Henderson, Introduction to Queer Studies: Beyond Binaries Instructor’s Manual with Student Resources, by Bruce Henderson

© 2019, Harrington Park Press. All rights reserved.

Note: A separate test bank is available upon request by writing to [email protected]

Contents

Organizing Your Course and Using This Book

Chapter 1. Queering Language: Words and Worlds

Chapter 2. Queering Desire: Knowing “Feeling”

Chapter 3. Queering Identities: From “I” to “We”

Chapter 4. Queering Bodies: Transgender and Intersex Lives

Chapter 5. Queering Privilege: Whiteness and Class

Chapter 6. Queering Intersectionality: Race and Ethnicity

Chapter 7. Queering School

Chapter 8. Queering Sociality: Friends, Family, and Kinship

Chapter 9. Queering Health: Well‐Being, Medicalization, and Recreation

Chapter 10. Queering Spirituality: Religion, Belief, and Beyond

Chapter 11. Queering Citizenship: Politics, Power, and Justice

Chapter 12. Queering Imagination: Arts, Aesthetics, and Expression

Conclusion: Imagining Utopias in Queer Studies

Henderson, Introduction to Queer Studies: Beyond Binaries Instructor’s Manual with Student Resources, by Bruce Henderson

© 2019, Harrington Park Press. All rights reserved.

Organizing Your Course and Using This Book

Queer Studies: Beyond Binaries was conceived of as a result of my experiences teaching a 200‐ level survey course over the course of several semesters at Ithaca College. The course is offered in the Program on Women’s and Gender Studies, an interdisciplinary unit with a coordinator and faculty generally drawn from established departments. Its only prerequisite is sophomore standing (though I often waived this requirement for students with particular initiative and commitment to the material), assuming no background in gender theory, sexuality studies, or any particular disciplinary approach to the study of queerness. In my experience, it is a highly sought‐after course, regardless of the instructor, as an increasing number of students have both personal and social interest in the material covered. Students from majors as varied as physical therapy, art history, biology, sociology, and TV‐radio production have enrolled, as well as those ranging from first‐semester students to those at the end of their undergraduate education. One of the central challenges has been providing a broad enough range of perspectives and topics to engage students from all backgrounds, while also including enough specificity to go beyond generalized theories or concepts. In early semesters, I used an anchor textbook and supplemented it with a number of primary texts, usually drawn from literature, memoir, history, and the social sciences, as well as mediated texts, such as films, videos, and so forth.

As time went on, I found the anchor texts available often covered some topics very well but, because they were often written by people whose primary background was in one discipline or another, gave what felt to me like short shrift to other areas of interest to students. This is understandable, as no single author can hope to be expert in all areas such a course might cover. I moved for a while to using only primary texts, which, in order to provide sufficient coverage of a number of different fields, became somewhat cumbersome and top‐heavy for an introductory course. So, when I was invited to consider writing this book, I took the following as goals.

1. Frame as much content as I could in interdisciplinary ways. While there is ongoing debate about the meaning and value of interdisciplinarity, it is certainly the case that more and more developments in scholarship and pedagogy attempt to bring different methods and perspectives into dialogue with each other. In a sense, I let the composition of the students in my classes provide a kind of inspiration—as they bring different perspectives (the scientific method of experimentation, critical and cultural analysis, application to practical, everyday endeavors, for example), so I aim to bring multiple perspectives to common themes and areas, without making claims that are too large in terms of disciplinary completeness. 2. While acknowledging the usefulness of categories in organizing experience and phenomena, always to challenge myself and my students to think “beyond binaries.” Thinking beyond binaries leads naturally to explorations of intersectionality, the “both/and” rather than “either/or,” in which identities and processes are always at places where no single label or category will suffice to describe the richness and complexity of any individual, group, event, or movement. 3. To include enough detailed examples to give students concrete sources of knowledge, while also allowing individual instructors to find spaces for their favorite supplementary texts or cases.

In this sense, the book can function in multiple ways, depending on your goals and desires, the perceived needs of students, and the role of the course in any given curriculum. It can be the anchor text for the course: there is sufficient material in it for you and your class to use it as the sole text for a survey of the field of queer studies. It can be the anchor text that you supplement with a handful of exemplary other texts (such as novels, political studies, various artworks) to allow for deeper and more extended study. In this case, it is likely that you will find yourself needing to make some strategic decisions about which chapters to include as required reading for the entire class, which to omit, and which to offer for individual projects and study. Yet a third way might be to use the text as an important source for students to gain useful contexts for various perspectives on queer identity and queer lives, but to focus the course on a narrower topic or perspective, such as queer identity itself or queerness in society. In this case, you might devote considerably more time than in a broad survey to a handful of the chapters, adding other relevant texts to extend the study of the focused theme or topic. The first half of the book, which discusses, in extended fashion, foundational aspects of queerness common to any approach (language, identity, desire), could be used to establish a shared set of issues or questions, and then the course might move to a specific topic that is your specialty, of interest to the students enrolled, or particularly relevant to the setting in which the course is offered (e.g., a sociology department, a religiously affiliated institution, a class of humanists and artists).

What I recommend, above all else, is that you find a way to use Queer Studies: Beyond Binaries in ways that best suit your own goals and the needs of your students. The book is, I hope, a useful tool, one that can provide a roadmap for you and your students alike, and this instructor’s manual provides materials to help both new and experienced teachers think about how to use the book. It can be taught in the course of a semester (with approximately one chapter per week in the usual schedule, leaving some room for introductions, conclusions, exams, and other presentations), but it need not be taught from first word to last to be of use. (And if your institution is on a quarter system, with ten weeks or so to the term, I strongly advise against trying to cram the whole thing in just to finish the book.) You will discover how best to integrate it into your pedagogy; what follows are a few samples of syllabi for which it might be used.

Anchor Book: Survey Course

Description: This course is designed as an introductory survey of the interdisciplinary field coming to be known as Queer Studies. It is intended to provide students with entries into a range of topics in queerness, as well as myriad perspectives through which scholars, researchers, activists, and artists approach such study.

Schedule

Unit I: Introductions and the Language of Queer Studies (1 week) Readings: Introduction and Chapter 1 Activities: The ranking of terms from the Issues for Investigation is particularly helpful.

Unit II: Queering Identity (6–8 weeks) Readings: Chapter 2: 1 week Chapter 3: 1–2 weeks Chapter 4: 1–2 weeks Chapter 5: 1 week Chapter 6: 2 weeks Activities: The range of Issues for Investigation will allow you to vary class pedagogy, so that, unless the class size prohibits it, students are not always locked into lecture‐discussion formats for learning.

Midterm Exam or Paper Using the Materials in Units I and II. If you do not plan on having a midterm exam and prefer to structure the class around papers, I recommend doing some quizzing of the material in each chapter, through either announced quizzes or occasional pop quizzes. You can guide students regarding how much informational recall you expect, while at the same time encouraging them and rewarding them for staying on top of reading assignments. At this point in the semester, a paper that asks students to bring their own growing knowledge of queer studies, based on readings and other materials, to their own perceptions, experiences, and observations is probably more useful than a research paper, which might be better positioned near the end of the semester.

Unit III: Queering Contexts (3–4 weeks)

Readings: drawn from Chapters 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 If you wish to give students the broadest of surveys, you can cover each chapter in about a week, probably highlighting specific sections of each chapter on which students might focus. You might find it equally useful to identify three or so of the chapters, providing enough range within your choices to introduce students either to more intimate or foundational contexts (such as school, family, friendship) or to larger organizations or units (such as faith traditions, political movements, health issues). You might also strike a middle ground, identifying two that the class will study as a whole, and then one or two that might be studied and reported on by groups or individuals. Activities: Depending on whether you wish to cover the entire book or to focus on either selected chapters from Part III or sections within chapters, making sure there is time for occasional small group activities may be useful to combat mid‐semester slump in terms of energy and sustained commitment.

Unit IV: Queering Imagination (1–2 weeks) Readings: Chapter 12 and Conclusion (1 week)

Students are typically enthusiastic about discussing art and media in this class—these subjects reflect experiences that produce pleasure and identification in them. If you find yourself short on time and unable to devote a full week or two to the material, another approach would be to assign sections of the chapter at strategic times, for example, the Spotlight on Art and the AIDS Crisis could be coupled with the discussion of AIDS in Chapter 9; other sections might be usefully tied to issues of politics and spirituality.

Final Exam or Second Major Paper. As was true of the period leading up to the midterm, you may find quizzing useful, especially if you do not plan on administering either a cumulative final exam or one that is restricted to the material assigned after the midterm. Depending on the size of the class, you may wish to have two exams, one around midterm and one at the end of the semester, and a shorter paper or two (5–7 pp. if two papers; 7–10 pp. if one) to allow students some individualized opportunity to pursue specific interests.

Anchor Book with Supplements: Focus on Developing Queer Identities

Description: This course will focus on what it means to identify as queer, understanding queer as neither an either/or category, nor as something necessarily fixed or unchanging. We will devote the majority of the semester to defining the concept of queer and to exploring the processes and experiences of people who either come to claim queerness as their identity or are labeled as queer by society. We will also consider how queer identity functions in one or more social contexts, as well as in the creative and expressive arts.

Schedule

Unit I: “Queer”—Queering Language: Definitions, Usage, and Variation(2 weeks) Reading: Introduction and Chapter 1 Activities: Both the rankings in Issues for Investigation and the Polari exercises can be useful ways to get students to dig deep below the surface of assumptions about language, both as they use it in their everyday lives today and how it has changed throughout the past century or so.

Unit II: Queering Desire—What Is Desire and What May Make It Queer? (2 weeks) Reading: Chapter 2 Activities: Again, the Issues for Investigation provide both individual work that can be done as homework, perhaps to be shared in small groups or with the class, and group activities. The term desire can be a thorny one, subject to lots of different uses; yet, as it (and its sometime synonym “attraction”) is foundational to almost any understanding of queer identity, I recommend working through this material over the course of at least two weeks. (Queer identity may refer to sexual orientation or gender expression, and the role of desire in the latter can be complex and may need extra attention, so as not to imply that the desire to be recognized as a gender different from the one assigned at birth is a fetish, an invention, or a choice.)

I also recommend assigning as outside viewing, and then using in excerpted form, films or videos that tell narratives of queer desire, such as Maurice, Brokeback Mountain, Desert Hearts, or Carol, to name just a few that embody dramas of how people experience passion, feeling, and attraction. Several of these films are based on novels or short stories, which may include scenes describing the interior experiences of characters as they feel desire; these feelings of desire may lead to the first sense of queer as an identity. You may wish to match films with novels—or to choose a film that shows queer desire and assign a different novel (memoirs often do this work well, too) to provide broader representation, either of gender or of the object or process of desire. The selection from Jane Hamilton’s The Short History of a Prince (included in the Appendix) does a powerful job of showing an adolescent experiencing queer desire on multiple levels—both his sense of himself as gay and the attraction he finds in the ballerina costume; the novel recognizes and acknowledges that his queerness may operate on multiple levels of desire.

Unit III: Queering Identity (8 weeks) Readings: Chapters 3–6 I suggest devoting at least two weeks to each of the chapters, making sure to go over them thoroughly and, depending on your goals and class composition, supplementing the textbook with books, essays, films, and other media to deepen the scope of the exploration of identity. In this era, in which not only does identity politics dominate much of public discourse, but there is a greater and more widespread acknowledgment of intersectionality, this material could well be the core of an introductory course in queer studies. The Suggestions for Further Reading and Viewing offer listings of books and other media that could be assigned, either whole or as excerpts, to provide more in‐depth study of both the interior experience of queer identity and the social placement of it. Memoirs are especially useful for this kind of work, as students respond to real‐life accounts as having significant authenticity—and, even though it is important to reinforce that any one memoir can speak only for the individual writer, they can be a good way to apply the broader themes, concepts, and ideas from these chapters, beyond the Spotlights contained in each. Depending on the students and the schedule, you may wish to have students read one memoir from each of the typical identity categories. Paul Monette’s Becoming a Man is an especially well‐written account of coming to gay male identity as an adolescent and young adult. If you wish to introduce students to ways in which pre‐liberation writers could nonetheless write about queer identity, some students will respond very positively to Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. (Some will find her style puzzling, and that can itself lead to the ways in which certain artistic and linguistic choices can tell stories of queer lives “hiding in plain sight.”) There are numerous trans memoirs being published each year: Janet Mock’s Redefining Realness is a pioneering one that students find accessible.

Other Topics (2 weeks) If you choose to focus on identity, you may wish to integrate all or parts of Chapter 12 throughout the semester. I also suggest choosing one, possibly two, of the Contexts chapters in Part III for students to situate the ways in which queer identity extends beyond individual selfhood to larger social situations. You could select “school,” as it is a site common and immediate for students, or “sociality,” as both family and friend networks are important sites in which identity is affirmed or contested. If there is time, it could be useful to divide the class into groups and have each group read and present the material in one of the chapters not discussed by the class as a whole. Assignments: Quizzes remain useful in this context, to monitor reading and comprehension. I have used this focus in a class whose work for evaluation has consisted of either take‐home exams or papers (usually with a general common purpose, but also allowing for individual choices), or some combination of the two.

Other Possible Course Foci:

Queerness and Society Queerness: National and Global Issues Queerness in Everyday Lives There might be still other course approaches for which this textbook can provide a framework, using books or individual articles and essays as more central assignments.

Henderson, Introduction to Queer Studies: Beyond Binaries Instructor’s Manual with Student Resources by Bruce Henderson

© 2019 by Harrington Park Press. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1: Queering Language: Words and Worlds

Instructor’s Resources

General Teaching Tips

Depending on how you choose to organize this course and how much time you wish to devote to each chapter, the material in this chapter could be covered in as little as a week (if emphasis is primarily on establishing working definitions for the central terms of queer identity) or could be the anchor for the first two or three weeks, should you want to emphasize the pragmatics of “queer speech.” My experience has been that untangling the historical and contemporary use of many of the terms (particularly the overall term queer and the terms that have emerged from the growing visibility of trans culture (such as trans and cis as prefixes) warrants at least a week. Students need both to establish a common vocabulary and to understand that language is always changing. As students, especially those getting involved in social activism, can understandably be sensitive to what they regard as “misuse” of terms, and others, approaching this subject for the first time, may find themselves unsure about accepted usage (and its fluidity across contexts and audiences) or even be afraid to reveal their ignorance or confusion. The principal examples of pragmatics, in the discussions of gayvoice and Polari, tend to fascinate students, the former often sparking impassioned arguments and debates, the latter a look into a history most have not even heard of.

Tips on How to Use the Spotlight

1. A vocabulary quiz on Polari can be a fun exercise, especially if it is made clear to students that there is no expectation that they will have truly memorized or mastered the language (and that it doesn’t count toward their course grade). It can also be a good jumping‐off point for a discussion of coded language—those students who belong to other minoritized identity groups (racial, class, regional, and so forth) may find equivalents to their own group experiences. The presentation of Polari also makes the point that groups, even when forced underground, find ways to communicate with each other. 2. There are commercially available recordings of the Julian and Sandy radio shows, which can be purchased on such sites as Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Round‐ Horne‐Complete‐Julian‐ Classic/dp/B01KU6GDJA/ref=sr_1_1?crid=21V6PP9A5WE1&keywords=julian+and+sandy &qid=1551287527&s=gateway&sprefix=julian+sandy%2Caps%2C129&sr=8‐1 is one such recording. In addition, there are a number of sources for spoken Polari available on the Internet, such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?y=4Lyem4hrZo, which discusses Polari as taught by Julian and Sandy. 3. If time permits, Polari might be compared to Nazdat, the teenager slang invented by Anthony Burgess for his novel A Clockwork Orange. Both selections from the novel and from Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film offer examples of the main character, Alex, engaging in code‐switching, not unlike Julian and Sandy. Students may find the link between the slang invented by teenagers for intragroup communication (which Burgess, in turn, devised by combining English and Russian) and the Polari used by gay British men.

Tips on How to Use the Issues for Investigation

1. The exercise in hierarchies of value is a useful one and can, if desired, occupy much of a class period. You may find it useful to break students into smaller groups, as they may understandably feel uncomfortable about saying some of the more offensive terms in front of an entire class. Needless to say, you will need to guide the discussion of the hierarchies of terms carefully and sensitively, reminding students that they are using the terms for the purpose of academic analysis and should not assume that it is acceptable to use many of them in general conversation. 2. The Polari conversation is an especially good activity if you find you have students in the class skilled in performance, acting, communication, literature, or languages. You might ask some students to prepare brief conversations outside class, and then have them present them to the class and see if other students can summarize what was discussed.

Tips for Making the Most of the Suggestions for Further Reading and Viewing

The documentary Do I Sound Gay? is widely available and worth asking your library to purchase. Either having students view it outside class on their own or showing selected excerpts can help get the discussion of “gayvoice” going—students can debate whether there is anything intrinsically gay about the vocal patterns displayed in the film. This can also be supplemented with examples from popular culture, especially such situation comedies as Will and Grace and Modern Family, where exaggerated examples of gayvoice may provide opportunity for close analysis and broader discussion of the foundation of stereotypes.

In addition to the extended examples of Polari provided by the Julian and Sandy recordings, listed in the Suggestions for Further Reading and Viewing, there are other sources of Polari in media, which are listed here, to allow the instructor to introduce the students to them on the spot, so the class gets the sense of being thrown into or immersed in a language they do not know, as they might in more traditional language classes. Both clips from the film Velvet Goldmine and the music of Morrissey provide more contemporary examples for students. The short film Putting on the Dish, written expressly to provide an example of men using Polari, can be found at https://vimeo.com/125398425.

The books by Leap (Beyond the Lavender Lexicon), Livia and Hall (Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality), and Zimman et al. (Queer Excursions: Retheorizing Binaries in Language, Gender, and Sexuality) are all reasonably accessible scholarly books for those students (and teachers) who wish to explore some of the more technical and specific aspects of queer linguistics.

Student Resources

Key Terms

To test your knowledge, define the term aloud and then put the cursor over the word, hit the ctrl key, and click simultaneously. This will jump you to the definition.

Linguistics Diachronic/synchronic Homosexual Hate speech Ladder of abstraction Gay Lesbian Compulsory heterosexuality Bisexual Trans+/trans* Transgender Cisgender Questioning Intersex Hermaphrodite Allies Asexual/aromantic/agender Androgynous Nonbinary Gayvoice Gaydar Code‐switching

Chapter Outline I. Queer Linguistics II. LGBTQIA+: Alphabet Soup or Little Boxes? a. Gay b. Lesbian c. Bisexual d. Transgender (and cisgender) e. Questioning f. Intersex g. A—allies and A‐’s III. Pragmatics of Language Use a. Gayvoice b. Code‐switching IV. Spotlight: Polari V. Issues for Investigation a. Hierarchies of terms b. Speaking and learning Polari

Learning Objectives

By the end of the chapter you should be able to: 1. Explain the history of the word queer, both as a category of identity and as an adjective and verb. 2. Explain the different terms in the acronym LGBTQIA+ and identify the issues surrounding each from social and political perspectives. 3. Apply the concept of queering as an act of perspective taking and apply it to a range of social and cultural texts, artifacts, and issues. 4. Explain what gayvoice refers to, name some of the attributes often associated with it, and recognize the potential conflicts and arguments about it as either a natural or a learned aspect of voice and presentation. 5. Trace the origins of the phenomenon called Polari and recognize a few of the terms.

Chapter Summary

 Linguists are scholars who study language from a scientific perspective. Diachronic linguists study changes in language that occur across historical periods; synchronic linguists study variations in usage within a single time period.  The word queer originally meant “strange” or “odd.” For much of the twentieth century, it referred to nonheterosexual people (especially men) and carried stigmatizing connotations. Since the late 1980s, the word has been reclaimed by people who wish to name their identity in a way that focuses on a spectrum of ways of being nonheteronormative and often non‐cisgender (either transgender or nonbinary or gender fluid).  Each of the terms in the acronym LGBTQIA+ has its own history and its own set of variable meanings, depending on who is using the term and which aspects of their identity they are choosing to focus on.  Cisgender is a comparatively recent term, used to identify those individuals whose gender identity matches the gender they were assigned at birth.  Gayvoice is a much‐debated concept; the idea is that there are vocal characteristics that are recognizable among many gay men (often across different languages and regions). There are those who argue that such a vocal phenomenon seems to arise from early childhood on and may be an innate characteristic; others argue that it is a learned phenomenon, through imitation of either other children or adults whom gender‐ nonconforming children imitate or identify with. Much less is known about the vocal patterns of lesbians’ speech, and virtually no research has been done on the voices of bisexual or intersex people.  Polari was a dialect or form of slang that emerged within communities of what today would be described as gay men in the United Kingdom throughout the twentieth century. It combines aspects of a number of different groups, such as gay men, prostitutes, actors and other theater artists, the Roma people, and so forth. It was most frequently used as a way for gay men to communicate with each other, especially in situations where disclosing gay identity publicly would have put the individuals at risk.  Code‐switching generally refers to the act of people who belong to minoritized groups (such as those distinguished by race, ethnicity, sexual identity, gender expression, certain professions, and economic and social class) to move between the kinds of formal use of language they speak in the professional and public spheres and “in‐group” language and grammar used by members of their group. Polari was one form of code‐ switching; there are other, less overt ways queer people may engage in code‐switching.

