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@asleepingwindow
That’s All Folks
We’ve reached the end of the queue :c
I hope people have found this blog to be a wonderful resource. Now that the blog will become inactive, remember I’m still over @eilonnwy! (just not “discoursin’” C: May this blog avoid the purge of inactivity for a while yet.
As a final post on this “discourse” sideblog, I want to talk about something not specific to the ace discourse, but rather something that cuts across all groups, all people online or off. Whatever you are arguing or whatever side you are on, we as humans are prone to confirmation bias and the online world is no better place than to create echo-chambers.
I have always felt that teaching myself skepticism was one of the best things I could have done for myself. It was during that time I was also active in the atheist community, online and off. The skeptic and atheist community often overlapped and it was from these groups that I became a feminist.
New atheist groups often wonder why they are largely made up of white men, and if you challenge them on their sexism/racism etc… it becomes obvious why, which is what happened to me. I was the darling women on a majority male forum agreeing with them that religion is the source of all evil, therefore exempting atheist men from things like sexism and all other bigotries. It wasn’t until an argument about rape culture came up that I saw just how deeply misogynist some of these men were.
So my venture into skeptic and atheist groups not only taught me the scientific process and logical fallacies but it also steered me towards social justice. I am no longer friends with any of those people in real life or online. Once I became a feminist and was able to identify their sexism, I wasn’t their darling atheist spokeswoman anymore. It was another valuable lesson in the way people form their groups and their echo-chambers within. How people will ignore some really bad things just to stay included and how they will turn when someone strays. Some people may be thinking of trump supporters now, but everyone is susceptible to this type of behavior.
Fast forward a few years later, but still a few years ago and I had to deal with a callout on an anonymous forum I moderated bc they monitored my tumblr and I made the sin of reblog from and being in mutuals with the wrong people, (who were just ppl they didn’t like including people I’ve since met IRL.) I was dubbed a transphobe not for anything I explicitly said or did that was transphobic, it was guilt by association. Had to leave the forum, as this was also invitation to make up other horrible things I never did bc they could and now ppl were ready to believe.
This is around the time TERF started catching on, and while I certainly agree with calling out transphobia in feminism (I would never insist a trans woman is male, I think thats a violent act against trans women! And I despise it being done in the name of feminism) but at the same time it turned into a witch hunt for anyone who talked about sex-based oppression that even ended up attacking other trans woman for not towing a certain Tumblr rhetoric on these issues!
I’m no LGBT elder by any means, but I have been online since I was about 12 and I’m 32 now. I remember a time when the internet was far more horrible on SJ matters but also far more anonymous. People never dropped their real name; now one of the biggest social media sites requires it. And before that even happened I still saw a lot of petty bullshit happening online that wound up really hurting people IRL. So now with it easier to find out who people are and where they live, I can only imagine how online drama has ruined lives. We know it has driven people to suicide, and so as fun as it is to get self righteously angry at people for whatever your cause is, there’s still a person at the other end and no one’s perfect.
I am truly disturbed at how incredibly cliquey SJ groups are online, how callout posts aren’t for extreme racist sexist bigots, but for some drama I can’t even parse in their so called “proof”. And then you have activists on this site who block anyone who disagrees with them so their criticisms can’t show up in the notes. Some even go so far as dox people now for daring to disagree! K(And let’s be clear, I shed no tears for literal nazis being doxxed and losing their job, that’s just not what I’m seeing)
It’s easy, its human nature to fall into social pressures and conform to whatever the Big Names in your group are saying without question and to defend an absurd position based on emotional attachment than logical assessment. And we know it’s also easy to fall into a mob mentality and scapegoat people for all our problems. It’s also super fucking easy to plead mental illness and pretend you should be allowed to say anything you want without criticism, something that I hate so much as one who suffers from many mental issues including anxiety. (That’s why I created rules for myself when arguing online so I didn’t end up giving myself panic attacks over an internet edge lord)
I say this knowing I have participated in this behavior myself as well as having been a victim of it. But a lot in my life has changed and I am an older and sicker… and still likely to make similar mistakes. Point is I have learned and I have trained myself to not to fall into these traps and it does help. Experience is one hell of a teacher but it doesn’t have to be the only one.
