Young, Out, and Gay Not Queer

[TC]

Young, Out, and Gay—Not Queer

by James Kirchick


First published in the Yale Daily News on February 14, 2006

There is one word that drives me nuts.

It's not a curse. Its timbre does not make me cringe. Rather, it is the way in which this particular word is used—often to describe me, and others like me, totally against my will—that I find to be so offensive.

The word, if you have not guessed it by now, is “queer.”

I do not mind the proper literary usage of the word, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “strange, odd, peculiar, eccentric, in appearance or character. Also, of questionable character, suspicious, dubious.” I have a problem when gay activists and certain academics use the word in an affirming sense to describe gay people. There is certainly nothing “strange, odd or peculiar” about homosexuality, which has existed, arguably, for nearly as long as human history itself.

The use of this word abounds. At Yale alone there is QPAC: the Queer Political Action Committee. The Yale LGBT Co-Op's e-mail list regularly solicits submissions for “Queer,” the “only undergraduate literary and cultural journal related to queerness.” The Co-op has also initiated a program, “Queer Peers,” to help questioning students by matching them up with an openly gay mentor.

What is a non-queer gay person to do?

Those who popularize the word queer—that is, gay leftists and some gay academics—will not let gay people escape from their queer clutches. Simply by being gay, you are a “queer” whether you like it or not, as its practical use implicates all gay people. When a gay activist or academic speaks of the “queer community” or “queer rights,” he, ipso facto, has labeled me a “queer,” regardless of whether or not I accept the label.

I am a 22-year-old male who likes to write, performs in sketch comedy, reads lots of magazines, has an obsession with British politics and, oh yeah, I happen to be gay. I'm certainly not “queer.” Individual gay people and others associated in the vast and ever-expanding panoply of the homosexual community (the bisexuals, the transsexuals, the omnisexuals, the polysexuals, the genderqueers and so on and so forth) may be “queer,” but I—and I assure those queer activists who doubt this—along with the vast majority of homosexuals in this country would much rather be referred to as “gay.”

Most straight people I have asked (who by and large are wholly supportive of gay equality) find the word ridiculous and uncomfortable. They see little difference between them and their gay peers, and it is harmful to the gay cause when activists insist on using a word that symbolizes their outright rejection of mainstream culture and its institutions.

For those gay activists whose stated mission is to promote gay equality, it is hypocritical to use the word “queer.” If the whole purpose of the gay rights movement has been to convince heterosexual Americans that gay people are just like them, why go about using a word like queer to describe yourself? This is strategic stupidity.

Take a look, for instance, at the Human Rights Campaign, the largest and most respected gay rights organization in the country. While certainly liberal in its politics, HRC is a mainstream and professional group that regularly endorses pro-gay Republicans like Connecticut's Christopher Shays. As HRC's major purpose is to lobby Congress and advocate for gay rights in the mainstream media, it has wisely avoided language that radicalizes the demands of the gay rights movement or promotes the marginalization of gay people—dual purposes that “queer” serves. A brief search of the HRC website shows that the organization rarely, if ever, uses the word queer in its official communications and that it pops up mostly in reference to the television programs Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Queer as Folk.

Unlike the organization fighting on the front lines for the rights of gay Americans and their families, those who use the word “queer” have no interest in having gay people perceived as everyday Americans. They wish to be perceived as part of a sexual vanguard, standing apart from “heteronormative” America, occasionally deigning to stoop down only in the service of “liberating” those suffering under our patriarchal and tyrannical society. Make no mistake: “queer” activists do not think that gay people are just like straight people and they do not want gay people to be just like straight people. They see straight—er, heteronormative—society as oppressive and, like any good radical, wish to remake it.

Gays who use “queer” often state that they are merely reclaiming the word from homophobes, just as some African-Americans have reclaimed one of the ugliest words in historical usage, a word commonly associated with slave masters and southern lawmen. That word, of course, is the “N-word,” too ugly to print in a newspaper. White people, and many black people, refer to it with this euphemism because it is so degrading, so rotten to the core, and carries such a distasteful history that it literally sends chills down the spine upon its very utterance. I vividly recall my black sixth-grade English teacher explaining the etymology of the “N-word” and how it has been used for hundreds of years to demean black people.

