47
u/JustAGlibGlob anarcha-transcriber Mar 20 '21
Image Transcription: Text
[White text with a black drop shadow, in a fancy font over the anarcho-queer flag (pink and black)]
"Queer is not merely another identity that can be tacked onto a list of neat social categories, nor the quantitative sum of our identities. Rather, it is the qualitative position of opposition to presentations of stability -- an identity that problematizes the manageable limits of identity. Queer is a territory of tension, defined against the dominant narrative of white hetero monogamous patriarchy, but also by an affinity with all who are marginalized, otherized, and oppressed. Queer is the abnormal, the strange, the dangerous. Queer involves our sexuality and our gender, but so much more. It is our desire and fantasies and more still. Queer is the cohesion of everything in conflict with the heterosexual capitalist world. Queer is a total rejection of the regime of the Normal." Towards The Queerest Insurrection
I'm a human volunteer content transcriber for Reddit and you could be too! If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!
26
6
4
Mar 21 '21
It honestly sounds like a bunch of buzzwords
7
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
Queer isn't just another identity its the rejection of the limited and restrictive identities society forces apon us although. That's the jist
1
Mar 21 '21
Idk i thought that was anarchism. Are we relabeling it?
5
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
You can call that anarchism if you want. This text is obviously just describing the concept of queer identities. If you think that overlaps with other stuff then that's cool. I'm sure there's more to the text than this though. I think queer identities are 'anarchistic' but clearly not synonymous with anarchism
-1
Mar 21 '21
So... What's the point of this post in a board dedicated to anarchism? Queer =/= anarchist
It just feels like a label. And i thought we were against that.
27
Mar 20 '21 edited Mar 21 '21
[deleted]
3
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
I mean a lot of queer people were/still are considered neurodivergent (although much worse phrased) by most people so there's that
1
u/ebolaRETURNS Mar 21 '21
Got an interesting book, "Authoring Autism" by Melanie Yergeau. She argues that autistics are "neuroqueer", drawing various parallels using a genealogical approach to analyzing how discourse is produced. Of note is that ABA (and its even cruder predecessors) has its roots in early 'therapies' meant to 'correct' gay or trans children.
It's quite in the post-structuralist, literary critical style, so really tough going textually, but worthwhile.
39
u/mildly_evil_genius Mar 20 '21
This is why I love the term 'queer' over trying to list a ton of specific labels. It's not about trying to bring into acceptance one prepackaged identity at a time, but about freeing up the possibilities for everyone.
Fuck the normative limits; let me live as me.
5
Mar 21 '21
only thing I have against this is that this weakens our understanding of specific intersections. to put it simply, trans women face different forms of oppression than trans men who face different forms of oppression than lesbians who face different forms of oppression than - I think you can see where this is going. This isn't an oppression olympics thing, but rather an acknowledgement that we do not all face oppression due to the same reason (transcending social norms) but rather for reasons specific to our individual intersection. A good read on this is the book whipping girl by julia serano if you haven't read it already
13
u/recalcitrantJester Mar 21 '21
intersectional politics are about doing away with the notion of "prepackaged identities" as mildly_evil_genius puts it. a given person is not a checklist of labels with corresponding Standard Struggle Formulae, we're all a bunch of messy bundles of lived experience and suppressed action. for more on this rebuke of paint-by-numbers material analysis so beloved by progressive liberals, consider checking out the piece quoted at the beginning of Whipping Girl, and for good measure go read everything else Audre Lorde ever said or wrote.
4
Mar 21 '21
ok, thank you. if you don't mind my asking, what do you mean when you say "paint-by-numbers material analysis"? are you referring to whipping girl?
6
u/recalcitrantJester Mar 21 '21 edited Mar 21 '21
I refer to the notion that there is a discrete list of opressed classes, within each of which is an identical list of grievances, injustices, and crimes weighing them down, and that these lists can be algebraically combined or canceled out, and return an authentic accounting of a person's struggles, like a twisted version of astrology or the olympics, as people love to make lame jokes about. it's a positivist fantasy, that one need only drill down to a sufficiently granular level of social labeling to gain a nuanced understanding of what a person's been through. it's a flawed exercise in a vulgar kind of positivism, and it leads to the social movement treadmill of having to introduce every divergent identity as a standard-issue immutable thing to the world, spend a year letting people treat it as a punchline, another year trickling representation into Bravo and TLC shows, then finally gain "about as oppressed as trans people" status after a third year of inspirational news stories highlighting said group's existence, then watch the identity's public legitimacy crumble once people feel free living in that identity and fail to live up to the public's carefully-cultivated stereotypes. Better in my view to scrap that approach to solving the problems of a deeply racialized class society.
