Malinda Lo
Blog
Nov 30, 2009
Queerness
I’m preparing a blog post about YA books that include room for queerness, and in thinking about that, I began to think about the word queer itself.
Queerest album cover ever?
I know that for some people, queer is still an epithet, a put-down. For me, it is not. It is part of the LGBTQ acronym — lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer — and when used on its own, “queer,” I understand it as shorthand for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people (which can be quite an alphabet soup sometimes). It also, in my mind, includes those who identify as dykes, genderqueer, or any number of other words we’ve chosen to mark us.
Of course, queer also has significance in criticism/academia: hello, queer theory. (For a more accessible explanation of queer theory, Wikipedia actually does a remarkably good job.)
I’m not going to delve into the many layers of queer theory here. Years ago I actually did read Judith Butler, Teresa de Lauretis, Michel Foucault, etc., and could probably have put together a very academic-sounding analysis of it, but those days are behind me (yay!). The one thing that has stuck with me about queerness, coming from this queer theory background, is that queerness is not necessarily about sexual orientation.
Marlene Dietrich, queer icon
It’s about challenging heterosexuality as “normal.” It’s about gender: what constitutes it, the choices we make around it. It’s thick and messy and complicated, but it’s also a wide open space for experimentation — and for experience. Queerness gives people like me (and perhaps like you) room to breathe.
In Ash, I used the word queer exactly once. I think it was one of the two most deliberate word choices I made in the entire book (the other is the last word). The word queer appears on page 254, when Ash is speaking to Sidhean, the fairy who has become both friend and foe to her:
Dragging herself away from him took every ounce of courage she had, and when at last she was free and had put a hand’s breadth of cold night air between them, she looked up at his shadowed eyes and said, “Sidhean, for many years, you have been my only friend, though such a friendship is by definition a queer one, for your people and mine are not meant to love each other.”
In this case, Ash recognizes that her relationship with this fairy — this supernatural being — is queer. His gender is irrelevant. The queerness has nothing to do with sexual orientation, but with a much more fundamental difference (human vs. inhuman).
Author Sarah Waters uses the word queer quite a lot in her books. According to Amazon’s Search Inside the Book, “queer” appears 36 times in The Little Stranger, which doesn’t have a single LGBT character in it at all. (At least, not openly LGBT.) One of my favorite of Waters’ usages of the word queer occurs in Tipping the Velvet on page 33, when the main character, Nan, is describing Kitty Butler, a performer and her soon-to-be lover:
Like the freckles, it made her — not unremarkable, as I had feared to find her; but marvellously, achingly real. Hearing it, I understood at last my wildness of the past seven days. I thought, how queer it is! — and yet, how very ordinary: I am in love with you.
Both queer and ordinary — how wonderful, and how true.
If you’ve made it to the end of this post, how do you feel about the word queer? Do you use it to describe yourself? I’d love to know.
I prefer queer to the alphabet soup, or to a particular orientation because it’s inclusive. I don’t feel like I have to justify queer the same way I often have to justify bisexual.
Words that allow us to talk about a wider community are useful; words that tend to break groups down into ever-smaller units often encourage antagonism.
Interesting post, and I *love* that Sarah Waters quote.
I don’t think I’ve used the word ‘queer’ to describe myself ever, now I come to think of it. Pre-university, the word had only negative connotations for me. Then I discovered queer theory and Judith Butler as part of my undergrad degree and to be honest, although I’d considered being gay before, that time in my life kind of pointed out to me that it fit. Which is a good thing. So I don’t describe myself as ‘queer’, but I’m perfectly happy to identity as it.
I think that bisexual as a term (or identity) is really difficult; so many people have negative judgements about it. And on the other hand, there are all those ridiculous stereotypes …
I see what you mean! On the other hand, small-unit terms can also be empowering or useful for community-building. Often, I think we need those kinds of words at the beginning of a movement, so that the movement can be about something specific. Maybe the usage of “queer” these days indicates a sort of mainstreaming?
I love the word queer. In particular I’ve always loved it as it enables me to describe my female friends who dated women in college or shortly after but who never identified with any specific sexual orientation and primarily ended up with men. They are not straight, I’m not sure you can be straight after being in a relationship with someone of the same sex (and I do mean a relationship and not a hook-up), but they are something….not straight…. Queer allows us to have a larger community something to cherish.
Queer is one of my favorite words but it’s one that for years I used meaning it as in traditionally ‘strange or odd’ or ‘to spoil or ruin’ and people often corrected me saying that those definitions were antiquated and no longer associated with the term. In the same breath – at that time – anyone of a ‘straight’ sexual orientation who used the term queer was usually received as someone using the term as a derogatory to folks of ‘other’ sexual orientations. *sigh* It’s safe to say that I’ve had a very queer relationship with the word queer, which is, I suppose, rather fitting.
I’m just glad that nowadays I can use the word without someone telling me not to.
I just reread the very last bit of the post (double-checking that quote, I’m dying to read Tipping the Velvet) and I have to say that yes, I would, and have, used queer to describe myself. “I am a very queer character to be sure” I actually enjoy letting people take it as they will, it’s really wild to see who assumes what and why they assumed it, I mean, just because of how they feel about the word, or what have you.
Yep, and equally things can go the other way. Umbrella terms can sometimes come to mean just the dominant group under the umbrella. We don’t want “queer” to mean (for example) “rich, white gay men”. But I’m an inclusionist by nature so I tend to err on the side of inclusionary terms.
