuals queer roles and society in their own way. You try to separate these two notions in the sense that "queerness" is queer or transgressive behavior, but that "being queer" is participating in homogenderal sex. Unless we define homogenderal sex as always queer, and we can effecitively identify the gender of the person in the moment they are having relations -- like the crossdresser who is a man 99% of the time, but a woman while having sex -- I don't find that disticintion between queerness and being queer as at all useful. I have seen no indication of a queer culture, unless you define it as a culture where individual transgression is accepted. Once that culture stops being oppressed and underground, it becomes normative, and we have been watching the process of the gay culture becoming more normative, and queers wondering how they still fit in it. There may be feminism, a set of beliefs that are held by feminists, but there is no queerism, a set of beliefs that are held by queerists. Queers queer. In my view, they trangress in their own way, and primarly they trangress gender roles. The challenge of what that means in the context of queer studies is always interesting. Is there a group we can refer to as "queers" who can be statistically quantified, or is queer studies about looking at individuals and their interaction with others, though textual analysis, history and other tools? I believe the breakthough in queer studies is in identifying the individual, and the part they take in queering their culture, expressing individual and transgressive behaviors, and how those queers who queer culture find a place in a diverse society. Callan Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 09:17:46 EST Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Re: Gender, Society, Semen and Semantics Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII In a message dated Sat, 14 Feb 1998 01:01:41 EST Michael Reed writes: >In the end, all we're arguing about is WORDS. ("Of no more substance than >the air and more inconstant than the wind...") I think the safest thing >to say is that if you feel Straight, then you are. (Over there, single >file please.) If you feel Queer, then you are. (Sorry, Toaster Ovens were >last quarter.) Transvestite? Sure thing. (Please, only one per costomer.) >Does it really matter what category someone else puts you in? The problem is simple: Humans cannot directly communicate meaning. All we can do is use symbols to communicate that meaning. Until we get a reasonably well shared set of symbols, we have trouble building shared meanings, as you note >This whole discussion is PAINFULLY unscientific. If we went to the >trouble to extablish a universal set of terms, we'd all see that we're >not actually in disagrement. So what we are taking about here is not just symbols -- words -- but the meaning behind those words, the ideas and concepts that are essentilaized in those symbols. One big reason we do that is to create shared meanings so we can communicate with each other and to try to get some mass, some momentum behind those shared concepts/meanings so they become reference points in the culture, points that we can build identities & lives on. Society is built on these shared meanings and the symbols we use to communicate anout them. It's clear that language is the most important gift humans have to build and grow. There most certainly is disagreement here, not just about the words, but about what those words mean. To try to slide out from that discussion by saying they are just words is far from good scholarship -- after all, scholarship is built on words. If you feel that there is a semantic dispute, that we mean the same thing but don't understand that because we use the different words for the same meaning, or worse, the same word for different meanings, then you have to make your meanings clear and come to some agreement with those you attempt to communicate with about the meaning of words. Other than the fact that anyone who defines themselves as queer is, we have very different ideas of what queer means. You chose not to address that, bur rather to say that people are confused and tell them not to worry, that it is only words >.Well folks, we seem to be a little confused. Your definition of queer is clear. You believe that people are queer if a) they have some attraction (over 1/3) to same gender people and/or b) if they identify as queer. Your defintion of same gender is not based on anatomical sex, but on some "totally internal, *spiritual* (If you will) experience" which you do not measure by self identification, calling heterosexual crossdressers (who self-identify as men) women by your definition. I questioned your defintions as useful common tools, and offered my own. You responded "You are confused, they are just words. Who cares how others identify us?" I think that if we are talking about queer studies, and more than that if we are talking about queer lives, we do care that we can communicate our truths to others. And that means that we do care what words are out there for us to use, and what shared concepts they reflect. You are welcome to your definition of queer. Use it well and effectively. Please know that when I use the word queer, I don't mean what you mean by it. Here, on the queer-studies list, be sure that the shared defintion of queer is something that many of us have an interest in. To us, that's not because it's just a word, it's because it is a word, and a word that symbolizes meanings we thing are important to bring into the world. Callan (who wonders why you felt the requirement to put semen in your post.) