Finding Out Ch15: The Politics of Location: Queers and the Search for Queer Space

The quote from Streitmatter made me realize a strange but enlightening truth. If “America’s alternative media have evolved because groups of people outside the mainstream of society--most notably African Americans and women--historically have been denied a voice . . .” (quoted on 408), then the mainstream does not include people of color or women (nor does it include people who identify as LGBT or who do work to queer the system, I presume, as this is written about gay alternative media). In that case, the mainstream of society is comprised of heterosexual white men. Strangely, this means that it is actually a minority of people who control the culture. Adding the number of women and non-white men and non-heterosexual white men and gender non-conforming individuals would be far more than half of American society. Apparently “mainstream” does not equal “majority.”  With this understanding, the content and problems with mainstream media are much more understandable. Of course the sex, sexuality, gender, racial, and ethnic “minorities” buy into mainstream media the same way that they buy into sexist and heterosexist and racist and homophobic and transphobic and American-elitist ideas. But the content of mainstream media tends to work against those “minorities” in favor of maintaining the power of the small group of heterosexual white men.

Something that has bothered me since the beginning of Finding Out is the way that Alexander, Gibson, and Meem use the word “queer.” In the glossary, they define “queer” as “a word once used as a taunt against homosexuals, now reclaimed as an umbrella term to signify the diversity of LGBT identities and to assert the value of difference” (433). While this may be true, their definition of “queer” stems from the idea that all LGBT identities and individuals are somehow queer or queering, and this is certainly not the case. The antonym of “queer” is “ordinary” or “normal,” yet many LGBT individuals strive to be or considers themselves normal. They adopt gender norms of dress, behavior, and interaction. They work toward the assimilationist goals of the homophile movement; they want to fit in with sexist, heteronormative culture and often do. How is this queering the system? How is this disrupting or destabilizing or deconstructing the norm or conventional ways of thinking? It really isn’t. If we take current events into play, what about Mitt Romney’s (now resigned) appointment for national security and foreign policy spokesman? Can we really call Richard Grenell queer?

Of course, there are many LGBT individuals who do try to queer the dominant cultural norms. Even within the text, Alexander, Gibson, and Meem cite examples of LGBT folk who queer cultural ideas about sex, relationships, family, and home. The musicians mentioned in the chapter, like Michael Callen, calling for the redefinition of the family is a great example of queering cultural norms. Performers and participants at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival queer ideas about gender and sex and probably other things as well. Alix Olson queers these in her pieces like “Gender Game”:

“So, in the "F" or "M" boxes they give, 

I forgive myself for not fitting in 

And blame the world for lack of clarity...

Yes, we are Deconstruction Workers.
We are exposing unfounded bedrocks
That bed us to one sex, that wed us to one gender.
We are overturning those stones,
We are throwing them back.
We are making revolution
A gender evolution.
We are invoking strategy, we are revoking shame.
And we are calling it. We are calling it
Refusal to be Named.

Finding Out, Ch14: Queers and the Internet

Are cyberspaces similar to physical spaces? Do they have the potential to offer the same information, community, and relationships as physical spaces? The text quotes Egan’s claim that 

for homosexual teenagers with computer access, the Internet has, quite simply, revolutionized the experience of growing up gay. Isolation and shame persist among gay teenagers, of course, but now, along with the inhospitable families and towns in which many find themselves marooned, there exists a parallel online community--real people like them in cyberspace with whom they can chat, exchange messages and even engage in (online) sex. (quoted on 378)

From my experience, online communities can, indeed, offer much of what physical spaces can; but online spaces can be accessed from private areas, such as bedrooms, allowing access to those for whom transportation to physical LGBT spaces is unavailable. For instance, one of the respondents in the Gay Pride 17 tinychat room told me that she could not speak aloud like the others because her parents would not like her being part of the online community. Others, high school students, explained that they were not out to their parents yet, so they turned to the online community for support, relationships, and encouragement to come out. 

The text states that “We are inclined to believe that there is no easy equivalence between ‘real people’ in physical communal spaces and ‘real people’ online” (378). I find that it depends on which places and what type of interaction is happening online. Some of my best and longest lasting relationships have formed in online communities, relationships that persist after meeting in person (my online friends have never been different in person than online) or after years having never met. My best friend is someone I have known for 4 years and never contacted physically, yet our relationship has never suffered from a lack of physical presence. In addition to instant messaging, file sharing and audio/video calls over the internet make it much closer to communicate in ways that are almost identical to physical interactions. 

And speaking of online spaces, what about social networking sites like Facebook? Many relationships today are developed and continued only partly in physical spaces. If people discount online interactions that allow contact at all hours or even delayed responses in the form of e-mail and messages, how much of the closeness that many people have achieved does not count by that definition? How is online communication different from letters? Clearly, if online communication can stand in for face-to-face physical communication for information, support, and emotional satisfaction from the perspective of individuals engaged in the interactions, it must be accepted as equivalent in those departments. 

But online spaces cannot provide physical intimacy--the sex is not the same as physical sex, although that comes with benefits, too, as the text mentions the freedom from sexually transmitted diseases (but fails to mention safety from pregnancy, which may not be an issue for same-sex interactions but is still important for differently bodied individuals!). I find little difference otherwise. Activism is different in some cases (although education and planning can happen the same online as anywhere and may even reach a greater number of people). In unaccepting communities that some people are trying to escape by joining online communities, the problem may be slow to change; however, the online support that individuals gain can help them come out to parents in cases where they may otherwise never mention it. The internet allows for organizing events, too--couldn’t teenagers find a group or guest speaker to give a presentation at their middle school or high school in the community? In other words, sometimes the online communities also enable attitudes to be “transformed in physical space” (378).

Finding Out, Ch13: Film and Television

    This chapter focuses on the various representations of LGBT individuals and struggles in film and television, in quality and quantity. They suggest that the films and shows that represent LGB relationships are one of the positive productions. In some cases, this is true; comparing the hundreds of films and shows featuring or focusing on heterosexual relationships, it is good to have some variety by introducing LGB characters as legitimate lovers. But when the only representations of LGBT characters are focused on their sexualities or portraying them as murderous and unstable (still focused on their sexualities), is that really a full and honest depiction? Sexuality becomes the whole of the characters’ identities, so they end up playing out stereotypes and having little or no meaning beyond their sexuality. It brings to mind Carl Wittman’s claim that “we’ll be gay until everyone has forgotten that it’s an issue. Then we’ll begin to be complete.” Once we can stop acting as if sexuality is the only thing that matters in a person’s identity or life, perhaps we can start building LGBT characters as the equivalent to straight characters (“straight” as conventional and conforming as well as heterosexual) and create a more realistic and sincere version of their lives. The problems faced by LGBT individuals are not always related to their LGBT identities. They are not always unique because of their identities. Until we can portray them all as people like any others, are we really where we want to be? 