No one can know if they are 100% right on any given issue, we all have our convictions for a reason. The difference is are you willing to listen to dissent? Are you willing to challenge your opinion and put it to the test? Or do you make block lists and shun anyone who entertains any different opinion? (a classic tactic amongst anti-vax groups when a parent sees the science) My convinction of many of my beliefs comes from the fact I have argued them over and over again, discharging beliefs that did not pass the test, while strengthening my arguments for and belief in those that do.
Make no mistake, when it does come to the so called “discourse” both sides can be guilty of this shit. I claim no purity. And I am in no way implying that we tolerate hate groups and violent hate speech, like those of nazis bc unfortunately nazis are actually relevant again, but I am saying some of you need a reality check on what that exactly entails, because a lesbian speaking her truth is not it.
And for god sakes don’t put teens on block lists, you know it invites harassment, you fucking know it.
Ace Discourse Masterpost (Rebloggable Cut Version)
Here is a master list of arguments in the ace discourse over the years against the notion that cishet ace/aro people are members of the LGBT community, because they are cis and straight. Furthermore why calling asexuality an oppression (while not denying the existence of prejudice against asexual people and the need for their own community) leads to very homophobic and transphobic understanding of what it means to be LGBT. I have been involved in “the discourse” for over five years, making arguments of my own and promoting others on this blog. But now it is time for me to move on and leave this masterpost as the culmination of this blog’s purpose.
Some of these posts are mine but for the most part this is the product of a lot of other people’s work: their words, their thoughts, their experiences and their research all compiled into one place to help people understand the ace discourse and to track its record of ahistory and blatant homophobia and transphobia. I have made sure to use links on my blog so they don’t get lost in any name changes or deletion, but I do not take any credit for their posts and content. So thank you to everyone who contributed to the discourse, and ultimately this post. I hope this will be great resource for discoursers young and old and help people form their own arguments and to help young LGBT people from falling into the trap of denying their sexuality because of the homophobic and transphobic rhetoric of the Ace Community.
So without further ado, The Ace Discourse Masterpost:
Keep reading
“NEVER AGAIN – FIGHT BACK! GAYS & LESBIANS AGAINST THE RIGHT EVERYWHERE” pinback, Gays and Lesbians Against the Right Everywhere (GLARE), Toronto, Ontario, June 1981. Pin c/o Rise Up. #lgbthistory #HavePrideInHistory #GLARE #Night
A lot of people need to let go of the word gatekeeping because almost all of you use it incorrectly and against marginalized groups. Gatekeeping is when academia is denied to poc, women, and poor people. Gatekeeping is when you keep a whole swath of people from getting married because they were interracial or same gender. Gatekeeping is making sure politicians of a certain color and gender remain in power by gerrymandering and voter id laws. This is what gatekeeping is really about. True gatekeeping requires the power of the privileged.
So you know what isn’t gatekeeping? LGBT people telling straight people to leave our communities alone. You know why? Because we do not have the power to enforce this. Straight people have invaded LGBT spaces since their inception, this asexuality isn’t straight is just the newest avenue but it’s not a new thing. I can scream till i’m blue in the face that a woman in a relationship with a man is not a lesbian, but i cannot stop her from saying it. In essence, gatekeeping has an element of power, power that minority groups do not have. That’s why our boundaries are ALWAYS up for debate, because there are no physical gates we can close. Minority groups of all kinds are never allowed to create spaces for themselves without some ignorant privileged person screaming how unfair it is, while simultaneous denying us rights and privileges and seeing no harm in it.
Double standards are the hallmark of discrimination, so how about we stop shouting gatekeeping at minority groups that just for once in their lives want something to themselves? Can people just let go of their entitlement for once and leave us in peace?