Key Term Definitions

Linguistics: The scientific study of language. Diachronic/synchronic: Two approaches to linguistics; diachronic refers to the study of language across time periods; synchronic refers to the study of language within a particular era or time span. Homosexual: Used as either a noun or an adjective; in both cases it refers to people or acts that involve same‐sex attraction in a sexual and/or romantic dimension. Hate speech: In speech act theory, especially as elaborated by Judith Butler, speech that expresses hate toward particular groups and motivates or incites violence and discrimination against them, and has, some believe, the same force as physical violence against them. Ladder of abstraction: A theoretical structure developed by the linguist S. I. Hayakawa that focuses on semantic (word meaning) differences ranging from most abstract to most concrete use of a word or term. Gay: In its most specific usage in queer studies, it is most frequently used to describe homosexually identified men; it also is sometimes used as a synonym for anyone who is attracted to their own gender or sex. It is more commonly used as an adjective (as in “gay man”) but has been used as a noun, though not as frequently today by people who themselves identify as gay (they prefer to use it as an adjective, when they use it); much less frequent is the term “gay woman,” which some individuals use to assert a kind of solidarity or community with homosexual people of all genders. Lesbian: Most commonly used, either as a noun or an adjective, to identify women who are attracted—sexually, romantically, or both—to other women; in second‐wave feminism, women who were themselves attracted to men but who felt political and social sympathy with other women sometimes described themselves as “political lesbians.” Compulsory heterosexuality: A concept coined by the lesbian poet and critic Adrienne Rich that argues that citizens in a heteronormative society are essentially forced by social pressures to participate in supporting values and structures that assume heterosexuality to be the default category and any other to be deviant (whether in a neutral or pathological sense). Bisexual: Used as noun and adjective, it refers to individuals whose own description of sexual orientation (sexual and/or romantic attraction) involves the possibility of attraction to both men and women; some contemporary theorists suggest that pansexual may be a growing substitute for the term bisexual, which, at least linguistically, if not in actual practice or felt subjectivity, appears to divide the world into two discrete genders. Trans+/trans*: Abbreviations designed to encompass all the possible variations that might be considered under the umbrella concept of trans identity and culture, not limited solely to transgender. Transgender: Refers to individuals who experience a disjuncture between their bodily appearance and their own interior and social sense of gender; probably the most widely used of the terms with the prefix trans‐. Cisgender: Refers to people who experience their bodily appearance and their socially assigned (typically at birth) gender to be in alignment with each other. Questioning: Used to describe individuals who experience themselves as in the process of investigating whether their currently assumed or assigned sexual orientation or gender identity is the one that they feel most accurately describes their sense of an authentic self. Intersex: Refers to any organism (including humans) that possesses biological sexual characteristics of both male and female members of the species; there is considerable variation across people classified under this term, ranging from people with multiple sets of organs to those with genetic anomalies. Hermaphrodite: In biological science, the term used to describe an organism that possesses some or all of the sexual/reproductive organs of male and female of a species; as a term applied to human beings, it is a now‐archaic (i.e., no longer used or accepted) term to describe people who today are more typically classified as intersex—having either ambiguous sexual organs or sexual organs of both male and female bodies. The term originated in Greek myth, combining the names of two gods, one male (Hermes), one female (Aphrodite). Asexual: A term with multiple uses; in biology, it is generally used to identify organisms that lack reproductive or sexual organs; in queer studies, it is used to describe people who identify as having no sexual desire or attraction. Such people may experience romantic attraction, and they may engage in sexual activities, often to provide pleasure for their partners; there are many gradations within the larger “ace” culture (which also include such identities as aromantic, agender, demisexual, and so forth). Allies: Refers to individuals and groups of people who, while not identifying as either queer or LGBTQ+, support the lives and rights of people who do identify as queer or LGBTQ+. Androgynous: Describes people whose experience of gender involves traits typically associated with both men and women, or, put another way, whose gender identity involves a sense of self as both masculine and feminine (though not necessarily to equal degrees). Nonbinary: Describes people whose gender identity does not place them in the socially traditional categories of masculinity and femininity; it is different from androgynous in that nonbinary people are more likely to eschew any kind of sense of themselves as masculine or feminine (or both), but to find gender itself an irrelevant category in expressing who they are. Gayvoice: A phenomenon experienced by some speakers (mostly male) and listeners that consists of vocal patterns (such as phrasing, intonation and pitch variation, and articulation of specific sounds) that seem to identify the speaker as gay. Some linguists see the concept of gayvoice as a kind of folk theory, not based in observable, statistically significant data; for those who do grant it legitimacy as a linguistic feature, there is debate about whether it is innate (i.e., present from an early age, say, when a child—almost always a boy—begins to talk) or learned (either imitating or absorbing the speech and vocal characteristics of those around them or to which they are exposed in media and other aspects of the public sphere). Gaydar: The alleged ability of some people, highly contested and never scientifically validated, to identify queer and LGBT+ people without being told that such people identify in one of these categories. Some see it as a kind of pseudoscientific gift or talent, and others view it as a learned skill (based on observation and interaction); both queer and non‐queer people may claim to possess gaydar. Code‐switching: A general term in linguistics used to describe the social practice by people of various minoritized groups (distinguished by race, class, ethnic, sexuality, ability, and so on) in moving between formal language used in public situations (such as work, governmental, political, and other forums) and a more coded way of speaking (which may involve different grammatical and syntactic structures, sound and phonological characteristics, and semantically variable words and phrases) when in the presence of an “inner” group; in queer studies, the use of standard British English and Polari in different situations by gay men in twentieth‐century England provides a vivid example of code‐switching.

Henderson, Introduction to Queer Studies: Beyond Binaries Instructor’s Manual with Student Resources by Bruce Henderson

© 2019 by Harrington Park Press. All rights reserved.

Chapter 2: Queering Desire: Knowing “Feeling”

Instructor’s Resources

General Teaching Tips

One of the central challenges for any instructor setting out to teach a course on queer studies is finding a way to establish a common ground about what unites sometimes very disparate populations. In the early years of what we now call gay liberation (immediately pre‐ and post‐ Stonewall), most might agree that sexual/romantic attraction to members of one’s own sex was the defining characteristic. With the addition of transgender to the LGB acronym, as well as the expansion of the meaning of the term queer, this became more complicated. Therefore, rather than use attraction, I have opted to use desire, as that term may be seen as covering a wider range of affective (feeling) territory, from traditional notions of sexual desire to a more complicated set of emotions and responses to gender (one’s own and that of other people). It is also a word that has more widespread currency in various academic disciplines, from the humanities to the social sciences, and therefore may be of greater familiarity or value to students who come from different fields of study.

Tips on How to Use the Spotlight

1. There has been a revival of interest in recent years in the significance of 1968 as a watershed year in all kinds of ways, from the student riots in Paris to the Democratic convention in Chicago. It is useful, before beginning to focus on the writings of Hocquenghem and Mieli, to review with the students what, in addition to the emergence of gay liberation, was happening during and around that year. Certainly, the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War, while not immediately tied to gay liberation, is worth considering: the protests against it and the historical view of it as an unpopular and perhaps unjust war might profitably be tied to issues of social injustice and resistance to normative ideologies that the works of Hocquenghem and Mieli speak to in terms of sexuality. Similarly, consider what was going on in the Civil Rights movement at this time—how was it similar to and different from the gay liberation movement? 2. Depending on the level at which the course is being offered, you may decide to provide the students with some brief primary excerpts from both these writers. While, needless to say, such books are better read in their entirety, their prose can be rather theoretically daunting (and complicated by issues of translation), so a small sample might be best. The Mieli work has recently come back into print, which should make it easily available. If you do decide to assign any sections of the primary texts, I recommend devoting class time to a close reading with the students of the passages you have assigned. For some, backgrounds in political science and philosophy will allow them to make immediate connections; those without such backgrounds are likely to need more assistance. 3. To help students place their own college experiences in analogous contexts, I recommend such books as Donald Alexander Downs’s Cornell ’69: Liberalism and the Crisis of the American University (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012). You may find the archives of your own institution can provide a rich set of documents about this period on your campus. Ask students how the campus protests and activism in the 1960s and 1970s are similar to and different from student social and political involvement today. What has changed—and what has stayed the same?

Tips on How to Use the Issues for Investigation

1. I strongly recommend showing the “Origins of Love” excerpt from the film Hedwig and the Angry Inch, as well as reading the selection from Plato’s Symposium, as a “safe” way into discussions of desire. The Hedwig film, while it may raise complex discussions about trans identity (and often useful and productive ones), is lively and has a kind of language and mind‐set students may relate to more easily than to the Plato excerpt, so it could prove more helpful to look at Hedwig first. Because both texts are produced by (presumably) cisgender white men (Mitchell and Trask are publicly gay; the term is less historically relevant in considering the men of Plato’s dialogue), this should be acknowledged and space be opened for mythic narratives from other cultures and traditions as well. 2. The sexual fluidity exercise needs to be approached with special care and sensitivity. Some students will be eager to discuss these complicated and often blurred regions of desire (whether erotic/romantic or friendship) and to provide specific examples from their own lives; others may prefer to do this work on their own, with the explicit understanding that they may use pseudonyms for people in their lives, that they are guaranteed privacy (i.e., if you ask them to write on the issue, the disclosures will be kept confidential between you and the student), and that they may opt out of formal submission (either in class discussion or in written form). If you choose to make this an issue raised primarily for class discussion, asking for volunteers to share their thoughts is probably safest—and there are usually at least a few students quite willing to speak from their own experiences.

Tips for Making the Most of the Suggestions for Further Reading and Viewing 1. Because what has been written about queer desire has typically come from either Marxist or psychoanalytic perspectives (or a combination of both), the Suggestions for this chapter may be more challenging than some others. The essay by John D’Emilio, an important queer scholar with decades of teaching undergraduates, is one of the more accessible ones and could also be supplemented by other writings by this historian. Also, the primary document, the letter from Freud to the mother of a homosexual man, is worth a close, shared class reading. 2. Though Hedwig and the Angry Inch is the only film listed here, you will probably be able to draw up your own list of suggestions, including such notable and familiar titles as Brokeback Mountain, Moonlight, and the series The L Word, just to name a few. You may find that current television series are familiar and more immediately accessible for your students in considering the nature of desire. Even having them look at series or films focused on heterosexual desire may be a useful “way in,” depending on the demographics of your class.

Student Resources

Key Terms

To test your knowledge, define the term aloud and then put the cursor over the word, hit the ctrl key, and click simultaneously. This will jump you to the definition.

Desire Interpellation Id, ego, and superego Eros and thanatos Oedipal complex Reparative therapy Exotic becomes erotic Capitalism Sexual fluidity Romantic attraction (Diamond) Concordant/discordant

Chapter Outline

I. Desire: “The Spirit’s Wings” or “That Fiery Sadness”? II. (Homo)Sexual Desire: A Specific Category or a “Queer” Variation on Desire in General? a. Plato’s Symposium b. Hedwig and the Angry Inch III. A Few Theories of Queer Desire a. Psychological and psychoanalytic theories 1. Freudian 2. reparative theory 3. Bem and “exotic becomes erotic” b. Sociopolitical Theories: Freud meets Marx 1. capitalism and queer production/consumption IV. Spotlight on History: 1968 and Beyond a. Guy Hocquenghem b. Mario Mieli V. Sexual Fluidity: Desire and Romance a. Lisa Diamond: romantic attraction and erotic desire b. Concordant/discordant desire(s) VI. Issues for Investigation a. The origins of love b. Sexual fluidity in your community

Learning Objectives

By the end of the chapter you should be able to: 1. Explain multiple uses of the term desire and provide multiple examples of each. 2. Explain what Althusser meant by interpellation and hailing, and make connections to issues of desire, especially queer desire. 3. Recognize and explain both of the mythological stories drawn from Plato’s dialogues that explain the nature and ethics of desire and love. 4. Provide examples of a range of psychological theories of queer desire, including those put forward by Sigmund Freud, Daryl Bem, and Lisa Diamond. 5. Make connections between the emergence of capitalism as an economic system and its relevance to queer desire. 6. Summarize the contributions of Guy Hocquenghem and Mario Mieli to gay liberation theory. 7. Explain why 1968 was a pivotal year both in radical activism in general and in the emergence of gay liberation specifically. 8. Explain Lisa Diamond’s theory of sexual fluidity among women.

Chapter Summary

 Desire is a contested and variable concept in general and has a range of possible meanings when applied to sexual feelings.  Desire carries with it both positive and negative connotations, as well as ethical dimensions in terms of responsibility and questions of what is “good” and what is “beauty.”  Plato, through his characterization of his teacher, Socrates, explored the meanings and origins of love, both in his dialogue Phaedrus, which uses the image of the noble rider and the two horses, and the Symposium, which imagines the origins of love in the splitting of two‐bodied humans, each now searching for his or her other half.  Sigmund Freud pioneered psychological and psychoanalytic theories of sexual development and orientation. He believed homosexuality was a result of arrested development, but he also believed it to be unchangeable and morally neutral.  Freud’s tripart theory of the personality (id, ego, superego), his theory of drives (eros and thanatos), and his analysis of what he termed the Oedipal complex are all part of his theories of sexual development.  Reparative therapists believe that sexual orientation can be changed through behavioral and talk therapy; there are no data to support their claims.  Daryl J. Bem presented a theory he called “exotic becomes erotic,” arguing that, while there is no evidence for a “gay gene,” there are genetic components to personality type, which may lead a gender‐nonconforming child to feel different from their gender peers, and, hence, view them as exotic, which leads, in adolescence and adulthood, to same‐ sex erotic desire.  Capitalism emerged as a result of industrialization in nineteenth‐century western Europe and North America; this economic system both produced “desires” (for consumption of goods) and used the varied desires of citizens and, hence, is part of Marxist and socialist theories of queer sexual desire.  The year 1968 proved to be important on many social and political fronts, in part because of student riots in Europe and civil uprisings in the United States; from this activity emerged more open political activism and theorizing about queer desire, as the writings of Guy Hocquenghem and Mario Mieli suggest.  The psychologist Lisa Diamond has done longitudinal research that argues that, in women at least, there are two dimensions for attraction (i.e., desire): romantic and erotic. They may both be directed at the same gender/sex category (concordant) or they may be divided (discordant). This, she argues, accounts for what is often called “sexual fluidity.”

Key Term Definitions

Desire: The state or action of wanting something or someone; in queer studies, the word is most frequently used to mean a state of attraction to another person or a category or group of people, or a particular erotic attribute or activity. Interpellation: in Althusser’s Marxist‐inflected political philosophy, the process by which individual members of a society are “hailed” (Althusser’s verb) as members of the body politic and are in a sense given messages about behavior and attitudes that are appropriate for members of that sociopolitical unit. Id, ego, and superego: The three components of Freud’s model of personality: id refers to often unconscious, primitive, and childlike desires, unmediated in their purest state by consciousness or society; ego refers to the conscious part of the personality; superego refers to that part of the self that is constituted from outside regulating social forces and is often used for prescriptive moral rules and standards. Eros and thanatos: The two components of Freud’s drive theory: eros refers to the life force, as exemplified in erotic and romantic directedness; thanatos refers to the death drive, Freud’s belief that humans are always aware of and, at some level, desirous of death or cessation of being. Oedipal complex: The keystone in Freud’s theory of sexual development, based on the Greek myth of Oedipus; in Freudian theory, little boys face a development crisis in which they are attracted to their mothers and wish symbolically to kill (by erasure) their fathers; Freud believed that normal male sexual development involved boys ultimately rejecting their mothers as sexual objects of desire and identifying with their fathers, and he saw homosexuality as, in part, a failure to complete this process; his analogy for women in what is called the Electra complex, though the mechanism is not completely equivalent. Reparative therapy: Sometimes called conversion therapy, discredited by all major psychological and psychiatric associations, this form of therapy seeks to “repair” the “wound” of homosexuality, often by conditioning and religious proselytizing. Exotic becomes erotic: A theory of sexual orientation presented by the psychologist Daryl J. Bem, who argued that, while there is no evidence of a gene that accounts for sexual orientation, there is a genetic basis for personality types and activity preferences, which may lead children, in early stages of identity formation, to view their same‐sex playmates as “exotic” (different from themselves categorically), and, when they become sexually aware, they find themselves erotically attracted to their own sex. Capitalism: An economic system based on private ownership of property and production of goods and services controlled by the owners of property; often used to describe the political ideology and governmental practices that accompany such a system. Sexual fluidity: A term popularized by the lesbian psychologist Lisa Diamond to describe the variability of sexual attraction and desire, particularly regarding the binary structure of male and female partners; Diamond bases her theory in distinctions between sexual desire and romantic attraction. Romantic attraction: Attraction grounded in emotional desire and positive feelings, rather than purely sexual, physical, or erotic ones; romantic attraction may align with sexual attraction, but it need not necessarily do so, according to the findings of the lesbian psychologist Lisa Diamond. Concordant/discordant: In most general terms, these simply refer to sameness or differentness between two phenomena; in queer studies, they are often used to refer to whether romantic and sexual attraction are categorically congruent (i.e., an individual feels both forms of attraction for the same general category, such as men or women) or in opposition or at least different (romantic attraction toward one of the traditionally named genders, sexual attraction toward the other); in discourse about HIV/AIDS, they are sometimes used to describe whether the serostatus (i.e., the presence or absence of HIV in the blood) of partners is the same (e.g., positive‐positive or negative‐negative) or different (negative‐positive).

Henderson, Introduction to Queer Studies: Beyond Binaries Instructor’s Manual with Student Resources by Bruce Henderson

© 2019 by Harrington Park Press. All rights reserved.

Chapter 3: Queering Identities: From “I” to “We”

Instructor’s Resources

General Teaching Tips

It is recommended that you teach this chapter together with the following one. The material has been divided into two chapters to make it more manageable, but, in terms of the umbrella term queer, they constitute one chapter. The decision to focus on LGB identities and trans and intersex ones in the next chapter is based both on historical emergence of each set of identities as social and political positions and on the potentially arguable distinction between identities that are defined primarily by the gender/sex category of the desired object on the one hand, and the bodily nonnormativity on the other. While the chapters do clarify that these are categorical distinctions that will not always be true for each individual (or even for groups within socially labeled categories), you would do well to check frequently that the students recognize that trans people, for example, may also identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or straight, and that being cisgender does not necessarily mean that such individuals do not either support trans issues or find themselves somewhere on a continuum from “absolutely cis” to “absolutely trans” (if such polarities ever exist outside abstract discussions). Just as the goal of the book as a whole is to challenge and think beyond binaries, so the categories of identity, useful as heuristic tools, also need to be questioned and understood as permeable and contingent.