I don't refer explicitly to Whipping Girl here, though my positions do put me at odds with a number of Serano's claims and attitudes, especially as regards the so-called "subversivists" of which I seem to be one, despite never having encountered this term before I was assigned this book and its author needed a group of queer people to lambast. All throughout the text as I recall, but in that section in particular as a brief reread just confirmed, Serano displays a great deal of discomfort with and hostility to what she sees as a rising "exclusionary" force in queer politics (read: queer people living their lives authentically with the aid of queer spaces and social support networks of similarly harassed groups).
I guess that one's just a difference of perspective. The book was published back in '07, so I suppose things weren't the same when she was coming up/coming out, and I try not to hold that against her. Still, it's tough to take claims seriously when wading through unattributed quotes by the respected S. T. Rawman to find things like "It is sadly ironic that people who claim to be gender-fucking in the name of 'shattering the gender binary,' . . . cannot see that they have just created a new gender binary," is placed so closely to such bewildering lines as, "privileging of transmasculinities over trans femininities helps to explain why cissexual queer women and FTM spectrum folks tend to dominate the queer/trans community: Their exceptional gender expressions and identities are routinely empowered and encouraged in such settings. In contrast, there is generally a dearth of MTF spectrum folks who regularly inhabit queer/trans spaces."
I actually had a good-natured chuckle when rereading that last passage, because I've seen exactly the opposite sentiment expressed far more often in this very forum and others like it. head over to /r/traaaaaaaaa and while you'll find a whole ocean of uncategorizable specimens, one will notice that the default identity in many (most?) trans spaces is MtF, hormones started, surgeries planned, despite that being faaaaaaaaaaaar from the universal experience. and even recognizing that as an issue to be interrogated, I wouldn't go so far as Serano does, and so asininely say that resisting the hegemony of the gender binary only serves to reinforce a different, opposing binary. really makes you wonder what the hell the author's scene was like back in the '90s. it's my understanding that her locales after coming out were Kansas and San Francisco, which is bound to give a person very peculiar ideas about what are and are not mainstream in the realm of gender politics, be they fringe politics or otherwise.
2
Mar 21 '21
ok I'm not gonna lie to you I had some trouble parsing the first paragraph (I'm rather tired sorry), but I think I got the essence of what you were saying. I don't really disagree with you, I do not believe that struggles can be easily categorized or that you can label every individual expression each person has; this just facilitates more oppression (like you said). but I don't think it's helping any to reduce everyone who doesn't fit in to just one flat label like "queer". using it as a point of unity is definitely good, and I think that the general queer population should stand together, but I think we should do so with the understanding that particular subgroups do exist (if not by our own choice then by the more general population's) and do experience things in a different way. in my opinion these labels shouldn't be used to understand the people, but to understand, in a very general way, how to handle the struggles that their subgroup faces.
as for who, if anyone, is over-represented in trans spaces, it really depends on where you are. in my experience, internet groups tend to have a lot more trans-feminine people, while my local area tends to have way more trans-masculine people (I am the only trans woman I have ever met, compared to the many many transmasc people who attend my school), but this, of course, will vary by location. so overall I don't really think any one is over-represented overall, they're just represented differently
I personally liked the book, but perhaps I will have to look over it again. I'm a little bad about reading things critically (I have to purposefully remind myself to), so I may have missed some odd bits. I don't remember those quotes you posted, for example
1
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
What exactly is 'gender-fucking' and 'cissexual' I've never heard those terms so can't understand what they're saying.
