Term
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Definition
1) Homonormativity is the assimilation of heteronormative ideals and constructs into LGBTQ culture and individual identity. Homonormativity upholds neoliberalism rather than critiquing monogamy, procreation, and binary gender roles as heterosexist and racist.[32]. LGBTQ people that come the closest to mimicking heteronormative standards of gender identity are dee med most worthy of receiving rights. LGBTQ individuals at the bottom of the hierarchy (transsexuals, transvestites, intersex, bisexuals, non-gender identified) are seen as an impediment to this elite class of homonormative individuals receiving their rights.[30]
- Many queer and/or sex-positive radicals fear such neoliberal strategies, not only because they undermine citizens’ rights but because they threaten to erase the historic alliance between radical politics and lesbian and gay politics, at the core of which has been a struggle for sexual freedom. In order to counter the long-term consequences of historical amnesia, we need new analytical frameworks for talking about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer history that expand and challenge current models of identity and community formation as well as models of political and cultural resistance.
2.) For instance, transsexuals, bisexuals, and intersex lie at the bottom of the hierarchy with this model.
3.) Limits: following homonormativity does nothing to win rights for transgenders and other minority individuals within the LGBT group. Frgaments into hierarchies of worthiness.
4.) Lisa Duggan |
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Term
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Definition
1) Refers to a “By the books” dichotomous, standard approach to living and thinking. Pertains not only to sexuality, but to ways of envisioning the world. Cultural bias in favor of people falling into distinct and complementary genders.
2.) An example of this would be the idea that man should marry woman, couple should raise kids, and man should behave as man while woman should behave as woman. Like someone asking you “do you have a boyfriend?” instead of “do you have a partner?” because they’re already assuming you like men.
3.) Its problem is that it allows for no variation in living. People who don’t fit into the hetero-normative ideal are meant to feel like outsiders. Fails to account for the ways homosexual subjects internalize it.
4.) Focault |
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Term
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Definition
1. Refers to the instances where one’s gender assignment is at odds with one’s gender identity and/or gender role. Assigned a certain sex and later does not line up with what they were told at birth. A term sometimes used to encompass all those whose gender assignment doesn’t match their gender identity
2. Patricia was born a biological female, but identifies as a male. Although he has not gone through surgery, he prefers to go by the name Patrick and prefers male pronouns.
3. Useful for understanding those who do not identify with the gender binary and allows us to see that the gender binary is socially constructed.
4. Stryker |
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Term
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Definition
1. The re-assignment of gender through the use of one or more of the following techniques: hormones, genital surgery (phalloplasty), breast implants/ reductions/mastectomies, etc.
2. Born a biological male, Michelle identifies as a female and decides to have surgery to remove her penis and to have breast implants in order to appear as a female.
3. this is a problem because it is representative of homonormativity in that is the assimilation of heteronormative ideas and constructs into lgbt culture and identity.
4. stryker |
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Term
| A discursive approach to sexuality |
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Definition
1. A discursive approach to sexuality examines how sexuality is taken up by other social agencies, what discourses move in on the raw materials of sex, and how they articulate and transform the sexual impulse through the institutions of law, medicine, religion, the family, the school, art, literature, film, television. 2.) An example of this would be how we’re learning about queer issues in our queer studies class. 3.) A discursive understanding is more similar to the majoritarian model and thus is able to encompass more complexity rather than just studying one sub-group at a time.
4. Mohanty |
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Term
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Definition
1.) Poison (1991) was considered a landmark in queer cinema, in that it opened the era of NEW QUEER CINEMA (Ruby B. Rich’s phrase)that departed from the tendency to make films promoting positive images of gays and lesbians, away from the reversing of stereotypes towards a differently structured queer approach to cinema foregrounding the ways FORM (discourse) shapes CONTENT or MEANING. NQC didn’t seek approval, nor did it try to show the world how nice gays and lesbians were. Radically anti-assimilationist, instead, NQC revels in its outsider-dom, and rubs people’s noses in the experience of gay sex. It is irreverent, energetic, and full of fun, but also deadly serious because the backdrop to the films was the AIDS crisis.
