Once upon a time, I had sex with a trans man. A generally heteronormative experience, no funny business. But years later, it occurred to me to assess it in terms of gayness.
I feel a greater sense of loyalty to people who share their body with me, than I do to society at large. Gender as a concept doesn't interest me personally, and I was perfectly happy to play along with this person's presentation of self to get what I wanted. Calling it straight sex was clearly insulting. So why not call it gay?
But I was sure that if I told my gay friends that I'd had a gay experience, they would dismiss it outright. And rightfully so, I decided. I simply could not expect anyone to take that claim seriously.
So I made sense of the episode by calling it queer. And being A-OK with what had happened--it reflecting a general proclivity on my part--maybe that made me queer.
All that to say that I don't think queerness is necessarily subversive, oppositional or contrarian. I think it's a good word to describe aspects of individual sexuality which don't make sense in any commonly-held conceptual framework.
I think that's a good point. I wasn't trying to say that everyone who identies is queer is doing at as punk rock performance art, just that it's been co-opted by some who do. I think there is a large diversity of experiences out there and I've had some that don't fall into the easy categories, either.
I certainly don’t think everyone who adopts a queer identity is doing it as performance art, but the label does seem to attract narcissists, theatre kids, and other ‘look at me!’ types.
The gays and lesbians in my family and social circle tend to be more grounded and nonchalant about their identity. My trans uncle and another relative who insists she’s queer while living in a completely conventional heterosexual marriage are the ones who wrap themselves in pride flags, make a huge fuss about all things gender, and can never seem to get enough affirmation of their identity.
The world is a lot bigger than my anecdotal experience, but it’s hard not to notice a pattern here.
What a thoughtful pride, and from a unique perspective. “Queer,” I guess, is more about actual sexuality. It comes across as typical contrarian behavior: “Whatever most people are, we don’t want to be it.” It’s an impulse I can totally respect even while recognizing that it can only exist on the fringe. You need the overwhelming majority of people to be normal to keep the lights on while you operate on the fringes.
It seems to me as a boring old straight guy that a lot of Queerness is the desire to permanently Other oneself, for various reasons. But like the last chapter of Clockwork Orange, everyone has to grow up and get boring at some point in their lives. Routine. I wonder how much of the supposed revulsion of the Normies is the thought, "get a job for f's sake."
Great article. I think you've touched on something really poignant here, especially with your last point about queer identity as a means of finding community in an increasingly less connected world.
I think the quote you attributed to Judith Butler may actually be from David Halperin? I used it in my own article on Queer Theory and the source I found for it was his 1995 book Saint Foucault. But I'm sure Butler quoted him in her work; they all borrowed from one another quite a bit.
Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I think there is an almost religious quality to the modern queer ideology and I don't mean that flippantly like "oh, it's just a religion". More in the sense that it's a framework for seeing the world, relationships, morality and creating a sense of community.
I will double check that quote. I found it in the Butler article I sited, but you may be right and she was quoting the person you mentioned.
We've become more and more in need of community - both in the atomization the internet hath wrought, but also because the political drivers of inclusiveness, etc., have explictly gone out of their way to encourage nearly every type of community of orientation, gender, and race, while explicitly attacking or undermining men's spaces, tradition, and so on.
As more and more stripes are added to teh flag, it's pretty obvious it includes everyone but, in roughly ascending order of cumulative specific hatred, straight white male christians.
THEY have a community. Being what many of us were born to be is looked down on as outright evil, broken.