Note: None of this is meant to imply that people in the LGBT community judging and telling other LGBT people they’re not really LGBT for whatever fucked up reason is ok. That shit is fucked up and needs to stop, but that is not what’s going on when LGBT people are telling straight asexuals and so forth to GTFO.
If you are ace or aro and you use “We’re here, we’re q*eer, get used to it” in response to ace discourse, then you are appropriating a slogan created specifically by the LGBT community in response to the AIDS crisis and the rampant homophobia and transphobia that rose up in its wake, after tens of thousands of us died.
Stop using it. You are literally appropriating a battle cry created to protest the murders of our kin. No one is fucking murdering you in the ace discourse. Stop using it.
“Some say heteroromantic asexuals don’t belong because they fall in love with people of the opposite sex. Well… what about a heteroromantic bisexual person, or a heteroromantic lesbian person.”
ah yes this is fine. as we all know, being bi or a lesbian is 100% about sex only and there are just tons of bi and lesbian women who are just naturally only capable of falling in love with men, and this is all totally legit important progressive sexuality theory invented in a magical vacuum totally uninfluenced by any social structures in reality that make straight coupling compulsory, and totally not something homophobes would say in order to pathologize bi and lesbian orientations as sexual deviance while simultaneously preying on bi and lesbian women’s internalized homophobia by telling us we can and should set aside our silly little fetish and live normal, straight lives with men because that’s what’s natural for women
“ummmm yeah you can be het and ace but that still makes you straight so you don’t belong in lgbt+ places :///”
You literally just fucking admitted to not thinking asexuality is a proper sexuality by saying that. If you’re aro/het or het/ace you’re not fully straight because ace =/= straight. Why is this such a hard concept? Why do people just act like someone’s romantic orientation takes over their sexual one if their ace? That’s bullshit.
Romantic orientation doesn’t take over asexuality, but it makes a huge difference.
Also, everytimes someone claims that heteroromanticism isn’t enough to be straight, they also implicitely claim that lesbian, gay and bi asexuals are not really lesbian, bi or gay. It is like claiming that asexuality takes over romantic orientation actually.
Straight isn’t a slur or anything, it’s not insulting to call someone who is hetero “straight” because when you actually have a romantic orientation, asexuality can’t erase it and how it will shape your experience.
Straight aces face aceophobia (which, btw, is mostly a mixture of sexism and heterosexism, which can hurt hetero people who are outside the norm as well), but they don’t face homophobia or biphobia, this is all we mean by “heteroromantic = straight”. Because they still are privilege for their romantic orientation.
Looking back on this, I do realize that it could be misconstrued to sound like I mean lesbian/gay/bi/etc. aces are not that orientation but that wasnt my intent. My intent was to say that het/aces and aro/hets are not 100% straight and deserve to be in the A part of LGBTA, but a lot of people exclude them because their sexual or romantic orientation is straight. Im not denying that they have privilege for being romantically or sexually straight, but I’m saying it’s unfair to erase their asexual or aromantic identity simply because the other part is straight. Het/aces and aro/hets deserve to be included in the A, because they are not 100% fully straight and kicking them out erases their identity just because part of it is hetero.
Romantic orientation does make a huge difference but it doesn’t erase everything else.
The thing is, nobody really argues that het aces do not belong to the asexual community.
There is no actual consensus on who should be included in an extended community. However, there is a common history between sga people (lesbian, gay, bi and pan) and trans people (including non binary people).
Even the meaning of the A, when it is added, is contested because it actually used to mean ally, but not as “cishet allies”. It was a way to welcome closeted LGBT people.
Asexuality isn’t q* in itself and doesn’t give a pass to people to go into any lgbt space. I don’t belong to trans or bi spaces, this is not exclusion.Also, with the split attraction model, we can’t claim that asexuality is the opposite of straightness, because straight, bi or gay are about who you are attracted to in any way. Asexuality becomes a modifier for non aro aces. An important modifier (with obvious consequences), but still a modifier.
what does REG mean?
