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Home , Gay liberation, Heteronormativity, Homonormativity, Transphobia

Resisting normativity: musings on politics, identity, and the performance of therapy

Julie Tilsen and Dave Nylund

Julie Tilsen is a therapist and consultant in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, and is the Training Coordinator for the International Center for Clinical Excellence. Email: [email protected]

David Nylund is Associate Professor of Social Work at California State University, Sacramento, USA, and works as a therapist and activist within the and queer communities. Email: [email protected]

What are some of the hazards of the modern rights movement? The authors propose that in attempting to secure ‘equal’ rights in various aspects of public and private life – for example, , military service, and health insurance – modern gay rights engages in ‘’ which seeks to limit the options for queer people by having them replicate aspects of mainstream, neoliberal, heterosexual lifestyles. Instead of this approach, the authors propose a ‘queer utopia’ based on ideas of sexual freedom and honouring .

Keywords: queer, , homonormativity, LGBT,

64 The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work 2010 No. 3 www.dulwichcentre.com.au 2010 No. 3 www.dulwichcentre.com.au David Denborough asked us to write up the closing keynote speech we gave at the Therapeutic At the conference we showed a clip from Conversations 9 (TC9) conference in Vancouver, the popular TV show, Glee. For those of British Columbia, in May 2010. We have you unfamiliar with Glee, actress Jane done our best to capture in writing the heart of the Lynch plays Sue Sylvester, a high school speech, which, for us, was as much performance as cheerleading coach who also has a weekly it was text. We relied extensively on images to help ‘editorial’ spot on the local TV news. The illustrate on multiple levels the ideas we were clip we showed was of Sue giving one of her weekly rants. interested in communicating, ideas that are reified through repeated discursive and visual performances Briefly, the clip parodies homophobic bigotry through its excessive use of in the mass media culture that permeates the North of and contemporary American world we live in. North American middle-class gay life. We’d like to acknowledge the hipness and Sylvester is upset that gay people have enlightenment that the participants of this integrated into the world in such a way conference hang out with. You attend TC9. You that she can no longer determine who is practice reflexively, you have an analysis of the and isn’t gay. These ‘sneaky gays’ turn up prevailing cultural , you consider the at church, picking up their ‘meticulously social location of problems. As for the idea of dressed children from day care’ or could queer? We suspect you’re pretty much down with even be sitting next to you – wherever you that. For the Canadians present today, we’re sure may be. many of you can proudly recite Trudeau’s words The clip is full of stereotypes that rely on uttered in 1969 about the state having no business the feminisation of gay men, as Sylvester in peoples’ bedrooms and many of you likely have reminisces about ‘the simpler days of attended a same- wedding – whether it was your yesteryear’ when there was less confusion about who is gay. In order for her to re-live own big day or that of someone you care about. those bygone days, she beseeches gays to As for my fellow Americans, we’ve opposed ‘ it up’ , she asks, ‘if I can’t 1 Prop 8 and reconsidered the possible charms of tell who’s gay, how will I know who to judge?’ Iowa2. We know that, many if not most of you here, Here is the link to the clip – any readers are the choir. You support, fight for, and speak out that have internet access can take a look on behalf of, LGBT rights. for themselves: http://www.youtube.com/ Yet, today we’d like to pause to consider the watch?v=5ETSAIVSQhs complexity inherent in throwing our individual and collective support behind the contemporary gay rights agenda. For example, with the legalisation of gay marriage, has the state gotten out of peoples’ Jane Lynche’s send-up of over-the-top, egregious bedrooms? Just what kind of progress is having gays manages to condense in two minutes a compendium of constructions of absurdly serving openly in any military? stereotyped gay male behaviour from a heterosexual These are some of many questions we are frustrated with some of the successes of the gay interested in exploring. We will consider the rights movement. These successes include discursive climate that not only gives gay rights integration and assimilation into the larger culture social and political meaning, but that also continues as well as access to a normative middle-class to leave many on the margins, uninvited to the lifestyle. We’d like to consider some of the revolution. We’ll offer our imagined vision for an consequences of these successes – not on inclusive agenda of sexual and justice for heterosexuals who believe the value of their goods is all, a kind of ‘queertopia’. We’ll begin with a review compromised by gay rights, but rather the impact of some terms and concepts and on queer folks who don’t meet specifications of an provide a fast and dirty history lesson. increasingly normative and gay community.