Jun 28·edited Jun 28Liked by Prester John's Revenge
I appreciate the nuanced perspective, especially the point at the end about “the desire for purpose and belonging” which I think is essential to understanding identity politics on the left and the right. Part of the reason Pride has become such a lightning rod in the culture wars is probably a sense of unfairness: national pride has become somewhat of a taboo in most liberal circles and ethnic or religious pride is allowed only for minorities. This deprives many of the opportunity to participate in expressions of “collective joy”, an underappreciated human need, as Barbara Ehrenreich explores in her wonderfully titled book Dancing in the Streets. The individual hedonism encouraged by late capitalism (or liberalism more broadly, depending on your politics) goes hand in hand with a suspicion of unmonetizable collective joy, which is required to be in service of some higher goal than simply celebrating the changing of the seasons or whatnot. (Many people noted that the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 seemed at least in part to have served as an excuse to disregard the more stifling aspects of Covid containment strategies.)
In this broader context, I can’t help but find debates about who qualifies as “queer” a bit beside the point. I agree with many of the critiques of queer theory, especially how it has been instrumentalised for personal and political gain (Blake Smith is essential reading on this, see for example: https://substack.com/home/post/p-142792264), but I fear that a gay-but-not-queer movement risks falling into the same identity trap it tries to avoid by turning into yet another instance of the politics of ressentiment. And while I agree that most non-queer people in the Anglosphere have an easier time accepting gays than trans people, we shouldn’t forget that in a wider historical context, gay acceptance does represent a significant challenge to conventional norms, something that major religious institutions like the Catholic Church are still grappling with. So I don’t think it is a simple matter to draw a line at the point that transgression of traditional norms has gone far enough and a certain amount of backlash is probably inevitable, regardless of the rhetorical excesses of queer activists.
And while I think tracing the genealogy of a term can be helpful, I also think we need to try to go beyond the words people use and try to understand what it is that they are trying to express. As an illustration, I’ve noticed that the word “queer” is used within the gay community not so much to advocate for a breaking of all norms, but to signal a different set of norms than those modelled by the so-called circuit gays: white, masculine, muscular gays that judge others first and foremost by their sexual attractiveness. Like other aspects of social justice activism, one can recognise the sincere desire for fairness and respect, while remaining critical about how such a desire is expressed.
Lmao I remember crying after getting too roughed up and telling the teacher it was because we were playing “smear the queer” and all sense of kindness and pity melted from her as she told me that’s what happens when you play games like that. It was 5th grade and no one really understood what queer meant, but we knew it was bad and to the adults it became “kill the carrier” from then on (we played it slightly different where you basically just try to maintain possession of a ball and everyone beats you up until you give it up and then they become the queer)
Sometimes I wonder how that game came to be. Was it an adult teaching a kid and then we all slowly learned it? It’s like old rhymes that kids say that seem like they’re just part of the kid canon and that’s how it’s always been.
I imagine the origin of the term has ugly roots, but kids just used it for a game because they heard adults saying it. Either way, it's a fun game but it speaks to how kids just mirror adults even if they don't know what it means.
“whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant. There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers…” by that definition I think I’m queer… but I’m not queer and never claimed to be, and am a pretty normal guy and a somewhat unusual dude, and I don’t have much in common with “the community” but have had meaningful relationships with people across spectrums of queerness among other modes of weirdness, non-normativity, “illegitimacy,” and non-dominant groups of people. Those are my people … but that has never had anything to do with queerness for me. the word is something like a “code word” or a … shibboleth!?? For whom? For anyone who claims it… it’s vision is global. It’s interesting you bring Germany, David Bowie, Eurovision, into the historical conversation. it’s not strictly American, but is it more “Western” than anything else? I’m not saying gay and lesbian and BTQ+ people don’t live everywhere, but the “movement” started somewhere. Which begs the question: how (to what degree) is queerness um… “Judeo-Christian”? It’s not, but then it is, somewhat, a reaction to traditional “norms” and “dominion.” we’re fragmented and trying to find communities and that seems to be the most important social issue now
Queer, like the LGBT+ movement, has been co-opted by the Marxists. They use it to mean "From the fringe," marginalized, and different from the normal. Much like Trans, it means transforming from capitalist to socialist.
The Queer socialists use it as a word in their struggle. You can say you are Queer or Trans without actually changing a thing about yourself. It's become a Social Justice word to signal your virtue to the fringe.