It is true that some segments of the African-American community have “reclaimed” this word. But notice how those black public figures using the word are not intellectuals, politicians or professionals. They are rap and hip-hop artists. Black writer John McWhorter observes, “After all, why are we not using 'wop,' 'spic,' or 'kike' in this way? Some might object that these terms are all now a tad archaic, but this only begs the question as to why they were not recruited in such fashion when they were current.”

“Queer” is old hat. It might have been appropriate in the early and defiant years of the gay rights struggle, but it has now become obsolete and, frankly, infantilizing. To those heterosexuals who feel pressure from noisy activists to use the word “queer” but are understandably uncomfortable doing so: not to worry. I'm gay, and I'd like to keep it that way.
http://www.indegayforum.org/news/show/27334.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This was posted in response to a member of the form, who is not gay, promoting the use of the word 'queer' to supplant the gay rights movement.


As leftists, we need to be defending the basic civil rights of oppressed demographic not trying to co-opt them into a political agenda or redefine their 'identities' in order to be more 'inclusive' of people outside that demographic who want to participate in defining it politically.

[adenoid hynkel]

Originally posted by TragicClown@Aug 24 2006, 02:06 PM
Young, Out, and Gay—Not Queer

by James Kirchick


First published in the Yale Daily News on February 14, 2006

There is one word that drives me nuts.

It's not a curse. Its timbre does not make me cringe. Rather, it is the way in which this particular word is used—often to describe me, and others like me, totally against my will—that I find to be so offensive.

The word, if you have not guessed it by now, is “queer.”

I do not mind the proper literary usage of the word, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “strange, odd, peculiar, eccentric, in appearance or character. Also, of questionable character, suspicious, dubious.” I have a problem when gay activists and certain academics use the word in an affirming sense to describe gay people. There is certainly nothing “strange, odd or peculiar” about homosexuality, which has existed, arguably, for nearly as long as human history itself.

The use of this word abounds. At Yale alone there is QPAC: the Queer Political Action Committee. The Yale LGBT Co-Op's e-mail list regularly solicits submissions for “Queer,” the “only undergraduate literary and cultural journal related to queerness.” The Co-op has also initiated a program, “Queer Peers,” to help questioning students by matching them up with an openly gay mentor.

What is a non-queer gay person to do?

Those who popularize the word queer—that is, gay leftists and some gay academics—will not let gay people escape from their queer clutches. Simply by being gay, you are a “queer” whether you like it or not, as its practical use implicates all gay people. When a gay activist or academic speaks of the “queer community” or “queer rights,” he, ipso facto, has labeled me a “queer,” regardless of whether or not I accept the label.

I am a 22-year-old male who likes to write, performs in sketch comedy, reads lots of magazines, has an obsession with British politics and, oh yeah, I happen to be gay. I'm certainly not “queer.” Individual gay people and others associated in the vast and ever-expanding panoply of the homosexual community (the bisexuals, the transsexuals, the omnisexuals, the polysexuals, the genderqueers and so on and so forth) may be “queer,” but I—and I assure those queer activists who doubt this—along with the vast majority of homosexuals in this country would much rather be referred to as “gay.”

Most straight people I have asked (who by and large are wholly supportive of gay equality) find the word ridiculous and uncomfortable. They see little difference between them and their gay peers, and it is harmful to the gay cause when activists insist on using a word that symbolizes their outright rejection of mainstream culture and its institutions.

For those gay activists whose stated mission is to promote gay equality, it is hypocritical to use the word “queer.” If the whole purpose of the gay rights movement has been to convince heterosexual Americans that gay people are just like them, why go about using a word like queer to describe yourself? This is strategic stupidity.