2.) For instance, Gran Fury, and Derek Jarman was living with AIDS when Edward II came out
3.) Will help to portray gay individuals more as multi-faceted people and not glorified representations.
4.) Tom Kalin, Todd Haynes |
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Term
| The prepositional quality of queer |
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Definition
1. This is the concept that queer is prepositional. Meaning that something or someone is queer in relation to something else. Queer against heterosexuality because it is not fitting into heterosexuality.
2. Example: social movements are queer in relation to politics because they are pushing politics in the streets as opposed to politics behind closed doors. Drawing attention to lack of political action for the queer movement
3. This is useful in analyzing the relationship between queer and heteronormativity and the understanding that anything no fitting into the heternorm is queer.
4. Thomas |
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Term
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Definition
1.) -Orders all human relationships; tendency towards universality. Gives absolute meaning to concepts (such as the exchange of women, difference between the sexes, the symbolic order, and Desire) when they are only categories founded upon heterosexuality. “Man” and “women” are political concepts of opposition; straight, white, male are the standard in this paradigm; black, woman, or gay is “other.” 2.) Assuming that one is straight unless proven otherwise. 3.) Limiting because whoever is the “other” faces stigma.
4.) Wittig |
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Term
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Definition
1. it differs from the mainstream gay and lesbian movement in that it does not claim that there is more to “us” than sex and that “we no longer see our lives as struggle” 2. GLAAD awards often gives awards to movies that portray the happy ending, the getting together and having a family...not very “queer.” This is an example of what queer ethos is trying to differ from. Example of queer ethos might be refusing to get married and have family. 3.) Useful because, similar to a majoritarian perspective, it does more than simply add subgroups to the system; rather, it re-thinks and re-works the system as a whole. By extending our thoughts to beyond sexuality, we can allow room for more
4. Warner |
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Term
| Minoritizing and Universalizing approaches to sexuality |
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Definition
a. ‘Minoritizing’ such as homosexualities or those whom are insecure about their sexuality, relies
on the assumption of boundaries or unfixed. ‘Universalizing’ circulates in unresolved ways.
b. Heterosexuals depend on its exclusion to define itself as, “I’m not homosexual”. Sedgwick
mentions it is interesting how ‘toy’ defines sexuality.
c. Without the concept of majorities there would not be minorities, vise versa. Even when
evaluating the same objects it can be thought of as either essentialist or constructivist.
d. Eve K. Sedgwick
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Term
| The epistemological privilege of unknowing |
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Definition
1. the privilege of ignorance. not knowing something or being consciously ignorant is an exercise in power.
2.) Example: not knowing your employee has AIDS, you can fire them and face no discrimination charges. If you did know they had AIDS, on the other hand, you could be charged with having had discriminatory intent.
3.) Helpful in that it recognizes how ignorance can be just as powerful as knowledge. Limitations in that it fails to recognize the mightiness of between-the-line thinking.
4.) Sedgwick |
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Term
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Definition
1.) Made up language needed to describe this phenomenon; _. Ways we have of understanding don’t map it correctly. Binaries are not helpful.
2.) “Queer” itself is an instance of nonce taxonomy; a way of describing phenomena that are undescribable
3.) Enabling dimension: topics that were previously inarticulable, such as intersectionality of identities, can now be referred to using the word “queer.” Can be discussed more in depth. Limitations: not immediately identifiable. Can’t include everyone immediately. Also, how do you define something that escapes definition?
4. Sedgwick |
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Term
| The modern homosexual as a species |
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Definition
1.) Homosexuals as a species emerges out of medical methods of labeling types of deviant behavior. There was no interlocking between identities and acts. 1870s: sexualities become identifiable, therefore punishable.
