The Dangerous Real: Queer Solo Performance in/as Active Disruption

Abstract

Like all radical community endeavours, queer performance in the United States has been shaped through resistance to restrictive ideologies. National insecurity over ‘indecent’ (read: queer) artistic expression in the US has been aimed at artists working in a variety of genres, and here I focus specifically on queer solo performance artists. This essay explores the dangerous realities that queer artists present to an imagined unified US national identity. I argue that queer solo performers operate as artistic activists, challenging homogenous fantasies about US culture through the queering of experience. Aesthetically disparate, their work is connected by common threads of vulnerability and precarity. The article asks how their work disrupts U.S. insecurities concerning intersections of sexuality, gender identity, race and religion.     

“Brown girls can’t be gay”: Racism experienced by queer South Asian women in the Toronto LGBTQ community

Abstract

The absence of scholarship on South Asian discrimination in Western queer discourse contributes to a narrative that South Asians are not subjected to racially charged forms of discrimination in the LGBTQ community, which is fundamentally untrue. This article presents narrative-based accounts of nine queer South Asian women in Toronto, Canada, to examine the ways in which they experience racial discrimination in the LGBTQ community, and the impact that this mistreatment has on identity formation and connectivity to queer spheres. It finds that queer South Asian women experience racial discrimination in the form of racially charged microaggressions, which are evidenced through expectations of assimilation to Western-normative performances of queer identity and erasure of South Asian culture in the LGBTQ community. Further, it reveals that Toronto’s LGBTQ community perpetuates a culture of White privilege that discredits the intersectional identity of queer South Asian women, and consequently invisibilizes, alienates, and revokes agency from these women who do not fit the majority’s conceptualizations about what a queer woman looks like.     

The Shape of Queer

ABSTRACT

The rise of queer theory and activism have posed problems of identity and of goals. Queer theory has problemaiized identity, including queer identity: who or what is queer? Queer activism, on the other hand, has been fraught with those challenging sexual boundaries and those for whom “queer” is just the new name for gays and lesbians. Many of these latter activists reject earlier politics, and are in danger of returning to interest-group liberalism as a result. This paper sketches these problems and argues that wholesale rejection of lesbian-feminism and gay liberation is a mistake. The broader vision of these movements offers the possibility of articulation with other movements for change, and this possibility must be renewed and rethought.     

Queering PR: Directions in theory and research for public relations scholarship

ABSTRACT

This article presents an historical overview of queer activism and inquiry, advocating for queer theorizing in public relations, and outlining future directions for theory building. It proposes making public relations theory queer (challenging the heterosexist foundations and presumptions that constitute theory in public relations) and queering public relations theory (challenging the discomfort in theorizing sexuality and gender identity). This article is intended to be provocative and to serve as a disruption to contemporary public relations theory; it is a cry for radical rethinking of how we come to identify, define, and understand the discipline.     

Queer Questions

Abstract

As rights claims on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity occupy an increasingly prominent place in international politics, it seems clear that the long-running Woman Question has been supplemented by a set of variously articulated “queer questions.” Drawing on postcolonial, feminist and queer theory, and readings of queer literary and cinematic texts from India and Iran, this article explores moments of resonance, intersection and tension between the Woman Question and queer questions. It argues, first, that contemporary queer questions echo the preoccupations of the Woman Question even as they are uncannily prefigured by it; second, that these questions have been mutually disruptive of one another, so that queer questions are not simply a rerun of the Woman Question; and third, that differences between these questions are problematically flattened out in projections of shared futurity articulated in the abstract universality of “human rights.” Navigating the shared pasts, fraught presents and imagined futures of Woman and queer questions, the article brings queer critiques of temporality to bear on the concerns of postcolonial queer activism. It elucidates opportunities and challenges for alliance between the subjectivities interpellated by these various questions. In addition, it asks how the proliferation of new subjectivities under the sign of “queer” troubles notions of universal human rights.     

The Meaning of Queer Home

Abstract

This article positions two proto-queer texts together in order to demonstrate how the development of American “queer subjectivity” arose as a discernible discursive and embodied notion related to “home.” Written before the arrival of the queer category, Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (The Crossing Press, Freedom, CA, 1982) and Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues (Alyson Press, Los Angeles, CA, 2003, original work published 1993) concentrate upon the home as a site conditioned by twin concerns that would become central to queer politics: “the home” as narrative metaphor and homes as real-world shelters. Queering the home stretches and scrambles the home category (“dyke bar as home,” “Black lesbian sisterhood as home,” “body as home”) while insisting upon self-defined, material structures of protection and comfort for queers. The article performs a “reading through skin” of queer scholarship and of sociological data. It argues that these queer-emergent texts helped establish notions of “queer home” via exploring metaphoric and empirical axes related to domestic space.     