Take a look, for instance, at the Human Rights Campaign, the largest and most respected gay rights organization in the country. While certainly liberal in its politics, HRC is a mainstream and professional group that regularly endorses pro-gay Republicans like Connecticut's Christopher Shays. As HRC's major purpose is to lobby Congress and advocate for gay rights in the mainstream media, it has wisely avoided language that radicalizes the demands of the gay rights movement or promotes the marginalization of gay people—dual purposes that “queer” serves. A brief search of the HRC website shows that the organization rarely, if ever, uses the word queer in its official communications and that it pops up mostly in reference to the television programs Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Queer as Folk.

Unlike the organization fighting on the front lines for the rights of gay Americans and their families, those who use the word “queer” have no interest in having gay people perceived as everyday Americans. They wish to be perceived as part of a sexual vanguard, standing apart from “heteronormative” America, occasionally deigning to stoop down only in the service of “liberating” those suffering under our patriarchal and tyrannical society. Make no mistake: “queer” activists do not think that gay people are just like straight people and they do not want gay people to be just like straight people. They see straight—er, heteronormative—society as oppressive and, like any good radical, wish to remake it.

Gays who use “queer” often state that they are merely reclaiming the word from homophobes, just as some African-Americans have reclaimed one of the ugliest words in historical usage, a word commonly associated with slave masters and southern lawmen. That word, of course, is the “N-word,” too ugly to print in a newspaper. White people, and many black people, refer to it with this euphemism because it is so degrading, so rotten to the core, and carries such a distasteful history that it literally sends chills down the spine upon its very utterance. I vividly recall my black sixth-grade English teacher explaining the etymology of the “N-word” and how it has been used for hundreds of years to demean black people.

It is true that some segments of the African-American community have “reclaimed” this word. But notice how those black public figures using the word are not intellectuals, politicians or professionals. They are rap and hip-hop artists. Black writer John McWhorter observes, “After all, why are we not using 'wop,' 'spic,' or 'kike' in this way? Some might object that these terms are all now a tad archaic, but this only begs the question as to why they were not recruited in such fashion when they were current.”

“Queer” is old hat. It might have been appropriate in the early and defiant years of the gay rights struggle, but it has now become obsolete and, frankly, infantilizing. To those heterosexuals who feel pressure from noisy activists to use the word “queer” but are understandably uncomfortable doing so: not to worry. I'm gay, and I'd like to keep it that way.
http://www.indegayforum.org/news/show/27334.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Personally I cannot understand why some people pay attention to whether we should call homosexual people " gay" or " queer" and call women "womyn". What is important for someone is to have interesting, intelligent ideas; whether someone expresses his ideas with the word " queer" or "gay" is totally indifferent. I always believed that people like the author of this article, who spends time in such useless and indifferent topics, do not have something serious to say about serious topics.

And anyway the word " queer" is not derogatory or insulting; I mean, by definition, homosexuality is something rare; few people are homosexuals, the majority are heterosexuals; so therefore homosexuality is "queer=strange". This does not mean that it is something bad; strange, queer things are not necessarily bad; there are strange things which are beautiful.

[TC]

Personally I cannot understand why some people pay attention to whether we should call homosexual people " gay" or " queer" and call women "womyn". What is important for someone is to have interesting, intelligent ideas; whether someone expresses his ideas with the word " queer" or "gay" is totally indifferent. I always believed that people like the author of this article, who spends time in such useless and indifferent topics, do not have something serious to say about serious topics

I think you're completely misunderstanding what the author is saying, it is the ideas that the word represents, the politics of the word, that he objects to.

[The Grinch]

If the whole purpose of the gay rights movement has been to convince heterosexual Americans that gay people are just like them

I think that's crucial to this. Largely, those who would identify as queer aren't following this particular strategy in regards to gay marriage etc.

It's the difference between one side which promotes assimilation largely, and the other side which promotes difference. (So I'd actually agree with you totally that the original author is opposed to the politics of the word and what it represents.)

Where I think the problems have arisen is the attempts to move away from "queer" as a particular political position and use it as a general catchall slightly 'risque' term for gay. Recuperation, to nick the old situationist phrase.

