Modern-day campaigns for civil rights and equal citizenship for queer folks tend to conjure up a progressive trajectory from exclusion to inclusion: from a dark past when the homosexual was excluded from equal citizenship (or forced to live closeted) to a not-yet-realized future in which one’s sexual identity, desires, and behaviors, do not exclude one from enjoying the rights and responsibilities of the American citizenry. The ability to apply for citizenship in the first place, the responsibility to serve in the armed forces, the personhood status to form legally-recognized kinship networks and access the welfare benefits distributed through those kinship systems. In our collective memory, we look backward in time to a period during which homosexual acts were illegal and homosexual identity stigmatized; we look forward to a period during which our bodies and relationships won’t ipso facto criminalize us (at worst) or shuffle us off as second-class or invisible citizens (still a precarious state of affairs).

Yet as Hanne Blank pointed out, in her recently-released Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality, the notion of the heterosexual being (in opposition to the homosexual being) only developed in the late nineteenth century. While certain sexual activities (most obviously sodomy, commonly interpreted as anal penetration) were criminalized, the homosexual person was not constituted in either cultural or legal understanding until well into the twentieth century. In The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America (Princeton University Press, 2009), historian Margot Canaday argues, in fact, that the identity category of “homosexual” developed in symbiosis with the United States’ state-building activities to such an extent that it was, in part, the legal conception of homosexual persons that led to the mid-century emergence of our modern-day gay or queer political identities:

An increasingly invasive state would in time also help to create rights consciousness for some queer individuals who, embracing the state’s own emphasis on legal rather than medical categories, began to ask not whether they might be sick, but whether they might be citizens. They came to agree with the state’s simple common sense definition of homosexuality, then, but could see less and less that was commonsensical about its placement outside national citizenship (254).

This is a fascinating argument, well-grounded in historical evidence. Canaday’s footnotes exhaustively document the hours she spent in the National Archives reading through years worth of military court marshals, personnel files, proceedings from immigration hearings, congressional records, and Works Progress Administration memoranda. What this detailed historical research reveals is how much our “common sense definition of homosexuality” was created through a process of trial and error, through attempts to police the bodies and social lives of those individuals coded undesirable. In example, let me glean from Canaday’s evidence a few instances of such creation that I found particularly delightful and thought-provoking.

First, in her chapter on immigration and “perverse” bodies during the first quarter of the twentieth century, Canaday discovered in reading INS records that aliens were generally turned away at the border or deported not for homosexual acts but for gender non-conformity.  This is merely the most recent book in my readings on the history and politics of sex and gender that has made me think about how much policing of our sexual lives speaks to a (larger?) fear of bodies that fail to fit our ever-changing yet stubbornly dualistic notions of appropriate gender performance. As Tanya Erzen observes in her study of ex-gay conversion therapy literature, for people and institutions concerned with gender role divisions, same-sex sexual behavior becomes a marker of gender inversion or confusion, rather than something of primary concern. That is, a woman who has sex with another woman is worrying because she is becoming masculine or enacting a “male” role. Not because she’s enjoying same-sex sex in and of itself.

Along similar lines, Canaday suggests that those policing same-sex sexual acts among men in the military, particularly during the early years of the twentieth century, distinguished between men who penetrated during sex (the “male” role) and men who were — willingly or unwillingly — penetrated either orally or anally (the “female” role). Rather than imagining lovemaking as a more fluid series of encounters in which one might penetrate and be penetrated in turn, military police imagined that men’s sexual identities were constituted and static. To some extent, they were following the lead of the men whose activities they were punishing, since barracks culture appears to have encouraged the tom/bottom hierarchical dynamic. However, Canaday’s narrative suggests that the policing of same-sex sex, and the differential punishment meted out according to who fucked whom reinforced the notion that what one did somehow followed from (or led to) who one was. It made me wonder if, in these military proceedings, we were seeing the nascent beginnings of our modern-day notion (in some circles) that gay men are either “tops” or “bottoms.”