Of course, homophobia and transphobia/gender discrimination are still a problem, and they should be mentioned, but there are ways of including the issues without making them define a character.Doctor Who and Torchwood’s Jack Harkness is a good example. As an omnisexual 51st-century man living in present-day England, Harkness occasionally encounters homophobia. He has relationships with both men and women, including non-humans. But when characters do bring up his sexuality, he acts like it’s no big deal, like 21st-century humans are overreacting or ridiculously preoccupied with sexuality when it shouldn’t matter. A post by gladkov on Daily Kos explains the character’s presence well: “[Torchwood] is about a character so confident in himself that he demands respect as he saves the world, never caring if his sexuality should be approved by others. In fact, in the universe of Torchwood, sexuality is not much of an issue.” Jack’s sexuality influences his character and the story--he flirts with everyone, we see his old partner with whom he seems to have had a sexual relationship, and he has a long-term relationship with a man (and with an alien, if we count his feelings for the Doctor)--but it never becomes his defining trait. Rather, his character is as complex as the heterosexual characters on Doctor Who and Torchwood, with the shows emphasizing his other traits enough that his sexuality seems far less important than his compassion, intellect, or courage. Later in his post, gladkov notes that “Most importantly, [Captain Jack’s] sexuality is one single aspect of a much more complex, flawed character.” Viewers are encouraged to concern themselves with emotional and moral struggles that could be faced by anyone--regardless of sexuality.

         The show even pushes boundaries in a way that gives a slightly queer reading of the character when Jack says, “You people and your quaint little categories.” If the fluidity between desire and bodies isn’t enough from the possibility of alien sexual encounters, Jack suggests that naming desire is restrictive and perhaps prescriptive rather than accurately descriptive of a person’s possibilities. Rather than the “queer” elements that Alexander, Gibson, and Meem discuss in Ch13, film and television should implement more characters and ideas that destabilize, blur, or challenge dominant modes of thinking about sexuality.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/07/24/757421/-Yearning-for-Ianto-Torchwood-Redefining-Sci-Fi-Gothic-Horror-and-Gay-Romance

Finding Out, Ch12: Censorship and Moral Panic

It makes little sense that people whose desires remained the same after exposure to these themes feared that they would change the desires of others. If people like Helms had different feelings after being exposed to these themes, then they may have good reason to believe that it would change others, as well. The Hindu activists cited in the book as saying that Mehta’s film would “spoil our women” (320) bring sexism into the issue; they suppose that the women are 

1. so impressionable and gullible that they would believe and act out anything they see (even if it means facing great difficulty), and 

2. free of same-sex desire to begin with, even as Fire portrays a struggle that actually exists.

What makes even less sense is that parents advocate education and exposure to LGBT issues in high school, even middle school, but not in elementary school. If most kids--not just LGBT students--face homophobia in middle school, why shouldn’t children be exposed to these issues sooner? Clearly, they are taught that LGBT individuals exist from somewhere. If they could be taught in a controlled and accepting environment, perhaps the bullying and suicide rates would decline. 

In the Afterword to Heather has Two Mommies, Newman writes that “I’m somebody...who knows firsthand what it’s like to grow up without seeing families just like her own in books, in films, or on TV. . . Since I had never read a book or seen a TV show or movie about a young Jewish girl with frizzy brown hair eating matzo ball soup with her bubbe on Friday night, I was convinced there was something wrong with my family. My family didn’t look like any of the families I saw in my picture books or on my television set. My family was different. My family was wrong.” People seem to care much more about maintaining their own version of the way the world should be than about the people who are suffering from keeping it that way--even if the ones suffering are children. Newman explains, “I believe that had I had those images and role models at an early age, the experience would have greatly enhanced my self-esteem. And so I took on the challenge of writing Heather has Two Mommies, my only goal being to create a book that would help children with lesbian mothers feel good about themselves.” Letters from parents (lesbians and heterosexuals) and their children show that the book did help them feel good about themselves. Yet, by taking the focus away from the children who could benefit from the book (really, all children) and focusing on a “militant homosexual agenda” that corrupts children, opponents manage to control the opinions of the majority and ban such messages.

In Sir Biron’s Judgment regarding The Well of Loneliness, he judges the book “obscene libel” in part because “there is not a single word from beginning to end of this book which suggests that anyone with these horrible tendencies is in the least blameworthy or that they should in any way resist them” (328). By this reasoning, The Picture of Dorian Gray should have been judged as proper rather than obscene. It is not only Dorian’s death at the end of the novel that marks the narrative as acceptable; people whose lives are touched by Dorian have their lives ruined, presumably for indulging in the same pleasures themselves. In addition, Dorian goes nearly mad from the guilt over the things he has done. His death is not simply an accident; it is caused by Dorian himself. It is his attempt to escape responsibility and consequences for his actions that ends in his death. Basil Hallward serves as a voice of reason for Dorian, lamenting Dorian’s descent into “sin” and pleading for change. Wilde definitely shows that Dorian and Lord Henry are “blameworthy,” and Hallward is evidence of why they should resist those “horrible tendencies.” 

Community Interaction 3

There have been a lot of great events on campus, but I am restricted by a lack of transportation. After searching for events near my house and failing to find any (results were about “finding a therapist” and AA--disheartening), I considered other options. I thought, “There must be a community space online somewhere.” Message boards failed to offer what I was looking for, but eventually I stumbled upon a tinychat room called Gay Pride 17. With 1,034 followers and over 20 (average 40) people live at any one time, it seemed like a good place to start. Most of the respondents were aged 15-17, with some in their 20’s. 