2.) Queer subjects are often separated in research as their own category. Up till 20th century gay people were pathologized and seen as their own category.
3.) Disregards their humanity.
4.) Foucault |
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Term
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Definition
1.) Abjection describes the process of “throwing something/somebody away,” and this can take place through shaming, deriding, contempt, insult, affront. What is thrown away, or ab-jected, remains in-between the categories of subject and object. As such, the abject defies binaries of subject/object. To be abjected or thrown out, between subject and object, is a situation of shame and mortification, but also a site of dignity in shame (Warner) that can be re-claimed as a positionality from which rigid binaries can be challenged.
2.) For instance, a Chicana woman abjected from her Chicano community for being lesbian. Anzaldua abjected for being s hybrid because “border guards are really the only people who belong at the border.”
3.) Limiting but potentially empowering in that it can defy binaries. Limiting however, in that the abjected experience shame and stigma.
4.) Anzaldua |
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Term
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Definition
1.) Mestiza and queer consciousness emerges through and across wounds, holes, gaps, and cracks in such borders. Mestiza consciousness reconnects, bridges, negotiates, and lives with contradictions of multiple ideas and knowledges, through an inner struggle with the ambiguities, anxieties, and risk such a struggle through multiple, co-existing oppressions,
2.) For instance, a Chicana who is also a lesbian and socio-economically under-priviliged can find a way to integrate these marginalized facets of identity into a coherent, whole identity. People who are half Native American and half white going to a university.
3.) Can help individuals live with multiple identities. Rather than keeping these identities disparate, they can learn to bridge them.
4.) Anzaldua, Mohanty |
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Term
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Definition
Shadow projection occurs when a majority disowns parts of its own identity, e.g., the erasure of Mexican history, and projects its shame and guilt about this by persecuting minorities.
2.) A Chicano male might ostracize LGBT individuals because he himself has suffered the shame and stigma accompanying his marginalized identity.
3.) It temporarily relieves negative feelings on an individual level, but does little to reform the system of oppression.
4.) Anzaldua |
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Term
| Pivoting the center of our perspectives |
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Definition
1.) as a feminist perspective on social and political transformation to create new conceptual cartographies from perspectives and histories outside of Europe and the United States. The re-shaping and re-formulating of concepts and theories (explanations) from the CONCRETE HISTORIES, MATERIALITIES and EXPERIENCES outside of the explanations generated by Western feminisms.
2.) Chicana with Mestiza consciousness, multiple identities. Black feminists.
3.) It can be useful in challenging heteronormative structures and seeing things not just from a white, unchallenged perspective.
4) Mohanty |
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Term
| An imagined community of oppositional struggles |
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Definition
1.) formed by women of color with divergent histories, are NOT grounded in essentialist notions of gender or race, but rather, grounded in the political ways women of color think about race, gender, class and forge the political tools to oppose systemic and pervasive oppressions that are interlocking.
2.) African-American women, white women, and Latina women may work together because they see problems with the modern-day hetero-normative system.
3.) Imagined communities allows analytic tool for conceptualizing horizontal alliances among women across divisive boundaries.
4.) Mohanty |
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Term
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Definition
1.) relationality of gender to racialization, social class, sexuality, colonialism and imperialism in their analyses, in contrast to some tendencies in analyses by Western, liberal feminists to treat gender in isolation from other axes of identification.
Also:
Looking at the relationship between colonizer and colonized, and capitalist and worker, as intersections of power that emphasize the form of ruling rather than the frozen embodiment of it.
2.) Thinking about how the opressions of Chicana, gay, and the socio-economically under-privileged overlap.
3.) A focus on relationality translates into a politics of alliance and collaboration more adequate to our world today.