Good Daughters

Abstract

Twenty-five Korean American queer women were interviewed in-depth about their family relationships. Field notes and a brief demographic survey were used to supplement interview data. Results indicate three different profiles of Korean American queer women: international students, 1.5 ethnic enclave residents, and 2nd generation suburbanites. Though all seek to be good daughters, their accomplishment of this goal depends upon their family ideologies as well as residential community context.     

The Co-Evolution of Marriage and Parental Rights of Gays and Lesbians

ABSTRACT

Historically, federal and state legislation placed different conditions on same- and opposite-sex couples' ability to marry, adopt, or exercise their parental rights. Given the historical intertwining of marriage and parenting, legal issues remain hinged on differing conceptions of marriage and what constitutes a legal family in the United States, especially for same-sex partners compared to their different-sexed couple counterparts. This article provides a historical review of decisions that serve as the foundation for queer parenting rights in the United States. A key focus is on the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) marriage decision on queer parenting and its relevance to researchers and practitioners whose work involves queer families. State discrepancies continue to exist for the treatment of parental rights in spite of the legalization of same-sex marriage. Finally, suggestions are provided for future directions for the field.     

Black Edens,country Eves: Listening,performance, and black queer longing in country music

ABSTRACT

This article explores Black queer country music listening, performance, and fandom as a source of pleasure, nostalgia, and longing for Black listeners. Country music can be a space for alliance and community, as well as a way of accessing sometimes repressed cultural and personal histories of violence: lynching and other forms of racial terror, gender surveillance and disciplining, and continued racial and economic segregation. For many Black country music listeners and performers, the experience of being a closeted fan also fosters an experience of ideological hailing, as well as queer world-making. Royster suggests that through Black queer country music fandom and performance, fans construct risky and soulful identities. The article uses Tina Turner's solo album, Tina Turns the Country On! (1974) as an example of country music's power as a tool for resistance to racial, sexual, and class disciplining.     

What’s in a name? Exploring use of the word queer as a term of identification within the college-aged LGBT community

ABSTRACT

The language one uses for self-identification can be instrumental in the development and integration of one’s sense of self. This is particularly true regarding gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation. This seems to be particularly marked with use of the term “queer.” This research project explored terms that college-aged people use for self and other reference, especially use of the word queer. The results from this study provide empirical evidence that college-aged people have reclaimed the word queer as acceptable for gender or sexual orientation identification, although it is not the most frequent term used for their own self-identification.     

Adelina Anthony Interview with Aimee Carrillo Rowe

ABSTRACT

This interview explores how performing artist, activist, writer, director, performer Adelina Anthony stages queer women of color affects as a complex terrain to mobilize a decolonial imaginary. Anthony's characters are complex, contradictory, surly, and resilient with whom audience members connect and feel deeply. Especially for queer women of color, who rarely get to see their own experiences on film or on stage, Anthony's work provides a critical forum for discussing, imagining, naming, and envisioning the connections between our personal struggles and broader forces of imperialism, heterosexual capitalism, and settler colonialism. Through the “medicina” of gritty truth-telling and side-splitting laughter, Anthony discusses her own positionality as a coyote curandera. Through the exploratory genre of the interview, Anthony helps readers palpably engage a queer woman of color “theory in the flesh” to imagine their own creative potentialities through a compassionate lens of humility and humor.     

Questioning Gender and Sexuality Binaries

Abstract

Social work has largely adopted the oppression model in our research, practice, education, policy and advocacy work. These essentialist constructions rely on the binary categorizations of male/female and heterosexuality/homosexuality. Largely missing from the mainstream social work literature are the perspectives of postmodern/queer theorists, the latest sex research, and the experience of transgendered individuals. These perspectives offer critiques of gender and sexuality binaries as well as libratory goals for social justice. Tensions between the postmodern perspective and the social work liberal model are discussed, and suggestions for incorporating the ideas emanating from queer theorists, new sex research, and the lived experiences of the transgendered into all areas of social work are offered.     

Language,Violence, and Queer People

Summary

The lives of queer people are too frequently filled with violence—physical attacks, social discrimination, and hate-filled verbal assaults. Language serves multiple purposes in the violence that is directed at queers. While the words themselves become instruments of psychological harm, they, in turn, are used to rationalize or justify acts of physical violence and social discrimination (Pierce, 1990). To analyze the issues regarding queer people, social discourse, and violence, this essay addresses: communication rules about queers and a formula for change in the discourse; the history of changing labels and meaning; enforcers of the dominant discourse and its rules of communication; and the role social workers should play in challenging and shaping the discourse.     