The word “queer” makes me smile. It just seems so friendly, and it begs the inquisitive. The term seems broader and more welcoming than others, and I like the fact that it has been re-appropriated within the “queer community”; it takes the edge off its potentially negative connotations. I still don’t think I would assign that label to myself unless I was being asked to join a club or check a box, but I think identifying as queer offers opportunity for people to explain themselves.
“I’m queer.”
“So, you’re gay?”
“Well, actually, I identify with the word queer because…”
The thing that puzzles me a bit is what exactly people who are NOT queer are. Are they straight? Maybe. But what if they, individually, do not live up to or choose to live up to gender norms? But what if their relationship doesn’t fit into the traditional heteronormative template?
What about a female breadwinner? Is she in a queer relationship? Wait. Statistically, women are becoming breadwinners increasingly often. If or when women surpass men as breadwinners, then is it the male breadwinner in a queer relationship?
That’s the complicated thing about all these terms. They are usually either very narrow and laden with stereotypes, or so huge that an entire body of theory could reside within it. Furthermore, they are usually a measure against something “normal,” which can make the whole spectrum of people uncomfortable, not to mention uncertain.
Still, I like the word queer since it is roomy and versatile. Plus, any word that can be used to describe itself is pretty cool to me.
Righteous! I almost added how much I love queer because it is its own definition!
Do you think straight people can be queer? Based on your post, if queerness isn’t about sexual identification, then it should be an identity available to the A part of the LGBTA acronym. Yes? No? What do you think? Or is it not available to straights because they are part of the “norm,” and “queer” identifies something outside of “normal”? I’d love to incorporate a conversation like this into my gender comm class next semester, so I’m wondering . . . I’ve never seen it applied to straights, but what about allies?
I don’t think being straight is enough to qualify someone as being in the “norm.” I definitely think straight people can be queer. I think the word queer is used to describe one’s sexuality, but also one’s gender. Being queer could apply to any letter of the alphabet soup.
The idea of queerness meaning that someone doesn’t fit a “norm” is pretty complicated. I believe when Judith Butler was describing notions of normative gender, she said that that idea was like a copy for which there was no original. This is where all the fascinating conversations come in about what is normal, or what is different from the norm, because it’s so hard to pinpoint what the norm is. Does it really exist? Are the “normal” people that way naturally, or have they perfected their performance (that’s the kind of thing many drag kings/queens poke fun at)? Does it matter?
Maybe being queer goes beyond even those things. Because if there is a quiz that will tell you whether or not you are queer, it could end up like any other label. For someone to identify as queer (or be willing to identify as queer), I think they are doing more than assessing their gender or sexuality. There is some contemplation about how one fits against norms, and a decision is made about how much one values mainstream societal norms.
Am I giving this word too much credit?
This also begs the question– are all gay people queer?
I think we give LOTS of words too much credit. : ) Our culture forces us to do that, in lots of cases, and words are assigned to us whether we like it or not, so we have to pay attention. And I hadn’t thought about the performance angle of things–excellent point, even if we’re not performing on stage. I think I will also emphasize to my students the idea about choosing your label instead of having that label chosen for you. Not many of them will have contemplated that. And “queer”, to my thinking, is definitely a word of choice, because, as you say, people who choose it tend to contemplate how they function against norms.
New here! Wonderful post. I just finished Fingersmith, and I love the Velvet quote you have here. I’m pretty squarely right on the middle of the fence, and have no particular term that I feel comfortable with — mostly I feel hemmed in by labels (which I guess is the point). Generally I go with, “I’m just me, and the person I love is a woman” but some people feel the need to label. Queer is as good as anything, although I actually prefer pansexual since I fall for the person, not the package, and people come in many-layered packages as we all know. Am I straight? No. Have I ever been straight? No, but I’ve been in plenty of heterosexual relationships. Am I currently gay? That depends on your definition, but no, not really — I’m bisexual, as I always have been. Am I in a relationship with a woman? Yes. And she’s the most traditional person I have ever been with. And she identifies as ‘tomboy’. So… it’s complicated. Mostly I just think people are people and we should do away with labels altogether. Would make things so much easier. Just love who you love. And let others love whom THEY love. (I know it’s not that easy, but don’t you wish?)
Very true! I have friends like that too. I’m not sure that *they* describe themselves as queer though. I’ll have to ask next time I talk to them.
Yeah, I think the word evokes strong reactions in people.
“any word that can be used to describe itself is pretty cool to me.” –> this is awesome!
This is so interesting! I would say that I know people who are in relationships with someone of the opposite sex, and yet clearly identify as “queer,” but I don’t know that those people identify as “straight.” (They may or may not identify as bisexual.) I think that one’s actions and behaviors can totally BE queer, but being part of the “queer community” is a different thing.
Like, someone who identifies as straight could be doing some very queer things, but they wouldn’t *be* queer. That’s my instinctual reaction to your question, Kirstin, but Sara raises some good points too. Lots to think about.
Welcome, Daphne! Thanks for your comment and for sharing your experience. Every time I talk about ASH I tell people that it’s not about being gay — not in the way we understand it. Ash just falls in love with the person she falls in love with, and gender is irrelevant. I think the lack of labels in ASH is partly what makes it, IMO, a fairy tale. Because we seem to still need them in our world, whether for comfort or for help in building a community. But ideally, I think it would be wonderful if we didn’t need them.