4.) Mohanty |
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Term
| Liberal capitalist relations of ruling |
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Definition
1.) White-centered, not paying enough attention to women of color. not having physical markers to define the relations of ruling. not directly saying “these physical markers make you this category.” There aren’t any physical markers that are being used DIRECTLY to d -Individual. mohanty critizcizing this position. The idea of an autonomous, self-determining, subject. Mohanty criticizes this as ignoring the experience of third world women
- 2. labor laws in North Korea very different from those of USA, thereby shaping the experience of people living in the two countries in significantly different ways
- 3. By understanding these relations of ruling, we can attempt to explore questions of consciousness and agency without naturalizing individuals/structures.
- 4. Mohanty
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Term
| Historiography and “history from below” |
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Definition
1.)
Historiography seeks to understand the ways in which history has been written by exploring what shapes historical works. Historiography considers influences on works of history like what methods and sources were chosen and why, who was the intended audience, and why certain sources or topics are ignored in certain historical accounts. Who gets to write history? Who gets to re-write history?
2.)
3.) Asking these questions can get us to think about how the writers of history can touch upon and ephasize, give credence to certain bits over others. In what ways can this allow for racism, revisionist tendencies, etc? In what ways does this fall in favor of whites?
4.) Mohanty |
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Term
| Auto-ethnography and Testimonial Narratives |
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Definition
1.) Object is to speak from within a collective. Foreground historical truth that has been rewritten by hegemonic society. 2) An example of this is the diaries of trans persons who were institutionalized in mental facilities. 3.) Enables closing up the gap between public and private spheres. 4.) Mohanty
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Term
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Definition
1.) Identity politics, grounded in concepts of unified subjecthood and identity categories (women, Latinos, etc) has often resulted in repression, self-censorship, and exclusionary practices that continue to trouble organizing efforts and work against the goals of social transformation and full human rights.
2.) For example, “woman” as an identity group leaves out Latino males, gay males, etc, even though all might be fighting for a similar political cause.
3.) Leaves people out; focuses mores on the outward appearance than on the inner menatlity that binds groups together.
4.) Stryker |
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Term
| Parodic enactments of identities, styles, etc |
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Definition
1.) Imitates to the point that the behavior appears ludicrous. But for gays, parodying weakens power of norms themselves, thus having a political effect. Camp: over the top, excessive hyperbole. Pastiche: there’s affection for the model you’re imitating. Commercialized drag diff than terrorist drag; commercialized drag does little to challenge stereotypes.
2.) For instance, drag queens might exaggerate feminity and flamboyant displays on stage with over the top performances.
3.) Its usefulness lies in the fact that it could weaken the power of the norms themselves, thus dismantling stereotypes.
4.) Bersani |
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Term
| A redemptive project for sex |
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Definition
1.)People try to present sex in this clean, idealistic manner, when in reality it can often be messy and un-enjoyable.
2.) For instance, ads on TV that present sex as a glorious process.
3.) Can encourage more honest, open dialogues about the true nature of sex.
4.) Bersani |
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Term
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Definition
1.) Oppressions often occur on multiple fronts. For instance, one is often not discriminated against merely for their sexuality or their gender or their race; many individuals suffer multiple at the same time.
2.) For instance, a Latina woman who is also gay might face stigmatization from members from her Latino group (for being gay) and from members of white hegemonic society (for being Latina)
3.) Enabling in that it encourages queer mentality that defies hetero-normqativity and encourages thinking about things on a continuum
4.) Cohen, Ross, Mohanty |
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Term
| Unidimensional approaches to identity and oppression |
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Definition
1. Looking at gender and sexuality from only one axis.
2. Seeing AIDS as a problem of only sexuality or only race, and ignoring other factors.
3. Problematic because many issues are complex networks of intersectionality between race, class, and gender.
4. Ross |
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Term
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Definition
1. “a fixation on the closet function as the grounding principle for sexual experience, knowledge, and politics, and that this claustrophilic fixation effectively diminishes and disables the full engagement with potential insights from race theory and class analysis” (pg. 174 CR)
2.) For example, an African American who struggles with both racial and sexual identity issues might reject a caulstrophilic fixation in favor of a principle than better encompasses both of his struggles.