“Queer Eye” for Social Work: Rethinking Pedagogy and Practice with Same-sex Attracted Young People

Abstract

Dominant discourses on sexualities construct limited representations and understanding of same-sex attracted young people, often resulting in material and detrimental effects for young people who do not fit the heterosexual mould. Traditionally, social work theory and practice with same-sex attracted young people has relied on ethnic and essentialised models for understanding sexual difference. In the present article, the author reviews current literature on same-sex attracted young people and sexualities, arguing that key elements from queer theory invite social workers to rethink pedagogy and practice with sexually diverse groups. With its critical eye for deconstructing dominant models of sexuality, queer theory provides an alternative framework for informing social work practice. Implications for working in narrative ways with same-sex attracted young people through co-authorship are discussed.     

Alternative Domesticities

Abstract

This special issue responds to a growing body of literature at the nexus of studies on queer/sexuality and home/domesticity. It builds on this existing research that seeks to destabilize the heteronormative ideology of home and domesticity, while also opening up this important space—and its constituent practices—for a plurality of identity formations and subjective experiences. Additionally, it addresses calls from lesbian, gay, and queer studies to shift our attention from public spaces and community places to the domestic. This special issue introduction speaks to continuing investigations of how different groups of people seek to creatively construct intimate relations across time, space, and place. Towards this end, the five articles in this special issue are introduced in the context of their contribution to a cross-disciplinary approach to alternative domesticities.     

Reading the Queer Domestic Aesthetic Discourse

Abstract

The stereotype of the gay man as arbiter of domestic style and design is widely recognized. Robin Williams humorously referenced this in a joke: “We had gay burglars the other night,” he notes, “They broke in and rearranged the furniture.” What remains unclear is the ways in which stereotypes relate to the lives of ordinary people and the homes they inhabit. This article brings together the idiosyncrasies of queer design that circulate at a number of levels in a mainly transatlantic discourse—thanks to the help of mass media, television programs, and a niche of scholarly literature—with a study of ordinary homes belonging to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) lives in a global city. It is argued that this wider queer aesthetic penetrates everyday space and shapes homes in complicated ways; there is a tension between these two domains. The empirical research draws from in-depth semi-structured interviews with Londoners gathered as part of a larger project on sexual minority identity at home in London, UK. Looking to these domestic case studies allows for a spatialized reading that challenges celebrated and exclusive interiors. Offering a timely and distinct architectural approach looking to the everyday users of ordinary domestic space aims to modestly move in another direction towards a model of diversity, opening up queer domesticity and sexual minority identity to multiple representations.     

Building Community-Based Alliances Between GLBTQQA Youth and Adults in Rural Settings

SUMMARY

This article discusses the need for community-based, gay-straight, youth-adult alliances in rural settings and provides a beginning framework for how to create this type of organization. It describes an emerging local community-based alliance of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, and youth and adult allies. Unlike school-based gay-straight alliances, this group, known as Prism, is open to youth from several schools in a college town and nearby rural communities.     

Integrated Behavioral Health and Counseling Gender and Sexual Minority Populations

abstract

Counselors are increasingly expected to operate within an integrated behavioral health framework across systems of care. This critical literature review provides an overview of the integrated behavioral health paradigm, including the practice of interprofessional collaboration, with specific application to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ), and other gender and sexual minority issues. Implications for practice and research are discussed, along with a focus on concrete recommendations for application practicing interprofessionally with and on behalf of LGBTQ clients.     

Loving transgressions: Queer of color bodies,affective ties,transformative community

ABSTRACT

This introductory article considers the importance of queer woman of color theorizations of affect in thinking more fully the recent interdisciplinary turn to affect. The affective turn has vitally invited culture and feminist critics to interrogate emotion beyond the individual to examine the political and cultural production of emotion. Even as women of color are often associated with excessive affect, the theoretical contributions women of color make to the field of affect studies are often overlooked. Our introduction and this special issue more broadly examine how this solipsism shapes projects invested in critical knowledge production, as well as the stakes of centering a queer woman of color genealogy. For instance, we argue for the importance of retaining U.S. third-world feminist concepts—like interpellation, oppositional consciousness, and the generative force of negative affects—even as they fall out of favor within affect studies. Centering theory that emerges from the vexed spaces of queer women of color lived experiences generates a vital interdisciplinary conversation that contributes to the ongoing political task of mobilizing affect for social action as a critical praxis. In the articles that follow we see this critical praxis at work in the form of community organizing, music, poetry, and performance art.     

Beginning Practice with Preoperative Male-to-Female Transgender Clients

Abstract

Preoperative male-to-female transgender clients often present with specific and unique psychological and social issues distinct from gay male and lesbian clients. Therapists must be ready to assess and help diagnose these in preparation for work with gender queer clients. Therapists must also be prepared to face and resolve the various counter-transference dynamics inherent in therapeutic relationships with transgendered individuals. This Practice Note focuses on the author's beginning clinical and social case management experience working with two preoperative male-to-female transgender individuals.