But, largely, that hasn't come from those that would identify as queer. It's come from the mainstream media, like those aforementioned television programs.

[Quills]

As a gay women, I dislike how the queer movement seems to be more about 'queer-cred' and exclusivity than liberation. It just seems to me to be more interested in making a subculture based around supposed differences than intergration.

The gay rights movement has been accused of being too liberal, and 'trying to be straight' by fighting for things like gay marriage, and traditionally heterosexual rights. But I see it more as trying to remove what the mainstream society sees as differences between gay and straight people, making everyone the same. The queer movement is based on highlighting these differences and by doing this they are removing themselves from 'non queers', which is their choice, however what I don't like, is how by doing this they are effecting people's views of all gay people.

I would rather not be identified as queer, because I'm not queer, I'm not different or special or odd. The fact that I have sex with women has no effect on my personality, my choice of friends and hobbies, or my politics, which is what the word infers.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Originally posted by adenoid hynkel+Aug 24 2006, 09:35 AM--> (adenoid hynkel @ Aug 24 2006, 09:35 AM) Personally I cannot understand why some people pay attention to whether we should call homosexual people " gay" or " queer" and call women "womyn". What is important for someone is to have interesting, intelligent ideas; whether someone expresses his ideas with the word " queer" or "gay" is totally indifferent. I always believed that people like the author of this article, who spends time in such useless and indifferent topics, do not have something serious to say about serious topics.

And anyway the word " queer" is not derogatory or insulting; I mean, by definition, homosexuality is something rare; few people are homosexuals, the majority are heterosexuals; so therefore homosexuality is "queer=strange". This does not mean that it is something bad; strange, queer things are not necessarily bad; there are strange things which are beautiful. [/b]

You clearly didn't read the thread. That's something you might wanna do when you plan on making a reply.

Here are some of the highlighted parts you clearly skipped over.

Originally posted by from the article+--> (from the article)it is harmful to the gay cause when activists insist on using a word that symbolizes their outright rejection of mainstream culture and its institutions.[/b]

Originally posted by from the article
As HRC's major purpose is to lobby Congress and advocate for gay rights in the mainstream media, it has wisely avoided language that radicalizes the demands of the gay rights movement or promotes the marginalization of gay people—dual purposes that “queer” serves. A brief search of the HRC website shows that the organization rarely, if ever, uses the word queer in its official communications and that it pops up mostly in reference to the television programs Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Queer as Folk.

from the article

@
They wish to be perceived as part of a sexual vanguard, standing apart from “heteronormative” America, occasionally deigning to stoop down only in the service of “liberating” those suffering under our patriarchal and tyrannical society. Make no mistake: “queer” activists do not think that gay people are just like straight people and they do not want gay people to be just like straight people. They see straight—er, heteronormative—society as oppressive and, like any good radical, wish to remake it.

from the article

“Queer” is old hat. It might have been appropriate in the early and defiant years of the gay rights struggle, but it has now become obsolete and, frankly, infantilizing.

The fact of the matter is that these contemporary social movements don't result in any changes of the material conditions of society. They seek to cause change by altering peoples' mindset, not by combating the system. The people who seek to promote this change through aggression are ass-holes.

[Severian]

Originally posted by TragicClown@Aug 24 2006, 08:06 AM
If the whole purpose of the gay rights movement has been to convince heterosexual Americans that gay people are just like them, why go about using a word like queer to describe yourself? This is strategic stupidity.

It's not hugely important what word is used; another oppressed group in the U.S. has gone from "colored" and "Negro" to Black and occasionally "African-American". It's true that queer has not particularly caught on with most gay people. Or most straight supporters of gay rights - I don't use it much myself.

But more significant are the politics of the article, which are typical of the "Log Cabin Republican" types.

For starters, why is it "whole purpose of the gay rights movement has been to convince heterosexual Americans that gay people are just like them,"? Since when are only people just like you deserving of human rights?