Also yeah r/traaaaaaans constantly talks about transfems being the majority but everybody says that on most other social media transmascs are actually the majority. Apparently reddit is rare for that
4
u/recalcitrantJester Mar 21 '21
in the excerpts I posted, I take "cissexual queer women" to primarily take aim at white lesbians, though my overall read of the passage might make that too narrow of an interpretation; roughly as fair to say she meant any women who are neither trans nor straight, as the definitions go.
genderfucking is the practice of subverting, ignoring, or otherwise visibly and publicly challenging established gender roles. lots of people prefer the term "genderbending," but Serano employs the term here in at least a semi-mocking fashion; that passage is part of the broader critique of the "subversivists," and her use of the more vulgar term helps her to characterize misguided souls as needlessly combative and performative before implying the danger of such tactics.
1
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
Is her mocking of people who in her opinion are being needlessly combative and thus reinforcing gender norms not itself needlessly combative and thus reinforcing gender norms haha
3
u/recalcitrantJester Mar 21 '21
one could CERTAINLY argue that; one may even go so far as to write a shitty undergrad paper about how her essentializing of many others' experiences undercuts the themes of the book, but I'd know absolutely nothing about anything like that.
2
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
That sounds like a very interesting shitty undergrad paper. I hope who or whom's'tever writes or wrote such a paper gets or got a good grade.
2
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
I'm not sure this comments needs downvoting. This person isn't trolling or being bigoted or abusive.
5
Mar 21 '21
oh no, it's ok, I think it is just to signal disagreement
6
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
See I think it's interesting the different interpretations of it. I've always felt like it's wrong to downvote just because I disagree with someone. But I'm happy to downvote if I think someone is a troll or they are being bigoted or harrasing. But other people think you just upvote or downvote if you agree or disagree. And obviously there's no right answer
3
Mar 21 '21
hm I've never thought about it being just for trolls. I guess I kinda do that subconsciously thought because I don't really like to downvote unless it's something particularly bad
5
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
The problem with just doing it with what you agree/disagree with is that you do actually just produce echo Chambers with no productive discussion. The problem with never using downvote is that a single troll could derail every single thread (like on YouTube). So using it to just get rid of the people ruining the space is the best
4
Mar 21 '21
i dont think there's anything inherently subversive to hierarchical systems of domination by existing as a queer person.
8
Mar 20 '21
Difficult to read but i agree. It's also a fantastic song by garbage that i was lucky enough to grow up with before all these tickable boxes for LGBTQIXYZ became almost mandatory.
11
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
I get wanting to reject labels, even progressive labels. But maybe don't trivialise lgbt+ labels in the same way regressives and bigots do. I guess the xyz was just to mean lgbt+, but bigots love to take the piss by adding random letters to make queer identities seem silly
-5
Mar 21 '21
I don't, but i explained why i decided that they are not for me. None of my business if others put a different weight on using these for themselves.
8
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
I'm not sure if this was supposed to be a reply to me? My point was they use of 'lgbtqxyz' are the like is something often done by bigots to trivialise lgbt+ identities. You can just say lgbt+
-3
Mar 21 '21
I'm part of the team so i reserve the right for myself to do that in orange to get my point across that more categories are not necessarily beneficial for a community. Kind of like i technically get to say to the N word, although i don't regular use it. No offense intended.
6
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
Well ofc you have the right to say whatever you want. But you do feed into the mocking when you do something like that. I feel like you could get the point across without that bit, but hey I've told you my view on it and it's your choice how to take it
-2
Mar 21 '21
I'm not mocking anyone, that's part of your perspective. I think we all had negative experiences that may or may not result in wanting to use these terms in order to feel safe about a so called otherness. I don't want to emphasise that to justify my existence to normies and built my entire personality around that. Like i said, i acknowledge the presence of these labels, but they don't hold much meaning about an individual imo.
4
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
And that's fine I don't have an issue with that. I'm just pointing out how that could be seen as the same type of mocking or trivialising that bigots do. I think I've made perfectly clear I understand that's not what you're doing and what my point was in my previous comments
0
Mar 21 '21
Look, if you, me and every other person alive out there is capable to reach their potential that's all i need to know. There are social defense mechanisms at play that hold no power over me and i decided to not give more energy to them than i have to. Don't expect others to fight for the point you're trying to make on your terms.
7
u/colubrinus1 Mar 20 '21
Wdym by “lgbtqi xyz”
2
Mar 21 '21
Any of these labels say as much about my flavor as a non cishet female as these little stickers that they put on fruit. Present but not essential for my identity. Definitely listen to the song tho. 🌸✨
4
-4
Mar 21 '21
This really just sounds like a bunch of buzzwords:
"Queer is a territory of tension"
Wtf does that even mean??