Tips on How to Use the Spotlight

1. The excerpt from Jane Hamilton’s novel is fairly self‐contained, and it provides you and your students with an opportunity to do some close reading of a text. You may find it a valuable use of time to read (or have students read) the section aloud, as Hamilton’s language captures the drama of the discovery of Walter by his homophobic male dance teacher and the interior life of Walter as he uses the costumed cross‐dressing (as it would have been perceived during the time in which the novel is set and in the highly gender‐polarized world of classical ballet) as a way into exploring his own sexual identity. (He does not, in the rest of the novel, engage in any other instances of dressing in what is traditionally considered female clothing, nor does he question his own gender identity.) You can guide students to particular words and phrases Hamilton so carefully chooses to show the reader how Walter is feeling and how a man who himself may be in the closet operates. 2. Eve Sedgwick’s work on the “epistemology of the closet,” referred to in this chapter, could profitably be applied to this selection and could lead to a broader discussion of “the closet” in the experience and perceptions of students. Again, you might have students discuss—either drawing on their own experiences or using observations of public figures—whether they think the closet continues to exist and whether it ever serves a positive function (such as safety and survival). 3. This excerpt could be discussed usefully as a case study for applying both Erikson’s and Gill’s identity development models. While having the whole novel as context would be ideal, there is still much that can be said, particularly comparatively, about where Walter is in either Erikson’s stage model or Gill’s cultural model. Where do they overlap? 4. If you are looking to supplement the textbook with a few individual book‐length texts, you might consider assigning Hamilton’s entire novel. It could be useful in discussing queerness and class, queerness and education, and queerness and the arts. A subplot involving Walter’s infatuation with a male friend might not only resonate with experiences of adolescent desire the students may have experienced (or may continue to experience), but also raise issues of both fluidity and of the romantic/erotic dimensions Diamond discusses. Another plot strand follows the illness and subsequent death of Walter’s brother, a heterosexual young adult, and it could be the basis for comparing and contrasting queerness and disability as either parallel or intersecting categories of identity and experience. Hamilton’s novel Disobedience also features a memorable subplot involving a cross‐dressing, possibly trans young woman who participates in Civil War reenactments. Her novel When Madeline Was Young includes descriptions of sexual desire and activity among people with intellectual disabilities, which could be useful if your class considers the intersection of queerness and disability, particularly in the chapter on queerness and health: Is disability itself a “queering” factor for any sexual identity or activity, in that it involves nonnormative bodies and minds?

Tips on How to Use the Issues for Investigation

1. Savin‐Williams’s types of bisexuality, while published more than a decade ago, are worth revisiting, even if (perhaps especially if) students find much to critique in both his categories and the assumptions implied in his typology. Some students, for example, may resist those parts of his typology that suggest that bisexuality may be a transitory identity, less firmly stable and permanent than other sexual identities. (I would note that Savin‐Williams is not arguing that there are not forms of bisexuality that have the same sense of permanence as other sexual identities, and his recent work has focused on young men whose sexual fluidity may take multiple forms, including an identity as heterosexual, but activity that is same‐sex and “bromantic.”) This activity can also lead to valuable discussion of the concept of bi‐erasure, and the degree to which a typology such as Savin‐Williams’s tries to provide more visibility for bi experience and may also contribute to stereotypical assumptions about bi identity. 2. The activity applying Erikson’s stage model to queer life is intended to ask students to try to apply a model that, though itself the subject of critique, they may have been introduced to in a previous psychology or health class, and to see whether it is relevant to nonheteronormative life narratives. While Erikson does not explicitly limit his model’s relevance to a heterosexual life narrative, students may see assumptions in it that are different for queer people. You might have them try to devise their own adaptations of Erikson’s model. Note: the same could be done for Gill’s cultural integration model, though it does come out of a period and a mind‐set that do not assume heterosexuality as a norm and, in its language of coming out, already nods to queerness. Still, while students may be familiar with the concept of coming out in queer identities, Gill’s expansion to other forms of “coming _____” may inspire students to find parallels in queer cultural identity formation.

Tips for Making the Most of the Suggestions for Further Reading and Viewing

1. Given the amount of material you may wish to cover in class, devoting class time to screening entire films and videos may not be practical. You might check to see if your library is able to put such films and videos on a digital class site that would allow you to assign viewing as homework. If this is not feasible, it might be useful to screen individual scenes in which characters come out in various situations and contexts, such as to family, at work, in school, or elsewhere. You might try to include a range of different time periods, gender and sexuality categories, and cultural and racial categories. 2. Coming out and queer identity formation are often depicted through the lenses of the white gaze, and it would be useful to provide some examples of how the coming‐out process may take different forms or have different challenges for other racial or cultural groups. Big Eden, while in many respects a romantic, utopian depiction of queer acceptance, prominently features a Native American queer man in a central role; Moonlight, a film many of your students may know because of its Academy Award for Best Picture, depicts the ongoing challenges of queer men both in the closet and as they begin to come out in African American communities.

Student Resources

Key Terms

To test your knowledge, define the term aloud and then put the cursor over the word, hit the ctrl key, and click simultaneously. This will jump you to the definition. Identity Intersectionality Stage model (Erikson) Integration model (Gill) Coming out Adolescence The closet Monosexual “Ace” (asexual, etc.)

Chapter Outline

I. Identity and Intersectionality II. Erikson’s Stage Model of Identity Development a. Hopes: trust vs. mistrust b. Will: autonomy vs. shame c. Purpose: initiative vs. guilt d. Competence: industry vs. inferiority e. Fidelity: identity vs. role confusion f. Love: intimacy vs. isolation g. Care: generativity vs. stagnation h. Wisdom: ego integrity vs. despair III. Gill and Integration in Identity Development a. “Coming to feel we belong” (integrating into society) b. “Coming home” (integrating with the community) c. “Coming together” (internally integrating our sameness and differentness) d. “Coming out” (integrating how we feel with how we present ourselves) IV. Coming Out as LGB a. The closet and coming out b. Sedgwick: the closet as metaphor and phenomenon c. Adams: coming in, being closeted, coming out V. Spotlight on Literature: Jane Hamilton and The Short History of a Prince VI. Models of Coming Out a. Troiden/Floyd/Bakeman 1. early stage of sensitization 2. identity confusion in adolescence 3. identity assumption 4. final stage of identity commitment 5. disclosure to others b. Cass 1. identity confusion 2. identity comparison 3. identity tolerance 4. identity acceptance 5. identity pride 6. identity synthesis c. Rosario et al. 1. involvement in gay or lesbian activities 2. attitudes toward homosexuality 3. comfort with homosexuality 4. self‐disclosure of sexual identity to others 5. sexual identity d. Savin‐Williams on Milestones for Young Gay Men 1. In childhood, felt different from other boys 2. At or during puberty, childhood differences become translated into sexual feelings 3. Sexualization of attraction but not of identity 4. Boys may have had girlfriends in a romantic sense but did not feel much sexual desire for them 5. First gay sexual experience typically within a year of labeling themselves as gay 6. Also had heterosexual sexual experiences 7. Breakdown of period when identified themselves as gay 8. First gay romance on average around age eighteen VII. Asexuality: An Emerging Identity VIII. Issues for Investigation a. Bisexualities b. Applying Erikson to queer identity development

Learning Objectives:

By the end of the chapter you should be able to: 1. Explain what identity is and how it is related to intersectionality. 2. Explain the stages of Erikson’s Stage Model of Identity Development and apply them (particularly Stages 5–7) to queer identities. 3. Explain Gill’s Cultural Integration Model of Identity Development and apply it to queer cultural identity. 4. Explain why some lesbian theorists argue that lesbian identity may, for some women, be a choice, rather than an innate characteristic. 5. Explain what “the closet” refers to and apply it to social and individual situations. 6. Compare and contrast multiple models of coming out. 7. Explain asexuality as a distinct set of sexual identities and identify some of the basic precepts that describe or define it. 8. Identify and analyze Savin‐Williams’s milestones of the development of young gay men. 9. Identify and critique Savin‐Williams’s typology of bisexualities.

Chapter Summary

 Identity politics refers to a system of beliefs and practices in which the multiple categories by which we know and name ourselves (and by which we are known and named) have an effect on issues of power and justice.  Identity is always intersectional, constructed of multiple, simultaneous categories, whose intersection produces unique experiences and conditions.  Erik Erikson’s Stage Model of Identity Development has been used to describe the series of challenges most people face in particular periods of the life span. Stages 5 through 7 have been of particular interest to scholars of queer identity.  Carol Gill’s Cultural Integration Model of Identity Development, first used to describe the experience of people with disabilities, is a type model, in which the different categories of experience need not occur sequentially and may overlap and intersect.  Coming out is a phrase coined in the twentieth century to describe the process of identifying to oneself and to others one’s identity, usually when an aspect of it (such as sexual orientation or gender expression) is not visible or apparent.  “The closet” has been a strategy for withholding disclosure of sexual identity. Adams’s model suggests that the individual typically chooses to “come in” before living a closeted existence; this may be followed by choosing to come out.  There are multiple models of coming out, including Troiden’s five‐step model, Cass’s six stages, and Rosario et al.’s “sexual health” model.  Ritch Savin‐Williams found, as a result of interviews with young gay men, there were a number of common milestones that marked their development of a gay identity.  Some scholars, such as Carla Golden, Vera Whisman, and Barbara Ponse, have found that, for some women, lesbian identity may be viewed as a choice, often political in nature, rather than an innate characteristic.  Asexuality is an emerging identity and viewed, by those who claim it, not as a transitory situation, but as an authentic, stable identity.

Key Term Definitions

Identity: A term with wide and variable meanings and usage, generally referring to the structure of characteristics, both individual and social, by which people view themselves as beings in the world, and which may be imposed on them by social groups and cultures. It can include such elements as sexual orientation, class, race and ethnicity, disability, nationality, and so forth. In some contexts, identity discourse may focus on where an individual fits into one domain, such as sexual orientation; in others, it is the intersection of multiple facets or categories that is being described. Intersectionality: A term that emerged in critical race/law theory to describe living simultaneously in multiple identity categories (such as the intersections of race and sexuality) and the historical and judicial (and other) implications of occupying the intersectional position. Stage model (Erikson): A model of psychological development that views the individual as moving through different stages toward attainment of a full sense of self (usually conceding that any sense of absolute completion is unlikely); Erikson’s may be the most familiar and famous, and it argues that individuals all go through the same set of stages, marked as crises between two possible states of being, though when and how each person achieves completion of the stage vary. Integration model (Gill): A model of personality and cultural development based on the self’s becoming integrated into a group larger than the individual; Gill’s model focuses on how people with disabilities “come to” identification with disability culture. In this textbook, the argument is made that the same model has validity for coming to a culturally queer identity. Coming out: The process or processes by which individuals (sometimes groups of people) who identify as members of a minoritized group, usually one that is not necessarily visible, disclose their hitherto closeted identity. This is often viewed and described as an ongoing process: people may come out in different contexts at different times and may come out multiple times about different aspects of their identity (such as coming out as queer and coming out as disabled). Adolescence: The social and psychological life stage between childhood and adulthood; it is analogous to but not synonymous with puberty. The closet: A metaphoric image mapping out a social and often psychological space in which people of various typically stigmatized or devalued identities hide such identities and do not disclose them publicly. Monosexual: An adjective used to describe individuals whose sexual orientation is directed at one of the two traditionally defined binary sexes; someone who is monosexual can be either heterosexual or homosexual—but not bisexual or pansexual. “Ace” (asexual, etc.): An umbrella term, derived from asexual, to refer to a cluster of sexual identities that are best described by the absence of a particular set of emotions (such as “aromantic”), orientation (such as “asexual”), or gender expression or identification (such as “agender”). The term may also include various gradations (such as “demisexual”) that demarcate either particular degrees of sexual or romantic attraction or certain conditions under which sexual or romantic attraction may occur for individuals.

Henderson, Introduction to Queer Studies: Beyond Binaries Instructor’s Manual with Student Resources by Bruce Henderson

© 2019 by Harrington Park Press. All rights reserved.

Chapter 4: Queering Bodies: Transgender and Intersex Lives

Instructor’s Resources

General Teaching Tips

As suggested in the Instructor’s Resources in the previous chapter, it is strongly recommended that this chapter be taught in conjunction with Chapter 3. Together they constitute a survey of the major categories of queer identity (as represented by the LGBTQIA acronym). By teaching them in succession, you can not only make the point that inclusion is an important issue in queer studies, but also tease out for and from students ways in which some categorically different identities may have different emphases, challenges, and experiences. Critical to this chapter is both the lived experience and theoretical construction of the “body” as a physical and social (and cultural) concept. Again, care needs to be taken to make sure that the emphasis on issues of the body in this chapter do not create false divisions between the various identity categories, nor that sexual orientation and gender expression are not related to each other. Similarly, as both trans and intersex identities are often not visible, it is important that you not make assumptions about the students that are based on outward appearance.

Tips on How to Use the Spotlight

1. The two case studies in this chapter are drawn from the history of trans and intersex lives in the twentieth century. This is intentional, to help students recognize that such individuals have existed since before more current terms such as transgender and intersex were even coined. While the Spotlight provides sufficient historical context for students to make sense of the experiences of both Lili Elbe and Christine Jorgensen, you would do well to provide more information; Jorgensen is represented in film and video clips. 2. Lili Elbe provides an interesting and instructive example of how complex and inextricable the “neat” categories of identity can be and how our own historical distance and scientific knowledge may change the lenses through which we view and interpret such lives. It is worth discussing whether Elbe’s narrative shifts in our minds when we learn that, unbeknown to herself and to her doctors until her surgeries, she had a nonfunctioning set of ovaries inside—which may make hers a story of unknown and unacknowledged intersex life, as well as a pioneering one for transgender people. Again, this conversation needs to be a careful and extended one, as we don’t want students to make any leaps to concluding that trans and intersex identities are the same or that biology is the simple determinant of categories. 3. Discussion of these two important historical figures can lead productively to discussion of more familiar public figures today, such as Jazz Jennings, Alexis Arquette, and the Wachowskis.

Tips on How to Use the Issues for Investigation

1. Queer Spaces: Your Experiences: This activity is one that can be done individually or in pairs or small groups. It is also an opportunity for you to send students out to do some introductory field observation. If you live in a location that has either well‐defined or implicitly understood “queer spaces,” it may be valuable to ask students to visit them and do some nonintrusive observation. If you do decide to add a fieldwork dimension to this activity, make sure to brief students on some basic ethical aspects of this kind of work: preserve confidentiality of those who inhabit such spaces; when feasible, introduce themselves and explain why they are there; do nothing that will disturb or change the nature and the function of the space for its primary users; do not do any electronic recording without explicit permission from those observed. Also, be sure to impress the need for both their own safety and their respect for such spaces. Unless you live in a location that has very public queer spaces (such as museums, civic centers, and so forth), it is not advisable to take a whole class on such a field trip, as it is difficult to control that many students and it is almost certain to feel to the usual inhabitants as if they are being asked to “perform” or are being subject to what disability theorists call “staring.” 2. Who Decides—and When, What, and How? The question of when to offer various forms of medical and therapeutic procedures for people who identify as trans or intersex has become a source of great public debate, particularly because of the visibility and popularity of the cable series I Am Jazz. If time permits, a class discussion of the ethical and pragmatic aspects of making decisions about physical and social gender/sex changes (or, in some cases, affirmations) is valuable. Again, do not forget that you may have students in the class who either have transitioned or are in the process of doing so (or contemplating doing so). As the various possible arguments for and against medical interventions before puberty are numerous and also are based on different ideas about what constitutes appropriate care, it is important to find ways of distinguishing them— and making sure distinctions between medical, sometimes permanent changes and social, psychological care and treatment are clear.

Tips for Making the Most of the Suggestions for Further Reading and Viewing

1. There is a growing body of scholarship and popular writing on trans and intersex experiences (more on the former than the latter, to be sure). The titles listed in the Suggestions focus on accessible works, often memoirs, public essays, and self‐help and advocacy guides for members of these communities. If you want to have some individualized reading, culminating in a written or oral book report, or in smaller reading and discussion groups, this chapter provides a wealth of possibilities. 2. Both the Dreger and Kessler works on intersex lives have essays that can be excerpted profitably. The Dreger anthology is especially good at raising specific ethical issues regarding medical and social interventions for intersex people; Kessler provides myriad perspectives and establishes a position of humility and openness in terms of allowing intersex people to take the lead—it is “lessons from,” not “lessons for.” 3. An especially useful genre for exploration is the YA (young adult) novel. In fact, a number of students in the class may very well have read some of the prominent titles, only a few of which are listed in the Suggestions (for reasons of space). Again, these books could be the basis for some small group work and class presentation and provide an interesting opportunity for students to consider how presentation and depiction of queer lives can be done for younger audiences—and what kinds of adaptations writers make when focusing on a particular target audience in terms of age and implied life experiences. 4. The Danish Girl is a popular and well‐known film dramatization of the life of Lili Elbe, starring Eddie Redmayne as Elbe and Alicia Vikander as his wife, both of whom were nominated for numerous awards. It is based on a popular novel by gay‐identified author David Ebershoff. It is well‐made, poignant, and gripping. That said, it also takes some liberties with Elbe’s life and with the historical record, so if you choose to use it, you will need to do sufficient research to clarify what is factual and what is artistic speculation. (And this can itself lead to an interesting discussion of what the responsibilities of artists are when they use actual people and events as the basis for their fictional representations and narratives.) There was some controversy when the film was made about the casting of a cisgender heterosexually identified actor, Eddie Redmayne, as the trans/intersex Elbe. Particularly if you have students interested in theater and film (or other media), you might ask them about such criticisms and their implications both for the creation of art about queer issues (which may be different from queer art) and for issues of equity and employment in show business.

Student Resources

Key Terms

To test your knowledge, define the term aloud and then put the cursor over the word, hit the ctrl key, and click simultaneously. This will jump you to the definition. Body Phenomenology Trans* Transvestite Transsexual Transgender Standards of Care Gender nonconforming Womyn Autogynephilic Intersex Hermaphrodite DSM

Chapter Outline

I. The Body as Material Substance and Social Construct II. Phenomenology a. Consciousness and experience b. Intentionality c. Ahmed: “queer phenomenology” 1. spaces 2. attitudes toward the world III. Trans* Bodies: Sex, Gender, Expression, Sexuality a. Transvestite, transsexual, transgender b. AMAB and AFAB IV. Medical, Surgical, and Mental Health Interventions for Trans People a. Standards of Care (SOC) b. Sex versus gender or sex = gender c. Nonconforming people d. Division 44 and the APA: three approaches to children and youth 1. actively discouraging (least recommended) 2. wait and see 3. gender affirmative (most recommended) V. Trans Lives: Challenges and Advances a. Posttransgender: drawbacks b. Shultz report 1. lack of vocabulary 2. difficulty of transitioning 3. isolation and lack of social support 4. lack of acceptance 5. violence, employment, and poverty issues 6. complexities of navigating intersectional and nonbinary identities c. NLGTF survey 1. harassment and discrimination in education 2. employment discrimination and economic insecurity 3. discrimination in public accommodations 4. barriers to receiving updated ID documents d. Michigan Womyn’s Festival controversy e. Michael Bailey and autogynephilic transsexualism VI. Intersex: Between/Both/Beyond a. Historical term: hermaphrodite b. Sexual anomalies of human bodies 1. underdeveloped genitals of either or both sexes 2. hormonal conditions 3. chromosomally based conditions 4. hypospadias c. DSM: shifts in terminology 1. Gender Identity Disorder 2. disorders of sex development (DSM‐V) d. Arguments about nature versus nurture 1. John Money and the John/Joan case e. Contemporary intersex organizations and figures 1. Cheryl Chase and the Intersex Society of America 2. Tiger Devore f. Recent novels about intersex people 1. Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex 2. Kathleen Winter, Annabel 3. Abigail Tarttelin, Golden Boy 4. I. W. Gregorio, None of the Above VII. Spotlight on History: From Einar to Lili and from George to Christine<> VIII. Issues for Investigation a. Queer spaces: your experiences b. Who decides—and when, what, and how?

Learning Objectives

By the end of the chapter, you should be able to: 1. Explain how the body is both a material container and a social construct. 2. Understand what a phenomenological perspective is and how it is connected to queer ways of orienting the self to the world. 3. Explain different usage of the following terms: sex, gender, expression, sexuality. 4. Trace the history of the following concepts grouped under the umbrella term trans*: hermaphrodite, transvestite, transsexual, transgender. 5. Identify the recommendations of the treatment of trans people, particularly children and youth, as articulated by medical and psychological professional organizations. 6. List and explain some of the social and individual challenges faced by trans people. 7. Explain the range of medical and physical conditions that are grouped together by the term intersex. 8. Summarize the significance of such historical figures as Lili Elbe and Christine Jorgensen to the study of transgender and intersex people.