LGBT spaces seem to do different things for different people. Gay Pride 17 seems to give Sandro more confidence, perhaps enough to come out himself, someday. 

sandro: here you can be yourself and [talk] about anything you need

sandro: like am not out yet but i really like coming here cause i see how people are so happy and . . . they are out

Sandro really sees the room as evidence that “it gets better,” that people can be happy and out even in unsupportive families or communities. For Georgie, who found the room after coming out, “LGBT space makes me more comfortable talking to my parents about it [being gay].” Jordan sees LGBT spaces as an escape, as an outlet for self-expression that is restricted in “straight spaces.” His favorite place is a gay bar. “I go every weekend, and it helps me so much...” Jordan said. “It feels awkward for me. In a gay club, hanging out with my friends, I can be myself. I’m comfortable around them because I can be myself.” When asked why they liked the space, why they were there instead of somewhere else, they replied:

ari: because i can be myself . . . and not be judged

georgie: I was introduced by a friend. There are a lot of cute boys here and a lot of cute girls here. It’s loving...you feel welcomed. I like being with people that are like me, and everyone’s understanding.

chip: i hate being 16 i gotta hide that i am gay

emily: Well I’m in a strict catholic school and my parents don’t like the idea of me being gay... I’m quite shy and i’m more confident with talking to people on here.

For a lot of them, being out and accepted was a problem. Chip, Ari, Sandro, Jordan, and others felt that they could not “be themselves” outside of what they considered a safe space.

All respondents felt that LGBT space was important. Georgie said, “I definitely feel like you need it. Even straight people need it. You learn--you see it from a different point of view, you know what i’m saying?” Indeed, a high school girl who identified herself as straight also saw the importance of LGBT spaces for non-LGBT folk. Like Georgie, she believes that these spaces allow more acceptance of LGBT individuals because they allow straight people to see LGBT individuals as people instead of others. She said that she found the group by accident and felt drawn in by the supportive, helpful atmosphere. Now she frequents the group because, even though she sees herself as different from them, she feels like she’s been welcomed into a family.

Finding Out, Ch11: Queer Transgressive Aesthetics

Alexander, Gibson, and Meem ask, “if, as often happens in capitalist societies,  art is commodified and accepted as part of the popular culture, can it still be considered transgressive? Are there ways in which art popularized and commodified in a culture can transgress traditional boundaries  by reaching an audience that would not necessarily seek exposure to that which is more clearly transgressive?” (293). I believe that it definitely can. Art can still make people uncomfortable and urge them to question the values held by themselves and by society. If it is on the edge of acceptability, then it pushes the boundaries of what is appropriate. It may be a smaller resistance than more extreme, outrageous works, but it is still resistance. Even after something becomes acceptable, even taken for granted, the original work is still transgressive--as Alexander, Gibson, and Meem point out at the start of Finding Out, we cannot judge the past by pretending that events occurred in the present. In the late 19th century, some women, such as Victoria Woodhull, advocated “free love” in sexually restrictive Victorian society. Woodhull, refusing to take back her statement that she was a “free lover,” said, “I will supplement this by saying now: That I will love whom I may; that I will love as long or as short a period as I can; that I will change this love when the conditions to which I have referred indicate that it ought to be changed; and neither you nor any law you can make shall deter me” (Schneir 154). This “free love” is now accepted: nearly everyone in America follows this pattern in their relationships by dating. Is this, then, no longer transgressive? Much of our capitalist system relies on Woodhull’s idea of “free love” as it is enacted in society. The idea is sold to us on holidays, in television shows, movies, commercials, books, magazines. Dating services and speed dating events are sold to us, so that “free love” itself has been commodified. Although it no longer pushes the boundaries of social acceptability because it has been accepted into society--it has become the new boundary--“free love” and Woodhull’s actions are still transgressive as a product of the time and place in which she lived.

Schneir, Mariam. Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings. New York: Vintage Books, 1972.

Finding Out, Ch10: Lesbian Pulp Novels and Gay Physique Pictorials

Both physique pictorials and lesbian pulp novels were intended for heterosexual audiences. They encouraged the heterosexual constructions of work, family, and relationships and condemned homosexuality and deviance from gender norms. Bernarr Macfadden “publicly denounced his gay readers as ‘painted, perfumed, kohl-eyed, lisping, mincing youths’ whom he encouraged other men to ‘beat up’” (Bianco, quoted on 271); Lesbian pulp novels were “frequently homophobic” (274) and “[warned] of the dangers of lesbians and lesbianism” (269). Although lesbian pulp novels were written by and for straight males, actual lesbians found in them places for themselves. They discovered a space in which their desires could thrive, a space that allowed them to insert themselves into the story and live out their fantasies. This is similar to the way that many gay men and lesbians created a space in straight musicals (focused on heterosexual couples) where they could explore desire by imagining themselves and their experiences in heterosexual characters. For example, Stacy Wolf says that gay male scholars “appreciate how musical theater is built around a female star, which, they assert, allows gay male crossidentification” (Wolf 356). Despite the intentions of creators to erase homosexual desire and promote heterosexual ideals, these stories often became spaces in popular culture that gay men could take pleasure in. 1940s and 1950s musicals “enabled richer and more fulfilling fantasies for gay male spectators to read against the grain and to cross-identify with than the pallid representations of actual gays and lesbians in contemporary musical theater” (Wolf 356). The “lesbians of heterosexual male fantasies” (275) in pulp novels were, as Alexander, Gibson, and Meem explain, often used to label female same-sex desire as problematic, undesirable, and dangerous. Nonetheless, these women transformed these novels into lesbian spaces by writing them by and for themselves. Wolf says that Mary Martin did the same by bringing a possible lesbian reading to her acting roles in shows like Peter Pan and The Sound of Music. Gender deviance and intimate female-female moments and duets allowed the audience to read the characters, relationships, and interactions as lesbian.

Wolf, Stacy. “We’ll Always Be Bosom Buddies:” Female Duets and the Queering of Broadway Musical Theater. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. Duke University Press, 2006. 351-376.

Finding Out, Ch9: Homosexed Art and Literature

With Whitman, Eakins, and Homer, there seems to be an emphasis on the difference (or uncertainty) between the homosexual and the homosocial. Homer “typically portrayed the camaraderie of men doing “masculine” things: hunting, laboring, boxing, and so on” (234). These men could not be seen as inverts because they were models of masculinity; their sexuality never brought into question their manliness--nor could a lack of manliness make them suspect in their sexuality. When John Addington Symonds asked Whitman about male-on-male sex, hoping “that Whitman was making a place for physical sex between men” (234), Whitman’s defense against what he may have seen as an accusation or a dangerous discovery leaves many possibilities. Was Whitman afraid of losing popularity? Was he reluctant to admit to himself that he was what we would label a gay man? If he called sex between men “damnable,” did he perhaps see it as something that was morally wrong while the emotional connection was okay? It is difficult to decipher his motives in the letter to Symonds without understanding the extent of the prosecution of “sexual inverts” or the various ideas about sex, sexuality, or gender in America at the time. 

