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.