Chapter Summary

 The body has meaning in sexuality studies both as a descriptor of the physical container of human life and as a social construct with a range of potential meanings.  A phenomenological approach to the body describes the relationship between consciousness and the world of perception and experience.  Queer phenomenology uses the concept of nonnormative orientation to explore what queer perspectives and standpoints may reveal about everyday life.  Sex and gender are sometimes used to distinguish physical and social characteristics and traits; they are increasingly being used either synonymously or with an understanding that both involve some degree of constructedness (i.e., neither is wholly “natural” or “neutral” as categories of identity and experience).  Transgender (sometimes trans*) today is an umbrella term for any person or any experience that does not align with the person’s gender assigned at birth.  Historically, such terms as hermaphrodite, transvestite, and transsexual were commonly used to describe and categorize identities and experiences that today either do not necessarily feel relevant, given historical changes (as with fixed categories of dress, which gave rise to transvestite), or are viewed as inaccurate (as is hermaphrodite) for scientific or other reasons.  While there is still variability from practice to practice, the position of large medical and psychological associations is to destigmatize and, generally, to pathologize transgender and intersex identities in and of themselves; some individuals who identify as such may still experience mental illness, but the cause is no longer considered to be inherent to the gender identity, but attributable either to co‐factors or to external social pressures and forces.  Gender‐nonconforming and genderqueer people also are often included under the trans* umbrella.  Division 44 of the American Psychological Association recommends gender affirmation as the best form of support for transgender people, especially in the case of children and youth; there is less consistent agreement about what role medical interventions, such as surgery and hormonal therapy, should play in the treatment of children and youth.  Transgender people have articulated a number of challenges they face because of their trans identity, including but not limited to employment and social discrimination, isolation and loneliness, violence and poverty, and the complexities of navigating either intersectional positions or nonbinary identities.  People who identify as or have been labeled as intersex may possess physical characteristics that exclude them from being considered either completely male or complete female; they may also have other anomalies that make placement of them into either of the binary categories of biological sex difficult or uncertain.  Intersex people may identify as homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, or in some other category.  There are numerous examples of transgender and intersex people in the historical record, though they have been perceived and labeled in various ways. Lili Elbe, the subject of a dramatic film, identified as what today we would probably consider transgender, though, upon surgery, it was discovered that it would have been more accurate to describe her as intersex; Christine Jorgensen, assigned male at birth, was an American ex‐GI who underwent sexual‐affirmation (then called either sex‐change or sexual‐reassignment) surgery in the 1950s and became a noted celebrity.

Key Term Definitions

Body: A word that has a multiplicity of meanings and uses, from the physical matter that makes up a human organism to social, political, and cultural meanings, often focusing on the values placed on and interpretations made of both categories of bodies and individuals who inhabit them. Phenomenology: A philosophical approach that focuses less on what positivist philosophers would define as objective reality and more on the structures of consciousness and the experience of various phenomena (objects, emotions, other less tangible elements) as the conscious observer encounters them. Trans* (sometimes trans+): The * or + symbol indicates the multiple possibilities that the prefix trans‐ includes. Transvestite: Not commonly used today, it literally means “cross‐dresser” and has generally been used to describe people who dressed in what was considered clothing appropriate to the gender other than the one to which they were assigned at birth; particularly as standards of dress have changed, the term has fallen into disfavor because it is perceived as prescriptive of gender roles and requirements. Transsexual: Less commonly used today, it was widely used in the first several decades of the twentieth century to describe individuals who desired to undergo surgical and/or medical procedures to create the primary and secondary sexual characteristics of the sex (in the male‐ female binary) other than the one to which they were assigned at birth. Transgender: Refers to the interior experience of self as belonging to a gender other than the one assigned at birth and/or which may be customarily associated with a physical body (especially the primary and secondary sexual characteristics). Standards of Care: Formerly known as the Benjamin Standards (after Dr. Harry Benjamin), this is a set of protocols and conventions recommended by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which specifies such things as processes for determining if and when a person is medically and psychologically appropriate for transition (whether surgical or medical). Gender nonconforming: In sexuality studies, this term is used most often to refer to identification and behaviors of people who reject, ignore, or question the conventions associated with the sex or gender to which they were assigned at birth. Womyn (sometimes womon, wimmon, and other variants): an alternative spelling of the noun woman or women, devised and placed in use during second‐wave feminism (from the 1960s onward), and especially popular among lesbian feminists and lesbian separatists as a linguistic move to erase “man” as a part of the word; womyn‐born womyn is a term that gained prevalence during the arguments over who should be permitted to attend the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival; the term distinguished those “born into girlhood” from trans women, either pre‐, post‐, or non‐operative. Autogynephilic: An adjective used by the psychologists Ray Blanchard and Michael Bailey to refer to transgender people whose identity and sexuality are based on their sense of themselves as engaged in sexual relations as the gender not assigned to them at birth; Bailey, in particular, uses this term to refer to a group of trans women. The term remains very controversial and is disputed by many trans people. Intersex: A term used to describe any organism that possesses biological sexual characteristics of both male and female members of a species; in humans, the term is used to replace the archaic and usually devaluing term hermaphrodite, and it may be used to describe or identify a spectrum of individuals, from those who have identifiable characteristics associated with both men and women to those whose characteristics are only partially present or difficult to identify as either exclusively male or female. Hermaphrodite: A largely archaic term, derived from Greek myth, referring to any organism that possesses both male and female sexual characteristics; in humans, it has largely been replaced by the term intersex. DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders): A handbook published by the American Psychiatric Association to create a common set of criteria for diagnosing mental “disorders” for purposes of treatment and insurance coverage; the DSM has gone through several editions and has throughout its history proven controversial in its language and its placement of queer lives and experiences within a medical framework of illness and disease.

Henderson, Introduction to Queer Studies: Beyond Binaries Instructor’s Manual with Student Resources by Bruce Henderson

© 2019 by Harrington Park Press. All rights reserved.

Chapter 5: Queering Privilege: Whiteness and Class

Instructor’s Resources

General Teaching Tips

As many teachers and students have noted, class (by which we here mean socioeconomic class) is often neglected or ignored in discussions of intersectionality and identity, perhaps because narratives of American exceptionalism communicate the misconception that the United States is a classless society. Recent scholarship has brought class as a powerful and central aspect of identity to a much more visible level, and it often does so under the aegis of “Whiteness Studies,” which focuses on a consideration of such elements as privilege, cultural dimensions and experiences, and the ways in which whiteness as an often unmarked characteristic is critical in understanding the complexity of identity. Needless to say, it is not so simple as to say that white as a racial category is always accompanied by a specific economic status (there are plenty of white people living at or below the poverty line), not that there is no class stratification among people usually classified as nonwhite. So you would do well to spend time untangling the possibilities for students and to engage them in analyzing and critiquing anything that seems like an unreflective equation of whiteness with socioeconomic status. Similarly, the word privilege will probably raise hackles among some of the students, as many of them will not feel or identify their privilege (and I write this as a white, middle‐class man myself), so I recommend a very student‐centered treatment of the topics in this chapter. I think it then prepares the way for Chapter 6, which focuses on the experience of nonwhite queer people— and class will obviously need to be a component of those discussions as well.

Tips on How to Use the Spotlight

1. Dorothy Allison has been a pioneer in explicitly making connections between lower‐ or working‐class white experience and queer identity. The excerpt from her essay “A Question of Class” is well worth spending some time doing a close reading of with students. Allison writes with clarity, intelligence, and passion, and one of the qualities that make this excerpt so useful is that she provides students an example of how to formulate questions about their own class positioning and how it relates to sexual identity. Presumably, your students either may come from heterogeneous backgrounds or, depending on the demographics of your school, may have a shared class background. Discussion of Allison’s questions and observations may allow students to come to some common ground on what is entailed in whiteness as a concept, as well as to distinguish between different kinds of whiteness. This is a topic where your willingness to model your own class self‐reflection (whatever your other identity positions, such as race, gender expression, and so forth) may be crucial in getting students to do the same. 2. Allison’s final sentence could provide the basis for a useful exploration of concepts of parallel identity categories versus intersectional ones: “not only that I am queer in a world that hates queers, but that I was born poor in a world that despises the poor.” The unspoken conclusion, it seems to me, is the possibility of a double bind—how to be queer in a world in which you are marked, by upbringing or current conditions, as poor, and how to be poor in a queer world that may be dominated by middle‐class economic values and assumptions. Discussion of this will also serve as a prelude to the more overtly intersectional approaches in Chapter 6. 3. You may decide to assign one of Allison’s full‐length books, such as Bastard Out of Carolina or Two or Three Things I Know for Sure. The former is a novel, somewhat autobiographical, not centrally “about” queerness, but written from the perspective of someone who as an adult fully identifies as and embraces her queer identity; the latter is a memoir, in which Allison writes openly about her own family upbringing.

Tips on How to Use the Issues for Investigation

1. Students may already have been introduced to McIntosh’s “invisible knapsack” in other classes, such as ones in sociology, political science, and women’s and gender studies. Nonetheless, it is always a useful exercise to revisit it, as each time students work through it, they tend to discover different and new dimensions of privilege. For white students in your class, it can be eye‐opening to consider how, even though they rightly view queerness as a social identity that does not carry the privileges heterosexuality typically bestows, whiteness (their own or others’) may nonetheless still offer them forms of privilege; for nonwhite students, such “unpacking” can help them see how it is neither race nor sexuality that is wholly responsible for denial or absence of some privileges. It may also allow some of them to see the ways in which class issues, while in the United States based in whiteness as a given, may be complicated in the case of people of color who have greater economic access and power. It may raise the often difficult topic of whether economic status is part of defining people as “white” or not. 2. Much of how to use the Allison excerpt has been discussed in the Spotlight section above. The terminological analysis might provide the basis for some useful student writing, whether in class or as homework assignments. Ask students to select one of the terms they have identified and write, either from personal experience or from observation of the worlds through which they move, about the meaning and power of the term. You may even wish to extend the possibilities to more creative forms of writing, such as poetry or fiction.

Tips for Making the Most of the Suggestions for Further Reading and Viewing 1. The listings include a spectrum of literary and media texts that span different historical periods and cultures in which class issues, whiteness, and queer sexualities are interwoven. Having students read the Forster and Waters novels (or relevant sections from them, if you have limited time) can help them understand how class is also inflected by historical conditions, gender, and visibility: Forster’s Maurice, set in Edwardian England, and the Waters’s Tipping the Velvet, set in Victorian England, both show white queer people dealing with societies that are class‐stratified. In the case of Forster’s work, the title character must, in a sense, “betray” his class in order to find romantic and domestic happiness; in Waters’s novel, the protagonist moves between different class circles throughout the novel, and there are moments of intense pain and powerful oppression when her working‐class background is viewed as disqualifying her from agency even among other queer women, albeit of higher economic and social classes. 2. Similarly, looking across time periods and countries can provide useful and concrete opportunities for comparison. The Merchant‐Ivory film adaptation of Maurice evokes a kind of pastoral scene in which the upper‐class hero, while still closeted, has certain kinds of freedom afforded him by race, gender, and economic status; the more recent film Beach Rats tells a similar tale of negotiating closeted identity, but from the vantage point of working‐class white adolescents and young adults. 3. You might expand the list to include television series, using a variation of the “Bechdel test” (i.e., are there scenes of queers talking to each other, not necessarily about heterosexual society?) to look at class (and racial) representation of queerness in network and cable television. Will and Grace and Modern Family might serve as interesting sources of discussion—both make some nods to multicultural and nonwhite characters, but are, at heart, clearly about white queer lives. Have students explore other places on their television screens where nonwhite queerness or working‐class queerness are represented (if they are having difficulties, such series as Roseanne or its reboot The Conners might be immediately accessible). Dramatic series, such as HBO’s Oz or Netflix’ Orange Is the New Black might provide an interesting pairing and raise the issues of how class and queerness play out together in spaces of incarceration.

Student Resources

Key Terms

To test your knowledge, define the term aloud and then put the cursor over the word, hit the ctrl key, and click simultaneously. This will jump you to the definition. Whiteness Privilege Class Butch_and_femme

Chapter Outline

I. Concepts of Whiteness and Privilege a. Nakayama and Krizek on whiteness 1. majority 2. default 3. natural 4. synonymous with nationality 5. all‐encompassing 6. European II. Different Shades of Whiteness (and Other Hues): Queering Social and Economic Class a. Upper, middle, and working or lower class b. Lisa Henderson: class attributes 1. relatively and potentially unstable economic position 2. form of social power and vulnerability 3. recognizable in cultural practices of everyday life c. Upper‐middle‐class queers: white‐collar professionals 1. John Browne: an action plan for breaking down the glass closet d. Middle‐class queers: growing or disappearing? 1. representation of middle‐class queers in media e. Lower‐class queers: “Everybody’s a little bit gay” 1. gender and queerness in the workplace 2. working‐class queer workplace issues: Anne Balay and the steelworkers 3. lower‐class queers III. Spotlight on Literature: Dorothy Allison IV. Issues for Investigation a. Applying the invisible knapsack to queer experience b. Dorothy Allison and class

Learning Objectives

By the end of the chapter you should be able to: 1. Explain what the word privilege means generally and what white privilege means specifically. 2. Apply the concept of white privilege to the experience of queer people, using Peggy McIntosh’s concept of the “invisible knapsack” as a framework. 3. Name several of the ways in which the terms white and whiteness can be used in social and critical analysis. 4. Identify the major divisions of class in the United States and match them to their primary concerns. 5. Explain John Browne’s action plan for breaking the “glass closet.” 6. Identify and describe middle‐class queer representation in contemporary media. 7. Identify examples of working‐ and lower‐class queer experiences, such as working women in mid‐twentieth‐century Buffalo or steelworkers in contemporary Chicago and Gary. 8. Explain Dorothy Allison’s intersecting identities of queerness and poverty.

Chapter Summary

 Privilege is a term used to encompass a range of benefits certain groups of people accrue simply by membership in historically, socially, and economically empowered categories.  White privilege may be conscious or unconscious (or both), and queer white people, despite their oppression because of their sexuality and/or gender expression, benefit from it.  Class refers to both social and economic divisions within populations.  Different classes tend to have different concerns about identity: upper class, privacy; middle class, respectability; working or lower class, cohesion and community.  More openly queer people today are seeking employment in white‐collar professions; openly queer leaders such as John Browne have developed action plans to help them succeed.  Middle‐class queers have received the greatest degree of representation in popular media.  Working‐class queers, such as steelworkers, experience complex and specific challenges, relating particularly to secrecy, safety, and isolation.  Lower‐class queers have begun to become more visible as a group, thanks to representation on such series as Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.

Key Term Definitions

Whiteness: Not a biological category (though viewed as such during numerous periods in history), but a social state of being, typically associated with a higher position of privilege and status in hierarchies built on skin color and appearance. Privilege: The position whereby individuals, by their very membership in a group (particularly such dominant groups as the white race, male gender, and heterosexuals), gain power and opportunities; the term is often used to refer particularly to the status of having such benefits simply by being born into and raised in these categories, and not having earned such privilege by merit. Privilege is often viewed as both conscious and unconscious, intentional and unintentional. Class: A term used to denote the economic status of an individual or a group of people, the social status attributed to such people, and the shared cultural practices (and often inferred values) of people in these strata. Butch and femme: Terms used in lesbian culture to denote relative masculinity (butch) and femininity (femme), which often have led (particularly in mid‐twentieth‐century Western cultures) to assumption of social and sexual roles; in some cases, there was an implicit “regulating,” whereby couplings of two butches or two femmes were not viewed as normative within lesbian culture; they are less frequently used today, though they still have some historical and cultural significance.

Henderson, Introduction to Queer Studies: Beyond Binaries Instructor’s Manual with Student Resources by Bruce Henderson

© 2019 by Harrington Park Press. All rights reserved.

Chapter 6: Queering Intersectionality: Race and Ethnicity

Instructor’s Resources

General Teaching Tips

This chapter works well as a companion to Chapter 5; the introduction of whiteness as a concept lays the groundwork for the experiences of queer people whose heritage and whose racial identity add another node of intersectionality. The material in this section, like much work grounded in social‐scientific methods of research, necessarily deals with broad characterizations, based both on large data sets and, in some cases, on more in‐depth qualitative studies, such as ethnographies. Because so much damaging work can be and has been done by moving from generalizations based on data to stereotypes based on rigid, inflexible assumptions, it is worth spending some time, before examining each of the racial groups, talking about how race might be profitably discussed. You may decide, for reasons of time, student population, or institutional character, to focus on one or a few of the racial groups discussed in this book; if so, perhaps there can be opportunities for smaller group work or individual projects and reports on others. Of course, it should be emphasized that this chapter focuses on racial groups as defined and described primarily in the United States. In other countries, such as those in Latin America and western Europe, racial identity may be conceived of and discussed in different terms.

Tips on How to Use the Spotlights

1. This chapter, unlike the majority of the other chapters in this book, includes multiple Spotlight sections; the reason for this is probably self‐evident, but worth establishing: to focus on one particular individual or movement would be to create a hierarchy of racial importance, something not useful for the study of race or for participation in public life in general. 2. Similarly, the emphasis in the Spotlights has been on individuals who have made significant contributions to queer culture in the areas of arts and the influence of the arts on public and social life. I have strived to include other intersectional dimensions of identity in selecting the individuals for the Spotlights, such as sexual orientation, gender expression, region, art form, and so forth. Each individual so spotlighted provides an opportunity for you and your students to begin to apply the overarching approach of intersectional analysis to the role of race in queer identity and experience. 3. You may find it useful to devise your own supplementary lists of figures whose intersectional identities, including race, are worth exploring, either for further class discussion or for individual study or reports. It might be a useful and creative activity to have students either present reports or devise PowerPoint presentations or posters to share individual study with the class as a whole. If your institution has campus‐wide celebrations of Queer History or Coming‐Out Day, the work within the class could profitably be shared with the campus at large to raise awareness and underscore issues of pride and visibility.

Tips on How to Use the Issues for Investigation

1. The media assignment is one that could be done either individually or in groups. Especially if you do not feel you can cover all racial identities in class time, this can be an opportunity for students to gain knowledge of another racial group. Depending on the demographics of the students in the class, you may ask students to form affinity groups: affinity, rather than heritage, may provide models for white students to learn more about other racial identities without feeling that they are intruding on spaces that might otherwise be closed to them. Care needs to be taken to explain how one might claim affinity with a group to which one does not belong by heritage or immediate life experience. Conversely, it could be valuable to have students select a racial category to which they do not belong as a way of understanding how their own experience as a racialized person is similar to and different from that of people who belong to other groups. And, assuming that your class is not entirely populated by students who identify as queer, some students may be working on intersectional identities and experiences that are doubly different from their own. 2. The observation assignment is a worthwhile one, especially in getting students to break out of patterns and assumptions about racially centered student groups as inaccessible to those whose identity resides outside the groups. The same is true with LGBT/queer groups. Stressing the elements of respect and humility if the group is willing to allow itself to be observed is critical, as is the acknowledgment that the presence of those who are not typically members of the group may alter some of the dynamics. But one side benefit of this exercise could be an opening for building coalitions between groups on campus and undoing some of the hierarchical thinking about resources and oppressions that can find their way into campuses where competition for funding and space may pit one group against another.

Tips on Making the Most of the Suggestions for Further Reading and Viewing

1. There are myriad sources, including new ones published even as this manual goes to press, that focus on intersectional dimensions of sexual identity, gender expression, race, and other categories of identity. A fair number of them build on challenging critical/cultural theory. Some of these may best be used as additional material that you can present, rather than as primary assignments for students. If your course is offered at an advanced or even graduate level, such primary texts may be appropriate and used in conjunction with the overviews this chapter offers. 2. Films, novels, oral histories, and memoirs are probably the most powerful and accessible places for undergraduate students to begin their supplementary readings: from the specific, lived experiences, either of real people or of fictional ones created by artists, students may make better sense of the larger, more generalized findings of social scientists. 3. Historical material, including both media and print resources, such as the documentaries about Bayard Rustin and Marsha P. Johnson, gives students insights into how intersectional identities, particularly those involving nonwhite racial identities, have been experienced, viewed, and valued (or kept invisible or undervalued) at various times in the historical past. These resources also allow students to make connections between ancestors who paved the way, sometimes in unacknowledged ways, to modern‐day public figures, such as politicians and entertainers, whose intersectional queer and racial identities are more visible.