Today, male homosocial relationships are encouraged, even lauded as one of the greatest and most essential connections between any two people. In many places, we still see a delicate balance between the acceptable homosocial relationship and the unacceptable, contemptible homosexual relationship. We end up with homophobic language that divides a gesture that is meant to be homosocial from one that is perceived as homosexual; for example, many guys will use the phrase “no homo” after confessing something intimate or taking part in emotional bonding. While the act stays the same (and even the meaning, in most cases), the perception of the act changes with whether or not it is homosexual in nature. A more striking example of this division is in same-sex interaction in the military. Military recruits are automatically more masculine than others by justification of being in the military, and many acts committed as recruits are forgivable as homosocial acts--even those that would be problematic and ridiculed as homosexual in other contexts. In The Culture of Desire, Frank Browning notes that “homosexual acts in the military are often ignored as long as the participants do not acknowledge homosexual desire” (217). Acts, then, are not what is threatening. The threat must lie in the possibility of disturbing an important structure of homosocial environments--of camaraderie--that would allows men to be “real” men while indulging in emotional and even physical intimacy with other men. Additionally, Browning believes that “only by excluding the prospect of homosexuality in a homosocial setting is it possible to police and exclude desire, and even then it doesn’t always work” (217). The men who write off their sexual exploits as relief rather than desire are distancing themselves from homosexuality in order to maintain a homosocial atmosphere. In effect, they remain masculine, their relationships legitimate. Browning asks, “Could that barracks retain the same sort of esprit de corps, the same sense of homosocial bonding (or buddy love), that displaces desire with comradeship?” (217). Perhaps Whitman did the same in his disavowal of male sex: Browning even uses the same terms, as Whitman called himself “the poet of the comrades” (quoted on Alexander, Gibson, and Meem 233).

Browning, Frank. The Culture of Desire: Paradox and Perversity in Gay Lives Today. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.

Finding Out, Ch 8: Intersectionalities

Delany says that speaking “of gay oppression in the context of racial oppression always seemed an embarrassment” (quoted 204). Alexander, Gibson, and Meem note earlier in the chapter that “in an inclusive environment, individuals are encouraged to represent categories” (203). People are supposed to represent marginalized categories of sex, race, sexuality, class, ethnicity. Many of these people are also accused of selfishly shifting the focus to their own problems--problems seen as unimportant--at the consequence of “real problems.” For example, in businesses where it is rare for racial minorities and women to be promoted to high managerial ranks, they are accused of looking out for “their people” rather than the good of the company; their efforts to reward hard-workers are seen as favoritism, and if they bring up issues of sex or race, they are seen as personal concerns only, where a white male experience is the default. Delany may have felt the pressure to stay quiet about the intersectionality of identities and issues as they pertain specifically to him because of these kinds of attitudes. I think the word “embarrassment” is important, as many people are made to feel that their experiences are less important because of their race, class, age, sex, etc. Stereotypes help the attitude spread and persist by 1) creating one version of a group of people, and 2) depicting these people as deviations from the norm that shouldn’t be taken seriously. Delany also said that “somehow [to speak of gay oppression in the context of racial oppression] was to speak of the personal” (204), rather than the general. It was to speak of individual concerns rather than speaking of issues as they pertain to everyone. Delany also makes a clear connection, if not between sexuality and race, then at least between race and class. He describes racial oppression as “vast political and imperialist and nationalist  systemics” (perhaps a general definition of racial oppression) as well as “material deprivation,” defining it by the physical and economic suffering as a result of race discrimination. Race and class seem to be inseparable by Delany’s definition.

They are correct in saying that Delany “ignores the core feminist insight that ‘the personal is political’” (205); but I think that his use of past tense signifies that he may have learned this by the time of his statement. Despite being told from several sides that his individual experience matters little compared with the similarity between the experiences of all gay men or all black men (or all men), Delany seems now to understand that the total experience has value, too.

In my life, there have been times when I brought up aspects of race, sex, gender, or other identities in a conversation only to have others roll their eyes or tell me I’m over-reacting by pointing out that the issue has many parts and influences. I get the same response when I point out sexism, heterosexism, racism, or other problems in people’s language or behavior. Recently, someone told me that people who are against racist jokes don’t understand that it’s a joke. When I tried to explain to her that humor can still be used to perpetuate negative attitudes about groups of people and contribute to poor treatment, she discounted my input because she was a Psychology major--which apparently makes her better and more qualified to talk about social concerns than a Women’s Studies major completing a certificate in LGBT Studies. (She is also white discussing how racism impacts minority groups (or doesn’t, in her opinion) with a member of a racial minority). These things don’t even become an issue in a conversation until someone refuses to acknowledge that we have problems based on identity and perception.

Finding Out, Ch6: Inclusion and Equality

      What bothered me most about this chapter was the authors’ description of the differences between the strategies of the Human Rights Campaign and Queers. They start by saying that the “HRC and Queers strategies couldn’t be more different” (155). Considering that both seem to approach the situation with the same ideas about the nature of sex, gender, and sexuality, buying into the binary of sexuality, they could easily be “more different” if Queers followed their name and reasoned with ideas from queer theory instead. Meem, Gibson, and Alexander are clearly at least somewhat familiar with the difference between gay liberation’s and queer theory’s approaches to various issues, as evidenced  right after their description of the HRC’s and Queers’ strategies. They say that it is “important to look beyond the civil rights paradigm and critique institutional systems, asking who is served by them and who is excluded” (155), but they fail to explain that sexuality as a polarized binary is an institutional system. Despite dedicating the previous chapter entirely to the expansion of ideas about sexuality beyond the hetero-homo binary, they continue to treat sexuality as a definite and descriptive identity, ignoring the queering of sexuality and identity that many have pushed for before them. I hope this is just a way to keep the information simple enough for those new to the history and theory to understand. I realize that this textbook serves as an Introduction to LGBT Studies, but I don’t see how the authors can raise the distinctions between gay liberation and queer theory and then largely ignore the ideas behind queer theory. 