The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work 65 2010 No. 3 www.dulwichcentre.com.au 2010 No. 3 www.dulwichcentre.com.au We consider this a kind of sneaky gaze of of bisexual, lesbian, and gay have significant, homonormativity. To understand what situated meaning. It would be very un-queer of us ‘homonormativity’ is, let’s first consider to impose the specification that everyone must heteronormativity. adopt ‘queer’. Heteronormativity (Warner, 1991) is the Both heteronormativity and homonormativity institutionalisation of what we’ve come to call require fixed, naturalised heterosexual and . It includes not only the sexual homosexual identities in order to maintain and relationships between born male-bodied/male- regulate the norms of these discursive institutions. identified people and born -bodied/female- As queer theorists, we question fixity and identified people, but also all the practices and essentialism of identities. For example, in the clip values that have come to represent those from Glee, Sue Sylvester talks about homosexuality relationships. Central to this privileged structure being a ‘pre-existing condition’. This has been the is the , the arbiter of all gendered central argument of the contemporary gays right relationships. movement. Leveraging modernist notions of a Homonormativity (Duggan, 2002) is the same naturalised, essential identity is central to the thing but involves either two born male-bodied ‘we’re just like you’ argument as well as the search people or two born female-bodied people. It accepts for the gay gene. Claims that ‘we’re born this way, as preferred and desirable the same relational it’s who we are’ are positions reliant on – and structures and cultural institutions of reifying of – a fixed identity, be it genetic, heteronormativity and, as Lisa Duggan notes, is biological, or existential. anchored in – just as is heteronormativity – Yet, we must recognise that these arguments domesticity and practices of consumerism. have been politically necessary and strategic. Homonormativity is straight-acting gay folk. They demonstrate that the binary, ‘essentialist/ Heteronormativity and homonormativity are constructionist’ can be problematic, and that, at terms that have emerged from the body of times, we need to engage in strategic essentialism scholarship that makes up queer theory. Queer (Spivak, 1987): the strategic use of essentialist theory is a set of critical practices that seeks to group identities in order to leverage political complicate hegemonic assumptions about the resistance in the face of institutional power. continuities between anatomical sex, gender And still, importantly, taking up the position identity, , sexual object choice, and that homosexuality is a ‘pre-existing condition’ does sexual practice. Queer theory rejects biological not account for all identity constructions. People theories of sexual identity and calls into question who perform fluid identities that are relationally so-called ‘natural’ sexuality. Central to these ideas constituted – identities that some people would call is the challenge to the gender binary system that queer – are not accounted for by modernist notions produces and maintains binary constructions such of the essential self. In this way, the contemporary as male/female and hetero/homo. gay rights movement has, at times, privileged Queer theory asks questions such as: Who do sameness over differences. these categories serve? Who do these categories It should come as no surprise that the notion include and whom do they exclude? Who has the of an essential gay/lesbian identity, fraught with power to define the categories? How are the multiple specifications, is historically and culturally categories policed? How do these categories change contingent. Foucault (1978) asserts that over time and across cultures? (Doty, 1993). It is homosexuality as an identity is a recent invention of important to underscore how we are not using the the modern era. While individuals across time and term ‘queer’. We are not using ‘queer’ as an place have engaged in all kinds of sexual activities umbrella term for LGBT. For us it is used as a point including same-sex activities, classifying people of resistance to fixed identities and normativity. based on those activities, thus rendering an identity Also, it is critical to recognise that the term ‘queer’ category, had never before occurred. Foucault dates does not resonate with everyone and, in fact, may the invention of homosexuality to an 1870 article be quite offensive. For many people, the identities by psychiatrist Carl Westphal. Foucault describes