“Reactionary Exclusionist Gatekeepers”. its something that has unfortunately arisen out of ace discourse here on tumblr
tbc: i, as a gay ace, also find some of the things other lgbt people say about ace people incredibly hurtful and unfair. but that’s a totally different thing from what these people are doing.
here’s an example:
welp go home everybody i guess this post is ruined /sarcasm
basically the idea is to make “op is a reg” the new “op is a terf”, ie boycott/dont reblog from anyone who says anything acephobic (which theyve defined in such in an incredibly broad way that it could mean basically anyone. this post probably makes me a reg now lmao)
the icing on the cake is the time when they decided to compile a big list of “regs”- which included trans women listed alongside terfs, jewish people listed alongside nazis, etc.
and when people pointed out to them that they were literally putting people’s lives at risk by handing the people who want them dead a list of their names, the response was basically “well maybe don’t be an aphobe anymore :) sweaty :)”
idk if that list is still up or if the blog it was originally on deleted, but… yeah. just some real, authentic, farm-fresh fuckery on tungler dot hell. enjoy
There has been immense discussion of the negative effects of erasure in the LGBT tumblr community as well the asexual community, and the way this issue is discussed almost always poses visibility as positive, without much consideration for the negative ramifications of visibility. A lot of people have spoken out though, reminding people that visibility can get you killed. One thing, though, that seems to be absent from these discussions is a very important historical real world example of this. It happened more than 40 years ago, which I guess is ancient history to some, but it is recent history and it must be acknowledged.
After the Stonewall Riots in 1969 many LGBT rights advocates started the “Out of the bars and into the streets” campaign. This was to show that LGBT people weren’t just sexual and alcoholic degenerates, but your employer, your doctor, your brother, your friend, etc… It was definitely a worthy cause in erasing the stigma against us, however, many people felt people should be outed whether they wanted to or not, and a lot of people were outed against their will. Harvey Milk, the prominent leader of this campaign, outed veteran Oliver Sipple, who was famous for saving President Ford from an assassination attempt. Sipple was disowned by his mother because of it. (Source)
There have been many more people outed against their will and with much more severe consequences. The reality we live in means it is safe for some people to come out, while it is not safe for others. Location is one huge factor and religious devotions of a family are another. I knew coming out to my family posed no risks, but for LGBT people with incredibly conservative parents, who can live anywhere not just the country, coming out means getting disowned or even killed.
We like to pay lip service to the homelessness problem with LGBT youth, but it seems it hasn’t sunk in for people that their homelessness is in large part a direct result of their visibility. This is why I have such a huge problem with the push to focus SJ topics on erasure, and pretend that some groups within the LGBT community are more oppressed simply because they get erased more. History and current events prove you wrong.
I live in Massachusetts, the first US state to fully legalize gay marriage and is considered very progressive for LGBT people, and yet just recently a lesbian couple Lisa Trubnikova and Anna Trubnikova were attacked on Cape Cod, and Lisa did not survive. (Source) I’ve barely seen tumblr even take notice, and yet if you mistakenly mislabel a celebrity’s orientation, screams of erasure abound.
There is a problem with tumblr SJ discourse, and it is simply this, certain factors of oppression have been highlighted to almost be held up as the complete standard of oppression, when other factors that actually have very real and deadly consequences are completely ignored. I believe this is done because some people have realized these different issues can be manipulated to propose a person who is not truly marginalized in any way can now claim they are. It’s a tried and true tactic of the privileged to take on the role of victim and disavow any privilege. If you are not willing to see this abuse of how we talk about social justice on this site, then you don’t really have a good grasp of what social justice is truly about.
#JustAphobeThings
“You’re not systematically oppressed!!” *refuses to define systematic oppression so that when they’re rebutted they can move the goalposts*
Systematic =/= Systemic, but here, in case you didn’t know, oppression is typically discussed as being three parts: individual, institutional, and systemic. Systemic means of or relating to a system (here we might say an ideology). Systematic implies a pattern within a system. These are different things.
