It was a happy day yesterday when my latest issue of Bitch magazine (no. 54: “The Frontier Issue”) arrived in the mail. While I get so much of my “feminist response to pop culture” on the Internets these days, there’s something truly pleasurable about curling up every few months with the latest issue of Bitch and perusing the book reviews and feature articles off-line.
The feature book review / author interview in this issue is by Jessica Hoffmann (of make/shift), interviewing author Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore about her new book Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? (AK Press, 2012). Much of the interview is taken up with a great conversation about the way in which mainstreaming the movement for gay civil rights is built upon the continued marginalization of folks unable or unwilling to “play straight”: that is, perform socially according to heteronormative expectations, even if you’re technically out of the closet in terms of the objects of your desire. As Hoffman observes:
If the path to the place where “it gets better” is to look and act like a straight white dude — married, moneyed, and powerful in institutions ranging from business to the U.S. military — where does that leave people who can’t or don’t want to fit into that mold? And does feminism have anything to offer a conversation about faggotry and fear?
The article isn’t available online, but I highly recommend heading on down to your local news stand, public library, or bookstore of choice to check out the piece! I know I’m headed directly from writing this blog post to my public library’s inter-library loan page to see if I can’t find a copy of Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? somewhere in the system.
Update: Avory @ Radically Queer has just posted a thoughtful review of Sycamore’s book.
Oh! I should get a copy of the Bitch issue as well! I’ve never actually read Bitch, though I keep thinking about getting a subscription. Thanks for the link love
To my mind, this is simplistic thinking. You fight the less complex battles first because they’re the easiest to win. Once that happens, the whole conversation shifts. The initial fight is over whether members of the group in question should have any rights at all. Once that’s decided in the affirmative, it’s much simpler to make the case that the same rights apply to the fringes as to the center. The emphasis shifts from the marginality of the group as a whole to the level of discomfort the majority might have with the fringe members of the group. (I feel like I’m not being clear about this, but I’m not sure how else to put it.)
So once we agree that same sex couples should have the right to marry and that LGBT people should receive civil rights protections, anyone who would deny fringe members those things has to base their argument on their own personal feelings, rather than any abstract belief system. Saying, “I just don’t feel comfortable with [drag queens, transgender people, or whatever it is] lays the problem exactly where it should be-with the person who is uncomfortable, not with the object of his/her discomfort. And if you’re not comfortable with the spectrum of people you meet, well, tough.
@mm … I haven’t yet read the book, so I can’t speak for the simplicity or complexity of the argument. I’d argue this is hardly a new critique of rights movements and their trajectory — we’ve seen the centrifugal force of normative pressure work in feminist activism as well, and (as as another example) the movement of home-based education from radicalism to more mainstream — in form as well as in public acceptance.
I, personally, don’t think that keeping one’s eye on goals that are feasible practically, from a political standpoint, should be used to obscure the continued marginalization of people who are more visibly queer. Kenji Yoshino’s Covering is a really compelling analysis of this dynamic, and the way it throws some folks under the bus in the interest of political gain for others. And in the end, how it hurts us all.
So rather than the once/then structure you’re suggesting, I’d throw my weight behind a both/and approach … working to gain what we can in terms of existing civil rights while working hard to re-frame the debate in more radical/liberatory ways.
Thanks for passing on the information about this new book. I read Nobody Passes some time ago, a collection of essays edited by the same author, and that book was definitely worth reading. I appreciated that it talked about all kinds of passing.
For example, most people don’t think much about passing (whether intentionally or not) as healthy or able bodied when you have an invisible chronic illness. Or passing as the majority religion because you don’t look or dress differently. I wasn’t thrilled with the writing style of all the authors but even the essays that I didn’t like much provided food for thought.
http://www.mattildabernsteinsycamore.com/nobodypasses.html
@Anna: Oh, totally agreed. I was just trying to say that normalizing the group benefits all members of the group. I don’t know of any historical situation in which the demands of the “radical” (as it were) segment of a group were meet before those of the more centrist members. It also seems unfair to me to suggest that because the centrist demands are more easily met, that those in the center have no interest or stake in the concerns of those on the margins. Again, it doesn’t have to be either/or. It should always be both/and.
@ahmisa: There are 2 side to passing, though. One is the one you present. The other is the assumption by members of the majority culture that you are what they are. I don’t try to pass as a gentile, but neither do I dress like an Orthodox Jew, so am I trying to pass or are Christians presumptuous to assume I’m Christian?
It also seems unfair to me to suggest that because the centrist demands are more easily met, that those in the center have no interest or stake in the concerns of those on the margins.
@mm … I’d agree that it’s not accurate to say that those in the center have no stake and/or interest in the margins … but in practice, arguments for centrist gains often take on the tone of “At least I’m not as crazy / radical / out there / creepy / unacceptable as [insert scapegoat here]!” I think that’s where the discussion about being “faggoty” comes in, because in certain parts of the gay male subculture there’s a lot of pressure to be “straight acting,” which means to perform heteronormative masculinity. Gay men who don’t conform to gender expectations get punished in the queer community just like they get punished by non-queer folks for making people uncomfortable. There’s a lot of unexamined sexism in queer culture that continues to privilege normative gender even as we accept same-sex sexuality and relationships.
@mischiefmanager:
I tried to include that point about identity as an interaction between what you present and what people see with my parenthetical phrase–”whether intentionally or not”–but I guess it was not clear. There’s a lot of complexity around this topic which is why it was enough material for a whole book of essays on different aspects it.
Sorry if it sounded like I was making the issue too simple in my very brief (and obviously confusing, you probably weren’t the only one) comment. I should have just mentioned the book and left it at that rather than trying to give a couple of examples. My book summarizing skills obviously suck.
@Anna: *nods*
@ahimsa: not at all! It’s definitely a complicated thing. And people like me have probably benefited from this kind of interaction without knowing it.