Student Resources

Key Terms

To test your knowledge, define the term aloud and then put the cursor over the word, hit the ctrl key, and click simultaneously. This will jump you to the definition. Berdache Two‐spirit Disidentification Racial_formation Down_low Quare_studies Latinidad Mestiza Patriarchy Machismo Jotería Hyperfeminity Model_minority

Chapter Outline I. Queer Native Americans: Two‐Spirit People a. The berdache in history b. Two‐Spirit: beyond either transgender or bisexual c. Disidentifcation in Two‐Spirit culture d. Homophobia in Native American societies e. Spotlight on the arts: Queer Native American Writers II. Queer African Americans a. Black bodies in the slave period in U.S. history 1. Charles I. Nero and reclaiming history 2. Vincent Woodard: “the delectable Negro” b. Black queerness and scapegoating 1. socioeconomic forces 2. urbanization and “the Great Migration”: racial formations 3. discrimination in urban queer spaces: bars and identification policing 4. racial sorting on social media c. Spotlight on: Audre Lorde, poet, activist, black lesbian feminist d. The “down low” as racist and homophobic myth e. Spotlight on culture: queer black people in family, church, and entertainment 1. E. Patrick Johnson and “quare studies” 2. Christopher House and the black church 3. RuPaul and the drag tradition 4. Janet Mock and Laverne Cox III. Queer Latinidad a. Felix Padilla: latinidad b. Living on the hyphen: “in‐betweeness” of Latinx experience c. Gloria Anzaldúa and Borderlands/La Frontera 1. the eight “languages” of Chicano/a (Xicanx) speech d. Spotlight on: Cherríe Moraga e. Queer Latinx experiences 1. employment and immigration issues 2. machismo 3. Spotlight: Richard Blanco, gay Cuban American poet 4. Jotería as resistance 5. Hiram Pérez and “gay shame” 6. Bernadette Marie Calafell on the Pulse shootings IV. Queer Asian Americans: Silences and Model Minority Members a. History of Asian American immigration to the United States 1. variety of Asian American ethnicities 2. “bachelor societies” b. Stereotype of sexuality 1. invisibility of men 2. passivity and feminization in gay male pornography: Richard Fung 3. hyperfeminine stereotypes of Asian (and Asian American) women 4. Spotlight on: Kim Chi V. Issues for Investigation a. Media analysis of nonwhite race and ethnicity b. College and campus identity‐based organizations

Learning Objectives

By the end of the chapter, you should be able to: 1. Explain the concept of intersectionality and apply it to multiple examples involving sexuality and race and ethnicity. 2. Explain the role of queer people in Native American cultures in the United States, particularly the role of Two‐Spirit people. 3. Recognize and describe the contributions of multiple queer nonwhite artists and public figures in U.S. culture and history. 4. Compare and contrast the experiences and challenges of the following groups of nonwhite people in the United States: Native Americans, African Americans, Latinx, and Asian Americans. 5. Explain such strategies of resistance to racism and homophobia as disidentification and jotería. 6. Compare and contrast different forms of and attitudes toward gender expression in the groups of people discussed in the chapter. 7. Explain how linguistic differences between and within racial and ethnic groups influence queer identity (such as Anzaldúa, the “down low,” and so forth).

Chapter Summary

 Intersectionality refers to the condition of living in multiple categories of identity simultaneously and the experiences produced by the site of intersection.  Native Americans have had a long tradition of acknowledging and honoring nonbinary/gender‐nonconforming individuals, often according them special places in the spiritual life of the community; as Native Americans moved to urban areas, notable examples of homophobia developed.  The lives of queer African Americans, like those of all African Americans, have been deeply shaped and influenced by the historical experiences and conditions of enslavement by white owners. This led to complex and still unresolved views of queer black men in particular, especially in terms of masculinity and contradictory perceptions of hypersexuality and betrayal of masculinity. Black lesbians (and bisexual women) have formed coalitions that cross lines of race and sexuality, though they have not done so unproblematically.  Queer latinidad has been complicated by such social and political issues as immigration and employment, as well as by linguistic differences and variation among disparate ethnicities and national origins and heritages. Queer Latinx people have found various strategies for resistance to oppression, such as jotería, dance, and disidentification.  Queer Asian Americans have been faced with the pressures of being included in the “model minority” narrative common to Asian American experience. Queer Asian American men in particular have experienced stereotypes of feminization and passivity; queer Asian American women have, typically, simply been viewed as silent or invisible.

Key Term Definitions

Berdache: A term once used to describe biological men who live in female or feminine roles in Native American communities; it is no longer used by these communities. Two‐Spirit: A term used by many Native American people to describe those members of their community who are understood to be living in multiple genders and are usually accepted as such; they are viewed as neither male nor female, but as belonging to a third category. At many times in history and among specific Native American peoples, they were viewed as having shamanic gifts (i.e., they were conduits between the material and the mystic worlds), and they were frequently partnered with or married to someone of a more traditional gender category. Disidentification: A term most identified in queer studies with the queer Latino performance theorist José Esteban Muñoz, who used it to describe the situations and processes used by minoritized subjects who neither attempt to identify with majoritarian values and experiences nor entirely negate them, but actively move between and within them, pointing out imbalances of power and hidden assumptions about the identities of people who often belong to multiple minority groups. Racial formation: A process by which people organize social life and perceptions using the category of race as a central principle for such purposes as residence, social affiliation, and identity. Down low: A slang term used most frequently to describe the situation of black men who have sex with other men (of any race) but who publicly maintain a heterosexual identity and are often involved in heterosexual relationships, including marriage; the term is widely critiqued for its racist implication that such a situation is unique to or definitive of black men. Quare studies: A term coined by the American performance studies scholar E. Patrick Johnson to describe an approach to sexuality and race studies that takes the perspective of people who live at the intersection of blackness and queerness as the standpoint from which social and other phenomena are analyzed and experienced. Latinidad: The set of characteristics and experiences of people either born in or descended from the various peoples of Latin America; the term is used to cast a broad net for such experiences, as it recognizes shared life and cultural experiences without attempting to reduce such experiences to an essence or to a prescriptive set of elements. Mestiza: A term referring to people whose ancestry combines European and Latin American indigenous heritage (masc. form: mestizo). Patriarchy: Any society or other cultural group where leadership is determined by a lineage descended from the father’s side of the family. In contemporary gender and feminist studies, it is used to describe processes that value male experiences, roles, and opinions more than female ones and, hence, typically involve disempowerment of women and nonheteronormative men, as well as transgender people and those who identify as nonbinary. Machismo: A term used in Latinx culture to refer to the belief that hypermasculinity is a defining characteristic of what it means to be a man; it is critiqued and rejected by many, especially by gay men who engage in jotería as an alternative form of queer masculinity. Jotería: A term for queer Latino culture, referring to openly and usually playfully gender‐ transgressive behavior, speech, and performance (in both an everyday and theatrical sense) by which queer Latino men subvert gender expectations and policing, specifically the norms of heterosexual Latino behavior and appearance, especially those defined by machismo. Hyperfeminity: In lesbian culture, this refers to a kind of gender performance grounded in extremes of acting out social conventions associated with women‐as‐feminine (including dress, body appearance, passivity or receptivity in sexual interactions, and sometimes extending to professional or occupational choices and behaviors); the term is also used, though less frequently, to describe the adoption of extreme social stereotypical behavior associated with women by men, particularly gay or queer men. Model minority: A term used in race theory to identify a minority group that is usually held up as exemplary of what it means to aspire, conform to, and achieve the values, practices, and ambitions of the majority group; in the United States, Asian Americans have typically been identified as the model minority.

Henderson, Introduction to Queer Studies: Beyond Binaries Instructor’s Manual with Student Resources by Bruce Henderson

© 2019 by Harrington Park Press. All rights reserved.

Chapter 7: Queering School

Instructor’s Resources

General Teaching Tips

1. This is the first of the “Contexts” chapters that constitute Part III of the book. I recommend, however you choose to use this series of chapters—whether devoting some time to each or being more selective to emphasize particular aspects of queer studies—that this be the jumping‐off point for taking students from the foundational chapters, which establish common vocabularies and broad categories of identity, to more specific contexts and perspectives. For one thing, the students are experiencing the course within the Schoolworld itself, so this allows them to do some metacognitive thinking, talking, and writing about how they are learning about queerness in this class and within this book. Providing space for critique of both the class and the book will encourage them to be more active learners in general and to understand how any approach to queer studies will have its own emphases and potential biases. School is also the one organizational institution all students will share, though, their individual experiences obviously will vary, in terms of both their precollege experiences and how they have experienced and are experiencing your institution and your class. 2. It may be useful to establish some ground rules for class discussion of queerness and school before beginning work with this chapter. Some students may be very eager to provide examples of classes, teachers, and fellow students they see either as providing positive examples of the potential of queering school or as being impediments to such schooling or openly homophobic or heteronormative. The former probably serve as a pleasant advertisement that can guide other students to classrooms where they may feel safe and supported, though, unless you yourself are aware that a specific faculty member or student (or staff member) openly identifies as queer, it is probably best to ask people not to use specific names, but instead to try to characterize qualities of such teaching or opportunities. More problematic, of course, would be the labeling of specific teachers or fellow students as homophobic or some other negative label. Though a student may very well have a legitimate situation or condition to criticize, naming specific names, in the absence of the offending individual’s presence or opportunity to respond or provide their own version of what occurred, is not only unfair but could be damaging to all concerned. You may wish to counsel students who feel they have had unsafe or unfair treatment in terms of queerness to find appropriate venues to make such concerns heard—an Office of Student Affairs, for example, or a dean, if it has happened in an academic unit. In addition to providing due process for all involved, it helps students to learn to work through systems, difficult though they may be. Informal networks tend to provide students ways of making their concerns and impressions known to fellow students. While still supporting your students, you can help lead them to appropriate ways to work within the system, even when the system itself may need rethinking.

Tips on How to Use the Spotlight

1. The Spotlight for this chapter focuses on a public school teacher whose important work was (and continues to be) done over the course of multiple decades in what is stereotypically considered the heartland of conservative America: Nebraska. The inclusion of an individual from this locale is quite intentional, as it serves to demonstrate that such politically and socially interventionist work can be done in spaces and territories where we might not expect them to succeed. (Obviously, depending on where you are, Lincoln, Nebraska, will be recognized as a comparatively liberal and accepting place, and even more rural outposts of the state have changed in atmosphere and climate since Heineman began his work.) To give a sense of the complexity of the place and time, you may find it useful to make reference to the film Boys Don’t Cry, the dramatization of the Brandon Teena tragedy, set only sixty miles from Lincoln and taking place roughly during the same period as Heineman’s tenure as a teacher in Lincoln. That Heineman is not a national public figure (though he is well known within professional education associations) can serve to show students that some of the most important work is done in the context of everyday life as it takes place all over. The example also shows that work on gay‐straight alliances and analogous groups has been going on for some time and that its pioneers deserve acknowledgment and celebration. 2. The example of GLOBE is likely to encourage students to talk about their own high school (in some cases, even middle school) experiences, as queer/LGBT students (they may have identified with the acronym then more than with queer, as they may still do in your class), as allies of their queer peers, or, if they are brave enough, as younger selves who may have acted in ways that were not supportive or were even openly homophobic and in some cases bullying. (Keith Berry’s work on bullying, also discussed in the chapter, can pair well with the Spotlight.) For some students, such discussions can be triggering and can reopen old traumas—or intensify continuing ones. Therefore, it is probably wise both to respect silences if and when they occur and to provide as much time and space as students seem to need and want for discussion of their own experiences and observations.

Tips on How to Use the Issues for Investigation

1. Lesson/Activity Planning: This activity can be especially useful if you have students in the class who are preparing to become public school teachers—these days, professional education (including tutoring or shadowing working teachers) often begins long before the traditional semester of student teaching. You might ask such students to take the lead in this activity—perhaps, if possible, breaking students into small planning groups, each led by someone who is either in a teacher education program or someone who expresses an interest in considering teaching as a career. If you do not have enough of these students in your class, you might simply break students into groups using some other method (including random assignment)—students often enjoy playing “school” and demonstrate keen insights from their many years as students, and they have had countless positive and negative examples of teachers from which to draw. I have designated social studies as the subject simply because it is one subject that has received more attention for queer inclusion and which your students are likely to have all had in common. But if you have students interested in other subject areas, feel free to allow them to work together creatively, guiding them to sources you may find. Teaching STEM and health would seem to be equally critical areas for inventive queer curricular inclusion. 2. The Larry King case study provides an opportunity for difficult and sometimes dramatic conversations: while no one ever suggested that King deserved his violent fate, the statements by teachers and students raise issues of how best to handle the often thin line between the kind of middle school bantering that is usually dismissed as part of adolescence when in a heterosexual framework and what some saw as King’s own acts of aggression and harassment toward McInerney. (There is, I hasten to add, a spectrum of descriptions of the nature and intensity of King’s “flirting,” none of which would make McInerney’s lethal response anything within the realm of acceptability.) So, problem solving, from the point of view of students and teachers, administrators, and staff, may serve to help students develop skills in conflict resolution. If you and your students feel comfortable enough with each other, an activity could include role‐playing and improvisation, following the traditions of Playback Theatre (https://www.iptn.info/?a=group&id=what_is_playback_theatre); you, serving as mediator, can stop the action at times to ask both performers and audience members about what has been taking place and ask for suggestions. Such work runs the risk of dissolving into multiple voices all clamoring to be heard at the same time, so establishing protocols in advance for how to behave and how to ask permission to be heard is essential. 3. This activity is similar to the first, except that it asks students to think more ambitiously and globally, in terms either of a specific high school course or subject area, or of an aspect of queer studies that might cross multiple subject areas. Like the first activity, it may be done well in affinity groups that are based on common majors and interests.

Tips for Making the Most of the Suggestions for Further Reading and Viewing

1. The list of readings and viewings is the tip of the iceberg of what is rapidly becoming available. If your students are especially interested in children’s literature and elementary school classrooms, it might be worth contacting a local children’s and youth’s librarian at a public library (or a specialist in your English or Education department) for bibliographies, particularly those divided by age and reading‐level appropriateness. Picture books and many chapter books are both short enough and available enough that you might ask students to do a brief book talk or poster session on one, or to create an entry for an annotated bibliography on the basis of a rubric you can devise for them. 2. Derald Wing Sue’s concept of and research on microaggressions cross identity categories and could be used to reinforce the students’ growing understanding and applications of intersectionality as a perspective. Depending on your own level of comfort and your perception of the class’s “ecology,” you may wish to focus such discussions on campus life and incidents or larger contexts, ranging from local sites (such as shopping malls, clubs, or other commercial areas) to town, state, or federal government organizations.

Student Resources

Key Terms

To test your knowledge, define the term aloud and then put the cursor over the word, hit the ctrl key, and click simultaneously. This will jump you to the definition. Common_Core Schoolworld/ing Total_institutions

Chapter Outline

I. Introduction a. Use of words like gay and fag in derogatory contexts b. Bullying and suicide of Tyler Clementi c. Legislative efforts to ban queer content II. Elementary Education: The “Wonder Years” a. Language arts and literacy b. Mathematical and quantitative literacy c. Other areas of learning III. The Schoolworld and Other Subjects a. Goffman: total institutions b. All aspects of school experience, in and out of classrooms c. Teachers (and other adults) IV. Middle and High School: Moving toward Adulthood a. Bullying and gender polarization 1. King‐McInerney case b. “Don’t say gay” initiatives versus alternative approaches V. Spotlight on School Clubs: John Heineman and GLOBE VI. Queering Colleges and Universities: “Higher” (?) Education a. Development of curriculum b. Rethinking existing courses in other subject areas c. Roommates and bullying: The Tyler Clementi case d. Microaggressions: conscious and unconscious e. Keith Berry and anti‐bullying curricula VII. Issues for Investigation a. Elementary school curriculum and lesson planning b. The Larry King case and conflict resolution c. Adding queer perspectives to high school subjects

Learning Objectives

By the end of the chapter you should be able to: 1. Explain how homophobia and queer exclusion are present at all levels of education. 2. Provide multiple examples of ways to add queer inclusion to curricula taught at elementary, middle, and high school levels. 3. Explain the concepts of Schoolworld and total institutions and be able to apply the latter to school experiences and conditions. 4. Summarize the example of John Heineman and GLOBE. 5. Explain how bullying has been used in specific cases against queer students.

Chapter Summary

 Educational settings are sites for queer exclusion and homophobia, as well as for possibilities and opportunities for inclusion and growth in regard to queer topics.  In the past fifty years, there have been numerous attempts to limit inclusion of queer content in public schools, as well as to ban positive messages about queerness; most have failed as legislative attempts, though informal choices by schools and attitudes of parents and students have had mixed results.  The Common Core has been viewed by some as restrictive and by others as an effort to encourage students to be open‐minded to diversity; the latter stance is sometimes used as a negative criticism by more conservative figures.  There are opportunities to queer almost all subject areas at virtually all levels of the educational process.  The concept of the Schoolworld suggests that education and learning, both positive and negative, occur not only in the formal classroom, but in all aspects of the experience of school, including such informal venues as cafeterias, playgrounds, hallways, buses, and restrooms.  Bullying of queer students remains a serious and ongoing problem; it sometimes results in tragic and violent outcomes.  Microaggressions can occur consciously and unconsciously and can be a source of tension and oppression for students from various minoritized and stigmatized identity categories.

Key Term Definitions

Common Core: The name for the collective curricular and pedagogical objectives agreed to by the vast majority of states in the United States; they have been criticized for their lack of inclusiveness and diversity and for essentially mandating that schools teach students to pass standardized exams. Schoolworld/ing: A concept of the entire experience (or gestalt) of schooling, not limited to classroom instruction and formal curricula, but including social elements, such as athletics, interactions, group memberships, extracurricular activities, and even, in many instances, the family’s attitude toward schooling. Total institutions: Sociological term coined by Erving Goffman to describe those settings that provide for all the daily needs of a population, including, for example, prisons, psychiatric hospitals, and boarding schools.

Henderson, Introduction to Queer Studies: Beyond Binaries Instructor’s Manual with Student Resources by Bruce Henderson

© 2019 by Harrington Park Press. All rights reserved.

Chapter 8: Queering Sociality: Friends, Family, and Kinship

Instructor’s Resources

General Teaching Tips

1. Like Chapter 7, this chapter focuses on both individual and group dimensions and a domain that will be very familiar to students in the class: the world of the social. My experience has been that students enter the course for many different reasons (major or minor requirements, as part of a general education program, and so forth), but for many a primary motivation is either to find ways of integrating their own emerging queer identity into longer traditions of their families and friendship networks, or to provide support, if they identify as either queer or straight, for other family members— particularly siblings—or friends who have begun the coming‐out process and who may be facing challenges. It is important to provide both information about queerness in social groups and a space for raising questions and issues. I have found that this is a topic where there has often been the greatest range of knowledge and information, and it is important to model openness and patience for the students: because such classes are often populated with a wide range of students, from those who identify as queer and have done so since middle school (or earlier, in some cases) to those for whom this may be the first time they are seriously talking about such issues, it can be a challenge to acknowledge differences in experience and familiarity. This is a unit for which asking students to submit written questions anonymously can help more reticent students feel enabled to ask questions they may think are too elementary or even “stupid.” This approach may also allow you to make observations on language and wording without putting introductory students on the spot. By the time you reach this chapter, you will have a sense of the class climate and can make such judgments. 2. One of the goals of the chapter is to encourage students to think of such commonly used words such as friends and families in more systematic and defamiliarized ways— which, in turn, may allow them to see how, even within heterocentric circles of friends or family structures, there is quite a bit of variation. So, while the emphasis is on queerness in social groups, it may be useful to consider such less normative structures as blended families, families where not all members share the same racial identity, families not based on gender stereotypes of division of labor and provision of child care and parenting.

Tips on How to Use the Spotlights 1. Steve and Alysia Abbott and Their “Fairyland”: This Spotlight provides students with a complex and rich example for exploring how nontraditional, queer families arise and how they function. I have assigned the entire memoir by Alysia Abbott in classes in which there is time for using entire books as supplements and have found students respond to Alysia’s reflections, as an adult, on her experiences being raised by a single gay father in San Francisco during the first decades of the AIDS epidemic. She writes with such honesty about both the positive values of being raised by such an extended and diverse “kin,” and the special pressures it placed on her, especially as she moved into adolescence and college years (including having to graduate from college early in order to return home and provide care for her father, who by then was in the end stages of AIDS‐related illnesses). A number of interviews with Alysia Abbott are available, both in print and on the Internet. Using them in conjunction with the Spotlight section may help students make connections between Abbott’s family’s complexity and that of their own family or friend networks. It could serve as the basis for a class session devoted to the question, “What makes a family?” 2. The Spotlight on retirement communities and spaces for queer people may initially feel less immediate to the students in many classes, the majority of whom are likely to be far from retirement (unless you have a population of nontraditional students). Nonetheless, aging studies and gerontology are becoming more and more popular and visible fields of study, whether as stand‐alone programs or as part of disciplines that focus on life‐span issues, such as sociology, psychology, and health and human development. The barriers to sustaining such communities and the costs, psychological and economic, to aging queer people is worth presenting as an issue of both social welfare and business opportunities. This Spotlight may allow students to engage in some creative utopian thinking and planning—groups might take as a task the planning of queer communities for older people in different regions and environments—for example, in rural areas, in urban settings, for people with particular medical needs (such as long‐term AIDS survivors).