66 The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work 2010 No. 3 www.dulwichcentre.com.au 2010 No. 3 www.dulwichcentre.com.au the discursive production of the homosexual in this movement. The 1969 riots in oft-quoted passage: serve as the iconic moment of . While Stonewall is typically appreciated as an emblem We must not forget that the psychological, of gay and lesbian resistance to heterosexist psychiatric, medical category of , it is critical to queer politics to homosexuality was constituted from the understand what Stonewall meant to the resistance moment it was characterized … of the increasingly assimilationist position of the Homosexuality appeared as one of the forms movement. As these earlier movements of sexuality when it was transposed from the became more normative, those gender and sexual practice of sodomy onto a kind of interior outlaws that were pushed to the margins pushed , a hermaphrodism of the soul; the back. Among those often placed at the epicentre of homosexual was now a species. (1978, p. 43) the riots are African-Americans and Latinos, This discursive production of identity based on queens, and various gender transgressors. Central sexual practices occurred during the ascendancy of to the broad platform of social and economic the medical profession and served the explicit – and justice was a focus on the liberation of sexual oppressive – purpose of categorising, medicalising, pleasure, what we would now call ‘sex positivity’ and regulating people. (Rubin, 1993). Foucault (1978) also says that where there’s But as history does, this history repeated itself. oppression there’s resistance. One form of Over time, the movement became less inclusive and resistance is reverse . As a medium for the radical, more accommodationist and sexually flow of power, discourse can be reversed by apologist. In a word, more normative. The reverse changing the direction of power without changing discourse has been exceedingly successful. the foundational ideas on which the discourse Thus, thinking back to the video clip, we argue relies. In this example, the very notion that one’s that ‘Sneaky Gays’ are under the sneaky gaze of sexual practices and desires are constitutive of one’s homonormativity. An inclusive agenda of social and identity was not challenged but embraced. A sexual justice, including a sex positive liberation of liberatory pedagogy was forged not to overturn the sexuality and rejection of specifying discourses of discourse, but rather to change the meaning and gender and sexuality, have given way to identity value placed on it. politics and middle-class lifestyles – the privileging The reverse discourse emerged in Germany in of sameness rather than difference. the late 19th century in a near immediate response Central to the success of the reverse discourse to the invention of homosexuality. In the 1950’s, is the compulsory performance of the the saw organisations such as the narrative. This serves as the repetitive discursive (an officially mixed-gender but performance of a naturalised identity category – and overwhelmingly male group) and the Daughters of it provides political traction and viability. Coming Bilitis (an exclusively female group). These groups out has afforded some LGBT people a place at the started with an agenda of social change rooted in a mainstream table, while others are left out all Marxist analysis of oppression. Over time, a more together. While we do not advocate for the cautious, assimilationist approach took hold, and oppressive silence of closets, we encourage critical included the disavowal of cruising, the sex-trade, thinking about the institution of coming out as it is drag queens, butch dykes, and other transgressors currently constituted. of gender specifications. The homophile movement ‘Coming out’ is the declaration and embrace of adjusted its focus from a need to change society to a fixed and unified lesbian/bi/gay or trans identity, the more normative and normalising emphasis that an ‘authentic self,’ which sets up the binary, homosexuals are ‘just like everyone else’. ‘authentic/inauthentic’. Foucault noted that while Having discarded efforts for social change by claiming a stable lesbian or gay identity may be embracing the rhetoric of the medical and personally liberating, it also serves to reify the psychiatric establishment, the homophile movement centrality of heterosexuality. For some, it is not gave way to the promise of the gay liberation liberating, as it can be another specification to