      It also seems odd that they would refer to someone whom they recognize as “[identifying] as gay, transgender, and ‘two-spirited’” as “he” from Martinez’ sex rather than gender identification. They make a big deal out of the school’s and the students’ refusal to recognize Martinez as a girl, but then they do the same themselves! They obviously treat trans-identification with more respect than the people in the case of Martinez’ murder, describing such cases in ways that sound empathetic with recognition of unfair victimization, but their use of what seems to be incorrectly gendered pronouns makes me doubt their experience with or acceptance of trans-identifying individuals.

      They do make a good point with their analysis of the situation: 

Social systems that impose standards of gender conformity. . . create a circumstance in which gender nonconformists are seen as deserving harassment and in which peers consider it their right (and perhaps subconsciously their responsibility) to police one another’s gender behaviors. Social restrictions on behavior related to gender and sexuality, as well as a perception that LGBT people are predatory outsiders, contribute to exclusionary attitudes based on a sense of the inherent inferiority of LGBT people as compared with gender conformists and heterosexuals. . . (158)

In this way, “gender/sexuality policing” takes on new meaning, where peers position themselves as agents who enforce the laws of the heterosexual matrix through punishment. Meem, Gibson, and Alexander never use the word, but these extreme reactions to gender nonconformity are very much based in homophobia and transphobia--although they do come near saying this when they explain that these reactions come from “a social structure that assumes that sexual and gender difference are threatening” (158).

      Lastly, I find it pleasing that, despite the idea that people still have that “An avowed homosexual wouldn’t be a role model for [traditional family] values” (159), Ellen can be supported as a spokesperson for JCPenny and prove this wrong.

Community Interaction 2

     I attended a drag queen workshop organized by the LGBT Center with Windy Breeze and Harmony Breeze. Windy Breeze has been performing for 10 years, with the UWM Drag Show as the first venue at 18 years old. Harmony Breeze is Windy’s “drag daughter,” performing for only three years so far but earning a place as Miss Wisconsin Unlimited at Large 2010-2012. Windy Breeze and Harmony Breeze demonstrated how they transform from everyday “boy face” to performance “girl face,” focusing on make-up application techniques. The make-up on just half of the face took two hours (with some time for explanation and interruptions to show the variety of color and product options). Both Windy Breeze and Harmony Breeze described drag as a second job because of the amount of time it takes to choose a number, coordinate an act, plan an outfit, match and design make-up, and then execute it all--regardless of whether or not they are paid for their performances. 

     I noticed that Harmony and Windy used pronouns differently. Windy Breeze switched between “he” and “she” when referring to Harmony, using both for in-drag and out-of-drag and calling her “girl” but never “man.” Harmony always used “she” to refer to Windy, and despite Windy’s insistence on being called Chris during the workshop (perhaps to make it more informal and comfortable?), Harmony still used the drag name. It seems that this is because of their close relationship, or maybe there is a difference in the way they see themselves when it comes to drag, but I don’t feel that I’ve been around them enough to say.

      They commented that performing for audiences at free shows are actually more rewarding because the audience is more appreciative: they know that the performers are working harder than if they were paid to go on stage. This may be partly because the only compensation they receive is from tips and perhaps future bookings, but I think it’s also because a free performance is done for the illusion, for the enjoyment of the art, rather than for monetary rewards only.

      Obviously, drag queens, like other performers, take part in the work for different reasons. Windy Breeze said that drag has always been interesting and even natural to her; she started in middle school when her mother’s friends put on drag and visited. Sh decided to try it, loved entertaining, found drag performance particularly fun and free. For her, the fans’ appreciation and reactions validate the hours of work she puts into drag. Harmony Breeze said that a huge factor in her enjoyment of drag is that she likes the illusion--she likes “to be someone else.” Drag allows her a creative outlet as well as a way to explore other identities. 

While drag is treated much differently, in the way it allows people to adopt and perform other personas, it is similar to many activities people take part in, such as gaming, role-playing, or even being active on the Internet. So why is drag considered so  extremely different from anything in mainstream pop culture? How unusual is it really for people to pretend to be someone else, to exaggerate aspects of themselves to play a role, often a cross-gender role? And yet many of the people who take part in cross-gender acting are also homophobic and criticize drag queens (and less often, kings), using words like “fag” to police them when they themselves are violating the same rules.

Finding Out, Ch5: Nature, Nurture, and Identity

      I love Kinsey’s statement that “only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separate pigeon-holes” (quoted on 123). We categorize everything--bodies, clothing, gender, occupations, sexual desire. Whenever something comes up that blurs the categories or fits into none of the established categories, people tend to ignore them instead of changing or adding or eliminating categories. Most institutions only recognize male and female bodies, despite the fact that a large portion of the population possesses characteristics that fit into neither or both categories. According to the Intersex Society of North America, 1 in 100 individuals are born intersex--the same frequency as that of individuals born with red hair. Many people feel the need to surgically alter intersex bodies to conform to the binary of sex, even at the risk of drastic or complete loss of sexual sensation in addition to normal risks of surgery. In many cases, ambiguous genitalia are assigned female because the procedure is easier to accomplish; but when asked, every person I spoke with said that they would prefer to have a small penis than a vulva with no sexual sensation. The gender binary and the idea that gender is sex-linked can also cause individuals physical, as well as emotional, pain as they try to conform to set categories (not to mention financial costs). Even the work that people do is linked to beliefs about sex and gender, from unpaid domestic work to paid professions. 

     Where something comes from only matters when people want to cause it, cure it, or justify action for or against it. Kinsey’s focus on sexuality as it is practiced rather than its cause (or morality) was a step in a positive direction that allowed people to reconsider their ideas about it. While Hirschfield’s concept of bisexuality disrupts the rigid binary of sexuality, it leaves little room for people to find a place that accurately describes them. When there are rigid categories, the categories often come to define individuals because the system is set up so that no one can cross categories--one category is defined against the others. Unlike Hirschfield, “Kinsey saw homosexuality as a fluid position on a continuum of possible sexual experiences” (124). Sexuality as a continuum provides more leniency for people to find a place that is descriptive of their sexual feelings and behaviors than the binary or even Hirschfield’s version of sexuality. 

