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).