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 15:27:03 EDT Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan Subject: Re: New web discussion forum (hosted by pedophiles) Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII The following was posted to this list, but the ownership of the web board was not disclosed, though it is on the site. The host -- DANPEDO.TO -- is the Danish Pedophile Organization, and I believe that the host computer is in Togo, probably to avoid lawas against this discussion in other countries, including Denmark. >Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 13:04:34 -0500 >From: Dan Markussen >Subject: New web discussion forum > >A new web board has been formed for theoretical and political discussion of >deviant an unorthodox sexuality. It works like a noticeboard where anybody >can post a message and anybody can reply. There are 12 topics: > > Homosexuality theory > Homosexuality politics > Bisexuality and non-gay homosexuality > Pedophilia theory > Pedophilia politics > Children's sexuality > Incest > Gerontophilia > Transvestism, transsexuality, and transgender > Sadomasochism > Fetishism > Is it true? Sex scandals in the mass media > >It's called Danpedo Sexuality Forum and the URL is >www.danpedo.to/forum As a transgendered woman, I am uncomfortable being swept into the category of "deviant and unorthodox sexuality." It appears that the goal with this is to conflate a number of topics to gain credibility and respectability for pedophila. Transgender is no more about sexuality than being a man or a woman is about sexuality. Our gender expression is related to our sexuality, but transgender identification does not require any particular kind of sexuality or sexual behavior. It is a social pursuit of an indvidual to bring their own self image and their social image into some sort of harmony, a harmony that is denied them because of of gender limits. In the same way that, for example, being handicapped requires people to renegotiate desire, gender exploration requires people to renegotiate their sexuality. Some people even have fetishistic desires about parapalegics -- I think of the movie "Boxing Helena" -- but that does not mean that each parapalegic is inherently a sexual object any more than any other human is a sexual object. Certainly there are theories of transgender that conflate gender transgression with sexual satisfaction, a fetishism where items and fantasies are used for sexual astisfaction, but there are also people who use riding tack for sexual satisfaction, and this doesn't mean that all horsemen and women are fetishists. My point is simple. While elements of transgender may be used in "deviant and unorthodox sexuality," transgender is no more about "deviant and unorthodox sexuality" than are people who raise gerbils as pets. A question I have asked here before "Is transgender a form of homosexuality or is homosexual behavior a form of gender transgression?" My answer to that is simple: Transgender is primarily about defining an identity, often transcending sexual desire. Because so many people assume gender is only expressed for the purposes of attraction, many transgendered people find it difficult to explain that their choice of gender expression is more about who they are inside than who they choose to attract -- the same as women who have to explain that just because they wear a pretty dress does not mean they are coming onto men. I believe it is inappropriate for a discussion about transgender to be hosted on a board formed to discuss "deviant and unorthodox sexuality." I also believe that the choice to combine a wide range of issues, including bisexuality and homosexuality on a web board sponsored by the Danish Pedophile Organization is an attempt to conflate and spin the legitmate issues that come up around consent and responsibility around sex with children. While questions around consent are important and valid for all queers, and expecially young queers, sexual exploitation of children who cannot actively consent is, in my book, simply wrong. I, for one, am offended to have the Danish Pedophile Organization try to define me as one of them for these purposes. Callan Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 09:24:32 EDT Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan Subject: Re: New web discussion forum (hosted by pedophiles) Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII >Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 12:29:57 +0200 >From: Dan Markussen >Subject: Re: New web discussion forum (hosted by pedophiles) >Your reluctance to use a discussion forum that you think is created by >pedophiles is a form of discrimination comparable with refusing to ride on >a bus when you believe the bus driver is a muslim. No, it's more like refusing to ride on a busline where the price of the ticket goes to islamic fundamantalists, or to use a better analogy, to participate in a forum sponsored & funded by the religous right where your participation is only designed to legitimatize the forum as a place to promote their views about the suppression of queers. It's not the staff that I care about -- I am sure that I have patronized companies that employ pedophiles and that's fine with me, even if sexual perdation by self-described pehophiles is not. It is the ownership and intent that is the question here, and your attempt to spin this with my "refusing to ride with a muslim bus driver" is exactly the kind of conflation and misdirection that I object to. >We all share a common interest in fighting against censorship, prejudice, >discrimination, and persecution. The victims of the witchhunts are >changing. In Denmark, where I live, Jews, communists, and homosexuals are >hardly persecuted any more, but others have replaced them. Muslims and >pedophiles are now the number one scapegoats. We are persecuted for what we >are rather than for what we do, and people refuse to believe that most >pedophiles are law-abiding citizens. Transgendered people are also >suppressed here - indeed so much so that we don't even have a word for it >in the Danish language. That is the same mechanism of suppression that was >used against homosexuals in the last century here. Right. The heterosexist gender systerm does force normative behaviors by erasing queer or transgressive behaviors. I do beieve that we all suffer that oppression from the binary linking of sex/gender/attraction/sexual behavior. On the other hand, I don't believe that means that any behavior is acceptable, and the line for me is mature consent. Murder and rape, for example, are non- consentual acts, and even if someone's nature is to be a sexual preditor, and they are suppressed by a culture that believes this is wrong, I don't think I have an obligation to fight for their right to predate simply because we share an oppression. If you want to guarantee that members of the Danish Pedophile Organization only engage in consensual sexual behavior with persons who are capable of consent, then I would reconsider my opinion. >Let's use our energy to fight against suppression and ignorance, rather >than against each other. I am not demanding that you agree with our point >of view, but I do want you to accept us as persons with an immutable sexual >identity. Good question:. Is pedophila an immutable sexual identity? For me, even if rapists have an immutable sexual identity, a real need to predate and violate people without their consent, I still do not accept their behavior as ethical or acceptable in a moral society. >The Internet is our best weapon against censorship, so let's use it! I would never ask for your board to be shut down. I merely said that I would not use it, and that I was offended by your conflating your issues with mine, defining us as the same for your purposes. I see the differences as being both the focus on sexual behavior and the issues of consent. Have your free speech. My speech is simple: First: you misstate and mislead by conflation -- after all, you choose not to have a discussion of rape and how that is a "deviant and unorthodox sexuality" Second, I cannot respect or approve of any acts of non-consensual sexual behavior, and I believe young children do not have the power to consent. That means I am offended by your blatant and manipulative spin in the conflation and inclusion of transgender in a board dedicated to "deviant and unorthodox sexuality." and sponsored by pedophiles. Callan Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1998 16:25:31 EDT Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan Subject: Re: pedophilia, consent, mature definitions Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Caroline As I noted in my post yesterday, I agree completely that issues arround consent are key for queers, especially young queers. The line where consent can be given is always a sticky question -- in some cultures, it was simply defined that no one had a right to consent to what was defined as deviant sex. There are still major issues around consent to BDSM in the UK. What kind of pressures and tactics will we allow and still permit consent? Transgendered men (born female) have been prosecuted for rape because they did not disclose their genital configuration before sexual relations, thereby "tricking" people into sex. Some feminists even claim that no woman can ever consent to prostitution, because by definition she is economically coerced into sex. Can we ever consent to sex with parents or caretakers (uncles/aunts), to sex with teachers, to sex with prison guards, or is the power differential so great that coercion overrides consent? Should the 17 year old who fathered a child with a 14 year old be defined as having committed statutory rape? The definition of where children need to be protected is very hard, but clearly the issue of age of consent laws is not solely to disempower young people Certianly 21 year olds have the power of consent -- though some have sugggested that interns who have sex with powerful people who are above them in the hierarchy cannot consent -- and 3 year olds cannot consent, but beyond that it is very hard. The issues of consent are very much tied in with intent, and that is not easy to determine, yet a system of laws depends on clear definitions. I would argue that puberty seems to be a clear cut demarcation line, before which children must be protected fully, but even that is arbitrary in some respects. There is a big difference between a 14 year old boy crusing the internet for a mentor/sex partner and a 14 year old boy being raped by his hockey coach. I honor the bright voices who have argued that mixed age relationships have always been a way to learn and grow, the coming together of youth and experience being a trade that rewards both participants. For me, I find it easier though to accept the name NAMBLA, with its connotations of consent, than to accept the term pedophile, with the connotations of sex with very young children. For example, I have very strong moral issues about the issue if incest can ever be acceptable.and from a review of the DANPEDO site by Sarah Fox, "What little that has been posted so far seems to have the intent of justifying and legitimizing -- and even promoting -- pedophilia and incest." Consent, in all its many foms is a big deal and this discussion has been continuing on this list for years (look at the archive server for some very good arguments for and against.) Personally, I don't see Dan as contributing to it very much. But then again, the issues of spin versus content have also been going on for years, and finding the line between hitting the emotional buttons of freedom and the hard questions of social order are always tricky. I think it is key not to have a knee-jerk moralistic attitude, but I also believe a line of morality is crucial, and for me, that is around consent -- as messy as that issue is. Callan Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 17:24:17 EDT Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan Subject: Lessons Loudly Learned. Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII What have I learned from this whole debate over pedophila, a discussion board that defines "deviant and unorthodox sexualities," and the meaning of queer? -- There is no widely agreed upon line as to where queer stops and immoral begins, or where the baby stops and the bathwater begins, or where pleasure stops and obscenity begins. For me, that line is consent, but even that is fuzzy. -- Some queer people are distressed when others take a moral tone that seems to stigmatize some behaviors, whatever they are. They feel that morality is inherently stifiling, and moral indignation has no place in the academy. -- Some queer people are distresses when others take a moral tone that seems to accept all behaviors, whatever they are. They feel that morality is inherently required, and that moral turpitude has no place in the academy. -- People can get hot when they see the effects of actions as limiting their own freedom (the right to sexual pleasure without moralistic judgements of others) or the freedom of others they care about (the right to live without being sexually preyed upon). -- Pedophiles don't see the word pedophila the way I do, as synonymous with rape of children who cannot consent. It's not quite clear how they do see it, but maybe that's just because they haven't had time to discuss it and the whole topic is beyond the bounds of many discussions. --The line between small children who must be protected and adolescents who need to be free to make their own decisions is fuzzy at best. -- The issue around transgender being deviant sexuality or gender difference, and the issue of how we feel when our group is conflated with another for their political purposes, are not issues that this group chooses to engage. -- Many people prefer to use spin, pushing emotional hot-buttons by conflating issues than to de-spin arguments, looking beyond emotional reactions to the content of the claim and how that claim affects our world. -- ____ just doesn't like queer theory and prefers not to engage agruments but just to tell people just to shut up when they say things ____ doesn't like, spewing lots of messages. Ooops! I knew that before. -- Figuring out how to guarantee indvidual freedom to act while also guaranteeing social order and freedom from negative effects of people's actions is a hard balancing act that is at the heart of fitting queer into the culture. I think I knew that before too. You probably learned something different. Such is life. Callan Date: Sat, 18 Apr 1998 15:48:38 EDT Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan Subject: Marketing Pedophilia Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII I think I'm beginning to see the problem that pedophiles are having. I have a history in marketing, so let me try to find a way to tell the story of pedophiles in a positive light, using the techniques of spin doctoring.: =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= People just can't tell the difference between good pedophiles, whose only crime is a natural gift to love children too much, and the bad pedophiles who absuse children by acting on that gift. Good pedophiles are valued members of their community, teachers, scoutmasters, baby-sitters, who merely have a lust that is inspired by children, while bad pedophiles, like the man whose arrest was announced in Denmark this week for abusing and incesting his own 7 year old daughter and having thousands of images of children on his computer, or those who engage in sex tourism, or those who otherwise prey on children are to be avoided. How can we change the attitude of people to assume that people who are pedophiles are good upstanding members of their community who would never act in a way that causes children harm? What is the difference? It may not be intent, beacuse it seems clear that very few pedophiles actually have the intent to hurt children, even if they do. It may not even be legality, because the laws are very restrictive around anything to do with children. It would be nice if all bad pedophiles would identify themselves, but that is unlikely to happen, so the only answer seems to be in convincing people that a few bad apples are not a good enough reason to throw out the whole barrel of pedophiles. Pedophiles are just a natural way some people are made, with a history that comes down to us that even celebrates relationships where sex was included in the process of children growing up, and the actions of a few black sheep who give all pedophiles a bad name is no reason to be prejudiced against all pedophiles. Look at the cost of this prejududice against pedophiles in society. It means that researchers who want to study the natural sexual development of children can't even keep images around for fear of draconian child pornography laws. It means that any father in a messy divorce can be branded a pedophile and sexual abuser and have to defend himself. It means that access to mature material can be denied even to adults, because we are overprotective of children. It means that young people cannot reach out and sexually mature in a developmentally healthy way because of restrictions on consent. It means that any group, say gay men, can be labeled pedophiles and thrown into the mud. It means enormous costs to the culture, such as in the McMullen child abuse trials, where every defendant was found innocent of the allegations. Clearly, the challenge is to find a way to change the emotionsof people who have an emotional and irrational response to a natural desire, that of the pedophile, just because they feel that being against pedophlia and pedophiles is