      Interestingly, the Benjamin standards, though just as varied as the Kinsey scale, are just as confining as the heteronormative structure of the gender/sex/sexuality binaries. By linking sexual desire and gender roles (and, therefore, sex), Benjamin plays into compulsory heterosexuality in several ways:

1. it allows individuals to define themselves only within the already-existing binaries, acknowledging only an unfortunate disconnect between gender and sex, 
2. it was a way to measure the need for “curing” cross-gender identity, thereby ignoring the legitimacy of identities beyond the heterosexual matrix and forcing them to conform,
3. it assumes that all relationships must be defined by a superior and an inferior subject,  eliminating the possibility of an egalitarian relationship,
4. while supposedly acknowledging the Kinsey scale, it actually disregards the continuum that Kinsey describes--by defining individuals with the binaries again.

These problems persist today; even with the acknowledgement of same-sex couples without thinking that they need to be cured, the prominence of these ideas can be seen in such questions as, “Who wears the pants in the relationship?” Clearly, people still assume that there are only two roles for subjects to play in a relationship, that those roles are unequal and opposite, that both roles must be filled at all times, and that nether the roles nor the individual playing the roles are fluid.

Finding Out, ch4: Stonewall and Beyond

       Bryant’s “Save Our Children” campaign seems to be a step back from the medical models of homosexuality that was, as far as I know, still the dominant model in 1977. If, as many scientists and doctors believed, there existed something like a “gay gene” or some other medical, biological reason for same-sex desire, it would be impossible to “recruit” or convert heterosexual individuals without this gene. Even if some people were “recruited” by the efforts of gay activists, they would, by this model, have to have the capacity for or have experienced same-sex desire already! 

      It still seems strange to me the supporters would march “under the catchphrase, ‘Homosexuals cannot reproduce, so they must recruit’” (92). Did Bryant and other supporters of the “Save Our Children” campaign actually believe that people with same-sex desire had no desire to reproduce and that reproduction was a physical impossibility for them? Even without any official medical records stating that it is just as easy for a lesbian to get pregnant or a gay man to impregnate as it would be for a heterosexual to reproduce, it should seem obvious that this is the case by the many examples--even before 1980--of gay men marrying women to appear to be heteronormative and respectable by social standards or of women being raped for actual or suspected homosexual desires.

      Amazingly, some people still seem hold this belief today. But if homosexuals can reproduce, then by the logic of that campaign, they would not have to recruit. Again clearly, their children don’t turn out gay by default. According to an article Huffington Post, “while research indicates that kids of gay parents show few differences in achievement, mental health, social functioning and other measures, these kids may have the advantage of open-mindedness, tolerance and role models for equitable relationships, according to some research. Not only that, but gays and lesbians are likely to provide homes for difficult-to-place children in the foster system, studies show” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/16/gay-parents-better-than-straights_n_1208659.html).

      And, if they could not reproduce to create individuals with a gay gene, and they could not possibly recruit people because homosexuality required a gay gene, then where, really is the harm in openly expressing and practicing same-sex desires?

      This is an example of how homophobia (and other phobias) was and still is used to rationalize and justify ridiculous, illogical beliefs about individuals who experience and act out same-sex desire (among other things).

      Also, I thought it was funny but fitting that she was “former Miss America” (92). I’m under the impression that beauty contests, such as the Miss America pageant, resurfaced to counter the new social and political power that women were gaining in the United States (the appliance rush and 50s image of the ideal woman as homemaker and trophy wife seem to do the same thing). It is not surprising that the woman who felt compelled to speak out against violations of conventional gender rules--which include compulsory heterosexuality--would also have taken part in a contest that upholds and stresses conventional femininity (and, therefore, masculinity by showing what a woman is and what is man cannot be). It makes sense that Bryant would be homophobic (with homosexuality as a violation of gender normativity) because to believe in the flexibility of gender would be to shake the foundations of her fame and career as a feminine figure and spokesperson.

Community Interaction 1

     I attended the LGBT Center’s Welcome Back party. There were at least 40 people in attendance, many that I had never seen before and most of whom I didn’t know. 

     I noticed that those employed at the LGBT Center who organized the event are more considerate than most other groups: all of the food was vegetarian, much of it was vegan, and a lot of it was even gluten-free! They didn’t have any meat at all, eliminating the problem of cross-contamination. 

     There was also a film crew recording the event. Many people seemed uncomfortable with being on camera (although the sign on the door warned that they would be filmed if they entered the room). It seems that they will be potentially including the footage in a documentary. While I think that some people generally avoid pictures and video, others may not have felt comfortable being caught on camera in a “safe space.” One reason may be that they have conservative, unsupportive parents, relatives, or friends who would either confront and punish them for their presence at such a party or disown them for associating with people they see as “unnatural” and “perverted.” Others may believe social stigmas surrounding gender nonconformity and non-heterosexuality; they may want to avoid associating themselves with the people in the LGBT Center--even allies--because there are negative stereotypes and attitudes about LGBT people (I suppose there might be some about queer people, too, but I don’t know any yet--it seems that people just apply LGBT stereotypes to them instead). No one admitted feeling this way to me, but there were some that admitted that it was their “first time at an event like this,” and they looked starkly different from the regulars who just didn’t want to be on camera (with the exception of one talkative, friendly woman who walked around introducing herself to everyone).

     What always surprises (and comforts) me is how community spaces like the LGBT Center feel so friendly and supportive--even when the people in them don’t know one another! I find that even people there with groups of friends are welcoming to newcomers and people they haven’t met before, willing to talk and include them in their jokes and even serious conversations. My guess would be that a lot of those people have been bullied or excluded in the past, and they want to give others a different experience by reaching out, welcoming, and sharing their experiences to let others know that they understand. While I think it’s unfair and destructive, even violent, for our society to discriminate against and prejudge people ultimately based on stereotypes, it seems that at least one good thing has come out of it. A level of solidarity and a number of safe spaces, including several friendships, improve the lives of even those who only come in contact with the community once. If that environment can make a shy trans-identified woman feel comfortable enough to confess her emotions, tell her story to strangers, and interact with others normally after being assaulted and abandoned by her “friends,” then we can’t ever say that only bad has come out of the homophobia and transphobia  in our society today.