Lots to think about and discuss here, great piece:) I was thinking about the punk band The Queers. To choose a band name like that back in the day was kind of a statement of being an outsider. It’s hard to say but it certainly doesn’t feel that way when Pride banners sport defense contractors logos!! It’s such a strange time, and like you said it’s a very nuanced topic, but good on you for waging into it honestly and sharing your personal experience and perspective. I’m concerned about the growing backlash against the Qmunity and it’s sad to see that happening after things seemed to be headed in the right direction in 2015. It’s of course very challenging these days to talk about the elephant in the room, the inclusion of trans people into the larger gay rights movement, but I admire the way you kept it positive and hopeful.
Thanks! I try to take a nuanced way of discussing it without playing to extremes, but there are some things that need to be discussed. Also, per your band "the queers", reminds me of how Korn had a song called "faggot" that was about being an outsider much in the same way. Or Marilyn Manson and his transexual alien costume. One wonders if he was doing that today he would call himself non binary.
Didn’t read the article (got too horny when you disclosed being bi) if you look up “Golem” in Jewish folklore you will understand what “Queer” is (I’m 6ft, blue eyes, Teutonic features btw)
Bisexual men are strange phenomenon. There seems to be extremely little writing about them. And very few famous men call themselves bisexual. I think Arianna Huffingtons ex. And Bowie and Lou Reed, although both allegedly went full-time heterosexual after the seventies. My impression is that male bisexuals must be very popular with gay men, not so much with the ladies. Lot of gays have straight guy fetish. Anyway, I haven’t read this article, saw another one I liked though. Cheers.
I just popped in to say Bambi Thug wishes she was an extra in a Mechanical Animals-era Manson video (so do I)
We all do
Once upon a time, I had sex with a trans man. A generally heteronormative experience, no funny business. But years later, it occurred to me to assess it in terms of gayness.
I feel a greater sense of loyalty to people who share their body with me, than I do to society at large. Gender as a concept doesn't interest me personally, and I was perfectly happy to play along with this person's presentation of self to get what I wanted. Calling it straight sex was clearly insulting. So why not call it gay?
But I was sure that if I told my gay friends that I'd had a gay experience, they would dismiss it outright. And rightfully so, I decided. I simply could not expect anyone to take that claim seriously.
So I made sense of the episode by calling it queer. And being A-OK with what had happened--it reflecting a general proclivity on my part--maybe that made me queer.
All that to say that I don't think queerness is necessarily subversive, oppositional or contrarian. I think it's a good word to describe aspects of individual sexuality which don't make sense in any commonly-held conceptual framework.
I think that's a good point. I wasn't trying to say that everyone who identies is queer is doing at as punk rock performance art, just that it's been co-opted by some who do. I think there is a large diversity of experiences out there and I've had some that don't fall into the easy categories, either.
I certainly don’t think everyone who adopts a queer identity is doing it as performance art, but the label does seem to attract narcissists, theatre kids, and other ‘look at me!’ types.
The gays and lesbians in my family and social circle tend to be more grounded and nonchalant about their identity. My trans uncle and another relative who insists she’s queer while living in a completely conventional heterosexual marriage are the ones who wrap themselves in pride flags, make a huge fuss about all things gender, and can never seem to get enough affirmation of their identity.
The world is a lot bigger than my anecdotal experience, but it’s hard not to notice a pattern here.
What a thoughtful pride, and from a unique perspective. “Queer,” I guess, is more about actual sexuality. It comes across as typical contrarian behavior: “Whatever most people are, we don’t want to be it.” It’s an impulse I can totally respect even while recognizing that it can only exist on the fringe. You need the overwhelming majority of people to be normal to keep the lights on while you operate on the fringes.
It seems to me as a boring old straight guy that a lot of Queerness is the desire to permanently Other oneself, for various reasons. But like the last chapter of Clockwork Orange, everyone has to grow up and get boring at some point in their lives. Routine. I wonder how much of the supposed revulsion of the Normies is the thought, "get a job for f's sake."