being for protecting children. These outdated attitudes are based on a few therapists and people who have been treated for mental disorders, who have suffered some discomfort at the hands of people who have been branded pedophiles. With what we know today about the hysteria of children, and about implanted memory, it is easy to question these self-defined victims, but even if some have suffered abuse what does that say about pedophiles in general? Even police agencies note that pedophiles care very much about the health, well being and development of the children that they care for. Yet, because pedophiles are forced into the dark closet, we don't know how much these good pedophiles have reached out and helped children in their own community, making them better adults. Pedophiles give of themselves to children, yet the benefits of those gifts are never idfentified in lurid and overblown stories about child abuse that paint all pedophiles with a broad brush. Pedophiles are one of the last scapegoats, the whipping boys for a society that would rather have someone to blame for its problems in neglecting youth than to address the systemic problems that all children face. It is, in many cases, pedophiles who are reach out and helping children make sense of sexuality and desire while most of society simply leaves this crucial caring about children to toilets, street corners and dark alleys. Like Muslims, people look down on all the good pedophiles because the news media blasts stories of a few sick people and calls them pedophiles. This bashing that goes on everyday in the media puts us in solitarity with gays, lesbians and other people who are abused simply because of the way Mother Nature made them. No rational and open minded person who has compassion in their hearts would ever be prejudiced and judgemental about pedophiles, because they know that pedophiles are simply humans who have love in their hearts. As we tell the story of the pure and good hearts of pedophiles, who want nothing but the best for the children we love, we must move beyond old dark stereotypes of closeted child abusers who harm children in horrific ways, and move towards a more modern understanding of the pedophile as just another member of the community of man who has his own role to play. Fear of pedophiles is counter-productive, simply creating an environment of terror where all are at risk from the black cloud of stigma of society's making. Pedophiles are metely people who love children too much, and when we can get that marketing story out there, then pedophiles will be free like any other member of society to play their own special part in the education and development of our children. We need to trust and to embrace pedophiles, and know that whenever we hear one negative story about people abusing children, that many many good and caring pedophiles are out there working their own special magic in a way we will never hear about. Pedophiles don't deserve our prejuduce -- they deserve our compassion and our thanks. =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*= Callan (who is now going to wash her mouth out with soap.) Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 08:57:14 EDT Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan Subject: Re: Privilege (was re: 20/20 Friday 4/17) Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII In a note dated Tue, 21 Apr 1998 02:02:40 -0400 Sasha Normand writes (in a brilliant post): >A sociologist complained that lesbians are mad >because Loulan will now receive 'heterosexual privilege.' >So identity is then a function of oppression? >By extension, does this also mean that queers in an >extremely oppressive environment are more queer >than those who live in a gay ghetto? >Indirectly, the entire line of questioning suggests that >queer people police the borders of queerness >with an aggressive vigilance, always alert for >those who stray in a manner not dissimilar to that >of those who patrol against the possibility of queerness. >This in turn suggests once again the old idea >(now associated with the ever-delightful orange juice lady) >that we recruit because we cannot reproduce. >Otherwise, why would we need to protect against >the possibility of regression to straight behaviour? >All of this assumes that a sexual practise >is the foundational element in identity, >a notion certainly suspect considering >the range of practise that we allow to fit that identity. I always consider it very odd that people who complain about heterosexual privilege never look at the costs of that "privilege" -- the demand to stay normative. It seems to me that this "privilege" isn't granted for free, but is gained at a high cost that most people never even consider. The right often complain about "homosexual privilege," without using those words. They complain that homosexuals already have too many benefits -- they don't have to rear children, they make more money in two income homes (some with two of the higher earning men), they have more disposible income, more free time, and on and on. Of course, we know this is a generalizaion that is not totally true, that there are many gays and lesbians who do not get lots of goodies, and even those who get them pay a price for them. To me, it looks like you get what you pay for in this world, that there is a cost to everything even if we want to make sweeping generalizations that blind us to those costs by exxagerating the benefits and missing the costs. Some of us choose to pay for freedom with stigma, and some choose to pay for normativity with assimilation, and both choices have tradeoffs. These tradeoffs may not be equal -- how do you measure a life-- but when we look across class lines, we can make the inequality look very unfair indeed, whatever point we wish to make, het or homo privilege. Sasha, I think