Today's course discussion was provocative. Afterwards, some students expressed some concern that discussions were focusing on race as a comparative correlate to sexuality without truly understanding the specific dimensions and differences of either category, something I attempted to address in an earlier post. This observation, combined with Emily's prescient caution around controversial labels like "passing" and assimilation, and Karen's query on LGBT identity formation, made me think that perhaps an extended conversation about the specifics of sexuality would be helpful. In other words, what makes LGBT identity and sexuality unique as an identity formation?
As we talked about today, sexuality is in some crucial ways essentially invisible. It is very hard to tell someone's sexual proclivities and interests from a glance, although we display some of those preferences through our choice of clothing, jewelry, pins, hair style, and other identifying markers. As we have mentioned before, the central drama of LGBT identity formation, both before and after Stonewall, was/is the concept of becoming visible, what it means to be seen. So, visible markers of identity, and the choice to demonstrate or withdraw/hide those markers significantly complicates LGBT identity, making it profoundly different in some respects from other, more visible identity categories like gender and race (and for better or worse).
Another aspect that I think is unique about LGBT identity as opposed to gender or race is the specific isolation of self-realization for most LGBT folks, born as we are into for the most part heterosexual families. Thus, identity formation happens in a vacuum, with an essential aspect of identity that is profoundly different from the familial or communal unit. While this is not true for all people, for the most part such isolation, almost being marooned within the heterosexual family, is an important difference. One shares, on some level, the race-ethnicity of our parents and our race-ethnic community/communities. As well, we learn early on to identify ourselves in a gender dyad that has ramifications on our identification with a gender category (think of something most of us do everyday without thinking, which is use public communal restrooms, not to mention the gendered dynamic of friendship, play, and sartorial cultures which are relentlessly foisted on children).
Sexuality is an intimate condition, and one which for the most part is not terribly interrogated in American popular culture. We spoke in class about Erotic Regimes, and how we each form our own relationships to eroticism, the sexual, and what constitutes our sexuality is in fact confusing, disparate, idiosyncratic, and unique. So part of the peculiar challenge of organizing socio-political identities around sexuality entails confronting or refuting this essential idiosyncracy, or rather subsuming the unique and subjective properties of sexuality within the rubric of communal political and social and cultural identities.
This understanding of sexuality and sexual identities can possibly give us a window on the historical and contemporary drama surrounding LGBT identity, not the least of which is recognizing that real or not, unique or standardized, we do organize ourselves around sexuality, with the biggest kid on the block being heterosexuality. For some LGBT people, per Maddy's question/comment in class, their sexuality is subsumed within other identity categories (race, gender, class, education, geography, profession, whatever). And yet for others, for a variety of reasons, their sexual identity is foregrounded in their experiences.
The differences between Butch/Femme culture and the Kikis does seem to entail a differing approach to Erotic Regimes, both of which would undergo substantial change after Stonewall. But the whole conversation made me think of why sexuality becomes important for some people as central to who they are, and less so to others. The Kikis wanted to believe that their sexual identity formed only part of who they were, while in some ways Butch/femme culture had a much more aggressive stance on publicly proclaiming an Erotic Regime. This is following Faderman, and to certain extent continues to define LGBT identity contestations.
But if we want to avoid simple dichotomies, then we must recognize the essential subjective nature of these positions, as well as the complicated decision-making that goes into foregrounding an identity that, at the time, was literally and figuratively criminal. What does seem to be indicative of the tension and debate between Butch/Femme cultures and the Kikis is the process of deauthorization and authorization that competing ideologies engage in. A good distinction made by Lora Romero was the differences between wrong thinking and unthinking, along with the concept of false consciousness, a Marxist concept borrowed by Harry Hay and the early radicals of Mattachine. Specifically, do we look at our ideological opponents as wrong, or as unconscious (i.e., in need of enlightenment)? The difference is important. Similarly, the concept of false consciousness as it plays out in post-Stonewall culture centers on coming out and publicly acknowledging one's sexuality as a key to knowing oneself, that self-recognition in a public sphere determines our relative "health." But how is our sexuality ever truly unknown? Is "coming out" indeed a self-recognition that is akin to gaining consciousness, or does it itself stand in for the much harder work of figuring out one's identity vis-à-vis heterodominant society? (Here the historical differences in meaning of coming out which were mentioned in class might be helpful).
Certainly, Duberman's narrativization of Stonewall through personal reportage will help us revisit these questions, but for whatever reason I kept thinking of Bronski Beat's eighties gay anthem, Smalltown Boy, and the experience of dissonance and alienation that seems central to LGBT identity in ways that are unique, that alterity and a violent distinction between self and originary family and community typify the LGBT experience, at least in the anglophone world. So I offer here the video, in lieu of an actual ending to this already sonorous post. Note the ending, which is in fact a recoup of community, LGBT community.
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2 comments:
You addressed the issue of "why sexuality becomes important to some people as central to who they are, and less so to others." Which immediately brought me back to the question you posed in class on Wednesday, which was, What makes Foster different from Jim or Craig. I had a somewhat amorphous answer at the time that is beginning to become lucid. Considering money and upbringing, Foster did have more to lose by becoming radically and visibly active in the demonstrations for gay rights. However, if we also look at how much Foster identified with being a gay man, it was very little. It did not appear that being gay was central to Fosters identity and therefore it is not very surprising that he took a more academic, distant stance when becoming involved in Mattachine. Contrarily, Craig, and to a lesser extent Jim embraced their gay identity and let it drive their political actions, sometimes with such fervor that they got wrapped up in other things. It's almost as if Craig and Jim were interested enough in gay politics that they could afford to be distracted, while Foster, because he only cared so much, had to be selective in what he got involved in. That is a gross over-simplification, but hopefully it gets across the general assessment.
Karen
The question of why sexuality does become such an important part of life puzzled me as well but I came to a conclusion, whether it be "right" who knows but it suffices for me. I feel that sexuality becomes so important firstly to members of the LGBT community because due to the heteronormative society there is an overwhelming amount of influences that basically contradict their feelings. The image of the overly masculine man, men and women being together, only the heterosexual couple being seen as the "correct" way to raise a family, all of this whether it is its intent or not cause insecurities in ones being when they are different. Then because homosexuals exist, it just makes heterosexuals sexual identity more prominent because then there is the need to assure that they are NOT homosexual because it is viewed as wrong. That leads to a society that is particularly conscious of their sexual identity and how it is viewed by others
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