3.) Claustrophilia reminds us that much of the world still operates on a binary; that there is either “out or in,” without taking into account other aspects of oppression. This remindern can encourage us to think outside the binary and perhaps adopt a Mestiza consciousness.
4.) Marlon Ross |
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Term
| Theories of Uneven Development |
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Definition
1.) Imply that certain parts of the world are backwards, less developed.
2.) For instance, saying that society in China is backwards because their customs are different.
3.) Euro-centric to think about the world this way.
4.) Ross |
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Term
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Definition
1.) not complete refusal of an identity but not completely taking it on either.
Opens up a third place. Taking on an identity, considering where you relate and where you don’t.
2.) For example, African American man who painted his face black, girl and boy on bike (images we viewed in class).
3.) Survival strategy for some.
4.) Munoz |
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Term
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Definition
1.) knowledges that are hidden or discredited by dominant discourses.
a whole set of knowledges that are either hidden behind more dominant knowledges but can be revealed by critique or have been explicitly disqualified as inadequate to their task or insufficiently elaborated: naive knowledges, located low down on the hierarchy, beneath the required level of cognition or scientificity
2.) This can include the experiences of transgender individuals, Chicanas, intersex, really any marginalized group.
3.) Subjugated knowledges remind us that heteronormativity comes into play when determining what knowledge is “more important.” The heteronormative way of thinking about something, the “erudite” way of thinking about something, takes precedence over accounts that may be less mainstreamed. Realizing this can help people to open their eyes to what sorts of knowledge are being presented in the media. Furthermore, when transgender or Chican accounts are publicized, are they presented in a demeaning way, or in a way that’s meant to serve legitimate intellectual purpose.
4.) Stryker |
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Term
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Definition
1.) Tendency for politics to always be about the next generation, makes it sound like people who don’t reproduce are less responsible, looked down on. 2)
- A politician Rob becomes concerned with creating a better (more heteronormative) future for our children, and as a result queers activism is pushed out of the political spectrum.
- 3)
- This stance becomes difficult for queers to fight because it makes them appear anti-children. This concept is essential to ensure queers rise against reproductive futurism before they are disempowered.
4.) Edelman |
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Term
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Definition
1.) Masculinity exists on a continuum; not just a dichotomous category (masculine or not masculine). Halbertsam criticized the idea that gendr dysphoria only occurs for people at the far end of the spectrum.
2.) Stone butch, FTM, androgynous, etc.
3.) Can be useful for understanding masculinity not just in binary terms. Can knock down borders between seemingly disparate groups of individuals, revealing commonalities and encouraging solidarity. Will make the system less divisive than it is now.
4.) Halberstam |
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Term
| Sub-cultures as distinct from communities |
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Definition
1.) “Genre focused rebellions.”
cultures can be ASPECTS for communities. For example, LGBT is a community, and butch / motorcycle lesbians can be a sub-culture of this community, just like the “bears” or the men in leather can be part of this subculture. “Youths create a nether-world within which to re-shape and reform the legacies of an older generation. Economic, political, and social conflicts may be resolved in sub-cultural arenas, according to these arguments, without really effecting any grand changes at the suberstructu4 level.” Most subcultures are young or male. Community is more of a connecting piece perhaps, whereas sub-cultures you don’t necessarily feel connected to people in community? Sub-culture more about specific style perhaps; implies more of shared experience than community does?
2.) Drag kings are an example of sub cultures that can have an effect on the mainstream, getting their message across but not necessarily receiving any material benefit. -“The lady man” is one sub culture. “The freak who wants to rock with the tough girls.” Part of a new wave of dyke subcultures. “Even if you cannot be in a band, participation at multiple levels is what subculture offers.”
3.) They may challenge hegemony (through style rather than through overt articulations)..