I find this breakdown in relation to racist oppression to be incredibly helpful in explaining these three parts:
“Racism is both overt and covert, and it takes three closely related forms: individual, institutional, and systemic. Individual racism consists of overt acts by individuals that cause death, injury, destruction of property, or denial of services or opportunity. Institutional racism is more subtle but no less destructive. Institutional racism involves polices, practices, and procedures of institutions that have a disproportionately negative effect on racial minorities’ access to and quality of goods, services, and opportunities. Systemic racism is the basis of individual and institutional racism; it is the value system that is embedded in a society that supports and allows discrimination.”
Individual Oppression: overt acts by an individual which cause death, injury, destruction of property, denial of services, or opportunity. Institutional Oppression: involves policies, practices, and procedures of institutions that have a disproportionately negative effect on the group’s access to and quality of goods, services, and opportunities. Systemic Oppression: the basis of individual and institutional racism - a value system that is embedded in a society that supports and allows discrimination.
academic.udayton.edu/race/2008electionandracism/raceandracism/racism02.htm
Others break this into four parts, thus:
Four Levels of Oppression/”isms” and Change: • Personal: Values, Beliefs, Feelings • Interpersonal: Actions, Behaviors, Language • Institutional: Rules, Policies, Procedures • Cultural: Beauty, Truth, Right www.vanderbilt.edu/oacs/wp-content/uploads/Understanding-Privilege-and-Oppression-Handout.doc
Oppression’s definition however, OFTEN references systematic occurrences which is not the same as systemic.
Here’s more standard definitions which are mutually agreed upon “academically” and which largely reflect reality. You’ll notice that these are dictionaries of social work, or sociology.
The Social Work Dictionary, ed. Robert L. Barker defines oppression as: “The social act of placing severe restrictions on an individual, group or institution. Typically, a government or political organization that is in power places these restrictions formally or covertly on oppressed groups so that they may be exploited and less able to compete with other social groups. The oppressed individual or group is devalued, exploited and deprived of privileges by the individual or group which has more power.” (Barker, 2003)
The Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology has an excellent definition of social oppression: “Social oppression is a concept that describes a relationship between groups or categories of between groups or categories of people in which a dominant group benefits from the systematic abuse, exploitation, and injustice directed toward a subordinate group. The relationship between whites and blacks in the United States and South Africa, between social classes in many industrial societies, between men and women in most societies, between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland - all have elements of social oppression in that the organization of social life enables those who dominate to oppress others. Relationships between groups and relationships between groups and social categories, it should not be confused with the oppressive behavior of individuals. A white man may not himself actively participate in oppressive behavior directed at blacks or women, for example, but he nonetheless benefits from the general oppression of blacks and women simply because he is a white man. In this sense, all members of dominant and subordinate categories participate in social oppression regardless of their individual attitudes or behavior. Social oppression becomes institutionalized when its enforcement is so of social life that it is not easily identified as oppression and does not require conscious prejudice or overt acts of discrimination.” One of the purposes of the exercise we’ll do is to help use better identify the feelings that oppression produces in us and in our clients. (Johnson, 2000b)
Oppression: Charlton (1998: 8) states, “oppression occurs when individuals are systematically subjected to political, economic, cultural, or social degradation because they belong to a social group…results from structures of domination and subordination and, correspondingly, ideologies of superiority and inferiority.” (Charlton, 1998)
Oppression: Johnson (2000: 39) recognizes that “for every social category that is privileged, one or more other categories are oppressed in relation to it. The concept of oppression points to social forces that tend to press upon people and hold them down, to hem them in and block their pursuits of a good life. Just as privilege tends to open doors of opportunity, oppression tends to slam them shut.” (Johnson, 2000a)
www-personal.umich.edu/~mdover/website/Oppression%20Compendium%20and%20Materials/Definitions%20of%20Oppression.pdf
So there are two different things being addressed here.