you make great points, and the issue of queer people policing the bounds of queerness -- or as I would see it, homonormative people policing the bounds of homosexual identities -- is a key. Do we embrace indvidual actions, or demand assimilation into the group, following the rules? To me this is a key difference between the homoginization of homonormativity and the acceptance of the indvidual as queer. Do we really police what people do in the bedroom any more than straights police what people do in the bedroom, or do we police public adherance to a fixed role that demands that people who dare to not look like us, not say the same things we do be forced to comply with stigma or attacked as traitors and deviants? Is it about sex, or protecting the gender role of gaymen and lesbians? Is this really about indvidual freedom, or is it about constructing group identities with all the tradeoffs that any grouping demands of its members? After all, it is not her sexual practices Loulan is being castigated about, it is her public airing of them, flaunting the conventions of the group, and who wants their mother to ask "Well, that nice JoAnn is a lesbian and she's with a man, so why can't you. . ." There is a cost to being free, no doubt, but there is also a cost to selling out. Fundamentalists say that the benefits of being homo far outweigh the costs, and some say the the benefits of being hetro far outweigh the costs, and each group uses this agrument to say that the other group is getting a free ride, and that's unfair. I suspect that the truth is more messy than that, and that we all end up having to make the choices we have to make, and in the process of rationalizing those choices, we tend to want to villify others. I'm just not sure that's a good long-term strategy for building alliances and building a world. Callan Date: Tue, 28 Apr 1998 09:56:35 EDT Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: TheCallan Subject: 24 Hours On TV Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII TV -- On Ally McBeal, Fish argued that a waiter in a tony French resturant who was caught at a hockey game could be discharged because he wasn't gay, as there are no laws protecting people being fired for being heterosexual, and the resturant has a right to hire swishy gays who wene't good at sports so they studied wines, were smart and underemployed so they were snooty and gave the right image. This followed an episode of Damon on Fox where Damon Wayans reprised his swishy "Men-On-Film" character, which GLAAD frowned on. -- On Murphy Brown, Lily Tomiln dressed as a man and pretended to have a romanitic relationship with Murphy. -- On a Jenny Jones show "I Was A Geeky Teen, But Now I'm A Sexy Drag Queen," where the queens were reunited with high school classmates, whenever they spoke of being called "faggot" the word was edited out of the audio track, but the word queer was left in. Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 05:32:34 EDT Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: performing the fool Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII If life is performance, as many queer theorists have suggested, then who we pretend to be is who we are, right? Isn't this the premise of camp, that we perform a role that is stylized for entertainment and for revelation? Did Dan'l Harris perform a hoax or a troll? I believe it was not a hoax, but a troll as defined a long time ago in Usenet, viz: Troll: 1) To drag bait though the water in order to provoke a strike 2) mythical creature who lures people into confrontation The difference is important. A hoax should be revealed, as in a false paper published in a journal where the peer review system should screen it out. A troll should be stopped or ignored. When Harris performed his troll on the list, he did so by performing the character of one of the people he intended to mock and lure in, a queer studies fool who writes gobbledygook and jargon without thought. It is a very campy thing to do, and his camp approach was one of the big issues brought up here in the discussion of his book. Harris notes: >response to the e-mails I posted entitled >"Transexualizing the Lesbian of Color" >(granted Callan does take issue with what I am ostensibly "saying" >but she gives no sign that she recognizes that the e-mails are an outright >imposture). My sense was simple: I saw someone performing the fool, talking jargon that seemed unrelated to the lives of queers, building theories without grounding in research, without the hard work of actually testing theory by comparing to how people live. I called "Richard" on that. In his next reply, "Richard" repeated his posit and baited me with a pronoun choice, calling me "dour." A very campy choice of word, that, and one I responded to. For me, though, when Harris performed the fool, it wasn't up to me to determine his motivation and call him on it. It was up to me to respond to that performance, because by performing the fool, he became the fool. He became the fool he inteded to mock -- pure camp, and in this case, pure troll. Is it our job to suss out the motivations behind every performance, declare that we have decided that other people are "imposters, just performing a role," or should we, as much queer theory suggests, take their performance at face value, using the same crap-detector we use everyday to call out people who are performing the fool? To me, Harris was not simply performing the fool in his troll, he was the fool. Until he cracked his performance with the line "Isn't Callan being a little dour? Let's postulate!" could I see the irony that also comes with camp, the sense that the performance is multi-layered. This wasn't a hoax, it was a troll, and by performing a troll, Harris became a troll. That I called him on. Callan Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 