4.) Halberstam |
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Term
| A queer archive of the ephemeral |
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Definition
1. Model of archiving queer memory and queer history which is capable of recording and tracing subterranean scenes and fleeting trends. Halberstam says this is why queer archiving is often performed by the subject (queer people themselves) because they are the only ones who have access to the subculture.
2. Tracy, a self identified queer keeps a blog of her queer activism.
3. Significance: Record keeping is an important part of being recognized as equals. People with no history are de-personified, and viewed as lesser beings. If there is no record of activism happening, then it may as well have not happened.
4. Munoz and Judith Halberstam discusses the need for a queer archive of the ephemeral |
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Term
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Definition
1.) -No feelings are suffered in isolation; depression and anxiety are communal feelings, and by sharing them, we can be acting politically because we’ll be showing people who also feel these things are not alone, but rather, interconnected with countless other people who suffer similar maladies. “De-pathologize negative feelings so they can be seen as a possible resource for political action.” Feelings come from social matrix. They don’t just come from within you and affect things; it’s also an external thing, in the interaction between people and community as a whole. Shame is an example of one of these public feelings.
2.) For example, when someone suffers depression they may feel alone. In reality, millions of individuals across the U.S. suffer depression, and the “public feelings” approach suggests that we take advantage of this commonality to make people feel less alone.
3.) Turning private despair into a vehicle for political reform. Sharing your own experience through public discourse can help people who don’t have access to such broadcasting.
4.) Cvetkovich |
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Term
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Definition
1. Trauma through the framework of public feelings. Focuses on the every day and the insidious rather than the catastrophic. Situates trauma in a social and cultural fame rather than a medical one. Everyday trauma is inherently more privet (and invisible) than that of public (visible) catastrophic trauma.
2. Little boy is made fun of by his peers at school for acting feminine
3. Important because invisibility or normalization is a part of their oppressiveness. Situating trauma in context of public feelings offers a more flexible approach to linkages among violence, affective experience, and social and political change.
4. Concept is discussed in Ann Cvetkovich's Public Feelings |
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Term
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Definition
1. Similar to public sphere; public realm where there is open discussion through film, music, and fiction.
2. Bollywood portrays only heterosexual relationships between meen and women. By excluding other forms of sexual interaction, this form of public culture reminds people that homosexual desires are not normal, and should be shunned
3. By focusing her analysis on queer female subjectivities that are often elided in public culture Film, music, and Fiction, Gopinath renders visible the logic of patriarchy that often dominates discussions of national and diasporic identities. In Gopinath’s words, the volume seeks to dissect the ways in which discourses of sexuality are inextricable from prior and continuing histories of colonialism, nationalism, racing, and migration.
4. Gopinath discusses public culture in Impossible Desires |
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Term
| Queerness as Performativity |
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Definition
| 1. “Performative” being a description of to show or to act brings us to the idea of “expressive or “doing”. This term is in a sense, is saying gender is more of a performance than an identity where it is projected by what people do in order to display or express themselves. 2. This term is also presented by Judith Butler in “Gender trouble, 1989”, where she characterized gender as the effect of acting. Performativity is most obvious in ‘drags’, where they make visible how they want to be portrayed through cross-dressing, make up, etc. 3. This enables the attempt to demonstrate and display ‘queerness’ through expressions and actions. Ideally, this concept may be seen as “threatening” to heteronormative societies. 4. Jose Esteban Munoz, Judith Bulter, and Axiomatic Sedgwick. |
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Term
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Definition
1. Seeks individualistic equality of men and women through political and legal reform without altering the structure of society. Focuses on womens ability to obtain and maintain equality thought their own actions and choices. It focuses on the individual relationships between men and women which transform society into a more gender equal place.
2. An example of liberal feminist theory is an interest group who seeks to make policy change to the equal rights and protection clause of the constitution to insure equality for all genders.
3. This theory fails to acknowledge the societal institutions and underlying social structures that disadvantage women. Women still have to live in a patriarchal society and are dependent upon it.
4. Mohanty |
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