Great article. I think you've touched on something really poignant here, especially with your last point about queer identity as a means of finding community in an increasingly less connected world.
I think the quote you attributed to Judith Butler may actually be from David Halperin? I used it in my own article on Queer Theory and the source I found for it was his 1995 book Saint Foucault. But I'm sure Butler quoted him in her work; they all borrowed from one another quite a bit.
Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I think there is an almost religious quality to the modern queer ideology and I don't mean that flippantly like "oh, it's just a religion". More in the sense that it's a framework for seeing the world, relationships, morality and creating a sense of community.
I will double check that quote. I found it in the Butler article I sited, but you may be right and she was quoting the person you mentioned.
We've become more and more in need of community - both in the atomization the internet hath wrought, but also because the political drivers of inclusiveness, etc., have explictly gone out of their way to encourage nearly every type of community of orientation, gender, and race, while explicitly attacking or undermining men's spaces, tradition, and so on.
As more and more stripes are added to teh flag, it's pretty obvious it includes everyone but, in roughly ascending order of cumulative specific hatred, straight white male christians.
THEY have a community. Being what many of us were born to be is looked down on as outright evil, broken.
I appreciate the nuanced perspective, especially the point at the end about “the desire for purpose and belonging” which I think is essential to understanding identity politics on the left and the right. Part of the reason Pride has become such a lightning rod in the culture wars is probably a sense of unfairness: national pride has become somewhat of a taboo in most liberal circles and ethnic or religious pride is allowed only for minorities. This deprives many of the opportunity to participate in expressions of “collective joy”, an underappreciated human need, as Barbara Ehrenreich explores in her wonderfully titled book Dancing in the Streets. The individual hedonism encouraged by late capitalism (or liberalism more broadly, depending on your politics) goes hand in hand with a suspicion of unmonetizable collective joy, which is required to be in service of some higher goal than simply celebrating the changing of the seasons or whatnot. (Many people noted that the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 seemed at least in part to have served as an excuse to disregard the more stifling aspects of Covid containment strategies.)
In this broader context, I can’t help but find debates about who qualifies as “queer” a bit beside the point. I agree with many of the critiques of queer theory, especially how it has been instrumentalised for personal and political gain (Blake Smith is essential reading on this, see for example: https://substack.com/home/post/p-142792264), but I fear that a gay-but-not-queer movement risks falling into the same identity trap it tries to avoid by turning into yet another instance of the politics of ressentiment. And while I agree that most non-queer people in the Anglosphere have an easier time accepting gays than trans people, we shouldn’t forget that in a wider historical context, gay acceptance does represent a significant challenge to conventional norms, something that major religious institutions like the Catholic Church are still grappling with. So I don’t think it is a simple matter to draw a line at the point that transgression of traditional norms has gone far enough and a certain amount of backlash is probably inevitable, regardless of the rhetorical excesses of queer activists.
And while I think tracing the genealogy of a term can be helpful, I also think we need to try to go beyond the words people use and try to understand what it is that they are trying to express. As an illustration, I’ve noticed that the word “queer” is used within the gay community not so much to advocate for a breaking of all norms, but to signal a different set of norms than those modelled by the so-called circuit gays: white, masculine, muscular gays that judge others first and foremost by their sexual attractiveness. Like other aspects of social justice activism, one can recognise the sincere desire for fairness and respect, while remaining critical about how such a desire is expressed.
Very well thought out and I would generally agree. Thanks for the reply!
Lmao I remember crying after getting too roughed up and telling the teacher it was because we were playing “smear the queer” and all sense of kindness and pity melted from her as she told me that’s what happens when you play games like that. It was 5th grade and no one really understood what queer meant, but we knew it was bad and to the adults it became “kill the carrier” from then on (we played it slightly different where you basically just try to maintain possession of a ball and everyone beats you up until you give it up and then they become the queer)
Sometimes I wonder how that game came to be. Was it an adult teaching a kid and then we all slowly learned it? It’s like old rhymes that kids say that seem like they’re just part of the kid canon and that’s how it’s always been.