No, the purpose of the gay rights movement is to win equal rights. For everyone, not just those "just like" the majority. This is best accomplished by struggle.

They wish to be perceived as part of a sexual vanguard, standing apart from “heteronormative” America, occasionally deigning to stoop down only in the service of “liberating” those suffering under our patriarchal and tyrannical society. Make no mistake: “queer” activists do not think that gay people are just like straight people and they do not want gay people to be just like straight people. They see straight—er, heteronormative—society as oppressive and, like any good radical, wish to remake it.

Emphasis added by Clown.

Let me say that the gay conservative Kirchick in this paragraph sums up his core political disagreement with the "radical queers".

And it's a disagreement where he's dead wrong, and the "radical queers" are on this point completely right.

If anyone wants to debate that, I'd be happy to. But first I'd like to point out that debate - and this thread - really belong in Opposing Ideologies, like other leftist vs pro-capitalist debates.

Society is oppressive, and it does need remaking. If the gay rights movement is going to fully achieve its goals, and if any other kind of oppression or exploitation is going to be fully ended, society needs a complete and radical (from the roots) remaking.

That's why Clown is wrong when she says "As leftists, we need to be defending the basic civil rights of oppressed demographic not trying to co-opt them into a political agenda..."

Those two things go hand-in-hand: defending basic civil rights and bringing people into the political agenda of radically remaking society. The error that "radical queers" often make is precisely a failure to fully realize and act on the necessity to bring these two things together.

[RevMARKSman]

Originally posted by TC+--> (TC)As leftists, we need to be defending the basic civil rights of oppressed demographic not trying to co-opt them into a political agenda.[/b]

Then why don't you support "gay equality" in the military?

TC

I think the campaign to remove the American military's prohibition of gays is really dumb

What's that all about? It's co-opting an oppressed demographic into a political agenda--exactly what you oppose.

If you stand by your statement, why don't you oppose "gay equality" in an equally bourgeois and corrupted institution--capitalism?

[ZeroPain]

Why the hell do we have to mix economic and political issues with a purely social one?

[Pink TnT]

I think this again goes to show how useless labels are. Labels are good for categorizing people into discreet groups that are then vilified and subjected to totally invalid generalizations.

I think that we need to take a serious look, then, at political correctness. Basically, the use of the word "queer," in my estimation, arose from revulsion against the acronym LGBT, which is an artifact of political correctness. It's not that lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people don't matter, it's just that "gay" is just the way everyone understands "sexual variance" in identities.

I am of the mind that political correctness is not particularly useful, since it gives rise to redundant labels that are constantly competing for legitimacy in usage and end up atomizing people on ideological grounds. Sure, I have used the word "queer" before, but I don't mind identifying that way, and it's an alternative to using "LGBT," which is quite possibly the most ungainly acronym ever.

PS: I don't support believe that "queer" people ought to be in the military, because nobody should be in the military.

[KC]

Why the hell do we have to mix economic and political issues with a purely social one?

There's no such thing as a "purely social issue" since all "issues" have their base in economics and politics.

[TC]

Originally posted by MonicaTTmed+Sep 6 2006, 11:04 PM--> (MonicaTTmed @ Sep 6 2006, 11:04 PM)

Originally posted by TC+--> (TC)As leftists, we need to be defending the basic civil rights of oppressed demographic not trying to co-opt them into a political agenda.[/b]

Then why don't you support "gay equality" in the military?

Originally posted by TC
I think the campaign to remove the American military's prohibition of gays is really dumb

What's that all about? It's co-opting an oppressed demographic into a political agenda--exactly what you oppose.

If you stand by your statement, why don't you oppose "gay equality" in an equally bourgeois and corrupted institution--capitalism? [/b]

You misunderstand, I do support "gay [soliders] equality" in the military, because i think they deserve equal rights with straight soldiers, which is to say none what so ever.

The US military is an institution we want to destroy, its members are not our constituency (the working class) but its enemies. We should not be arguing for gay murders rights to murder, but rather against straight murders, thats a more acceptable form of equality.