Finding Out, Ch3: Toward Liberation

      Meem, Gibson, and Alexander write, “Others have argued that in part because it is a variation and not the norm--and also because of the long history of persecution and punishment of those engaging in same-sex (and other nonsanctioned [sic]) sexual acts--homosexuality should continue to be restricted or outlawed by the state” (66) the contemporary example of Scalia’s opinion that “society needs sodomy laws because society has always had sodomy laws” (66) follows. Of course, people like Scalia only ever make this argument when it’s something they personally oppose (with ungrounded reasons). Far fewer people today would suggest that laws against oral sex should remain intact or that only white male property-owners should be allowed to vote. Applying this “logic” to other “natural variations in the human species,” it would be best to make laws to punish people for having red hair, freckles, unusually large or small breasts or penises. Being left-handed would be a sin, punishable by life in prison or death if proven in court, and rather than praising ambiguous-handed people for their ability to use both, we would treat them as outcasts, just as bad as the left-handed. This all seems ridiculous, of course, but they are also variations in the human species. Favoring heterosexuality in an over-populated world is even worse than favoring right-handedness or certain hair and skin colors because, in addition to the discrimination, violence, and stereotypes that result, heterosexual relationships can create unplanned pregnancies as well.

      Although Freud calls it “a great injustice...and cruelty too” to treat homosexuality as criminal, he also says, “we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function produced by a certain arrest of sexual development” (66). Speaking out against persecution is great, but implying that same-sex desire is a mark of immaturity places those individuals in the same category as children. Was it better to be considered  in need of guidance because one is childish than because one is mentally ill? Isn’t society’s treatment of each the same? How did they feel about it at the time?

      As Kathleen Parker says, discharging gay men from the military was (and is) “not about gay rights, but about the rights of non-gays to be protected from forced intimacy with people who may be sexually attracted to them” (72). It might be helpful to add “whom they are not attracted to.” And clearly, this idea only applies to heterosexual men. People can identify with men who are the unfortunate “victims” of sexual interest from other men or from women they consider unattractive, but it’s unheard of for them to sympathize with women who go through the same. In some cases, they may even favor women’s uncomfortable situations if they believe they could lead to one of their sexual fantasies (O M G L E S B I A N S). It’s hard to imagine a law or a social rule that would make sure that women--of any sexual identity--were protected from “forced intimacy with [men] who may be sexually attracted to them.” Further, it seems that every man thinks himself attractive to the woman he tries to pick up at a bar--even if she isn’t interested in men at all--so that he never believes himself at fault for the same things he complains about. Heterosexual men’s rampant homophobia informs their attitudes and apparently our laws because, for whatever reason, they see other men’s same-sex interest as a threat to their masculinity and well-being.

Midterm: Rough Outline

      Bayleigh and I will be working together to create a zine. Integrating different mediums and others’ work into one project to communicate a message seems the best (and most enjoyable) way to express the great diversity even within the LGBT community. Bayleigh and I both have an interest in zine culture, so hopefully our enthusiasm will help us create an outstanding project.
       Our audience, outside this class, will probably be others within the community who maybe haven’t studied history and society and those without. This may change as we work through ideas and create material for the project.
       Hopefully, we can find ways to encourage thought about “LGBT” and people’s self-identification, experiences, and differences. 
       Through essays/analyses, poems, lyrics, images, and possibly interviews, we will be able to give a broader idea of the varied definitions of LGBT than if we worked solely with words. Borrowed and original material will help us define and problematize definitions of what it means to be LGBT. If possible, we will try to include work and and interviews from many people to represent a diverse group. 

       We haven’t narrowed our focus to specific points yet, but we plan to in the following week.

Finding Out, Ch2: Sexology

       I have little knowledge of symbolic presentations of same-sex desire, but I find it incredibly restrictive for Meem, Gibson, and Alexander to write off Ellis’ claim that homosexual men tend to like green clothing. Maybe an overwhelming number of these men did prefer to wear green! Did anyone actually attempt to find information of whether or not green become a signal color, much like the term “sailor” in a greeting or a pomegranate blossom? I’m hoping that, had they researched it, they’d have mentioned finding nothing to affirm this conclusion, so it seems unlikely that they have studied this claim extensively. While promoting a view of history that is more accepting and flexible to other points of view, they’ve certainly ignored a possible claim to truth in the assumption that Ellis was, himself, assuming.

      Further, I find it interesting that Meem, Gibson, and Alexander claim that, with the availability of condoms and diaphragms, “People were not necessarily having more sex than before” (45) when removing (or at least preventing) pregnancy tends to increase the frequency and enjoyment of sex for most pairs. Knowing that women at this time and previously sought abortions illegally and painfully as the only method of reproductive control when their husbands were home, it seems unlikely that the amount of sex would stay the same. Among people who had sex for pleasure, worries about pregnancy were lessened, so they could enjoy it more (and often); among those who had sex out of (religious, marital, social) duty, sex would be at least more tolerable without the fear of pregnancy, birth, childrearing, inadequate financial support, etc.

      According to Iwan Bloch and Ulrichs, homosexuality is something that is noticeable, something that one can distinguish by appearance alone (46, 47). Beside that we know this to be faulty today, this argument fails to hold up logically. First, holding same-sex desire as the distinguishing feature has little to do with the body in the way that male or female is understood: those categorized as Urnings constituted a “third gender” but did not possess a third, distinct kind of genitalia (ignoring, as they did, intersex individuals). Second, describing male-male desire as characterized by bodies with “a considerable deposit of fat,” lacking muscles and facial hair (46), is also to assume that all men with fat and shaven faces feel same-sex desire, something that they would certainly deny. Just as men and boys today are afraid to associate themselves with anything deemed “homo,” men at the time distanced themselves from anything that they related to homosexuality, such as cross-dressing--although it was accepted and even highly regarded in theatre in the nineteenth century. If sexology marks the beginning of the development of the privatized homosexual identity, does this period also mark the beginning of homophobia?

      Lastly, the quote from David Altman at the close of the chapter suggests that other parts of the world are developing gay cultures similar the to one in the United States in the last several decades. He notes the “marked differences in women’s social and economic status” (55) in these nations, preventing the equal expression and development of lesbian spaces. If Brazil, Costa Rica, Poland, and Taiwan are following the same pattern laid out in the U.S. in the last century, perhaps the gay world and inevitable gay rights movements will also usher in a revolution in the rights of women their sexuality. One problem remains: if, in the U.S. today, the LGB community is more accepted but the people labeled as “transgender” are not, what will happen to those outside the gender and sex binaries in other countries, as well as our own? 

