My attempts to blog from Creating Change were waylaid by the very expected and understandable demands of conference life. By which I mean, of course, tightly scheduled workshops, forays into unknown neighborhoods to find lunch sans hotel prices, and the glorious mid day nap (in the cleanest, whitest, coolest sheets ever.) Well, all of that and the hard reality that the more expensive the hotel, the fewer included perks (i.e.: no free wireless in the hotel room, only in the lobby.) So, no dice. Sorry bros.
But, I have a few hours before I have to catch my super shuttle to the airport, and I am still technically *in* the hotel, surrounded by other nametag bedecked conference going queers - so this will have to qualify as blogging from the conference.
Lets get real: I am not a fan of the LGBT machine. I will concede that the gains in the 'movement' becoming mainstream has been good insofar as it has gotten us (limited, one dimensional) images of queer people on TV, and made it possible for white, middle class, straight looking gays and lesbians to live the suburban american dream. My parents would say my inability to be satisfied with this is indicative of my general brattyness. I think its just an inability to forget about everyone who isn't included in those categories (even when I, arguably, am.) So, coming to Creating Change is sort of an experiment in testing my patience. Admittedly, NGLTF is strides ahead of other big LGBT organizations (see: HRC) in terms of inclusion and radical challenge of the status quo, but its clear that the values are a it different, if only because they are still willing to charge upwards of $200 for registration to a conference that is held in a hotel that charges $200 a night for the luxury of sleeping.
But, here I am.
I collaborated on a workshop proposal with some other folks, on a safe (but ultimately very important) topic - what happens when LGBTQ youth 'age out' of organizations? Where do they go? What kind of community and infrastructure exists for them to be young adults (especially if they aren't immediately shuffled into the pseudo-utopia of college activism)? Bars, clubs, or something healthier and more sustainable? And because my workshop proposal was accepted, I decided to prioritize coming to this conference (a week before my own big event goes down, with 0 financial help from the organization I work for) - maybe because I'm a glutton for punishment.
I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit, then, that I have had an exceptional time here - and I have found 'my people' and connected with agendas that reflect my own. This happened primarily due to the Sexual Liberation track of the conference, the goal of which was to link sexual desire, behavior and identity to social justice.
I have become increasingly disturbed by the extent to which the LGBT movement has sanitized itself of sex, desire, and the 'messier' pieces of LGBT identity. As was so beautifully articulated at my day long institute, the fight for marriage is really a fight for the privitization of relationships and the erasure of open and overt sexual desire - something which has gotten American culture into this mess of over sexualization in simultanaeity with a damaging shame about sex. There is good anecdotal evidence to suggest that the U.S.'s problems with sexual assault, abuse, and objectification are deeply linked to the ways in which sex has been commodified as well as divorced from personal experiences of pleasure.
I understand the fine line this rhetoric walks, please believe me. Its not just that I (like most, if not all, queers) have been subjected to the questions about how I have sex, or the insinuations from straight men that my sexuality and relationships only exist so that they might get turned on; its not just that my family seems to swim along in the tide of progressiveness, like good liberal fish, until they realize that the 'friends' I bring home also share my bed at night; I also struggle deeply with the placement of sex in this movement because of my role as a person who works with youth.
I first recognized my own internalized homophobia when I started working as the youth program coordinator at a church 6 years ago. Despite the fact that I knew - for a fact - that I was not attracted to young children, nor would I have ever considered this idea without the accompanying cringe of horror and disgust - I often found myself driving home from work wondering if I was wrong, if I was working with youth because I had bad intentions. I'm not talking about wondering if someone else would think I was a pedophile - I was worried that I WAS one.
Conquering that particularity did not overcome the difficulties of being a queer adult working with youth. There is a learned aversion to seeing sexuality in young people, and an expectation that 'adults' in youth spaces will police sexuality. Growing up in youth empowered communities, my view about sex in youth spaces was significantly more liberated that this. I had learned that sex in public spaces wasn't appropriate only because it was exclusive and ran thew risk of making other people feel unsafe and unwelcome. Despite having come of age in such a free, healthy and sex positive space, I have found myself a decidedly prudish and nervous adult.
I don't want to be. I don't want to be in general, and, specifically in the context of the youth I work with. No one should feel shamed for their sexuality, but LGBTQ people, women, people of color and poor people (i.e.: the folks I work with) are even more likely to feel shamed for their sexuality. I feel like its important for me to combat that and create spaces where people feel able to be sexual beings. And when I talk about sex in the space, when I limit the physical interactions with you, I try and do so with the same perspective I grew up with - that sex is a healthy and remarkable part of being a human being, but it needs to be limited in public spaces for reasons of consent and safety for all people.