While the military was fairly clear about the illegality of same-sex acts between men (though their policing of such activity was uneven), some of the most hilarious passages in the book deal with the inability of military police to agree on what exactly women do together when making love. The perplexity with which society responds to lesbian sex never fails to amuse me. Is it really that difficult to understand? Seriously? Like — clits and tongues and fingers and natural lubricant? Hello? But apparently, for mid-century MPs, women doing it was just beyond the realm of possibility. When, in 1952, two military police on patrol happened across two women having energetic oral sex in the back of a vehicle, they were so “bewildered” by what was happening that they turned and went away in “shock.” “It was just one of those things that you read about and hear about but never see,” one of the MPs admitted during testimony when asked why the incident had gone unreported (191-192). Because of this mystification of female sexuality, Canaday demonstrates, the anti-gay purges of women in the military relied not on evidence of acts (as it did with men) but on extensive documentation of women’s homosociality, emotional ties, and gender performance. Canaday observes that, while men and women alike were harassed during the lavender scare (see David K. Johnson), discharge files for men are typically 1/4-1/2 inch thick while women’s routinely run 2-3 inches. Not a commentary on the relative suffering of men and women accused of homosexuality, this difference represents the comparable difficulty of evidence gathering when what you’re trying to document is something as nebulous as tendencies and identities rather than trying to answer the question of whether so-and-so gave John Smith a blow job.

Finally, in her two chapters on the Depression-era welfare state, Canaday explores the long-term effects of structuring the social safety net in such a way as to reinforce the heteronormative family. A precursor to the destructive obsession with marriage as an alternative to unemployment and welfare benefits, federal programs targeting the unemployed and itinerant in the 1930s, and the benefits of the G.I. Bill post-WWII, became tied to an individual’s ability and/or willingness to fulfill a role (mother, father, husband, wife, son, daughter) within the ideal “straight” family. While this had little per se to do with one’s sexual identity, it had everything to do with domesticating individual human beings whose free-floating sexual desires were closely associated with criminality. Work programs for unemployed men, for example, often included some sort of requirement that the individual’s monthly allotment be sent to a designated “dependent,” usually a family member along the order of a parent, a wife, or children (118). Some “unattached” men were able to work around this requirement by designating a male friend as their dependent, but overall the government structured twentieth-century benefits schemes to encourage hetero-familial ties and discourage both sustained single-ness and unorthodox relationships. In the postwar era, this structural dis-incentive was joined by overt discrimination as those who had been discharged from the military for homosexuality were denied veterans benefits and experienced widespread stigma and economic hardship for suspected or actual same-sex attractions, behavior, and relationships.

Overall, Canaday’s study is one of the most impressive examples of historical inquiry into sex and gender that I’ve read in recent years, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the historical context of our present-day notions of gender, sex, sexual orientation, and citizenship.

Cross-posted at the feminist librarian.

Last week outside Trader Joe’s I was accosted by charity muggers from the ACLU. 

This happens regularly in Coolidge Corner and I generally ignore them across the board. I make it a rule not to support any organization via street harassment, even if they’re a group with a mission I support. (And yes, I have, in fact, been a card-carrying member of the ACLU when personal finances allow).

But anyway. Last Wednesday was the day the federal appeals court in Boston heard oral arguments against the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). And the chipper young woman in the ACLU vest was asking passers-by if they had “a moment for gay rights?” so I thought perhaps they had some sort of petition to sign vis a vis the whole DOMA-is-stupid-not-to-mention-unconstitutional thing. So after the internal debate while grocery shopping (“you should just suck it up, self, and be a good citizen and a social person for once”) I actually stopped on my way out of the store and volunteered to hear what she was about.

“So do you have a petition you want me to sign or something?” I asked.

She seemed surprised I was even stopping, but gathered herself together and launched into what the ACLU was about, as an organization, and specifically some of the things they were doing to support queer folks who’d been discriminated against because of their sexuality. It turned out she didn’t have any sort of petition to sign, but was just trawling for donations.

“I’m asking people to make a donation of $29 dollars today for each of the twenty-nine states where it’s legal to discriminate against someone due to their sexual orientation!” she wrapped up with a note of breathless relief in her voice that I’d actually let her finish a thought.

“Well, I don’t give out my financial information on the street,” I tried to break it to her gently, “But I’ll definitely keep you guys in mind.”

“But you’re behind what we stand for, right?” She asked, anxiously.

“Um –sure!” I said, shook her hand politely, and headed off down the street.

It took me most of the walk home to realize what was the most frustrating and surreal part of the interaction. It was that the young woman in question was pitching her persuasive skills at someone she presumed to be straight. Did I stand for “gay rights”? Well, yeah, actually, I’m pretty into having equal civil rights. The whole reason I’d stopped to speak with her in the first place was that I’d been thinking about DOMA that day. Because the fate of the Defense of Marriage Act has a direct effect on my life. Because Hanna and I are talking about getting married and even though we can do that perfectly legally here in the state of Massachusetts, as far as the federal government is concerned (taxes, social security benefits, etc.) we won’t be a family unit.