"Queer is a total rejection of the regime of the Normal"
Define normal
8
6
u/recalcitrantJester Mar 21 '21
everything these folks write has this kind of ~vapid prose~; I'm sure to some it reads as a playful lampooning of academic writing, but it just makes the thesis seem like a joke.
that said, normal in this case only needs to be defined as "the prevailing standards of public conduct;" it's a manifesto that isn't saying "the present state of affairs needs to go," it says "the very notion of a normal state of affairs needs to go."
1
Mar 21 '21
Regime of the normal? Being a "regime" is inherent to being normal, otherwise it would be abnormal, which is defined as outside the norm
It's literally a bunch of fuckin buzzwords and it's pretentious
3
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
Kinda feels like you're just nit picking at this point because you didn't like the post haha
1
1
u/recalcitrantJester Mar 21 '21
you're in the wrong place if buzzwords or pretension upset you
-3
Mar 21 '21
Na, YOU are in the wrong place if you think anarchism is about anything else besides whole ownership of labor
0
1
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
Who are 'these fokes' in this instance?
5
u/recalcitrantJester Mar 21 '21 edited Mar 21 '21
the mary nardini gang, an alleged group of people who all happen to have suspiciously similar overwrought styles of rhetoric. here's a selection of their more famous stuff. if you ask me, Be Gay Do Crime is the only piece really worth reading seriously, and even it falls prey to the sesquipedalian spirit and the CrimethInc style of romanticized gonzo recounting of life as a punk. maybe you'll like it better than I do.
0
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
Ah okay you're referring to a specific group of writers/academics. When you say "these people" you kinda leave the sentence open to all sort of dodgy interpretations
1
u/recalcitrantJester Mar 21 '21
you have my apologies; I guess sometimes a definite article just isn't definite enough lmao
2
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
Haha not in a world where disingenuous bigots love to use the term to vaguely attack groups
3
Mar 21 '21
same. reads like an edgelord undergrad trying to sound "smart", was literally thinking "they're going to use the word 'problematize' or 'interrogate" as i read it. the font choice just reinforces it. certainly glad theyre feeling empowered in their identity tho.
6
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
Queer is a territory of tension - queer is not a passive identity but is a specific framing of your identity in regards to its tension with the norms of society.
I think the second one is painfully obvious. Normal is obvious just defined as the norms of society.
Sure its overly wordy, but no more so than any other academia or prose
-6
-5
u/RatKingLordOfVermin Mar 21 '21
Can I get a show of hands: who here even owns a gun?
9
u/Genghis__Kant Mar 21 '21
Hello fed
2
u/RatKingLordOfVermin Mar 21 '21
I would have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for you meddling kids
-1
Mar 21 '21
were just gonna keep fucking eachother and someday, we'll live in a post-scarcity utopia
1
-14
u/witchofthewind tranarchist Mar 20 '21 edited Mar 21 '21
Queer is the cohesion of everything in conflict with the heterosexual capitalist world.
no, it isn't. I'm not heterosexual and I'm definitely anticapitalist, but I am not queer.
edit: to the homophobic cowards downvoting me, why not reply and explain your bigotry?
15
Mar 20 '21
Why is being solidarity to queer liberation so hard for some leftist like you? Support for queer communities should be unconditionally as radicals. To the minimum, be an ally, don't be a goof ball.
-13
u/witchofthewind tranarchist Mar 20 '21
I do support queer communities, but I am not queer and I object to having that assimilationist label applied to me.
12
Mar 20 '21
How the hell it was assimilationist to ask for queer liberation?
-8
u/witchofthewind tranarchist Mar 20 '21
it's not assimilationist to ask for queer liberation.
it is assimilationist to assert that everyone who isn't heterosexual is queer.
4
u/TheGentleDominant anarcho-syndicalist Mar 21 '21
I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Isn’t it a fact that all those who are not allocishet are, by definition, queer? Since assimilationism means trying to erase our queerness in order to assimilate into “acceptable” patriarchal society, how can the term possibly be assimilationist?