But the question still remains: where does my own sexuality fit into this equation? In attending workshops over the last few days, I have become more clear that being fully embodied sexually aware human beings is crucial to not only our own health and well being, but also the health and well being of our communities. In being able to articulate who we are as sexual people, talk about desire and bodies, we move these things away from their commodification in a capitalist system and allow them to take their rightful place as ways of being human and existing in community.
How do I do this, though, in an ethical way? How do I exist as an openly queer, decidedly sexual pseudo-slutty (in prudish ways) person in such a way that I will not cross boundaries, make youth uncomfortable, put myself in a dangerous or awkward position . . . .What sexual behaviors do I limit in the space? Whose clothing do I call out as too revealing? Do I look for certain acts, facts, features . . .or do I do my best to ascertain intent and context, and go from there?
Walking the line is usually a delicious exercise, but it feels fearful, fretful and dangerous now. . .I am reclaiming my sexiness, sexuality, and the intentionality and overtness of those things. How can I reclaim them in such a way that my work is enhanced, not deadened, either by the results of the reclamation or by the fear that accompanies it?
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Heteronormativity vs. Queer Theory; or, Butler applied
Let's start out here:
A month ago I went and saw a psychic who told me I was going to write a book in three years. I'm not a total sucker, but I figure that psychics and astrology are as good a tool as any to get you out of a rut, and that's what I was trying to do. So, do I feel like my success as a published author is imminent? Shit no. But I sure do like writing, and I might as well start somewhere.
Mostly, my writing is about my own emotions (I have a lot of feelings, in general) or really obtuse sociological theory. The 'general public' doesn't want to read either of these genres, unfortunately. But I am venturing, in this blog and (maybe) in the aforementioned book, to do a little bit of blending of those two, in hopes that I might come out with something a little more palatable. Worth a shot anyway.
So, here it goes. For context:
I do my professional work at a GLBTQ youth drop-in center. Like a boys and girls club (except way cooler), we are open about 30 hours a week, and youth (12-24) can come in, hang out, use the resources we have here, make friends, etc. We have activities - dances, drag shows, workshops, political education - and support groups, STI/HIV testing, food, short term crisis counseling, and a variety of other stuff depending on the month. I've been doing this job for a little over two years, and (just FYI) I don't have a formal education in this field - which absolutely impacts my perspective of my job.
I'm hoping this blog will be part an account of the sometimes really crazy adventures each of my days bring, part an unraveling of the complex and nuanced ways in which this community functions, and part a learning (for myself and whoever else ends up reading this) about how things can change, how they stay the same, and what agency we have in both.
I want to maintain as much confidentiality as possible for the youth I work with (and, to be frank, for myself) so I'll use pseudonyms generally, unless I have the explicit permission of particular youth. Same goes for my co-workers. Pictures will also be limited to people I have direct consent from. Just so you know, I take that sh*t seriously.
And with that out of the way . . .
I should say right up front that I read Judith Butler's "Gender Trouble" for the third time this past Monday. I'm taking a Queer Theology class and in order to get everyone up to speed, we spent a little time with some seminal Queer Theory texts. I'm warning you because, yes, I totally do get sucked into Butler's crazy (if somewhat conceited) rhetorical mind-fuck.
Gender here is complicated, and in general, much queerer than most LGBTQ communities. Youth is frequently the place where boundaries are pushed, crossed and dismantled. Its not so much that identity is fluid here (it is, sometimes, but not as much as other adults like to say) its that the lines are fuzzy, jagged, constantly shifting. Youth change pronouns by the moment, don't concern themselves with passing, identify as one gender and present as another . . .but identity is irrationally important. Words matter.
Monthly there is a drag show, and in approximately one hour January's show will be upon us. There is a lot of tension about performances. Sometimes this is about people's positionality in the social network, but it is also frequently about the legitimacy of a certain gendered performance. There are traditional drag queens and kings, there are trans identified youth who are doing drag (of varied stripes and variety) but the most populated genre of performance is what has been termed "faux drag" by the youth community.
Before I even get into the particulars of what "faux drag" is here, I think the language itself is worth some interrogation. "Drag" according to the all powerful Wikipedia (in some other post I will discuss why that is almost the only 'reference' I will ever use in this blog - intentionally - and for definitive political reasons) is "any sort of costume, but particularly one which does not match one's gender identity." And while I generally think that explanation doesnt carry with it the cultural weight that drag is endowed with and should therefore be mired in (even at play), I do think its a departure point. A costume is not our usual wear - it is something different, something distinctly marked as performative, something that we ourselves do not identify with, something used to tell a story, elicit reactions, establish difference.