One: what is the systemic oppression which exists? We may call this heterosexism - an ideology which largely privileges cis-heterosexual sex and cis-heterosexual relationships in various value systems. This creates an atmosphere which allows for people to support and allow discrimination. Cissexism and Heterosexism affects everyone, but specifically targets for discrimination people who are seen as in “polar opposition” - people who are not cisgendered (trans or similar nonbinary people) or people who are gay/same-similar-multi gender attracted. Can systemic discrimination affect asexual people? Sure - but discrimination is not oppression - which requires power to back up the discrimination. Just like how men can be negatively affected by misogyny and sexism - they aren’t the targets, but they may receive blowback. Importantly, systemic oppression is about collective, ideological action which causes oppression. Systemic oppression is Social Oppression - defined above by the Blackwell dictionary.
Two: What is the systematic subjection of oppression which is experienced?
Do cishet aces experience institutional discrimination, abuse, or exploitation? Are they regularly subordinated to a privileged portion of society due to their asexuality? Are there formal or covert laws or regulations in place to control or limit them? Are there policies, practices, or procedures in place to limit, control, or prevent the existence of cishet asexuality? Are Cishet aces devalued, exploited for labor, deprived of privileges? Are cishet aces denied services or opportunity, are they murdered, injured, or subject to loss and destruction of property for their asexuality and nothing else? Are they denied goods and services due to their asexuality, and nothing else? Do political organizations organize against asexuals - do they have million dollar or multi-million dollar organizations who work to promote laws, policies, publications, and other lobby concerns against asexuality in specific? Are asexuals - at a widespread rate - denied health care, social services, employment, economic opportunity, access to food, and housing - because of their asexuality, and nothing else?
www.nasco.coop/sites/default/files/srl/Types%20of%20Oppression.pdf Do any of these examples of individual, cultural, or institutional direct and indirect forms of oppression ring true?
The answer is that no, cishet asexuals do not experience systematic oppression.
And no one has changed the goalposts.
dear whatever higher power may exist, please protect me from ever again having to read the words “heteroromantic lesbian” thank you amen
Ya cause as everyone knows romantic and sexual orientations are always the same 100% of the time and if you say yours are different youre a horrible liar
A lesbian is a woman who’s only interested in women. Nobody here is arguing that people can’t feel attraction to different genders in different ways. It’s just that “lesbian” isn’t a term for a woman who is only romantically interested in men. Arguing that lesbianism should include orientation toward men is homophobic.
Additionally, treating “lesbian” as a purely sexual orientation - where “sexual orientation” excludes information about romantic interest + always indicates sexual attraction - sexualizes lesbian identity in a way many lesbians would be uncomfortable with. It pushes ace lesbians out of lesbian identity entirely, and can erase the nuanced relationship individual lesbians have toward sex.
I don’t like the argument aces pull, trying to say that they do belong in the LGBT community after all, when they say there were probably aces in the Stonewall riots or the AIDS crisis or the Orlando shooting, trying to get in that shared history LGBT people have.
I just think it’s so insulting to lesbians, that because we weren’t nearly as affected by AIDS and because it didn’t decimate our communities, we should be kicked out, and aces should be let in, when there’s plenty of lesbians and bi women, definitely, helping the gay and bi men afflicted with AIDS, when no one else wanted to go near them, out of a shared fear of homophobia and already-existing friendships. Sure, there were possibly aces at all of these events, but they weren’t there for being ace, they were there for being LGBT. I’m sure any cishet aces who lived during those events were there only as allies, at best, and openly mocking LGBT people, at worst, but never as a member of the community.