Finding Out: Ch1, Before Identity

Many women seem to have lived in situations undesirable but perhaps well-suited for female-female sexuality; in others, they received harsher punishments for stepping outside of gender boundaries. To start, far fewer same-sex relationships between women were valued or honored than those between men. In ancient Greece, countless pederastic relationships were revered while only Sappho’s same-sex relationships were recorded. Of course, men had more mobility and freedom than women in their society, and men kept the records. Even so, most of the accounts mentioned in this chapter are focused on male experience. On the Arab world, China, Japan, India, Pakistan, and early England, men alone are discussed, leading me to believe that the women in these societies were ignored or restricted by those who made the records. 

When women are discussed, it is in the context of offending men. Upper Egyptian women’s attempts to attract other women was “disapproved of and ridiculed” by men in the Church (17). This is one example of the still-prominent fact of men shaming women into submission. Today, mostly men (though occasionally women) shame women who act outside of conventional gender roles, whether through dress, performance, or sexuality, by accusing them of same-sex relations. Feminists and intelligent, vocal women are labeled as lesbians regardless of sexual preference in an attempt to hold them back from success. While gay men suffer the same bullying, their submission is in the form of adhering to masculine standards, to being “real men.” Both are restricted from a full range of expression, but where women are prevented from achieving success politically, professionally, or academically, men are often spared such extreme verbal oppression (outside of violence, which affects everyone). 

In some cases, women seem to have benefited either from their relative invisibility or from their lower status in society. In the places in which female sexuality is not mentioned, it is more likely that women’s sexuality was ignored than that female-female sexual contact or relationships never happened. The lower status of women’s bodies and women’s roles also contributed to th attitudes regarding their same-sex encounters. During the Middle Ages, “female-female sexuality was regarded as a lesser offense than male-male sexuality” due to a females subordinate reproductive role (17). Further, “lesbian sex was widely considered to be merely a preliminary activity preparing a woman for marriage; a sexually aggressive woman was thought to be emulating men--in other words, aspiring to a more perfect state of nature” (17). While, on the surface, this appears to be better for women, this view of women’s sexuality stems from patriarchal beliefs that women are inferior to men. 

In other places, women received harsher punishment than men. That “it is now believed that during the so-called burning times . . . many of the female victims were women who violated accepted gender practice” (17) is an indication that women’s nonconformity to gender norms was a more serious crime in societies where men had more flexibility in practice and in dress. Perhaps this is because women were seen as the bearers of the family line or race? Women were certainly viewed as property that had to be controlled rather than free agents. Rigidity when it comes to women’s roles and appearances is vital in such societies; without it, the potential for change and the usurping of patriarchy is too great for those in power to risk.

Ning and PBworks--Virtual Identity

     Choosing how to present myself online is difficult every time--and for many reasons. I try to present myself similarly to my instructors and classmates as well as my friends and family. My problem with developing any online profile is in my failed attempts to decide (or, sometimes, recall) my favorite music, books, movies, etc. I listed the musicians and films that I did because they were the only ones I could think of when I created my profile. The Woman Warrior isn’t my single favorite book, but it was the one sitting on the shelf in front of me at the time. My profile picture was difficult to decide on for other reasons: 1) I never know whether to post an image of myself or of something else--but then again, I hardly feel a strong enough connection to other things to present them as defining myself, and 2) I have very few photos of myself. The majority of the images on my computer and camera are of other people from parties or days out. I always come home and realize that I’ve forgotten once again to take any with me in them. I suppose I could have just taken a new photo right away, but I was both biased against my sleep-deprived, pajama’d appearance and too lazy to get my camera. The picture I decided on is one that my younger sister loves, and the colors make it fun anyway. When I can’t decide, I tend to go with something with her in it, because it makes me smile when she walks into my room while I’m working.

     The content I’ve added has just been things I’ve come across that I thought someone in this class (or any of my classes, really) might enjoy or care about seeing. I don’t think that all of my replies accurately represent me on their own, but I don’t care enough to spend time intensely thinking out and editing each one. I imagine that, by the end of the semester, my comments as a whole will seem representative to those who know me outside of this class.

On Jane Gallop’s “Ethics of Reading: Close Encounters”

     In addition to the benefits to writing and understanding, Gallop tells us that close reading is most important in the process of eliminating projection, that “[c]lose reading schools us for the truly hard and really valuable task of learning to hear what the other is saying, not what we expect him to say, not a general impression of what he is saying, but--as much as possible--what he is actually, literally saying” (13). It allows us to know what a person’s intent or beliefs are instead of assuming what we want them to say. This I agree with. Her concept of “close listening” resonates with me in particular: from childhood, I was told that I paid too much attention to irrelevant details. I would discern attitudes about various topics based on words or tones, but pointing them out led to scolding. For Gallop to reiterate the importance of this kind of listening, an analytical listening, is refreshing and vital. As Gallop says, sometimes the only way to figure out what someone is really saying is to consider the details. Doing so helps discover not only what others say, but also what we say ourselves, allowing us to avoid or accept misunderstandings and create a more tolerant community.

     There is one part that bothers me--this statement: “Coming to a book armed with a mental checklist is as much a prejudice as sexism” (16). On my first reading, I noted simply the idea that prejudging a book is just as closed-minded as prejudging a person; it is important that we allow equal opportunities for everyone to explain themselves, giving credit and criticism where it is due. Upon rereading, this section stood out to me as--not forgetting my first reading--well-meaning but somewhat ridiculous. A book is a portion of the beliefs or words of an individual, but it is not an individual. Comparing prejudice against a book with sexism could be illuminating--if not for the implication of exact sameness in offense. In a society in which millions of people are discriminated against on the basis of sex (or “something else from the ever-growing list of official prejudices” [15] of which Gallop is clearly aware), it is insensitive and inappropriate to equate a book with a human being in this way. A book cannot be oppressed. A book cannot have its rights taken away the way a person can. If we fail to acknowledge the content of a book, it is a sign of disrespect for the author, but the author is not restricted by this refusal to acknowledge the text in the way that a woman is restricted by sexism or a person of color is restricted by racism. 

     It happens all the time that people make inappropriate analogies (such as celebrities comparing aspects of their careers to rape). Based on Gallop’s commitment to diversity and morality, on her hope for everyone “to fight and love more fairly” (17), I think it is safe to say that she intended only the first reading (my “general impression”) rather than to trivialize the issues that so many are working to uproot. But it is exactly this kind of mistake that Gallop encourages us to use close reading to avoid.