Queer Theory Questions - Assignment Example

Queer theory Question 1 According to Cathy J. Cohen (438), the advent of queer theory in the early 1990s found its most direct confrontation with the real life politics of gay, bisexual, lesbian, and transgendered activists. Queer politics stood in contrast to the category based identity politics of traditional gay and lesbian activism. Queer activism was founded on the back of increased physical and legal attacks on gay and lesbian community members. Queer activism became perceived as a more confrontational political formation aimed at addressing the invisibility of gay and lesbian members in civil rights political organizations. Queer activism aimed at first recognizing and encouraging the movement and fluidity of people’s sexual lives. Queer activism also aimed at challenging the various practices and power circles that rendered the gay and lesbian community members invisible. What queer activism achieved further in correcting earlier conceptions about the gay and lesbian communities was their readiness to emphasize and exaggerate their own anti-normative characteristics and non-stable behavior (Cohen 438). Queer activism got perceived as a multisited and sustained resistance against the dominant constructions of gender and race. Cohen also admits that queer activism, however, failed in its present form to challenge the systems of oppression and domination. Particularly, queer activism failed to address the normalizing processes that were engrossed in heteronormativity. Heteronormativity had been the main focus of the advent of queer activism. She suggests that queer activism has failed to analyze heterosexuality as it got founded on a simple dichotomy that existed between those who got deemed queer and those deemed as heterosexual (Cohen 440). She suggests that some queer activists have begun to prioritize sexuality as the principle avenue through which they follow their politics. Her disappointment is further engraved in these individuals who continue to pursue their politics by emphasizing on a single characteristic of their identity rather than focus on the multiple diversities that determine our life chances (Cohen 440). Her disappointment lay in the fact that queer activism failed to live to its primary aim of challenging heteronormativity, but rather evolved political practices that centered around binary conceptions of power and sexuality. The binary conceptions of sexuality and power are narrow and homogenized, in turn restricting the radical potential that queer politics got founded on. The queer analysis of heterosexual privilege fails to address the lived experience of racial experience as it has undertaken on a binary conception of power and sexuality. The narrow politics of queer politics constructed politics of white gays and lesbians, which ensured that gays and lesbians of color were left out of this construction (Cohen 446).The queer analysis built upon assimilation and incorporation simply expand and make accessible the status quo of the more privileged groups while the most vulnerable members in the gay and lesbian communities continue to be oppressed and stigmatized (Cohen 443). Cohen suggests that the lack of a leftist approach to queer politics. It is the lack of this leftist approach that has made it difficult to understand the social, political, cultural, and economic institutions in the country. The lack of a left framework marginalizes the interdependency among the existing multiple systems of domination. The lack of a leftist approach ensures that people fail to recognize the struggle for gay and lesbian liberation as tied together with racism, sexism, and class oppression. This conception has failed to recognize the multiple diversities that exist among the gay and lesbian community (Cohen 441). A lack of intersectional analysis narrows the understanding of queer politics. Cohen suggests that there is need to understand how multiple identities work in limiting the status and entitlement that some receive for obeying a heterosexual imperative. She claims that the lack of recognizing the many manifestations of power, across and within categories, causes for queer activism to base its movement on one’s identity rather than one’s politics (Cohen 479). This impact negatively on the inclusion of people of color in sexual minority categories. The challenges identified by Cohen (457) for queer theory and activism is their inability to incorporate the strategies for political mobilization the roles that class, race, and gender that play in defining people’s differing relations to normalizing and dominant power. Cohen suggests that this problem can be rectified by building politics that are far centralized from the politics of dichotomy that involves straight and queer. She suggests that building politics from an intersectional perspective will help queer theory and activism in identifying where their potential allies and enemies lie. Queer theory and activism needs to get centered on a more elaborate understanding of power. Queer theory and activism needs to move from identity politics to a position where its membership and joint political work get based upon a necessary similar history of oppression. Question 2 In his article, Wesley Crichlow’s goal is to find out the ways in which the names ‘batty bwoys’ and ‘buller men’ and the associated experiences shape the daily lives of men living in Toronto and Halifax, and who engage in sexual practices with other men. His article is on the backdrop of a need to provide an understanding of heterosexism and the need to provide support in black communities. Crichlow