"Faux" of course, means "fake." Fake as in "not real" or fake as in "incorrect" - false. Judged. Faux is another destabalizing word.
So what to make of "faux drag?" Is this an instance (my mother's english teacher voice is rumbling around in my head) of the dangerous "double negative?" That doesn't seem entirely rightt. Because while drag somehow indicates something that is not usual (for us), something that is intentionally constructed, something that points towards the lunacy of "authenticity" - it does not mean unreal or fake or false. As associated as it may be, for many people both within and outside the LGBTQ community, with "unreal" men or women, in the most PoMo Butlarian sense, Drag is not synonomous with false or fake. And yet, there is something unusual - if not redundant- about indicating that the drag being done is "faux."
In our particular circumstance, "Faux Drag" means a youth who is performing to a song sung by a performer of the same gender as the youth while wearing clothing that is commonly associated with people of the youth's same gender. So, you may wonder, where exactly is the "drag" in this faux drag? and is calling it "faux drag" just a way of justifying non-gendered performance at the "Drag" show?
There certainly are a lot of youth who do traditional drag who feel this way, and often feel particularly offended when these faux drag-ers seem to be the primary performers during the evening. And, to be fair, I see their point. It ain't easy to bind your boobs or tuck your package - for starters. And its not easy (even in the queerest of communities) to show up in high femme drag or put on a mustache when you're railing against your reality in every other facet of your life. And its easy, from that vantage, to see faux drag as an easy way out.
On the other hand, there is something too simplistic in the idea that drag must always mean taking on the opposite. This reifies the traditional narratives that the LGBTQ community has built its (unfair, problematic, irrational) borders on, and beyond being simply exclusive, it also fails to interrogate gender in any significant way. I don't want to sound like a snobbish post modernist (but I will) - that's so been done.
And the performances are often (if not always) about investigating some element of gender presentation, subcultural affiliation, or simply personality in a distinctly performative way. There are female identified folks looking sexualization head on, playing with the idea of sluttiness, promiscuity, objectification in ways that would otherwise be dangerous. There are male folks who take some sensitive rocker ballad to its logical conclusion, and in so doing look more closely at the limited "sensitivity" we allow in masculinity.
Listen, I'm not saying that these kids have some sort of corner on the advanced and complex fucking of gender, or that they would even call what they are doing "interrogating masculinity" (indeed, I am far more sure that they would laugh heartily at me saying that about them) but I am saying that as convoluted, ethereal and confusing as Judith Butler is, she might have gotten a few things right, and if you'd like to see what she got right in action, you should come to a drag show.
************************************************************************************
I'm going to make a wholehearted attempt to blog from Creating Change - the nation's biggest LGBTQ conference. I already have a lot to say, but seeing as how it took me nigh on a week to get this post up, no promises on the promptness.
A month ago I went and saw a psychic who told me I was going to write a book in three years. I'm not a total sucker, but I figure that psychics and astrology are as good a tool as any to get you out of a rut, and that's what I was trying to do. So, do I feel like my success as a published author is imminent? Shit no. But I sure do like writing, and I might as well start somewhere.
Mostly, my writing is about my own emotions (I have a lot of feelings, in general) or really obtuse sociological theory. The 'general public' doesn't want to read either of these genres, unfortunately. But I am venturing, in this blog and (maybe) in the aforementioned book, to do a little bit of blending of those two, in hopes that I might come out with something a little more palatable. Worth a shot anyway.
So, here it goes. For context:
I do my professional work at a GLBTQ youth drop-in center. Like a boys and girls club (except way cooler), we are open about 30 hours a week, and youth (12-24) can come in, hang out, use the resources we have here, make friends, etc. We have activities - dances, drag shows, workshops, political education - and support groups, STI/HIV testing, food, short term crisis counseling, and a variety of other stuff depending on the month. I've been doing this job for a little over two years, and (just FYI) I don't have a formal education in this field - which absolutely impacts my perspective of my job.
I'm hoping this blog will be part an account of the sometimes really crazy adventures each of my days bring, part an unraveling of the complex and nuanced ways in which this community functions, and part a learning (for myself and whoever else ends up reading this) about how things can change, how they stay the same, and what agency we have in both.
I want to maintain as much confidentiality as possible for the youth I work with (and, to be frank, for myself) so I'll use pseudonyms generally, unless I have the explicit permission of particular youth. Same goes for my co-workers. Pictures will also be limited to people I have direct consent from. Just so you know, I take that sh*t seriously.
