Date: Sun, 2 Mar 1997 09:50:08 -0800
Sender: Psychology of Women Resource List
<POWR-L@URIACC.URI.EDU>
To: POWR-L@URIACC.URI.EDU
From: Jennifer Freyd <jjf@DYNAMIC.UOREGON.EDU>
Subject: Can I Call Myself a Queerist?
Copyright, 1997, Jennifer J. Freyd, jjf@dynamic.uoregon.edu
LIMITED CIRCULATION PERMISSION: The author gives the following limited permission for circulating this essay. It may be circulated in electronic version so long as this copyright and use statement is included and the essay is not modified in any way. No circulation for profit is permitted. I retain all other rights (including non-electronic-medium rights of publication.)
How do "allies" describe themselves, when the allegiance is to the liberation of an oppressed group, and the individual cannot necessarily claim group membership (if the group is at least partially understood to be a group who share a common experience)?
More generally, how do we conceptualize and label shared political positions about oppressed groups, when some members of the oppressed group do not identify with liberation movements, and some who do identify with liberation movements are not members of the oppressed groups?
We have a solution to this problem, at least in some sense, for conceptualizing the oppression of women. Feminists are those who identify the liberation of women from oppression as a central issue. (This last statement is not completely right in many ways. For instance, it is complicated by feminism move toward a realization that all forms of oppression are interconnected. But in one sense relevant for my point right now it captures something true I think.) One can be a woman and not a feminist. And I believe one can be a feminist and not a woman. (Although this later claim may be hotly contested by some, it is what I believe.)
When it comes to women and feminism, group membership and political position about group oppression are considered somewhat separate. I can ask to meet with other women, with other feminists, or with other feminist women. Each of these groups, and intersections of groups, may have shared interests. But nonetheless I know that I am a feminist woman, that my male feminist colleague is not a woman, and that my female colleague may not be a feminist.
We lack this conceptualization and terminology for some other forms of oppression. Recently I have been particularly bothered by the available terminology surrounding heterosexism and queer identity. I want a label that can be used for people to self-identify that indicates a political position about the need to end heterosexism, and yet does not conflate that self-identity with presumptuous claims to common experience.
I would like to suggest the words "queerist" to mean awareness of the fact that standard sexual orientation categories and attitudes about those categories produce unnecessary and harmful limitation on the human spirit for all, and specific discrimination and oppression for those who are labeled or live in certain ways. By this definition as a married woman living a heterosexual life, I happily (and queerly?) label myself queerist. At the same time this is not to say that my self identification of being queerist means I have ever been a direct victim of heterosexism, as I have not, and it would be presumptuous of me to claim membership. So I ask you all, is queerist a needed and acceptable word for referring to a position without claiming an experience? Similarly I'd like a related word that conveys a shared (and developing) ideology and theory about liberation of a particular oppression, and thus suggest the word "queerism." Is this needed and acceptable?
One might argue that we do not need queerist, as we are all free to call ourselves queer. Pushing this argument for a moment we are all human and thus sexual beings, and the current sexual orientation categories are insufficient to capture our true humanity whatever individual lives we live. Someone can be simultaneously not gay, not bi, not lesbian, and yet not fully comfortable with societally defined heterosexuality either. Given this, a person living a heterosexual life might want to thus self identify as queer, for perhaps we are most of us a bit queer. The problem with this position is that it may be that in acknowledging underlying continuity we deny the difference of experience that different people truly have. And this might serve to equate the restriction of the human spirit caused by the label "heterosexual" with the downright discrimination experienced by those who do not at all accept or appear to society to fit the label "heterosexual." By analogy: while I believe that the gender role limitation men experience needs to be acknowledged, it is a big mistake, in my opinion, to treat that sort of psychic oppression as equivalent to the gender discrimination in rates of victimization, employment and other domains that women continue to experience.
One might also argue we do not need queerist because ideally "feminism," as it moves toward a position in which all forms of oppression are seen to interconnect, would embrace and include "queerism" implicitly. However, I think we are not there yet, and that the particular oppressions suffered by queer individuals need focus and highlight and analysis in their own rights. I have no claims to expertise in this area, and yet I do worry about this set of issues a lot and I have now for many years. In my usage when I call myself queerist I mean both to call attention to my political position acknowledging a history of social oppression against queer people, and to share my celebration of and appreciation for those who are queer. I hope I can offer this word, queerist, as a term that so-called heterosexual men and women and gay and lesbian and bi and queer individuals can all use for themselves, while still leaving other terms that specifically refer to shared life experiences. If so, then perhaps just as men cn be feminist, I can be queerist? I hope so.
Copyright, 1997, Jennifer J. Freyd, jjf@dynamic.uoregon.edu
LIMITED CIRCULATION PERMISSION: The author gives the following limited permission for circulating this essay. It may be circulated in electronic version so long as this copyright and use statement is included and the essay is not modified in any way. No circulation for profit is permitted. I retain all other rights (including non-electronic-medium rights of publication.)