explores the process of self-identity in relation to ethnic, racial, and sexual conformity. His article indicates the problems associated with black heteronormativity in the context of black men who engage in same-sex practice. ‘Buller men’ is a degrading term that gets used to define same sex male relations in Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago, St. Vincent, St. Lucia and Barbados (Crichlow 71). ‘Batty bwoy’, meanwhile, gets used in Antigua, Jamaica, and Guyana. Crichley notes that identifying oneself as a batty bwoy or buller man marginalizes one to a specific set of value, images, and narratives. The existence of buller men and batty bwoys is invisible and unheard of despite the fact that they do exist. These men experience triple forms of oppression. The first is heterosexism within the black community. The second is racism and sexualization of racism within the white gay community, and the third is racism and sexualization of racism within the white society (Crichlow 72). The author also notes that these men have faced limited opportunities in Canada. Black Buller man and Batty bwoys have failed to become recognized by western, North American or European homosexual concepts such as ‘queer’, ‘fruit’, and or ‘gay’. Class and colonial discourse have arose debate over the establishment of cultural, political, and racial grounding of black same-sex loving (Crichlow 75). These men also face the problem of acceptance by members of their very own black community who view black same-sex relations as a disease or weakness, and thus humiliating Batty bwoys and Buller men. It is culturally unspeakable to be labeled as a batty bwoy or buller man in the black Canadian community. The terms provided to these men also hold negative connotation about them. These men become relegated in black communities and cannot even hold meaningful dialogue with black community members of a different sexual orientation. Crichlow’s and Cohen’s texts compare in their study of the intersection of sexual identities based on race, class, and gender. They both note the inhibition of queer activism in including relegating people of color in their advancement of politics concerning the gay and lesbian communities. They both note the existence of racial discrimination in the identification of people of color in gay and lesbian communities headed by European and western standards. Racial differences hinder the advancement of queer activism by narrowing the intersectionality of its intended political mobilization. Crichlow observes that the witnessed in black culture needs to incorporate all the possibilities within the discourse to allow for the recognition of the stereotyped buller men and bwat boys. He also observes that this discourse arises from the institutions of violence, sexuality, post-colonialism, and anti-imperialism. He notes that these discourses have hampered African-Caribbean and African Canadian men engaging in same sex relations to deny their self-identity and sexuality to allow for their acceptance in the black community (Crichlow 81). Both readings attest to the existence of gender-based stereotypes of sexism and sexual oppression for members within both gay and lesbian communities. Both articles call for an intersectional perspective that is far from abstract politics to become adopted for radical transformation of the community. In her article, Marracle Aiyana is keen to note of the ethnic conceptions imposed on transexuality through her North American indigenous people. She distinguishes the European conceptions of transexuality from that of her ethnic orientation. She seeks to show the complexities of expressing identity through intersecting politics of race, gender, or sexuality. Maracle notes of her personal journey where she got identified as an ugly boy until the point she decided to take the leap and get identified as a transgendered individual on the back of wisdom instilled in her by native women. She notes that Europeans view native cultures with a different perspective compared to the differences they note in their own respective cultures (Maracle 37). Her article aims at providing an alternative way for her target audience to perceive and understand gender in a different way that is beyond the current perception of male or female. Aiyanna takes a look at the deep seated historical perception of gender in her Native American culture. She intimates that the European culture has stereotyped gender from what is perceived in her culture. Her analysis compares to that of Crichlow who also states the historical emergence of batty bwoys and buller men in the Caribbean islands. They both recognize the fact that racial and cultural differences have inhibited the intersection of the gay and lesbian community. Racial and cultural stereotyping is eminent in the acceptance of gay and lesbian members from varying backgrounds. This view by both authors compares strikingly to that of Cohen who admits that for queer theory or activism to succeed, there is a need to expand the boundaries that exist because of the dominant constructions of gender and theory. There is a common striking theme that arises from the three articles, which is that the gay, transgendered, and lesbian community need to first break down the barriers that exist between them due to the narrowed roles of gender, class, and race. For these community members to achieve radical progression there is a need to integrate all members within their community to offer the community an intersectional perspective that will help them to identify their potential enemies and allies. Works Cited Read More