I imagine the origin of the term has ugly roots, but kids just used it for a game because they heard adults saying it. Either way, it's a fun game but it speaks to how kids just mirror adults even if they don't know what it means.
“whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant. There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers…” by that definition I think I’m queer… but I’m not queer and never claimed to be, and am a pretty normal guy and a somewhat unusual dude, and I don’t have much in common with “the community” but have had meaningful relationships with people across spectrums of queerness among other modes of weirdness, non-normativity, “illegitimacy,” and non-dominant groups of people. Those are my people … but that has never had anything to do with queerness for me. the word is something like a “code word” or a … shibboleth!?? For whom? For anyone who claims it… it’s vision is global. It’s interesting you bring Germany, David Bowie, Eurovision, into the historical conversation. it’s not strictly American, but is it more “Western” than anything else? I’m not saying gay and lesbian and BTQ+ people don’t live everywhere, but the “movement” started somewhere. Which begs the question: how (to what degree) is queerness um… “Judeo-Christian”? It’s not, but then it is, somewhat, a reaction to traditional “norms” and “dominion.” we’re fragmented and trying to find communities and that seems to be the most important social issue now
Queer, like the LGBT+ movement, has been co-opted by the Marxists. They use it to mean "From the fringe," marginalized, and different from the normal. Much like Trans, it means transforming from capitalist to socialist.
The Queer socialists use it as a word in their struggle. You can say you are Queer or Trans without actually changing a thing about yourself. It's become a Social Justice word to signal your virtue to the fringe.
Lots to think about and discuss here, great piece:) I was thinking about the punk band The Queers. To choose a band name like that back in the day was kind of a statement of being an outsider. It’s hard to say but it certainly doesn’t feel that way when Pride banners sport defense contractors logos!! It’s such a strange time, and like you said it’s a very nuanced topic, but good on you for waging into it honestly and sharing your personal experience and perspective. I’m concerned about the growing backlash against the Qmunity and it’s sad to see that happening after things seemed to be headed in the right direction in 2015. It’s of course very challenging these days to talk about the elephant in the room, the inclusion of trans people into the larger gay rights movement, but I admire the way you kept it positive and hopeful.
Thanks! I try to take a nuanced way of discussing it without playing to extremes, but there are some things that need to be discussed. Also, per your band "the queers", reminds me of how Korn had a song called "faggot" that was about being an outsider much in the same way. Or Marilyn Manson and his transexual alien costume. One wonders if he was doing that today he would call himself non binary.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/07/08/gay-rites-are-civil-rites/
Didn’t read the article (got too horny when you disclosed being bi) if you look up “Golem” in Jewish folklore you will understand what “Queer” is (I’m 6ft, blue eyes, Teutonic features btw)
Bisexual men are strange phenomenon. There seems to be extremely little writing about them. And very few famous men call themselves bisexual. I think Arianna Huffingtons ex. And Bowie and Lou Reed, although both allegedly went full-time heterosexual after the seventies. My impression is that male bisexuals must be very popular with gay men, not so much with the ladies. Lot of gays have straight guy fetish. Anyway, I haven’t read this article, saw another one I liked though. Cheers.
Sorry.
But the moment you read "Foucault was a Marxist writer" you really need to go read something else.
Famously, at least among those who know something about Foucault and Marxism, Foucault's whole project was an attack on Marxism.
So, why bother spooting about things you obviously know nothing about?
This has to be part of what some on the right are calling "The Right's Stupidity Problem".
Like those overweight cretins calling Obama a "socialist" or a "Muslim" back in the day when the stupid rose up and took over "the right".
I mean, c'mon, eh?