This semester (Fall 2018), I am taking an undergraduate queer studies class at my University. The professor was generous enough to allow me to join the class and tailor a separate syllabus to challenge me at a graduate level (I am pursuing a certificate in gender and women’s studies along with my MA and PhD). It’s been an excellent experience thus far, as he specifically avoids writing by white gay cisgender men and focuses on writing by women, people of color, and transgender folks. It’s also been fascinating and exciting to learn alongside students about a decade younger than myself. Reflection essays are assigned with the goal of uncovering a core problematic based on the week’s readings. We are asked to stake out a position and support it via course readings – all within four pages, which is, at times, a challenge for myself. I thought I would share my first reaction essay in which I identified how gender manifests itself within both queer communities and, in turn, queer studies.
Gender is a preeminent social force dominating nearly all social interactions. At times, its influence is obvious. Most of the time, its presence is artfully stealth steering our thoughts and behaviors unconsciously. Social actors are deluded into thinking that gender is “True” (with a capital “T”) and it shapes nearly all of our decisions, beliefs, and goals in life. However, as a student of sociology I can say with confidence that social life does not operate in the realm of capital “T” truth and social laws do not exist on the same plane as laws of physics or chemistry. Rather, it is the belief that something is True that shapes our expectations and behaviors; thus, cultural truth is born and its power is undeniable. This seems a dramatic introduction to a reflection about queer studies. This assessment is correct and it has been done with purpose.
Gender is not absolute, but the belief in its veracity is the catalyst to its consequential influence in social life. Gender as it plays out in the lives of queer folks, while more diverse and free in many ways, is not exempt from this rule. The foundation of queer theory and all queer centered scholarship is in the study of gender. Technically, gender and sexuality are separate facets of social identity and existence. One’s gender does not necessarily determine one’s sexual orientation or behavior. Nevertheless, due to gender’s sheer power in shaping of our social world, to discuss the lives of queer folks without discussion gender would be remiss. It is how gender manifests in the lives of queer folks and in the discipline of queer studies that has most captured my attention thus far this semester.
Riki Wilchins writes, “gender as a gay issue has vanished from civil discourse,” (2004: 22). Though this was written 14 years ago, I believe this continues to be true. As a student of sociology, I cannot help but see gender and sexuality as inseparable. One’s sexual orientation and, in turn, sexual behavior is shaped first through the expectations of their assumed gender. If one is assigned male at birth, heterosexuality is assumed (and expected) and a trajectory of heterosexual behavior is set before you. The seedy underbelly of homophobia is actually sexism, for it is the betrayal of one’s assumed gender that is the biggest crime in the eyes of larger society. As Wilchins states, “homosexuality itself is the most profound transgression of the primary rule of gender,” (2004: 20). The primary rule of gender here being compulsory heterosexuality. To “succeed” as a man or a woman, heterosexuality is expected as romantic and sexual relationships with the “opposite sex” is paramount in the expectations of masculinity and femininity.
I think that gender as a specifically “gay issue” has vanished for many reasons, the first of which is born with the yearning for acceptance based on a perceived lack of difference; or as Wilchins sums up, “we’re just like straight people; we just sleep with the same sex,” (2004: 22). She notes this strategy’s success and proclaims that it has left the community with “internalized genderphobia.” As someone who has called various queer communities home for nearly fifteen years (first as a butch gay woman and now as a bisexual transgender man), I am in agreement with Wilchins’ conclusion. While the ways in which it manifests are more diverse, queer communities are absolutely not immune to the powers of gender as a social force.
Transgender folks are, at least nominally, included in the alphabet soup umbrella of the LGBTQ+ or queer community. Trans folks’ inclusion into these communities further pushes the issue of gender off of the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and other queer identified folks (Wilchins 2004). On the surface, the logic of this makes sense: transgender people have shown up first because of their gender (I say first here to recognize that queer transgender people exist and find community for both gender identity and sexuality) and cisgender queer people have shown up because of their sexuality. Gender as a political issue is primarily put onto the backs of the transgender people in the room, so attention to gender as it manifests in the lives of cisgender queer folks fades to the background. I argue that this act of relegating gender as a concern pertinent only to transgender people serves to reify gender’s strength as a cultural truth within the larger queer community.