Tips on How to Use the Issues for Investigation

1. The ubiquity of weddings as cultural “texts” makes this activity one that can be both fun and serious. Have students look at a few samples of same‐sex wedding announcements to see how they are worded and also what is described in them, such as how the couples met, the trajectory of their courtship, and the events of the wedding. Do they note threads that connect them? Do they see ranges of kinds of activities and rituals that both parallel those for heterosexual couples and mark the differences queer couples may observe and experience? From there, they can move into imagining their own “ideal” wedding. If this mix of students feels right, you can also have them imagine the queer “wedding disaster,” the subject of many popular romantic comedies and sitcom episodes. 2. The kinship exercise can be done as a kind of family tree and can be a way of getting students to connect to their families of origin, as well as to have members of those families acknowledge other “kin” who may not be related by blood, but who have significant roles in the life of the larger sense of family. They may find that the activity reveals untold or silenced narratives in family history, ones that may either have been neglected or have been the source of conflict. Such narratives can be both empowering and, initially, upsetting for some students, so be prepared for myriad reactions.

Tips for Making the Most of the Suggestions for Further Reading and Viewing

1. A topic that is often underacknowledged is the later‐in‐life coming out of parents, either while both of the original parents are still alive or after one has died—and this can be true of both sexual identity and gender expression. Beginners, based on the true story of one of the filmmakers, is an especially touching testament to change within families and also to the effects of the closet on all members of the family; Christopher Plummer won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for playing the closeted father who, only a short while before his death, comes out and finds romantic and erotic happiness. The treatment of his son’s range of responses feels real and offers students an example of how parents have their own struggles and need to be seen as just as vulnerable to social pressures and historical conditions as their children. The Amazon series Transparent does similar work for the parent who comes out as trans later in life. 2. Both the Galvin and the Rosswood/Berlanti books provide lively and accessible approaches to two of the most traditional aspects of family and kinship—weddings and parenting—through the lenses of queer people. While the Rosswood/Berlanti book focuses specifically on gay dads, perhaps because lesbian motherhood has been visible longer and because Rosswood and Berlanti both identify as gay men, it can be a jumping‐off place for imagining guides for other categories of queer parents. More and more students are expressing a desire to include the role of parent in their futures— something that even just a few decades ago would have seemed unimaginable, except for those parents who were initially closeted or who came to an understanding of their own queer identity after becoming parents—so your students are likely to have many imaginative ideas and suggestions as they imagine futures that involve child raising. And it is important to recognize, acknowledge, and discuss the fact that many queer‐ identified people continue to prefer to remain child‐free, for myriad reasons; these choices and desires need to be honored and can be the source of discussions, as well.

Student Resources

Key Terms To test your knowledge, define the term aloud and then put the cursor over the word, hit the ctrl key, and click simultaneously. This will jump you to the definition. Sociality Family_of_choice Hookup_culture Companionate Successful_aging

Chapter Outline

I. Defining Queer Sociality II. Families We Choose: Kinship beyond Biology III. Evolutionary Arguments for Same‐Sex Members in Family and Kinship Units a. Rein in overpopulation, especially in urban areas b. May function in altruistic ways c. Older queer folk can serve as leaders of social initiations IV. Paris Is Burning and Queer “Houses” a. Grew out of Harlem drag‐ball scene: principally LGBT people of color b. Traditional familial roles (e.g., mother, father) c. Safety, security, and affection V. Spotlight on a Father and Daughter: Alysia and Steve Abbott and Their Blended “Fairyland” VI. From Strangers to Friends to Lovers to Family: Dating, Mating, and Beyond a. The role of bar culture in sociality and kinship b. Historical examples of queer bar spaces c. Lisa Wade: hookup culture 1. queer students typically feel excluded 2. alcohol‐fueled decision making 3. gender distinctions: two straight women can display physical affection; parallel men must do so in private and can be excused only by drunkenness d. Queer youth not in college 1. number of them are homeless and living on streets 2. Ali Forney Center (NYC) provides safety and support e. Friend‐kin‐lover networks 1. example: Choire Sicha, Very Recent History (2013) 2. fewer women than men hook up on first date 3. varieties of mating arrangements from monogamy to polygamy/polyamory 4. companionate relationships: not unique to queer couples VII. To Marry or Not to Marry? a. John Boswell: premodern European traditions of same‐sex couples and marriage b. Weddings as performative speech acts c. Rituals involved in same‐sex weddings d. Queer reasons to oppose marriage VIII. Kinship and Aging: Older LGBTQ+ Persons a. Successful aging: physical, mental, and social well‐being b. Jesus Ramirez‐Valles: older queer people have been understudied 1. normative older person is white, middle‐class, male, heterosexual 2. disproportionate number of men who would now be older died of AIDS 3. queer women also vulnerable to health risks: drinking, smoking, obesity c. Families of choice: often life‐enhancing for queer people d. Challenges when older parents come out as LGBT IX. Support for Aging Queer People a. OLOC: Older Lesbians Organizing for Change b. Older gay men often find it difficult to ask for and receive support c. Aging trans people 1. lack of services 2. lack of cultural competence by providers 3. poorer health outcomes 4. barriers to employment and ID documents X. Spotlight: Retirement Communities XI. Issues for Investigation a. Wedding planning and announcements b. Kinship and queer family trees

Learning Objectives

By the end of the chapter you will be able to: 1. Explain the meaning of sociality and its application to queer people. 2. Explain the difference between families of choice and families of origins. 3. Describe and give examples of various kinds of queer families. 4. Explain the role of queer people in evolutionary explanations of families and kinship situations. 5. Explain how queerness is both excluded and exploited in campus hookup culture. 6. Explain the variety of coupling approaches used by queer people, including monogamous, open, companionate, and other forms. 7. Explain arguments for and against same‐sex marriage and list some examples of how same‐sex couples approach the process and event of weddings. 8. Explain some of the social challenges aging LGBT persons face, with specific enumeration of the ones faced by older transgender adults. 9. Name some initiatives and associations developed to provide support for aging queer people, including residence and housing options.

Chapter Summary  Queer sociality encompasses all the ways in which queer people form and sustain attachments.  There are important differences between and functions of families of birth and families of choice.  Scientists have made arguments for the positive function of homosexuality in the evolutionary development of family and kinship.  Steve and Alysia Abbott provide an example of a queer family in AIDS‐era San Francisco.  Bars have created cultures that have served queer people in positive and negative ways.  Campus hookup culture has often excluded or exploited queer people and queer relations.  Queer people, especially queer men, have often used the shifting roles of friend‐kin‐ lover in building social networks.  Many couples, queer and straight, move into companionate situations in the course of a long‐term relationship; this may or may not involve relaxation of any expectations of monogamy, if they were in place to begin with.  Queer people have different positions about whether to marry. Those who do often integrate traditional rituals and practices with those unique to queer culture and experiences.  Successful aging involves physical, mental, and social well‐being. Successful aging for queer people can present specific challenges, such as invisibility and isolation, lack of social support, and limited housing options.

Key Term Definitions

Sociality: A term borrowed from biology (zoology) and anthropology referring to the tendency of individuals to form social, cooperative groups. Family of choice: Contrasted to family of origin, the term is used to distinguish between those people to whom one is related by blood (including those less literally so, such as adoptees and in‐laws)—family of origin—and those whom one experiences as kin by virtue of affinity and preference—family of choice. Hookup culture: A term used to describe the prevailing attitudes toward arrangements for and interpretation of sexual activity, primarily among adolescents and young adults (college age through late twenties, approximately), in which hooking up, or making decisions to have sex with a partner, is based on sexual desire alone, without any necessary intersection with social interaction, relationship formation, or other elements of sexual romantic relationships; often used pejoratively, though not in and of itself necessarily grounded in moral criticism. Companionate: An adjective used to describe relationships in which companionability (friendliness, warmth, and comfort) defines the strength and priorities of a couple. Successful aging: Includes physical, mental, and social well‐being; it is understood that the criteria by which well‐being is measured can vary and that one person’s successful aging may not be the same as another’s.

Henderson, Introduction to Queer Studies: Beyond Binaries Instructor’s Manual with Student Resources by Bruce Henderson

© 2019 by Harrington Park Press. All rights reserved.

Chapter 9: Queering Health: Well‐Being, Medicalization, and Recreation

Instructor’s Resources

General Teaching Tips

1. This chapter is intended as a corrective to traditional views of queerness as either pathology or abnormality. Thus, it covers a spectrum of issues from medicalization to athletics to make the central point that queerness is in and of itself a healthy state of being, even if social pressures and other kinds of challenges to health (such as illness, poverty, and disability) can affect how individuals and groups of people experience their sexual identity and gender expression. 2. The term health is a purposely broad choice for the focus of the chapter, and classes would do well to spend considerable time comparing and contrasting their understanding of the term, including what was covered in their high school health classes (if they had them). This sharing can move the class beyond prescriptive lists and characteristics to reach a common ground about what it means to live in a state of health. If time permits, you may wish to compare and contrast the problematic history of health in the study and treatment of queer people with the parallel issues raised in disability history, where, for too long, disability and illness were viewed as synonymous: most scholars and activists in disability studies today make the argument that one can be disabled (or impaired or handicapped, depending on their terminology) or even chronically ill, yet also be in a state of overall health.

Tips on How to Use the Spotlights

1. The Spotlights on Dr. Evelyn Hooker and Dr. H (Henry) Anonymous are two excursions into queer history, both pre‐ and post‐Stonewall. The discussion of Hooker will be of special importance to reinforcing the crucial role of allies in queer history and activism. You might use her example to raise a broader discussion of the role of allies in queer activism (and in social activism in general). Hooker provides a fascinating and moving narrative of someone who was brought into activism by her scientific knowledge, scholarly position, and moral convictions—and who was willing to learn from the people she was invited to study. You might ask students whom they view as allies for queer people on campus (and for other identity groups). How do they succeed? Can they think of examples of when allies, however well‐meaning, have presented challenges or difficulties? (This should be discussed without mentioning names; narratives can be drawn from the news or described in non‐identifying ways if they involve campus figures.) Similarly, the extremes to which Dr. H felt he needed to go to address his peers is heartrending, but it is also powerful in demonstrating how and where people find courage. Students might discuss times when they have felt unable to be open about some aspect of their identity but sought ways to provide support and activism for “their people.” 2. The growing presence of out queer athletes is a cause for celebration, but it is important for students to realize how recent such developments have been. The history of the Gay Games (including the IOC’s refusal to allow the use of the word Olympics in association with LGBTQ+ events), then, shows how a group of athletes, including well‐regarded health professionals such as Dr. Tom Waddell, have worked to present opportunities for queer athletes to meet and compete and affirm their physical health and accomplishments. The various websites covering LGBT/queer athletics will be of special interest to both queer and straight athletes, who may not be aware of the work being done, particularly by high school and college athletes. Those in the class who either participated in athletics in high school or currently do in college might share their experiences, either as out athletes or as fellow players, and discuss how safe (or not) it feels to be an out athlete at your campus. What all might find surprising is how variable it is—and, as the chapter indicates, how it sometimes varies from sport to sport even on a single campus.

Tips on How to Use the Issues for Investigation

1. I recommend spending some class time working with the class to analyze Fryer’s (Dr. H) speech. Such close reading can help students see the rhetorical strategies Fryer used and how it was tailored to the audience (other medical and health professionals) and embedded in the historical moment in which it occurred. Video clips of it abound on the Internet and, while students may initially find Fryer’s disguise off‐putting and even exaggerated, it is also a stark reminder of a time only about fifty years ago, when such masking was deemed necessary to maintain professional standing and credentials. 2. Regarding the “why change” question—though it may have seemed more relevant a few decades ago (today’s students may assume that it is a non‐question)—you may find there is still more interest in questions of whether one can change sexual orientation, especially depending on the messages to which one was exposed in homes and schools. This can also lead to discussions of such recent books and films as The Miseducation of Cameron Post and Boy Erased, the latter a memoir, which depict conversion therapy. 3. Physical education has long been the bane of many queer students’ precollege experience, especially for males (though some colleges still have PE requirements), partly because they may have experienced bullying if they were gender nonconforming or simply lacking in skill or interest (and I do not wish to reinforce stereotypes). At the same time, if students agree that the “education of the body” is beneficial for physical, mental, and social health, they may invent very creative options and approaches that might have elements of playfulness and serious training in them. Start with the proposition that physical education is valuable, with the understanding that it has often been a site of trauma for queer youth (as well as for other youth deemed to have unacceptable bodies, such as those with extremes of size, disabled bodies, and certain racialized bodies), and go from there. Encourage them to share positive experiences they have had in their physical education, as well.

Tips for Making the Most of the Suggestions for Further Reading and Viewing

1. Because the chapter covers an admittedly ambitious range of issues regarding health, some instructors may decide to focus on one or two in particular, such as those dealing with mental well‐being, disability, or athletics. If so, you may have students work independently or in groups on additional texts (readings and viewings) on the topic selected for class focus or, conversely, choose a focus for the class, but then have students, working in groups, do extra reading and viewing on one of the other topics covered in the chapter. The Suggestions for Further Reading and Viewing provide a range of places to begin more in‐depth study of various subtopics. 2. Chapter 12 will provide a more detailed survey of art produced during and about the AIDS epidemic, but it is appropriate to consider the history and contemporary place of AIDS in conjunction with this chapter as well, and open talk about recent developments, such as pre‐exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), may be called for, especially if you have young gay men in the class. (I hasten to add that they are not the only demographic that needs to be concerned about HIV infection, but they do appear to be the group experiencing a rising rate of infection.) The documentaries How to Survive a Plague (which is based on the book written by David France, the film’s director) and We Were Here are good surveys of the epidemic, as are films listed in previous chapters, such as Happy Birthday, Marsha! about the black trans activist Marsha P. Johnson, who did important street work on AIDS prevention and education, as well as films such as Last Man Standing, a recent documentary that looks at a group of long‐term gay male survivors of AIDS living in Arizona.

Student Resources

Key Terms

To test your knowledge, define the term aloud and then put the cursor over the word, hit the ctrl key, and click simultaneously. This will jump you to the definition. Health Medical_ gaze Biopower Aversion_therapy Reparative_therapy Misadaptation AIDS HIV Patient_ Zero Gay_Games Queercrip

Chapter Outline

I. Defining Health: Norman Sartorius II. The Medicalization of (Homo)Sexuality: The Nineteenth Century a. Foucault: the medical gaze and biopower b. Development of psychology as an academic field III. “Treatment” and Depathologization in the Twentieth Century a. Freudian explanations of homosexuality b. Aversion therapy c. Effect of gay liberation 1. self‐identification of mental health providers as queer 2. changes in the DSM d. Spotlight on Dr. Evelyn Hooker e. Spotlight on Dr. H (Henry) Anonymous: Revealing through Masking the Face of Homosexuality IV. “Curing the Gay”: Reparative and “Ex‐Gay” Therapies a. Misadaptation as the cause of homosexuality b. Role of Christian evangelicalism in reparative therapy c. JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing) d. Questions of ethics of ex‐gay therapies e. Misuse of pro‐gay research in reparative therapy: Bem’s “exotic becomes erotic” V. Mind Meets Body: Health Challenges for Queer People a. Bar culture b. Alcohol and other mind‐altering substances c. Tobacco use d. Food: eating disorders among queers e. Fat: also a queer issue f. Suicide and self‐harm: myths and realities 1. Ritch Savin‐Williams and the use of data 2. McDermott and Roen: social and economic aspects of queer self‐harm 3. Butler: lack of “intelligibility” 4. Clements‐Nolle et al.: specific factors for transgender people VI. AIDS: HIV—From Gay Men’s Health Crisis to Global Pandemic a. Moral model: “risk groups”—homosexuals, heroin users, hemophiliacs, Haitians 1. Farmer: explanation of the Haitian vector 2. Patient Zero: finding a scapegoat b. Chronology of AIDS/Gary’s story VII. LGBTQ+ Athletics: From the Greeks to the Gay Games a. Queers, sports, and the “healthy body”: an uneasy relationship b. From classrooms to arenas: queering college and professional sports c. Amateur and community sports d. Spotlight on the Gay Games: performing the Olympian queer body today VIII. Queer/Crip and Crip/Queer: Disability and Queer Sexuality a. Sandahl: queercrip as concept and identity intersection b. Transgender people and disability IX. Issues for Investigation a. Analyzing Dr. H’s speech b. “Why change?” c. Revisioning a queer‐inclusive physical education

Learning Objectives

By the end of the chapter, you will be able to: 1. Compare and contrast different ways of defining “health.” 2. Summarize Foucault’s historical narrative of the medical gaze and biopower. 3. Explain Freud’s theories of the causes of (male) homosexuality and extrapolate to possible causes of lesbianism in his system. 4. Explain how developments in the mid‐twentieth century, such as gay liberation, the research of Evelyn Hooker, and the appearance of Dr. H at the 1972 APA produced progress in destigmatizing of homosexuality. 5. Explain different approaches to “curing” homosexuality, such as aversion and reparative/conversion therapies. 6. Explain how the following create health challenges for queer people: bar culture, alcohol and mind‐altering substance use, tobacco use, eating disorders, fat shaming, suicidal ideation, and self‐harm. 7. Summarize the origins and history of the AIDS epidemic, including such topics as risk groups, scapegoating, trajectory of the illness, and personal narratives of the epidemic. 8. Recount the historical role of athletics in queer culture and queers in the culture of sports, including professional, collegiate, and amateur sports. 9. Explain how disability and queerness are similar and different as identity categories and how the intersection of the two categories produces yet another unique realm of experience and perspectives.

Chapter Summary

 Health may be defined in a number of different ways, not all involving illness, disease, or impairment; well‐being can be a central focus.  Historically, medicine moved beyond surfaces to more complex ways of understanding the body through the method of empiricism; Foucault speaks of the birth of the clinic in post‐Enlightenment Europe, which involved the medical gaze and biopower.  Freud’s perspective on homosexuality, while not stigmatizing per se, was that it was a result of parenting that was deficient in specific ways.  The work of such pioneers as Dr. Evelyn Hooker and Dr. H, along with broader accomplishments since Stonewall, contributed to the destigmatization and demedicalizing of queer sexuality.  Nonetheless, there were and still continue to be efforts to “cure” same‐sex attraction, through such pseudomedical approaches as aversion therapy and reparative/conversion therapy.  Queer people experience specific health challenges in terms of their relationship to bar culture, alcohol and mind‐altering substances, tobacco use, eating disorders, fat shaming, suicidal ideation, and self‐harm.  The single most significant epidemic affecting queer people in the past half century was and is the AIDS epidemic; while progress in treatment and prevention has been made, it is not over.  Queer involvement in athletics goes back to the ancient Olympics; in much of the twentieth century, queer people had a complex relationship to sports in professional, academic, and amateur arenas. Today there is much greater visibility of and open participation by queer people in sports.  Disability, like queerness, is an identity category in which members often differ from their families of origin. Those who claim simultaneous, intersecting identity in both categories sometimes refer to themselves as “queercrip” or “cripqueer.”  Transgender people who also identify as disabled may sometimes experience stigmatizing perspectives that assume their transgender identity is itself “disabling.” In turn, this can have the effect of stigmatizing disability as an identity category.

