Fear Of Being Queer By Karen L. Cox And The Paradox Of Coming Out By Steven Petrow

Gay sees herself as an intersection of the black, woman, and feminist communities, making her a hybrid of the three, giving her a distinct community to identify with as well as broader groups. She identifies as a woman and acknowledges all of the expectations and stereotypes that accompanies. On the other hand, her fundamental views on gender equality gives her the ability to empathize with the feminist community. Nevertheless, in every group of people, everyone is a distinct individual with a distinct number of characteristics, both physical and emotional, that sets them apart from the person next to them. As a woman of color, Gay has a list of additional concerns and interests that pertains to her specific experience that are not necessarily included throughout the entire group of feminists. Gay could be branched off into dozens of more sects and factions that pertain to specific

In Octavia Butler’s Dawn the idea of gender is deconstructed and reformed from the typical human’s definition. Often people do not consider the role of gender in society today. Usually the first thing one notices when meeting someone new is their gender or their presumed gender. However, there becomes a problem when the person whose gender we perceived identifies as a different gender. Butler forces the reader to examine how they judge and perceive gender. While the ooloi are actually “its” their personalities seem to imply a certain gender. The transgender community often brings up this issue because these assumptions of gender based on our judgments of what defines a male and what defines a female can skew how a transgender person is treated and addressed. In Chapter One of Gender Through the Prism of Difference by Anne Fausto-Sterling, the idea of expanding the number of genders based on one’s biological differences is examined through the five sexes theory. By now the concept of gender being defined solely by one’s biology has mostly been left in the past but the question remains of how do we truly define gender? How does being outside of the social norms that Michael Warner talks about cause us to feel shame when discussing our gender and our perceptions of gender? In this essay, I will argue that preconceived notions of gender create shame when a person’s own perception of their gender does not fit the social norms. This stigma around the limited and strict definitions

This approach to queer subtext has been has always been a part of Western media as we as we explored in the film “The Celluloid Closet” (1995). Queer representation for many years was an continuous uncategorized personification that was vaguely acknowledged but to those who understood the subtext, it became an undercurrent of complex coded information that eventually paved the way for the integration of queer identification within the hetero film storylines. Doty speaks about this and also mentions that at some point in time representation of queer culture and sexuality

Queer Compulsions by Amy Sueyoshi serves as a wonderful insight of various struggles of Japanese immigrants with Americans in its depiction of specific individual of Yone Noguchi through his intimate relationship with other Americans of both sexes. Through the life of Noguchi, the author aims to touch on both racial and sexual (both sexual identity and gender) standards which were expected at the time, and how those affected not only the life of Noguchi, but also the lives of many Japanese immigrants. Most part of the book, from Chapter 1 to 4, the author talks extensively about relationships (not only intimate/family relationships, but also other relationships with general American population, especially Bohemian) that Noguchi had from the beginning of his life.

In her novel Southland, author Nina Revoyr creates narrative arcs for a multitude of characters that occur in multiple separate timelines. These arcs have recurring themes focused on race relations and sexuality as major civilian protests and campaigns for human rights unfold in the greater Los Angeles area. Revoyr explores Los Angeles’s residentially segregated neighborhoods throughout different time periods and examines interracial alliances and more personal interracial relationships. Jackie, the primary character of the novel, is a Japanese American, semi-closeted lesbian. Her narrative emphasizes acceptance of personal identity and family history, as she discovers more about her recently-deceased grandfather, whose perspective also

Pariah is a story about a lesbian teen name Alike, who resides in the Bronx with her parents and sister. Alike is having a hard time trying to balance the open expression of her sexuality with her close friends while keep it disclosed from her religious parents. Alike, who is known as Lee had her first sexual relation with a herosexual female name Bina. However, Bina believes she was just trying something but Lee thought Bina truly liked her. Bina did not want Lee to tell anyone about what they did together. Audrey, who is Lee mother, beat her up when she confessed that she was a lesbian. Therefore, Lee left the home and start living with her free Laura. Laure lives with her sister because her parents stop speaking to her and but her out. Laura

Janet R. Jakobsen’s essay, Queers Are Like Jews, Aren’t They? Analogy and Alliance Politics, is about carelessness, the misuse of analogies, and the inattention to racism, fascism, and homophobic generalizations. I chose to discuss the second paragraph because it ironically generalizes; aka paraphrases the essay in a whole. However, it provides a reader with no prior knowledge of the subject the information to comprehend Jakobsen’s key points, which are important to understanding the purpose of the essay.