Devon W. Carbado’s discussion of privilege serves to support this assertion. He mentions the concept of, “negative identity signification,” (2005: 192), in which people are identified through the various ways in which they are strictly not members of our society’s reference category of cisgender, heterosexual, white men. Those among the millions without membership to this category, as Carbado states, are “different” and because of this difference, our identities have negative social meaning (2005). I believe that this negative identity signification has a twofold consequence in the lives of queer folks: it fuels the fire of the aforementioned, “we’re just like you” argument and it creates the need to avoid potential compounded negative social meaning created by further gender failure (a term I’ve borrowed from Ivan A. Coyote and Rae Spoon).
For gay, lesbian, bisexual, and queer people, “normal” sexuality has already been negated by identifying as anything other than straight. If your gender expression and behavior also misalign beyond your sexual and romantic behavior, your identity is pushed further into the realm of the social negative. I think the ways in which masculinity manifests in the wider community of gay men highlight this phenomenon quite well. If you are a masculine gay man, your negative identity is only signified through your sexual orientation. If you are an effeminate gay man, you have failed your gender through both your sexuality and your gender expression. There are, of course, huge disparities in the extremity of negative social sanctions received for sexual orientation alone, especially along the lines of race; however, the experiences of effeminate gay men will almost always still be more negative when examining identity through a gendered lens. I think the fetishizing of hyper masculinity amongst communities of gay men serves as a prime example of Wilchins’ concept of “internalized genderphobia.”
Carl Wittman’s “A Gay Manifesto” provides another great example of internalized genderphobia. In his discussion of lesbians and women’s place in gender within the gay movement of the 1970s, he acknowledges that gay women’s liberation is tied to both the gay and women’s liberation movements. Wittman also goes on the say that all men are infected with chauvinism, providing a poignant example of when a peer of his suggesting inviting women fighting for their own equality to gay liberation meetings so they could bring sandwiches and coffee (1997). While this anecdote quite acutely proves his point, it his next assertion that interests me most: “we have largely opted out of a system which oppresses women daily – our egos are not built on putting women down and having them build us up,” (Wittman 1997: 421). What stands out most in this statement is the concept of “opting out.” While this was written over 40 years ago, I think that this concept of opting out is something that still exists and put into the larger context of how gender manifests in queer communities at large, it is something that begs for greater examination.
Wittman’s “opting out” of the larger gendered system in which women are oppressed is shortsighted at best and detrimental in terms of gender equality at worst. It is precisely this opting out, or more accurately the perception of having opted out of wider systems of gender in which women are actually included that contributes both to the waning importance of gender felt by gay, bisexual, and lesbian folks in the wider queer community and the aforementioned internalized genderphobia. To declare that you live in a world outside of women’s oppression removes culpability in its endurance, as well as further alienates you from celebrating femininity and anything related to the gendered expectations experienced women. Beyond the falsehood of truly having opted out (despite cisgender gay men’s gender and sexual orientation, they remain members of society at large in which women most definitely do exist), ascribing to this belief, I believe, bolsters internalized shame around anything deemed to feminine out of fear of further negative identity signification.
The overall importance of focusing on gender within queer communities at large should be mirrored within the field of queer studies. As stated before, the foundation of queer theory and all queer centered scholarship is in the study of gender. Queer studies should remain anchored in the study of gender and its future should align with the liberation of women and transgender folks. The inclusion of transgender people within larger queer communities should not excuse queer folks from examining the role of gender in their own lives; rather, the presence of transgender people should be supported and serve as a reminder of how vital it is for all of us to keep gender at the forefront of our analyses of our social worlds. Gender will endure as a dominant social force in the lives of queer folks and it is the job of queer scholars to ensure that it is not forgotten in future research.
Works Cited
Blank, Hanne. 2012. Straight. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Carbado, Devon W. 2005. “Privilege.” Pp. 190-211 in Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology, edited by Mae G. Henderson and E. Patrick Johnson. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Wilchins, Riki. 2004. Queer Theory, Gender Theory: An Instant Primer. New York, NY: Alyson Publications
Wittman, Carl. 1997. “A Gay Manifesto.” Pp. 380-84 in We Are Everywhere: A Historical Sourcebook of Gay and Lesbian Politics, edited by Mark Blassius and Shane Phelan. New York, NY: Routledge.
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All words © Jay Sorensen, 2018.
Jay Sorensen, Ph.D. Candidate 