Key Term Definitions

Health: A sense of well‐being, along dimensions that include the physical, biological, psychological, and spiritual; the word is not to be confused with questions of disability, as disability theorists argue that people with disabilities can still be said to possess health, depending on the nature of their impairments and the social treatment of them. Medical gaze: A term coined by the French philosopher Michel Foucault to refer to the process by which medical professionals, beginning around the time of the Enlightenment, exerted what he calls biopower by turning their professional “eyes” on human bodies (especially those they diagnosed as diseased, disabled, or abnormal) to devalue or control those outside socially constructed norms. Biopower: A term coined by the French philosopher Michel Foucault to indicate the relationship between biological status and social and political power; it is recursive, in that those in power make decisions about minoritized bodies, and those whose bodies (and desires connected to the body, such as sexual desire) are viewed as normative are therefore best equipped to make decisions for all. Aversion therapy: A largely discredited approach to “curing” queer or LGBTQ+ people of their homosexuality or other nonnormative sexuality through the use of conditioning; rewards are given for positive responses to heterosexual stimuli, and punishments (such as electric shocks) are administered for positive responses to homosexual stimuli—and vice versa. Reparative therapy (Sometimes conversion therapy): Discredited by all major psychological and psychiatric associations, this form of therapy seeks to “repair” the “wound” of homosexuality, often by conditioning and religious proselytizing. Misadaptation: The largely outdated belief that nonheteronormative sexuality represents an individual’s failure to develop in ways that lead to heterosexual identification and desire. AIDS: Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, today more commonly referred to as HIV‐related disease (human immunodeficiency virus), in which a virus causes the immune system to be compromised and weakened, which usually leads to the development of opportunistic diseases and other medical conditions. HIV: Acronym for human immunodeficiency virus, the almost universally agreed‐on cause of AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), in which the virus causes the immune system to become compromised and weakened, which usually leads to the development of opportunistic diseases and other medical conditions. Patient Zero (Gaétan Dugas): French Canadian flight attendant who was identified by Randy Shilts in his book And the Band Played On as the vector (or beginning point) of the HIV virus in the United States, through Dugas’s frequent sexual interactions with men; Dugas’s role in the spread of HIV is now widely discredited, and his identification as the single origin of the virus is viewed as sensationalist journalism on Shilts’s part. Gay Games: A queer equivalent to the International Olympics; the International Olympics Committee blocked the organizers from using the word Olympics under copyright infringement laws, though many regarded the IOC’s move as motivated by homophobia. Queercrip (Sometimes cripqueer): A term originally used by the American performance, theater, and disability scholar Carrie Sandahl, in her study of four performance artists, to identify the intersectional position of being queer and “crip” (disabled and identifying as such in a cultural and political sense) simultaneously.

Henderson, Introduction to Queer Studies: Beyond Binaries Instructor’s Manual with Student Resources by Bruce Henderson

© 2019 by Harrington Park Press. All rights reserved.

Chapter 10: Queering Spirituality: Religion, Belief, and Beyond

Instructor’s Resources

General Teaching Tips

1. Over the course of several semesters of teaching an introductory queer studies course, I learned that faith and religious practice were very important to many of my students and that this was an area in which many felt they had to remain “closeted”—not only about their queer identity among fellow believers, but also among queer peers, who often devalued or disconfirmed the importance and value of religion In their lives. This is one of the reasons I have devoted so much space to this topic in the textbook. For many students, queer or not, there can be a struggle between the messages they have received from or about the religions in which they were raised (or, in the case of those not raised in faith traditions, those that dominated their communities) and either their own emerging queer identities or those of peers they wish to support. 2. Because of this, I recommend making lots of time and space for students to share their traditions and the lessons they were raised with. While it is true that one of the purposes of the chapter is to clarify what various religions say and do about queerness, it is probably important to begin by allowing students to describe and explain their understanding of their religions’ views and only then taking them through disagreements between and within religions (and secular attitudes toward religion). If you teach at a religiously affiliated institution, you will obviously need to decide how to balance whatever expectations or requirements the institution places on such discussions, while working not to foreclose genuine questioning and disagreement. 3. One way to move beyond inevitable (and often productive) moments of discomfort is either to have affinity groups discuss among themselves shared religious tenets, which will also sometimes demonstrate how much disagreement there can be within even seemingly small units of worship about “official” stances and individual practices, or, conversely, to ask students to work on a faith tradition they know little about in order to lessen feelings of emotional or spiritual “attack.” If your campus climate makes this a safe or useful choice, you can also take an opportunity to invite spiritual leaders from campus for a respectful if sometimes searching dialogue about specific religions and queer lives and identities.

Tips for Using the Spotlight 1. There are many opportunities to expand the Spotlight feature of this chapter. I have designated the section on Issan Dorsey as the chapter’s single Spotlight in order to allow students to become aware of the significance of eastern religion in U.S. culture, as the dominant religions they will probably be familiar with are the Abrahamic ones. That this Zen monk had a past that include a variety of typically stigmatized identities may allow students to consider and discuss whether there is a kind of continuity in the experience of religion. 2. Other figures might then be researched with more depth by students, working either with individuals from their own faith traditions or with those from others. They may also find this an opportunity to do some interviewing and observation of campus and local faith traditions.

Tips for Using the Issues for Investigation

1. This issue is intended to remind students that one of the purposes of the textbook’s approach (and presumably yours in adopting it) is to challenge binary thinking. They may find Johnson’s schema liberates them from some of the more dualistic (i.e., binary) perspectives they are familiar with in some spiritual or faith traditions. Alternatively, they may be critical of some of the ways in which, in spite of itself, it implicitly reinforces some forms of binarism (including masculine/feminine categories). 2. As suggested in both the General Teaching Tips and Tips for Using the Spotlight, this kind of activity can be done in groups or, if it feels more comfortable, individually. Some students will be eager and vocal about the complexities of their experience of faith and their experience of queerness (either as someone who identifies as queer or as someone who, by now, has friends or at least peers who identify as such). I recommend finding ways to allow students to retain privacy about religious identity, as college can be a time when students are themselves going through either external or internal challenges to traditions in which they have been raised. Many, of course, do not, but they may feel vulnerable to the criticism of those outside their religious traditions. This does not mean that religion is or should be invulnerable to critical discussion—as a social institution (or multiple institutions), it is fair game for analysis—but it may require more empathy and development of guidelines for discussion than some other topics.

Tips for Making the Most of the Suggestions for Further Reading and Viewing

1. Attitudes of religious institutions toward queerness are in constant states of change, so you will want to frame the readings and viewings in the historical moments and geographical regions in which they occur. Such documentaries as A Jihad for Love and Trembling before G_d are especially useful at humanizing the experiences of queer people of faith. It can be easy for the class to get deeply into scriptural considerations, which are intellectually important and valuable, but the documentaries can help remind all that such discussions have effects on the everyday lives of the people who are torn between dogma and personal experience. 2. Of the Abrahamic religions, it is likely that most of your students will know the least about Islam (unless your institution is situated in a region where there is a considerable Muslim community). The novel by Rabih Alameddine, while challenging in its form and in its blending of personal voice and what feels like magic realism, is a manageable read, and its author was raised in the Lebanese Druze tradition, which is typically considered a variation of Islam (though there is some internal disagreement about this). Alameddine himself identifies as atheist, but the novel is filled with allusions to and imagery taken from various world religions.

Student Resources

Key Terms

To test your knowledge, define the term aloud and then put the cursor over the word, hit the ctrl key, and click simultaneously. This will jump you to the definition. Abrahamic Queer_theology Metropolitan_Community_Church Sufism Hijra Swayamavra Neo‐paganism Radical_Faeries Wicca

Chapter Outline

I. Abrahamic Faiths: Monotheism a. Common narrative about queerness: Lot/Lut and Sodom 1. Lot, the righteous man 2. attempted rape of angels by men of Sodom 3. sin of “inhospitality” b. Judaism and the book of Leviticus 1. Orthodox attitudes 2. Conservative and Reform attitudes 3. queer responses to Hebrew scripture 4. transgender people in Hebrew scripture and tradition c. Christianity: from “social tolerance” to “queer theology” 1. Pauline theology 2. Boswell’s theories of early Christian history 3. Mark Jordan’s response and expansion of Boswell’s theories 4. Patrick Cheng and queer theology 5. Troy Perry and the Metropolitan Community Church 6. call to ministry: challenges for queer people d. Islam and queerness: faith and reason, communities of love 1. Islam as a later religion 2. Sufism as an especially potentially queer space for Islam 3. Scott Siraj al‐Haqq Kugle: contemporary Islamic theologian 4. development of national and global organizations for queer Muslims II. Hinduism and Buddhism: Eastern Religions and Queer Lives a. Queerness and Hinduism 1. absence of scriptural references to homosexuality 2. hijra as cultural and spiritual identity 3. myths and legends of same‐sex friendship: potential for intimacy 4. Ruth Vanita: the swayamvara friend b. Buddhism and queerness 1. “sexual misconduct” as obstruction to enlightenment 2. vow of celibacy for monks and nuns 3. Dalai Lama’s changing positions 4. Spotlight: Issan Dorsey Roshi 5. lesbians and Buddhism III. Queer Neo‐Paganism: Earth‐Centered Spirituality and Goddess Worship a. Earth‐centered approach b. Radical Faeries c. Toby Johnson and gay spirituality d. Witchcraft, Dianic Wicca, and women‐centered neo‐paganism IV. “Gaytheism” (and “Gaygnosticism”): Belief in Nonbelief a. Writings and speeches of Christopher Hitchens: “god is not great” b. W. C. Harris: organized religion as threat to queer well‐being c. Chris Stedman: “Faitheism” V. Issues for Investigation a. Analyzing Toby Johnson’s characteristics of gay consciousness b. Investigating queerness and your faith tradition (or absence thereof)

Learning Objectives

By the end of the chapter you will be able to: 1. Explain the similarities and differences between the three traditional Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam). 2. Explain different branches within each of these three religions and what each branch says about queerness. 3. Describe queer responses to exclusion from each of the Abrahamic faiths. 4. Explain Patrick Cheng’s specific theories of queer theology, including the four strands he lists. 5. Identify the similarities and differences between Hinduism and Buddhism, especially as they speak about queerness. 6. Describe what the term pagan meant originally and how it has been transformed in recent history. 7. Explain how men and women have developed different strands of neo‐paganism and how the concept of the feminine ties them together. 8. Explain the objections some atheists and agnostics have to organized religion (especially the charges made by Christopher Hitchens and W. C. Harris). 9. Describe Chris Stedman’s integration of his “nonbelief” into his work as a humanist chaplain.

Chapter Summary

 The three most widespread world religions find similar origins in the narratives surrounding Abraham and his descendants and are therefore referred to as Abrahamic.  Each Abrahamic faith has a more conservative branch (sometimes called orthodox, which may also describe less a set of political commitments and more an adherence to certain scriptures and the interpretation of them).  Queer people have navigated various ways of living both their sexual identities and gender expressions and their spiritual and religious faiths.  Eastern religions have historical connections, so Hinduism and Buddhism share certain worldviews, but they also differ in specific attitudes toward queer activities.  Neo‐paganism is an Earth‐centered, goddess (feminine)‐based form of spiritual worship and practices that extends back many centuries, but which has seen a recent revival; it is queer‐inclusive and often queer‐celebratory.  Queer atheists and agonistics have varying degrees of acceptance of religion and spiritual practices, from the very antireligious views of Hitchens and Harris to the more interactive work of individuals such as Chris Stedman.

Key Term Definitions

Abrahamic: Adjective referring to the three world religions that trace their lineage back to the patriarch Abraham—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Queer theology: A branch of religious study and scholarship, typically Christian (though not necessarily), that focuses on how to reconcile religious tenets, often scriptural in basis, with the values of queer people and the importance of their spiritual lives. Metropolitan Community Church: A nondenominational church founded in 1968 by the Reverend Troy Perry, a gay man, that is inclusive of all sexualities and multiple faith traditions. Sufism: A branch of or form of Islamic mysticism, often associated with same‐sex (particularly male) love and desire; the best‐known Sufi poet is Rumi, who may have had same‐sex erotic and romantic experiences and relationships. Hijra: In Indian (Asian) tradition, individuals born into biologically male bodies who identify as and live as females. Swayamvara: A Hindu term that, the scholar Ruth Vanita argues, provides evidence for an acceptance of lifelong same‐sex coupling within the religion. Neo‐paganism: A term that serves as an umbrella for various spiritual or religious associations (sometimes formally named and organized, sometimes spontaneous, local, and grassroots) that are queer‐inclusive, not affiliated with any of the major world religions (such as the three Abrahamic ones), and often tied to celebrating and honoring the connections of the human, natural, and spiritual domains; these associations are generally feminine‐centered or nonpatriarchal (or both). Radical Faeries: A neo‐pagan group, typically all‐male, first developed by Harry Hay and other gay men in 1978–1979, focusing on a return to nature, gender play, and a spirituality that places queer people in roles that have shamanistic (mystical, often acting as conduits between the material and the mystical worlds) elements. Wicca: Used generally to refer to forms of neo‐paganism, especially those that are female‐ centered, using forms of magic (or magick, as it is sometimes spelled); there are various forms of Wicca, some exclusive to women (and to “womyn‐born womyn”).

Henderson, Introduction to Queer Studies: Beyond Binaries Instructor’s Manual with Student Resources by Bruce Henderson

© 2019 by Harrington Park Press. All rights reserved.

Chapter 11: Queering Citizenship: Politics, Power, and Justice

Instructor’s Resources

General Teaching Tips

1. Depending on your institution, your student body, and your own goals and skill sets, you may decide either to restrict your coverage of the material in the chapter to queer political issues in the United States, or, conversely, to expand coverage to non‐U.S. countries. Because the world is a big place, there are many different nations I had to omit, simply because of space and knowledge. Other than the United States, I have tried to select areas that may be seen as hot spots, where queer identity and queer lives have been the focus of dispute and oppression. You should feel free to and are encouraged to bring your own areas of geographical knowledge (either as a scholar or as a person who has lived or spent extensive time in those places) as a focus for a non‐U.S. perspective on power and justice. 2. The necessarily and comparatively brief space devoted to each non‐U.S. country or region is likely to flatten the nuances somewhat; it is simply the nature of such a survey. It might be worth assigning these regions to groups of students for more detailed and in‐depth studies. One approach might be to link such work to “heritage groups”: have students align with some part of their national or ethnic heritage and research what life might be like for them if they were a queer person living there now. 3. Similarly, even within the bulk of the chapter, which focuses on queer politics in the United States, you may find there are more topics than you can cover adequately in the time you plan to devote to in the course. While issues of same‐sex marriage may seem to be settled law in the United States at the moment, it is also the topic that may raise the most complex and engaged discussions, particularly if there are students who belong to religious or faith traditions that still exclude same‐sex marriage from acceptance. I have devoted little discussion to the even more complex issues that may be raised for transgender or intersex people who wish to marry. If you have students with strong interests in trans and/or intersex issues, you could develop a thread across the chapter and have students investigate such issues as marriage, the military, hate crime/hate speech, and ballot measures affecting these populations.

Tips for Using the Spotlights 1. The Spotlight on Leonard Matlovich and Margarethe Cammermeyer can be used to humanize the historical time lines of the role of queer people in the military. There may be an implicit assumption by class members that all queer people tend to be antimilitary, based on stereotypes of queer people as doves in terms of war and military activities. That one can be queer and also desire to serve in the military is one of the takeaways this Spotlight can offer. Along with the oppositional work of such groups as the Against Equality collective, this can be a productive basis for raising questions of how we construct our own ideological systems across issues. The two figures can also stimulate discussions about what it means to be excluded from systems one feels called to fight for. If your campus has an ROTC or a presence of veterans as students, it might be worthwhile, if potentially contentious (though not necessarily so!), to invite a panel in to discuss the topics and to share experiences. 2. The Rainbow Project is included as a Spotlight for a couple of reasons, and it may function in a number of ways. For one thing, I thought it important to include at least one Spotlight that represented non‐Western, positive social movements of LGBT/queer activism to help combat assumptions about Third World countries and cultures. Thanks to Lorway’s ethnographic study, which is very readable, students can see a powerful example of grassroots work done in a geographically remote (in terms of the ability of people to form close coalitions across miles) region that itself has challenges in terms of poverty, health disparities, and employment barriers. Unless they have had an opportunity to study African nations in a global history class or a specialized one, they may fall prey to lumping all of Africa into a monolithic entity; this Spotlight is intended to help provide a beginning to understanding the variety of conditions of and attitudes toward queer people in this varied continent.

Tips for Using the Issues for Investigation

1. The first activity is designed, as are many, both to deconstruct a major term for students—in this case, citizen or citizenship—and to have them work together to see distinctions they may make individually and then try to come to some places of common ground: in other words, to model some of the challenges and benefits of participating in political processes! While this may need careful monitoring and time for unpacking, it is also worth asking students to consider, either silently or in discussion, how their own identity may influence what they understand these terms, citizen and citizenship, to mean. Given how fraught questions about who should be allowed to become citizens in the United States (and how) are these days, this activity could occupy an entire class period or more, and it may very well merit it, particularly if border issues are geographically “near”—or perhaps if they are not and seem distant for most students. Spending time on rights and responsibilities deserves similar attention: we tend to think more about the former than about the latter. 2. As discussed in the General Teaching Tips above, this activity could become a major project, done either individually or as a group; it could be attached to students’ heritage identities or used as a way of learning about other cultures. In either case, students might want to consider, before embarking on such work, what the difference between being a resident, a traveler, and a tourist is. If there is insufficient time allotted to this activity, it is easy and counterproductive for students to fall into the touristic gaze (which may be worse, in some respects, than a kind of honest ignorance). 3. The “central figures” assignment might profitably be used as a springboard for either a research paper or an oral presentations in class. The list is a beginning; even as I write this, important political queer figures are emerging as leaders in U.S. and global politics, such as Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

Tips for Making the Most of the Suggestions for Further Reading and Viewing

1. The list includes both readings and viewings about U.S. queer political issues and global ones. It may be that, in the interest of coverage, students focus on one in class time but be assigned another for independent work (say, marriage equality in the United States as a class discussion topic, and then marriage equality in non‐Western countries as independent work). 2. The list also provides sources for studying important figures (such as Harvey Milk and Bayard Rustin among U.S. queer politicians) whom space does not permit discussion of. The same is true of the topics that receive less coverage within the text of the chapter— so the Shilts study of queer military narratives might be juxtaposed with Lemer’s memoir if students want to focus on more military experiences than the chapter can include. If an instructor wants to do a deeper and longer unit on the gay liberation movement in the United States itself, the Faderman book, while it would occupy multiple weeks, is probably the most inclusive and generally accessible history on that social movement currently in print.

Student Resources

Key Terms

To test your knowledge, define the term aloud and then put the cursor over the word, hit the ctrl key, and click simultaneously. This will jump you to the definition. Queer_Nation Comintern Homintern Public_sphere Homonormativity Homonationalism Social_movements Ballot_measures Don’t_Ask, Don’t_Tell Hate_crime Hate_speech

Chapter Outline

I. Introduction a. Comintern and homintern b. Habermas and the public sphere c. Homonormativity and homonationalism II. Queer Politics in the United States a. Some general principles and concepts 1. Amy Stone: social movements vs. ballot measures 2. Bourdieu: habitus b. LGBTQ+ politicians and electoral politics 1. pioneers: Studds, Frank, Noble, Jordan, and Baldwin c. Criminalizing queerness: sodomy laws 1. state levels 2. Bowers v. Hardwick 3. Lawrence v. Texas d. Same‐sex marriage or marriage equality 1. marriage‐like arrangements: outside the law 2. Evan Wolfson and the same‐sex marriage movement 3. conservative arguments for same‐sex marriage: Sullivan and Rauch 4. radical arguments against same‐sex marriage 5. Defense of Marriage Act 6. United States v. Windsor 7. Obergefell v. Hodges e. Queering the Military 1. pre‐twentieth‐century queer presence 2. 1940s and 1950s: introduction of formal policies 3. Spotlight: Leonard Matlovich and Margarethe Cammermeyer 4. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) 5. Chelsea Manning and transgender issues in the military f. Hate crimes and hate speech: “special circumstances” and continuing debates 1. the Matthew Shepard case g. Trans (and intersex) politics: an Emerging territory 1. identity documentation 2. bathrooms: practices and legislation III. Global and Transnational Issues in Queer Politics a. The European Union and queer rights b. Russia and the Russian Federation c. ISIS, the Middle East, and conditions for queer people d. Africa: a continent, not a country e. Spotlight: The Rainbow Project in Namibia f. Other continents, other countries: “the rest” IV. Issues for Investigation a. The meaning(s) of citizen b. “It’s a Queer World”: queerness and global politics c. Central figures in queer politics

Learning Objectives

By the end of the chapter you will be able to: 1. Explain various definitions and descriptions of the overarching concepts citizen and citizenship. 2. Explain historical efforts in the United States and elsewhere both to include and to exclude queer people from the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. 3. Explain the difference between citizenship and naturalization. 4. Explain Jürgen Habermas’s concept of the public sphere and Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and apply them to issues of queer citizenship. 5. Explain the concepts of homonormativity and homonationality and describe how they may be antithetical to broader issues of social justice. 6. Distinguish between social movements and ballot measures and account for why LGBT/queer politics has generally been more successful at one than the other. 7. Trace the history of sodomy laws in the United States and identify the principal legal cases involved in them. 8. Trace the history of the movement for same‐sex marriage/marriage equality, identify the principal arguments in favor of and against it (including those raised in queer circles), and identify the major legal cases that have led to legalization of same‐sex marriage at the federal level. 9. Discuss the central events in the twentieth‐ and twenty‐first‐century opposition to and move to include queer people in the military, and what current issues remain in debate. 10. Explain what a hate crime is and what hate speech is and provide an example from recent events that is relevant to the inclusion of queer people under protections against such crimes and forms of speech. 11. Identify the situation and attitudes toward queer people in the following regions: the European Union; Russia and the Russian Federation; ISIS and the Middle East; various African countries.