And with that out of the way . . .
I should say right up front that I read Judith Butler's "Gender Trouble" for the third time this past Monday. I'm taking a Queer Theology class and in order to get everyone up to speed, we spent a little time with some seminal Queer Theory texts. I'm warning you because, yes, I totally do get sucked into Butler's crazy (if somewhat conceited) rhetorical mind-fuck.
Gender here is complicated, and in general, much queerer than most LGBTQ communities. Youth is frequently the place where boundaries are pushed, crossed and dismantled. Its not so much that identity is fluid here (it is, sometimes, but not as much as other adults like to say) its that the lines are fuzzy, jagged, constantly shifting. Youth change pronouns by the moment, don't concern themselves with passing, identify as one gender and present as another . . .but identity is irrationally important. Words matter.
Monthly there is a drag show, and in approximately one hour January's show will be upon us. There is a lot of tension about performances. Sometimes this is about people's positionality in the social network, but it is also frequently about the legitimacy of a certain gendered performance. There are traditional drag queens and kings, there are trans identified youth who are doing drag (of varied stripes and variety) but the most populated genre of performance is what has been termed "faux drag" by the youth community.
Before I even get into the particulars of what "faux drag" is here, I think the language itself is worth some interrogation. "Drag" according to the all powerful Wikipedia (in some other post I will discuss why that is almost the only 'reference' I will ever use in this blog - intentionally - and for definitive political reasons) is "any sort of costume, but particularly one which does not match one's gender identity." And while I generally think that explanation doesnt carry with it the cultural weight that drag is endowed with and should therefore be mired in (even at play), I do think its a departure point. A costume is not our usual wear - it is something different, something distinctly marked as performative, something that we ourselves do not identify with, something used to tell a story, elicit reactions, establish difference.
"Faux" of course, means "fake." Fake as in "not real" or fake as in "incorrect" - false. Judged. Faux is another destabalizing word.
So what to make of "faux drag?" Is this an instance (my mother's english teacher voice is rumbling around in my head) of the dangerous "double negative?" That doesn't seem entirely rightt. Because while drag somehow indicates something that is not usual (for us), something that is intentionally constructed, something that points towards the lunacy of "authenticity" - it does not mean unreal or fake or false. As associated as it may be, for many people both within and outside the LGBTQ community, with "unreal" men or women, in the most PoMo Butlarian sense, Drag is not synonomous with false or fake. And yet, there is something unusual - if not redundant- about indicating that the drag being done is "faux."
In our particular circumstance, "Faux Drag" means a youth who is performing to a song sung by a performer of the same gender as the youth while wearing clothing that is commonly associated with people of the youth's same gender. So, you may wonder, where exactly is the "drag" in this faux drag? and is calling it "faux drag" just a way of justifying non-gendered performance at the "Drag" show?
There certainly are a lot of youth who do traditional drag who feel this way, and often feel particularly offended when these faux drag-ers seem to be the primary performers during the evening. And, to be fair, I see their point. It ain't easy to bind your boobs or tuck your package - for starters. And its not easy (even in the queerest of communities) to show up in high femme drag or put on a mustache when you're railing against your reality in every other facet of your life. And its easy, from that vantage, to see faux drag as an easy way out.
On the other hand, there is something too simplistic in the idea that drag must always mean taking on the opposite. This reifies the traditional narratives that the LGBTQ community has built its (unfair, problematic, irrational) borders on, and beyond being simply exclusive, it also fails to interrogate gender in any significant way. I don't want to sound like a snobbish post modernist (but I will) - that's so been done.
And the performances are often (if not always) about investigating some element of gender presentation, subcultural affiliation, or simply personality in a distinctly performative way. There are female identified folks looking sexualization head on, playing with the idea of sluttiness, promiscuity, objectification in ways that would otherwise be dangerous. There are male folks who take some sensitive rocker ballad to its logical conclusion, and in so doing look more closely at the limited "sensitivity" we allow in masculinity.
Listen, I'm not saying that these kids have some sort of corner on the advanced and complex fucking of gender, or that they would even call what they are doing "interrogating masculinity" (indeed, I am far more sure that they would laugh heartily at me saying that about them) but I am saying that as convoluted, ethereal and confusing as Judith Butler is, she might have gotten a few things right, and if you'd like to see what she got right in action, you should come to a drag show.
************************************************************************************
I'm going to make a wholehearted attempt to blog from Creating Change - the nation's biggest LGBTQ conference. I already have a lot to say, but seeing as how it took me nigh on a week to get this post up, no promises on the promptness.
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