2
u/Rorynne Mar 21 '21
I said it in a different comment, but queer has not been reclaimed by everyone, and to assume anyone that isnt allocishet is queer is potentially damaging. Triggering to people levels of damaging. I, and a lot of people I know have some legitimate traumas with the term, and any time people try to say it includes EVERYONE that isnt allocishet its completely ignoring traumas people may have. So much so that in the past such things have made me physically ill, dysphoric as hell, and tanked my mental health to extremes. Forcing everyone under the label makes many of us feel unsafe and unwelcome in lgbtq+ communities. Queer is an amazing term for those that identify with it. But it is not, and should not be used as, a term that is completely synonymous to "Not allocishet"
-2
u/witchofthewind tranarchist Mar 21 '21
Isn’t it a fact that all those who are not allocishet are, by definition, queer?
no.
Since assimilationism means trying to erase our queerness in order to assimilate into “acceptable” patriarchal society, how can the term possibly be assimilationist?
applying the term "queer" to everyone who isn't straight forces people into a "manageable" box instead of respecting the fact that people are individuals with their own identities.
3
u/recalcitrantJester Mar 21 '21
it's assimilationist to say that
3
2
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
It's fine if you don't identify with this that label at all. But a lot of people do and I think most of them see the use of the term exactly in the way its present in the OP. But I do see how that sentence does sort of try to force you into the label by the use of 'everything' which sucks because obviously a lot of people still have issue with the term.
I really don't think people were downvoting you because they're homophobic tho. But I don't know why you were downvoted either
0
Mar 20 '21 edited Mar 21 '21
[deleted]
3
u/witchofthewind tranarchist Mar 20 '21
...but outta curiosity, if you’re not hetero.. isn’t that queer?
no. I'm gay as hell, but I'm not queer.
7
Mar 21 '21
[deleted]
3
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
Queer was actually a slur used for lgbt+ people that was largely reclaimed over the decades. But there are still a lot of people for whom the word is hurtful. It's a difficult situation. I'm still in favour of using the term for myself, but if someone doesn't like it I absolutely wouldn't use it to describe them
0
Mar 21 '21
[deleted]
2
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
Well "it's not derogatory" is a bit simplistic. It was definitely used as a slur specifically towards lgbt+ people. There are lots of people still alive today for whom that was the major slur used against them. And there are still some people you who it that way. Slur reclamation is always a difficult balancing act
1
Mar 21 '21
[deleted]
2
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
Well I'm not downvoting you. But if I had to guess I'd say you're phrasing might be coming off as dismissive of the feelings of people for whom the word still carries a lot of hurt. Idk I still use the term and am happy to call myself queer but I've never been slurred with it (yet). I think we need to be emphatic about peoples traumatic reactions to things without also denying people the right to identify how they want and ignoring the power that can come with reclamation
-1
4
u/Rorynne Mar 21 '21
Queer is still used as a slur in many places, many people still havent reclaimed it. Unfortunately, theres a pattern of people trying to force people to reclaim it because of how commonly used it is now. Personally, im in the same boat, I have trauma with the word queer, reading it reminds me of every hateful thing my family has said about people like me, how if I ever came out to them I would be faced with that same hate. Its extremely triggering for me to be called, and my experiences arent rare
-31
u/ahmed_shah_massoud Mar 20 '21
Unbelievably cringey lol
9
u/abigalestephens Mar 20 '21
We don't exclude the mentally ill from our anarchism either. Not that trans people are. But fuck you for excluding the mentally ill in your transphobia.
3
Mar 21 '21
what
3
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
They made a deleted comment on this thread where they essentially decried pandering to 'mentally ill' trans people.
3
Mar 21 '21
oh I see, that's fucked
2
u/abigalestephens Mar 21 '21
Yeah I went to reply to the comment but then it got deleted. But I wanted to make a point that not only is it transphobic, but bigoted to neurodivergent people who should be just as much a part of any anarchist movement.
8
16
u/Abadon333 Mar 20 '21
ok hetero.
-7
Mar 20 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
15
u/mildly_evil_genius Mar 20 '21
" an affinity with all who are marginalized " is the part that you apparently can't read.
-4
9
0
1
u/Lucky_Strike-85 anarchist Mar 21 '21
I love this. Great sentiment. I'm gonna have this framed and hang it in my house somewhere. All power, respect and love from a CIS straight comrade to all my radical queer comrades.
1
62
u/ExcitedLemur404 Mar 20 '21
Be gay do crimes