Thirdly, queers challenge the categories as well as binaries of sexual and gender by questioning the categories and binaries’ reasonability. Queer theorists concern about how and why the categories of gender and sexuality are shaped, thinking the main reason is to better control people so as to achieve political goals. As de Lauretis (1991) stated, the existing strategies of homosexual, which is created based on the existing categories of gender and sexuality, is to ensure the “ center” integrated. Moreover, they reject and question the usefulness of categories. According to

While reading both “On Growing Up Between Genders”, by Stephen Burt and “The Female Body” by Margaret Atwood, I was so moved by both poets writing that I felt as though I was living their experiences with them. Throughout the course of both pieces, I felt emotionally drawn to obstacles of both writers, while understanding their wants of an experience very different from the ones previously given to them.

Queer theory questions creations of normal and divergent, insider, and outsider.2 Queer theorists analyse a situation or a text to determine the relationship between sexuality, power and gender. Queer theory challenges basic tropes used to organize our society and our language: even words are gendered, and through that gendering an elliptical view of the hierarchy of society, and presumption of what is male and what is female, shines through. Queer theory rejects such binary distinctions as arbitrarily determined and defined by those with social power. It works to deconstruct these binaries, particularly the homosexual/heterosexual binary.4

While queer theory does examine homosexual subtexts, it also brings forth questions from the text concerning gender roles, sexual norms, identity, and deviance from societal conventions. Dr. Deborah Carlin, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, states, “The term “queer” is frequently misunderstood to function as either a noun or as an identity category; however, it should be more accurately be deployed as a verb (to queer), one that signifies action rather than individuals” (56). Within Harriet the Spy, there are several areas of queering that can be explored, these include: homosexuality and queer subtext, psychoanalytical sexuality, cultural patterns, gender queerness, and age

In Foucault and Queer Theory Spargo defines queer theory as a nebulous group of cultural criticism and analysis of social power structures relating to sexuality . It is these power structures and aspects of culture that are responsible for the discourse that creates and informs ones understanding of gender, race, and sexuality. However these aspects of identity do not exist separately from one another, but are constructed in tandem throughout history. These layers of identity inform each other in a way that is difficult if not impossible to separate. They do not act independently with an additive effect but intersect constructing their own unique set of experiences and perspectives. In this paper I will be exploring queer theory

Sexuality is an issue that has been widely discussed and has often been misunderstood by society. It has often been a misconception by members of the heterosexual community that all lesbians want to be men. Through applying common sense, it can be understood why people may think gay women want to be men when looking in on the lesbian community, some lesbians prefer to express themselves and their sexuality through the way they dress and act; their short hair, masculine clothing, wearing no make-up and their macho

Gender and sexual orientation is a topic that has been and still today is not talked about in such a way it should be because of how society has chosen to structure and control it. Social stratification is a system in which groups of people are divided up into layers according to their relative privileges (power, property, and prestige). It’s a way of ranking large groups of people into a hierarchy according to their relative privileges (Vela-McConnell 2016). People, who deviate from the norm of the “accepted” gender and sexual orientation that society has placed upon us, are stratified below the norm of a dominating binary gender and sexual orientation. People who are queer face the struggle of mistreatment and an unaccepting society that has been socialized to see and act on gender and sexual orientation to being a dualistic system.

Another contrasting theme was concerning Rhonda being bisexual. The myths about bisexuals include the thought that “bisexuals are “closeted” lesbians who are in denial of their homosexual identity” (McAuliffe, 2013, p.432). When speaking to my interviewee about group membership she said that she was attracted to both men and women. She even gave examples of specific people that she was attracted to. Labels are not something she feels comfortable with, but she said that if she had to label herself she would be considered bisexual. Melissa, her wife, is lesbian. She showed a contrast between the generalizations that all bisexuals are closeted homosexuals, when reality she had attractions to both genders and her wife is only attracted to women.