if one more person calls me ignorant of history for “not even knowing about the spinster movement” when the concept of “the spinster movement” was literally invented by one single tumblr post, i will scream
i wish that people who keep touting the “we’ve always been there” party line would at least make vague gestures at actually researching lgbtq history and looking to the people who have dedicated their lives to reconstructing it (often at great personal and professional cost). the methodology of “we’ve always been lgbtq” is rooted in lgbtq historiography - the emphasis on gossip, fantasy, innuendo, extrapolation - but it does none of the work and it never entertains any evidence that could disrupt its thesis
i think my favorite part of ppl bringing that up is when they get all smug like “igss someone hasn’t done their research on the spinster movement, how dare they even speak on the subject before having researched this” as if this is smth that has been codified for ages and we’re all just being willfully ignorant, when really the person who made this thing up just created a concept based on an afternoon of googling and ahistorical readings. even the naming - the spinster movement - implies something that absolutely did not exist, especially not as a singular “group of women who either felt no sexual attraction, or felt some sexual attraction but didn’t want to have sex”. never mind that spinster doesn’t (and didn’t) first and foremost refer to sexual desire (or lack of sexual desire) - it referred to marriage
maxine wolfe makes the argument that spinster became a pejorative term after the emergence of openly lesbian women in western society - that prior to that more mainstream (relatively speaking) introduction of a female sexuality that operated w/o men, being a spinster described “women who were not married and devoted their lives to good works and social pursuits,” but after that cultural moment, it became a synonym for women who had been rejected by men. in other words, a way to justify the existence of women who chose not to marry men (she didn’t dump me, i dumped her, etc) and not allow for the possibility of women desiring women
even the op’s cited quote: “[in Norway], in the 1920s and 1930s, female sexuality was suddenly discovered and all women were supposed to have and enjoy their sexuality. At this point, frigidity and asexuality also became a topic, a very problematic topic” [bolding theirs] ignores the context behind those concerns - the medicalization of female sexuality, the diagnoses of homosexuals and gender inverts. women were only supposed to “have and enjoy their sexuality” in an extremely limited heterosexual context, and a disinterest in heterosexuality was not a concern bc it designated a lack, but rather bc it pointed to the possibility of the presence of homosexual desire. and tbh it’s kind of weird that the op honed in on that one quote when the rest of the interview’s discussion of spinsters focuses on how being a “spinster” was a problem bc a) unmarried women didn’t perform womanhood right and b) deliberately unmarried women could potentially be lesbians
in conclusion: you can’t just cherrypick facts and soundbites that make your claim seem valid. there are many approaches to history but “fuck it, i’ve already arrived at a conclusion and i’ll just mangle history to fit my claim” is an especially shitty one
Cooper’s Donuts, the site where one of the first publicized gay uprisings against cops took place in Los Angeles, in May of 1959 (photo of the donut shop was taken two years afterwards). One of the people arrested during the uprising was John Rechy, a gay activist of color (Mexican American). Cooper’s Donuts was often a hot spot for the gay community of Los Angeles during the 1950s and 1960s. Though Stonewall is often cited as the “start of the modern LGBT rights movement”, the Cooper’s Donuts uprising was probably the REAL start, though pioneering gay activist Harry Hay claimed similar uprisings happened even years prior to Cooper’s Donuts.
I wanted to reblog this post, but apparently I’m blocked by the OP. In it, @pastimperfection links to one of the original sources on queer theory, which is really helpful in the ridiculous debate about whether “queer” was always a super-inclusive term that could include anything from cishet aces to diaper fetishists.
This journal was published in 1991, and Teresa de Lauretis’s article is titled “Queer Theory: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities, an Introduction.”
Yes although they didn’t mention the second half of de Laurentis’s involvement in the coining of Queer theory: “Similar to the description Berube and Escoffier used for Queer Nation, de Lauretis asserted that, “queer unsettles and questions the genderedness of sexuality.” Barely three years later, she abandoned the phrase [queer theory]on the grounds that it had been taken over by mainstream forces and institutions it was originally coined to resist.” that’s from Wikipedia)
quotes with citations here: https://facebidets.tumblr.com/post/158715582332/pastimperfection-nobodyeversaysthat updated that with my sources
the direct quote from de Laurentis: “As for ‘queer theory’, my insistent specification lesbian may well be taken as a taking of distance from what, since I proposed it as a working hypothesis for lesbian and gay studies in this very journal (differences , 3.2), has very quickly become a conceptually vacuous creature of the publishing industry’.”
queer theory was coined to apply to gay and lesbian studies….
aren’t you arguing directly against everyone else who hates the term though?