10:49:25 EDT Reply-To: Queer Studies List Sender: Queer Studies List From: Callan Williams Subject: Attacking Our Fear Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Was Matthew Shepard's death the mark of the apocolypse, a sign of the coming genocide of queers, a symbol of how awful the culture we live in is to marginalized people, or was it just reasonably random tradgic event pulled off by two bullies that provides a nice news peg for the politcal work of taking about the acceptance of queers? The US Govt. says that in 1996, 7 people in 100,000 were murdered. If gays are 10% of a 270,000,000 population, 27,000,000 people, then we should expect that every year, 1900 gays will be murdered every year. That rate of murder is not exceptional, it is normal. There would also, according to the stats, be 270,000 rapes, 540,000 assaults with serious injury and 1,350,000 robberies to that same sized population group. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvictgen.htm Those numbers may sound awful, but they are normal -- the same rate at which everyone is hurt in this country. When we make hate crime lists, be it the AP or the NGLTF, we come up with lists that show about two to three murders per year as these crimes. This is not a high rate. There is no doubt that we have work to do to make this country safer, but that is work across the board. It makes sense to use tragedies like what happened in Wyoming as a news hook Yet, we have lots of people out there who have a very visceral reaction to the death of this young man. They see it not as an incident that, statistically speaking, will happen at some point to indviduals in any group, but as a mark of the genocide of gays & lesbians. These people have a high degree of projection onto this incident. They see themselves as the person who is assaulted and murdred, feel the pain, explode in emotion. They react with anger and rage, with furor and fury. My own guess as to why is because this indcident, the brutal murder of a somewhat effeminate homosexual man, is an echo of the sttick that they were beaten with to force them into the closet. "If you show that you are queer you will be harassed and beaten and killed, so you better not show it." The powerful emotional reaction to this relatively rare killing is the powerful emotional reaction to the everyday fears that are used to silence and erase queers. As we come out of the closet, we have to fight off those fears that have been implanted in us, the fears that have kept us trembiling and silent. An incident like this is a time to confront those fears directly, to scream at them "We are not going to take being frightened anymore!" Most people don't see it this way, though. They don't see it as facing their own fears, rather they see it as facing some reality behind those fears. "If no queers are ever tortured and left to die, I will have nothing to fear! We all should have nothing to fear! They must be stopped from doing this, the killers and all the people who ever said anything that made me fear, because people who made me fear must be the same people who emboldened those killers!" Can we ever get to a point where there are no crimes in a culture? I suspect that we can't in any culture where I want to live. Only a police state can stop every crime, and the cost in loss of freedom is enormous. Danger and risk of other people robbing us, assaulting us, raping us, and even murdering is is something that has been everpresent in human culture, and one that will seem to continue on. My biggest concern is that the wild, visceral reaction that so many of us have, a reaction to our own fears rather than the real risks, often becomes counterproductive. I would wager that 99.99% of people in Wyoming believe that the killing of Matthew Shepard is something that is revolting and that never should happen, yet when the most angry and wounded gays show up to point fingers at them and say "How could you have let this happen! You created the climate of fear that allowed this to occur!" we begin to build a wall between us and the people who really do want to help. It can be part of healing, this rebelling against the fear we hold. We need to move past fear to find a way to deal with others from love -- and dealing with others from trust and cooperation is a key part of the poltical process that must happen as we continue to work to gain support for freedom of gender- transgressive behavior, including homosexual relationships. I have a hard time seeing the death of Mr. Shepard as anything but an indvidual tragedy and a good news peg. Things like this will happen, sadly, and we must go on. I know however, that many people see this as sign, an indicator, as something that triggers their fears. They respond to it with fear, either by hiding more or by striking out against those who scare them, who have scared them. They act out against those who they fear rather than acting inwardly on their own fears. Fear may be a natural reaction, but in crisis, it's usually the one who acts in cool control who does best, not the one who acts from fear and panic. I cringe when I see people acting from fear, because people who act from fear usually build walls, not bridges, and I really believe that bridges, tearing down walls, are the only way to create more safety. Life is a dangerous place, no doubt, but fear seems only to make it more dangerous, the way that we know that hompobic males are usually only acting out in fear of their own homosexually oriented nature, in fear of discovery, in fear of abuse. "Considering how dangerous everything is nothing is frightening." Gertrude Stein We need to attack fear, even the fear of being pegged as homosexual that might have helped trigger Matthew's attackers. I just worry about mixing that up with attacking what we fear. . . . Callan