So I’m not behind the idea of “gay rights” as this abstract great-good-thing that all card-carrying members of the ACLU should, you know, be in support of because it’s the right thing to do. (Though I’m behind it for that reason too). I’m actually in support of it because it’s about my equality of personhood before the law.

I’m not pissed at the young woman I spoke with (well, not much). She’s getting paid probably minimum wage (if she’s getting paid at all) to stand on the pavement and harass people at rush hour for what is probably an incredibly, incredibly low rate of return. And I’m sure whatever job training she received was cursory at best.

But I do find it note-worthy that the ACLU spiel is constructed in such a way that assumes the person to whom the spiel is pitched is outside the group of interest. I think I would have been less irritated by the encounter if I’d been told, “Here’s what we’re doing to support your right to equal protection under the law, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.” If you’re standing on a street corner flagging people down, you can’t actually tell whether they’re gay or lesbian, bi or poly, trans, genderqueer, or otherwise. Whether their sexual practices put them at risk of arrest, whether they’re afraid to us public restrooms, or whether they’ve got two partners waiting at home, only one of whom they could legally marry — even in the state of Massachusetts.

So a tip to all you charity muggers out there? Keep in mind when you ask the question, “Are you for gay rights?” The chances are at least one in ten (more of you count family members of queer folks who identify as straight) that the person you’re talking to isn’t a supporter of gay rights ’cause it’s a trendy liberal cause, but because it actually has an effect on their quality of life.

I’d say, just assume everyone’s queer until proven otherwise. It might actually up your success rate.

Cross-posted at the feminist librarian.

I woke up yesterday to back-to-back stories on NPR about the congressional fights over last year’s budget and the impending battle in Washington over the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The Republican sound-bites were all about how the Bush-era tax cuts shouldn’t be allowed to expire because now isn’t the time to “raise” taxes on the “job creators.”

I admit I’m biased. Last year, Hanna and I had a combined income of a little over $50,000.00. Which is admittedly a healthy amount above the poverty line and was just enough to allow us to live in the area of Boston where we rent our apartment and pay for all of our expenses, including the minimum monthly payments on our student loans. As well as allowing us some discretionary money for things like visiting family, Christmas presents, new shoes, dinner with friends, and the occasional concert or theatre tickets. Plus, with my new full-time job I can finally start saving for retirement.  

Oh, and we paid taxes. Not a lot, but some. Medicare and Social Security taxes, obviously. And income tax. We had to file separately, obviously, since under DOMA even if we were married we wouldn’t qualify for joint filing. But even so, we had a few hundred dollars in refunds kicked back to us. We’ll be using the money to visit my parents in Michigan this summer.

But here’s the thing: I actually don’t mind paying taxes. Obviously, I have strong opinions about what tax money should and shouldn’t be used for (the war in Iraq? Afghanistan? Guantanemo Bay? Executions under the federal death penalty?). Yet in principle, I believe in pooling resources to fund essential services. Healthcare, infrastructure, environmental conservation, emergency preparedness and response, industry regulation, oversight of food and drug manufacture and safety, fire and police departments.  Ensuring all residents in the United States have access to educational resources in schools and public libraries.

For three years while Hanna and I were in graduate school our health care was free or nearly-free thanks to the universal health care legislation passed in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (under Republican governor Mitt Romney!). We had access to doctors, medications, dental and eye car, all at zero cost or for minimal co-pays. Despite the fact that none of our part-time jobs offered health insurance.

This was made possible because the taxpayers of Massachusetts subsidized our care. And if some of my tax monies paid to the state this year go toward funding that public insurance program for other folks who are currently in a similar situation, then I am glad to pay. I’ve been there myself, and I may well be in that position again.

So this tax season, as people gripe about paying taxes (I googled “your tax dollars at work” to find an illustration to use in this post and all the images I got were sarcastic commentary on the ineffectual nature of government, Tea Party signs protesting socialism, and photos of aborted fetuses) I’d like to ask all of you to share some of the things (however small) you are grateful that tax money makes possible.

Note: I’m at a conferenceall day today, with no access to the interwebs … so have fun and I look forward to reading what y’all have to say when I return!