The argument I always see is “queer is NOT a mainstream term it’s still only a slur”.
Arguing that someone, who said it was super inclusive/revolutionary/whatever, later discarded it for being mainstream, seems counterproductive?
She specifically did not say it was “super inclusive.” At that time, it referred to gay and lesbian sexualities.
What we’re trying to figure out is how it changed from a reclaimed slur that referred to gay and lesbian specifically (both “Queers Read This” and the original documents about queer theory said it referred to gay and lesbian) to a term that a lot of people now argue DECENTERS gay and lesbian identities and centers bi/pan/etc., nonbinary, ace/aro, and sometimes kinky and polyamorous identities.
A lot of discoursers on both sides simplify the usage of this word to the one usage that benefits their current argument, but a lot of things can be true about it at once.
It was a slur before AIDS activists reclaimed it, and never stopped being used as a slur. Its reclaimed use by AIDS activists and in queer theory was first explicitly stated to refer to gay and lesbian identities. (late 80s-early 90s) The originator of the term “queer theory” disavowed the term soon after because she thought it had been coopted by the establishment. (edit: 1994?) [blank space I want to fill in] When I came out in 2007, I saw it used as an umbrella term for LGBT with the general understanding that it was a reclaimed slur and cis straight people shouldn’t say it. (But they did.) People I talked to didn’t talk about the context of its reclamation, although they did use the slogans “we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it” and “not gay as in happy but queer as in fuck you” a lot. I had to read early 90s stuff to learn the history. I did hear then about how it was inclusive and decentered gay and lesbian identities, and some people included cishet kinksters and polyamorous people under it, but I didn’t hear about it including asexuality until 2009-2010.
So sometime in the 90s, the “queer is radically inclusive” idea must have appeared. I want to do research to find out how that developed.
*pops out of the woodwork* Did somebody say research? :D
Have you seen this site? It’s so good. :) I searched for “queer” and found a few queer-related articles in this 1991 issue of Outlook. “Inclusiveness” is mentioned in several places, and the “Queer Voices” section that runs along the bottom of the pages gives several views on it.
The “Queer Nationalism” article might also provide some insight on one perspective on “inclusivity” held at the time. When it first talks about the inclusiveness of the group, it gives the example of bisexual involvement in LABIA (and lesbian and bisexual women’s group). It then goes on to talk about the problems the queer group has with inclusiveness with regards to race and gender. These might be among the dimensions of inclusivity that “queer” is aiming for.
In contrast, the author draws a boundary between queer and straight by including this conversation that happened at a Queer Nation Be-In:
A woman approached my friend John. “Can you get everyone here to sing ‘We are the world’?” “No,” he said. “Why not?” “Because it’s a lie, because this is our march, and because you’re straight.” “How do you know I’m straight?” “I just do.” “Gay people have a responsibility to educate straights. How else are we going to learn?” “Learn what? How to be queer? We have no responsibility to you; only to each other. We’re just here.”
A 1992 issue of Outlook had some articles about bisexuality’s relation to the queer movement, but I didn’t have time to do more than skim. The first one comments on a bisexual activist saying that “'queer het sex’ takes place between young, sex-radical gay men and women as a revolt against PC sex.” But their tone suggests that their critical of this. The next article appears to represent this view:
With the rise of the queer movement we still define ourselves in relation–nay, opposition–to a culturally conservative heterosexual norm, but we are increasingly aware that gold-star lesbians and gay men are not the only people who lead dissident lives and that, in fact, heterosexual behavior does not always equal “straight.” When I strap on a dildo and fuck my male partner, we are engaging in “heterosexual” behavior, but I can tell you that it feels altogether queer, and I’m sure my grandmother and Jesse Helms would feel the same.
Anyway I have to go right now but I just wanted to share that site with you in case you didn’t know about it. I would suspect that, when “queer” came onto the scene, it was applied to a variety of political visions concurrently; using it to signal inclusivity may have been among its various uses from the start, with people also having different visions of what was meant by “inclusive.”
AIDS Memorial Quilt