Gay people don't have a right to join the military that we should defend and neither do straight people

Pink TNT

@
I am of the mind that political correctness is not particularly useful, since it gives rise to redundant labels that are constantly competing for legitimacy in usage and end up atomizing people on ideological grounds.

I so agree.

KC

Why the hell do we have to mix economic and political issues with a purely social one?

There's no such thing as a "purely social issue" since all "issues" have their base in economics and politics.

Exactly, and to think otherwise is to think outside of the paradigmn of the materialist, marxist left.

[Severian]

Originally posted by TragicClown@Oct 7 2006, 06:48 AM
You misunderstand, I do support "gay [soliders] equality" in the military, because i think they deserve equal rights with straight soldiers, which is to say none what so ever.

The military brass agrees: they don't think enlisted soldiers should have any rights. Communists, in contrast, have always fought for the democratic rights of working people in uniform.

But in reality, your stated position is:

Hmm, now a culture of homophobia sounds like a misurable thing to have to work and live in, so i'm quite pleased that US soldiers have to deal with it, hopefully it will hurt their morale and reduce their re-enlistment numbers, increase desertion, and reduce their effectiveness. Its good that they have a sexist culture too, hopefully that would scare off female recruits and rightfully give the ones who do join a misurable time, again increasing desertion, reducing re-enlistment and reducing effectiveness...and besides its probably harmful to straight male soldiers as well. If only they could be really racist too, that would be useful.

thread link

The U.S. military was, in fact, "really racist" right through WWII. And that was "useful" - to the racists.

As long as the federal government practiced official segregation itself, nobody could successfully demand it enforce integration in the South.

Under pressure, offical racial segregation in the military was ended in 1948. Other victories for the fight against racism followed: Brown vs Board of Education in '54, the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, etc.

****
Monica's point is quite right: you oppose both "queer liberation" and formal, legal equality.

That's part of a pattern: you oppose every effort to fight racist, sexist, or antigay discrimination.

You have different excuses and specious arguments in each case - like in this one, your anti-military rhetoric. But the pattern exists regardless of the excuses.

Why not quit the dodging around and just say: you oppose every attempt to fight against racist, sexist, or anti-gay discrimination? It's obviously true, whatever your reasons.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

The word Queer has been taken back by the gay community - or is in the process of being taken back. It was used as a word for strange, it was used as a derogatory term, and it is now used in a different context.

It does not follow that the previous definitions of a word make a new definition of a word oppressive. It's nonsense that probably stems from a reluctance or inability to set aside previous definitions of the word. By assocating queer with negative connotations, and allowing it to remain in that form, you are empowering the reactionaries.

[0ntology]

Originally posted by Pink TnT@October 07, 2006 06:07 pm
I think this again goes to show how useless labels are. Labels are good for categorizing people into discreet groups that are then vilified and subjected to totally invalid generalizations.

I think that we need to take a serious look, then, at political correctness. Basically, the use of the word "queer," in my estimation, arose from revulsion against the acronym LGBT, which is an artifact of political correctness. It's not that lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people don't matter, it's just that "gay" is just the way everyone understands "sexual variance" in identities.

I am of the mind that political correctness is not particularly useful, since it gives rise to redundant labels that are constantly competing for legitimacy in usage and end up atomizing people on ideological grounds. Sure, I have used the word "queer" before, but I don't mind identifying that way, and it's an alternative to using "LGBT," which is quite possibly the most ungainly acronym ever.

PS: I don't support believe that "queer" people ought to be in the military, because nobody should be in the military.

Yes. I hate labels. It's one of societies comforts, in knowing that everyone belongs in a box, and are categorised individually.

I think there shouldn't be any titles at all, in regards to the homosexual community. The words 'gay', 'lesbian', 'queer', 'fag', 'dyke', etc, all usually have a negative connotation to them, and use of these terms provide justification for everyday use.

Also, *high-five* for the 'anti-military'. I detest the military, firearms, any government control in regards to weapons.