Chapter Summary  The concept of citizenship is a complex and varied one. Throughout the history of the United States, queer people have been included in some of the rights and responsibilities typically associated with citizenship, but excluded from others.  Homonormativity and homonationalism are two concepts that have been coined to describe the ways in which primarily white, middle‐class, and cisgender queer people may, consciously or unconsciously, be encouraged to work against social justice for other groups in order to gain acceptance in mainstream society.  Queer politics in the United States has typically focused either on broader, long‐term social movements or on short‐term, more narrowly defined ballot measures. In general, queer political activism has been more successful with ballot measures than with social movements; individual ballot measures often lead to longer‐term gains.  In the late twentieth century and the first part of the twenty‐first century, more progress has been made in getting queer politicians into elected offices. The earliest queer national office seekers waited until they were elected to come out; openly queer candidates have seen more progress in recent times.  Sodomy laws in the United States have typically been the domain of states, in terms of both establishment and enforcement. A number of legal cases that went to the Supreme Court have led to decriminalization of queer sex.  The movement to legalize same‐sex marriage has been in progress since around 1970, but it gained visibility and traction when individual states began to legalize it and when two major cases were decided by the Supreme Court.  Opposition to the presence of queer people in the military, despite their often closeted or invisible presence from the time of the Revolutionary War, has been challenged through various test cases. The policy Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is no longer enforced, though Donald J. Trump has claimed he will bar transgender people from serving in the military.  Laws against hate crimes and hate speech have sought to protect particularly vulnerable classes of people (such as racial minorities and others) from crimes based on hatred of such classes by the perpetrators. While some states have not included homophobia in these laws, the visibility of cases such as the Matthew Shepard murder have brought more awareness of this kind of violence.  Trans (and, sometimes, intersex) politics has emerged in recent years as a strong and vocal domain. Much of its work has focused on gaining trans and other people access to legal documents that correctly reflect their gender identity and on making such public spaces as bathrooms accessible to people on the basis of the gender with which they identify.  The European Union requires that its members subscribe to a policy of nondiscrimination of queer people. Nonetheless, there is considerable variation among member countries about issues such as same‐sex marriage.  Non‐Western countries still tend to be more homophobic, either in legislation or in attitudes and practices. There are notable exceptions to this generalization, such as South Africa and Lebanon.

Key Term Definitions

Queer Nation: A political and social activist organization founded in New York City in 1990 by members of the AIDS activist group ACT UP, designed to focus on confrontation and elimination of homophobia. Comintern: Term that was coined during the Red Scare of the McCarthy communist witch hunts of the 1950s. It abbreviates “Communist International”; the word is no longer used in common discourse. Homintern: A term that was coined during the Red Scare of the McCarthy communist witch hunts of the 1950s. Derived from cominterm, an abbreviation of “Communist International,” homintern comes from the belief that many of those labeled cominterns were also closeted homosexuals. The words are no longer used in common discourse. Public sphere: A term coined by the German sociologist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas to describe the social and ideological communities in which groups of people carry out and enact social relations and cultural values. Homonormativity: The word refers to the phenomenon of identifying as homosexual (or some variant, including bisexual or pansexual), but subscribing to and living in ways that reinforce heteronormative values and conventions in order to gain acceptance as a “normal” member of society. It is often used when referring to social norms, to distinguish it from homonationalism, which stresses political aspects of citizenship. Homonationalism: The phenomenon or process by which people who identify as same‐sex‐ attracted demonstrate support for the political, social, and often militaristic values of their country in order to gain status as “good citizens” and thus be accepted, often in spite of their nonheternormative lives. Social movements: Distinct from ballot measures, social movements tend to be broader in aim and wider in distribution; the political scientist Amy Stone argues that social movements tend to be less successful in making inroads for LGBTQ+ liberation and progress. Ballot measures: Local issues placed on ballots, voted on at the municipal, county, or state level; they are often viewed as more likely to be successful for queer‐positive initiatives. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: The military policy enacted during the administration of Bill Clinton, whereby military personnel were forbidden by law to ask members or potential members of the military their sexual orientation, and, similarly, members of the military were forbidden to disclose their sexual orientation; in practice, it applied only to nonheternormative enlisted members and officers, and the Senate eventually voted to repeal it in 2010. Hate crime: A crime whose motivation is attributed in some demonstrable way to the perpetrator’s hate, fear, or dislike of members of an identifiable social group, such as queer people, people of color, or people with disabilities; depending on the jurisdiction, hate crimes can carry different and usually more severe penalties than non–hate crimes, such as longer sentences and, in states that still have the death penalty, capital punishment. Hate speech: In speech act theory, especially as elaborated and queried by Judith Butler, speech that expresses hate toward particular groups and motivates violence and/or discrimination against them and has, some believe, the same force as a physical act of violence toward them.

Henderson, Introduction to Queer Studies: Beyond Binaries Instructor’s Manual with Student Resources by Bruce Henderson

© 2019 by Harrington Park Press. All rights reserved.

Chapter 12: Queering Imagination: Arts, Aesthetics, and Expression

Instructor’s Resources

General Teaching Tips

1. Depending on how you structure your course and what your central purposes are, you may decide to make this chapter a core one; if that is the case, you may find it useful to include it earlier in the semester than its placement might suggest. Of course, it cannot span all periods of queer history, given the scope of the textbook itself, but it provides enough historical context that, after study of identity, it could be a frame for the better part of a semester. 2. It also can stand as a chapter fitting into a sequential approach to the course and the textbook. Its placement at the end is meant to suggest the ways in which the arts may speak to all the other aspects of queer life covered in the textbook—art, by its nature (unless you are a strict “art for art’s sake” aesthetician), is intertwined with political, spiritual, educational, and, yes, health issues. 3. If you wish to spend multiple weeks focusing on a particular case study as a component of your course, the extensive section in this chapter on art that responds to the AIDS crisis could be paired profitably with the similar section in Chapter 9.

Tips on How to Use the Spotlights

1. The Spotlight on children’s and young adult fiction is particularly valuable to provide a survey of some of the more important milestones in opening up queer studies to younger readers. The attempt is to balance some historical material, which suggests both unconscious and strategic approaches to queering writing for young readers, with more recent developments. Though only a handful of specific titles can be mentioned in such a discussion, you may find your students are especially enthusiastic either about books that were meaningful to them in developing a consciousness about queer identity and experience or about looking back at older texts to see how the lenses of queer aesthetics might reveal new ways of understanding (and, I hope, gaining pleasure from) books that might not have seemed queer to them at the time. The goal is not to force queer readings on books, but to work investigatively to see how different readers in different times might experience and respond to texts. 2. As suggested in General Teaching Tip no. 2 above, the lengthy description of art produced as a response to the AIDS crisis provides openings for in‐class viewing and listening sessions—for example, play the third movement of the Corigliano symphony, which is manageable as an introduction to a class session, and discuss whether and, if so, how instrumental music can ever really be “about” AIDS or about anything, for that matter—unless it is directly and overtly programmatic, such as works like Copland’s Rodeo or Debussy’s Clair de Lune, which furnish an implied content. Similarly, works by Haring and Steers are readily available on the Internet and can be examined by the class. If you have an assignment that allows students to do a closer analysis of one or more texts not discussed in class, the world of queer arts is rich. Depending on your objectives and the mix of students you have in a particular section, you can even open up assignments to allow for creative production by students—writing, performance, or other art forms.

Tips on How to Use the Issues for Investigation

1. The first Issue for Investigation comes directly from my own experience both teaching the introductory queer studies course at my institution and developing an advanced course on AIDS and the arts. I find great variation among students in this area. Some have relatives or family friends (usually either their parents’ or their grandparents’ ages) who died of AIDS or are living with it. While students tend to have some reasonable amount of technical knowledge about AIDS (depending on their previous educational institutions), what they do not always have is an “affective” history of the epidemic. Since, by nature, students tend to be most immediately attracted to artworks produced during their own lifetimes, the comparison of recent artworks with those of a few decades ago can encourage students both to look back a bit and to try to articulate how art produced in the midst of a social crisis may have different qualities and emotional power from that produced with some perspective of time passed. 2. As irony requires a certain degree of intellectual distance and perspective, it can be difficult for younger students to understand: students entering college are often considered to be dualistic, prone to seeing things as either/or; irony (and, by extension, camp) demands a kind of both/and quality in which speech (or other forms of expression) is understood to have multiple possible intentions at any one moment. Finding instances of camp performance from their own era may be a useful place to begin: not simply the high theatrics of RuPaul (who is, nonetheless, a good place to start), but other texts that may be familiar to them, such as characters like Damian in the film Mean Girls and Kurt in Glee. Even the somewhat uneven Saturday Night Live can be a good source—some of Kate McKinnon’s parodies of public figures, Melissa McCarthy’s Sean Spicer, and Bill Hader’s Stefon are squarely in camp traditions. Students will recognize these performers, and screening a few of them can lead to a useful discussion of what the functions of this kind of comedy are: Is Stefon more than a parody—does Hader’s performance of him (assisted by the writing of his comedy partner John Mullaney) do cultural work as well? 3. Certainly one of the most exciting, if sometimes difficult to operationalize, findings in pedagogical research has been that which grows out of Howard Gardner’s concept of “multiple intelligences,” which argues that different people have different ways of making use of material, information, and perspectives. My own experience is that artistic creation (including performance) can demonstrate as deep a mastery of subject matter as more traditional methods. Since the instructor’s manual provides you a test bank from which to draw more traditional ways to assess factual mastery and the ability to synthesize and articulate content information, offering opportunities for creative work can help students whose learning styles may be stronger in the affective realm, and can encourage those who may not be drawn to expressiveness to stretch themselves.

Tips for Making the Most of the Suggestions for Further Reading and Viewing

1. The list of readings and viewings (and recordings) is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is out there. I have endeavored to include texts that span the range of identities you are likely to have in class (including works that speak to allies and newcomers). The least represented, both in my list and in general circulation, is the experience of bisexual identity; this is in part due to our culture’s tendency toward bisexual erasure in general and, therefore, the difficulty of artists who wish to represent bisexual identity in finding audiences. 2. Students are often the best sources of what is current in the zeitgeist in terms of artistic and cultural representation; they may have knowledge of webseries, ’zines, graphic novels, and comics that fly under the radar of mass media coverage. Ask them for suggestions—they may surprise you with the degree of queer cultural literacy they have—and they may surprise themselves!

Student Resources

Key Terms

To test your knowledge, define the term aloud and then put the cursor over the word, hit the ctrl key, and click simultaneously. This will jump you to the definition. Sublime Uncanny Aesthetics Camp Irony NAMES_Project

Chapter Outline

I. Introduction II. The Queer Sublime and the Queer Uncanny a. Highest achievement accompanied by possibility of death and dissolution b. Making the familiar strange and the strange familiar 1. Romanticism 2. monsters = queer III. Spotlight: Learning to Read—Queer Children’s and Young Adult Fiction a. Nineteenth‐ and early twentieth‐century possibilities: Oz b. Mid‐ to late twentieth‐century emergence c. Recent developments IV. Some Central Concepts and Traditions in Queer Expression a. Aesthetics and “art for art’s sake” b. Camp and irony: performing the disguise openly/disguising the performance 1. irony as discursive style 2. camp: various theories and examples V. Expression as Communion and Community: Celebrating “Us” a. Marches and parades b. The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival c. Spotlight: art and the AIDS crisis 1. questions of representation 2. literature: AIDS narratives and poetry 3. visual arts 4. music 5. film and television 6. theater: staging HIV/AIDs 7. dance and performance art VI. Issues for Investigation a. The AIDS epidemic and the arts b. Irony and camp, past, present, and future? c. Art as a way of understanding queerness

Learning Objectives

By the end of the chapter, you will be able to: 1. Discuss multiple perspectives on whether such a thing as a gay (queer) sensibility exists. 2. Define the terms sublime and uncanny, and explain how they may be seen as central to queer art and expression. 3. Trace some of the major historical developments in queer fiction for children and young adults. 4. Explain what aesthetics is and how the phrase “art for art’s sake” is related to it. 5. Define irony and camp, explain how they are related to each other, and give examples of each drawn from queer experience and culture. 6. Explain how and why marches and parades have been important to queer expressiveness. 7. Identify some of the major products and events in the arts that responded to the AIDS crisis, including some drawn from the following art forms: literature, visual arts, music, film and television, theater, dance, and performance art.

Chapter Summary

 There has been and continues to be discussion about whether there is something that can be called a “gay sensibility” (which today may be expanded to include a “queer sensibility,” which is not quite synonymous with “gay sensibility”).  The concepts of the sublime (which spans the centuries from the time of Longinus through its reemergence in nineteenth‐century European Romanticism up to the present day) and the uncanny (most fully theorized by Freud) are central to queer forms of and approaches to expression.  While there are examples of queer possibilities in literature written for children and young adults in previous periods, it is only since the mid‐1960s that writers for these readers began to address queer issues more openly; there is currently strong interest in exploring the experiences of gay male, lesbian, bisexual, trans, and intersex young people.  Irony, especially as expressed in the typically comic form of camp, began as a coded way for closeted men in particular to communicate; it developed in the twentieth century to forms that were theorized and critiqued; whether camp will or can continue as a style or perspective is debated.  Marches and parades by queer people began as political and social interventions and, then, in the post‐Stonewall era, took on more festive and celebratory qualities without discarding their origins in protests and activism.  The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival was a utopian‐minded event that spanned several decades.  The AIDS crisis produced a plethora of artistic texts and performances spanning many methods and genres, including literature, visual arts, music, film and television, theater, dance, and performance art.

Key Term Definitions Sublime: A concept from the field of aesthetics, going back to classical Greece, that describes an experience of beauty that also carries with it the recognition that, even in the moment of aesthetic pleasure, there is the potential for dissolution of the self and destruction of the world. Uncanny: From the German unheimlich, which roughly translates as “unhomelike.” Used by Sigmund Freud to identify experiences that seem both alien and familiar at the same time. Aesthetics: The study of art and the artistic; in its narrowest sense, it examines issues of beauty, especially of form and style in art and the pleasure produced by such works. Camp: A style of or approach to art and to social interaction often, though not exclusively, associated with gay men of the nineteenth through twenty‐first centuries. It is marked by a blend of satire, often hyperbolic emotion, and deep feeling; it is sometimes used as a way of indirect communication between gay men and others in contexts in which direct disclosure may be unsafe or socially judged. The origin of the term is contested, but it is strongly associated with the writer and social commentator Susan Sontag. Irony: In queer contexts, irony may be seen as a linguistic and communicative strategy of indirection, in which a speaker (or artist or other person) says one thing but means another, sometimes for comic or rhetorical effect, sometimes to engage in coded communication in which only insiders are likely to understand the speaker’s genuine intentions. NAMES Project: The AIDS Quilt: both a cultural artifact and a cultural movement, begun by the activist Cleve Jones in 1985 to create quilt panels to honor individuals (of any sexuality) who have died as a result of HIV/AIDS‐related illnesses.

Henderson, Introduction to Queer Studies: Beyond Binaries Instructor’s Manual with Student Resources by Bruce Henderson

© 2019 by Harrington Park Press. All rights reserved.

Conclusion: Imagining Utopias in Queer Studies

Instructor’s Resources

General Teaching Tips

1. The three sections of this brief conclusion are meant to encourage students to think beyond the conclusion of the course—they are by no means definitive and complete. I begin with Edelman’s argument precisely to provoke discussion of a concept that may feel to today’s students either pessimistic or backward‐looking. It assumes nonreproduction as the norm for queer people and, indeed, may be seen as advocating for it. Many more younger queer people today than in the past envision a future that includes some of the elements of traditional heteronormative domesticity: pair‐bonding (with implicit monogamy) and parenting. Others may very well resist such expectations or, as they may see it, pressures—in fact, they may deem such a narrative as homonormative. Providing a space for such reflection can be useful in discouraging students from believing or feeling that they now “know” queer studies in any simplistic way. 2. Halberstam’s three maxims come from a distinctly queer perspective, which they argue at greater length in the book The Queer Art of Failure. Nonetheless, these maxims may be of use to all people—and may lead to an interesting discussion of what queer studies has to offer to all people, regardless of their own sexual orientation and/or gender identity. 3. Muñoz and Dolan offer a hopeful road by which to exit the class. Utopias, when held to dogmatically, often produce dystopias, to be sure. When understood as heuristics by which to imagine and to engage in helping create better futures for all, they are valuable—and an opportunity for students to imagine what queer utopias they might wish for—and can be a useful and positive way to end the course. 4. Given the brevity of the Conclusion, I have not included a Spotlight (though each of the writers discussed could serve some of the function Spotlights have in other chapters). The Issues for Investigation are, I hope, constructed to give not a false sense of closure, but a feeling of continuation and openness. 5. Similarly, I do not envision a set of objective questions for this brief section that would be particularly useful for the instructor or the student. A few short‐answer questions and essay topics are listed below.

Student Resources

Key Terms

To test your knowledge, define the term aloud and then put the cursor over the word, hit the ctrl key, and click simultaneously. This will jump you to the definition. Sinthome Failure

Chapter Outline

I. Queer Future = No Future a. Lee Edelman and the sinthome II. Failure as Queer “Success” a. Jack Halberstam and The Queer Art of Failure 1. resist mastery 2. privilege the naive or nonsensical (stupidity) 3. suspect memorialization III. Utopian Performances and Queer Possibilities a. José Esteban Muñoz: Cruising Utopia b. Jill Dolan: Utopia in Performance

Learning Objectives

By the end of the chapter you should be able to: 1. Explain what Edelman means by the problem of “queer futurity” and why Lacan’s concept of the sinthome is central to it. 2. List Jack Halberstam’s three dimensions of “queer failure” and explain how each may be a source of productivity and knowledge. 3. Explain what Muñoz and Dolan mean by “utopian performance” and how it is connected to the lives of queer and non‐queer people alike.

Chapter Summary

 Contemporary theorists query what it means to move from the past and the present into a “queer futurity.” Lee Edelman argues that it cannot be tied to traditional, heteronormative concepts of biological reproduction and, instead, encourages queer people to consider Lacan’s notion of the value and productivity of what he called the sinthome, sexual pleasure not tied to reproduction.  Jack Halberstam argues that queer experience equips queer people with a particular insight into “failure” as a valuable approach to producing knowledge and living in the world and suggests following three maxims: 1. resist mastery; 2. privilege the naive or nonsensical (stupidity); 3. suspect memorialization.  José Esteban Muñoz and Jill Dolan, both of whom were scholars of performance studies and theater, argue that theater can be a vehicle for utopian performances, fully acknowledging that utopias are doomed to fail. Both argue that such efforts—expanded beyond the traditional theatrical spaces associated with performance—can nonetheless take us as societies and individuals into places of hope and imagining.

Key Term Definitions

Sinthome: The Latin way of spelling the French word symptôme (“symptom”), this term was used by the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan to describe the traces and presence of a person’s experience of jouissance, or sexual pleasure; the American queer theorist Lee Edelman used it specifically to refer to sexual activity and experience that have no connection to reproduction. Failure: A key term in Halberstam’s recent work, in which he argues that various kinds of failure (including the perception or in some cases reality of failure as normative social citizens or members) are a distinctive and potentially positive aspect of queer experience.