The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work 67 2010 No. 3 www.dulwichcentre.com.au 2010 No. 3 www.dulwichcentre.com.au meet, a litmus test of one’s gay creed. As Sarah, Yet, let us pause and look critically at this a queer youth recently said to me, ‘identifying as progress for equal rights. The main focus has been gay or lesbian feels like a prediction that I don’t on the rights for lesbian/gay marriage, gay , want to make’. and the ending of in the military (in Notions of ‘being honest’ perpetuate the the USA). Our concern is that the exclusive focus injustice of privatising social problems, in this case, on the above issues mimics heteronormative homophobia, , and . standards of . In what ways is this Individual narratives are dislocated from the cultural exclusive focus on acceptance into these narratives of heteronormativity and homonormativity contemporary systems – , procreation, that create meaningful context, perpetuating the binary gender roles for example – erasing the ‘burden of individualism’ that Stephen Madigan historical alliance between radical politics and gay (2010) has written about. politics, with one of the core concerns being sexual Coming out or being out is not an equal freedom? Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, author of opportunity endeavour, as people that inhabit That’s revolting: Queer strategies to resist various ethnic, racial, religious, class, and other assimilation (2008) writes: social locations may chance their own safety or that of their family’s – and risk losing meaningful, A gay elite has hijacked queer struggle, and culturally-located relationships when coming out is positioned their desires as everyone’s needs seen not only as compulsory, but also as ‘all or – the dominant signs of straight conformity nothing’. As able-bodied, white-skinned, have become the ultimate signs of gay professional Americans, being out is entirely success. Sure, for white gays with beach condos, country club memberships, and nice different for us than it may be for an African stock portfolios with a couple hedge funds immigrant living in subsidised housing in the north that need trimming every now and then end of Winnipeg. (think of Rosie O’Donnell or David Geffen), As an alternative to the end point of the marriage might just be the last thing developmental trajectory, Halberstam (2005) standing in the way of full citizenship, but proposes that coming out may be a starting point what about for everyone else? (p. 2) rather than an ending point, a suggestion that disrupts conventional notions of homosexual identity She goes on to say: development that contend that ‘successful’ Even when the ‘gay rights’ agenda does development is completed at coming out. include real issues, it does it in a way that Halberstam suggests that once ‘out’, one can consistently prioritises the most privileged continue to disrupt norms and participate in a while fucking over everyone else. I’m using proliferation of identities, thus challenging the the term ‘gay rights,’ instead of the more notion that there is a specified way of showing up popular term of the moment, ‘LGBT rights,’ the ‘right amount of gay’. because ‘LGBT’ usually means gay, with To reiterate, we think it is crucial to not lesbian in parentheses, throw out the trivialise the profound progress made in lesbian/gay bisexuals, and put trans on for a little rights since the of 1969. Because window-dressing. A gay rights agenda fights of the hard-won fight, struggle, and sacrifice of for an end to discrimination in housing and many gays and in the 1970s, ‘coming out’ employment, but not for the provision of is an option for some. Other advances, post- housing or jobs; domestic partner health Stonewall, include laws and in coverage but not universal health coverage. some locations, legal same-sex marriage. There is Or, more recently, hospital visitation and much more visibility in popular culture. And while inheritance rights for married , but many of these gay/lesbian representations are not for anyone else. Even with the most stereotypical, there are some that are rich and obviously ‘gay’ issue, that of anti-queer complex. Due to this visibility and awareness, many violence, a gay rights agenda fights for states/provinces and nations have passed tougher hate crimes legislation, instead of legislations addressing hate crimes. fighting the , classism, transphobia

68 The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work 2010 No. 3 www.dulwichcentre.com.au 2010 No. 3 www.dulwichcentre.com.au (and homophobia) intrinsic to the criminal This neoliberal drift even commodifies the word ‘justice’ system. (p. 2) queer – such as in Queer eye for the straight guy We believe that the contemporary LGBT and Queer as folk. Queer is emptied of its radical movement is primarily focused on the goal of political history of such movements as Queer ‘naturalising’ the faulty and deleterious ideological Nation. Moreover, (1978), whose structure known as marriage. The mimicking of ideas are in part seen as the precursor to queer traditional straight relationality, above all marriage, theory, might be rolling in his grave if he knew of for gays and lesbians announces itself as pragmatic this current historical trajectory of normativity. It strategy when it is in fact a deeply homonormative contradicts his academic and activist mission of ideological project that is hardly sensible. Queer destabilising discourses of . scholar José Esteban Munoz states, ‘in this way gay In addition, with the appropriation of queer by marriage detractors are absolutely right, gay , queer has come to be narrowly marriage is not natural, but then again, neither is defined as an umbrella term for GLBT undermining marriage for any individual’ (2007, p. 453). what queer meant for so many scholars and activists Homonormativity fragments LGBT communities – what Kathy Rudy (2000) stated when she wrote: into hierarchies of worthiness. LGBT people who come out of the closest and mimic heteronormative Being queer is not a matter of being gay, standards of gender identity are deemed most then, but rather of being committed to worthy of receiving rights. LGBT individuals at the challenging that which is perceived as bottom of the hierarchy – transgender persons, normal. There is no fool-proof membership , bisexuals, and non-gender identified criterion for queerness other than the persons – are seen as an impediment to this elite willingness to seek out sites of resistance to class of homonormative individuals receiving normalcy in any possible location. (p. 197) their rights. Having laid out our critique, we want to imagine Another concern we have is the cultural a queer utopian world. With only the futurity of a phenomenon of gays and lesbians becoming another queer utopia, rather than assimilationist pragmatic group of individuals to be capitalised upon by the strategies, can genuine, long-lasting change occur, media, capitalists, and consumption, a new offsetting the tyranny of the homonormative. As demographic that can be generalised and targeted Munoz says, ‘queerness is utopian and there is for consumption. The gay and lesbian movement something queer about the utopian’ (2007, p. 457). has embraced this economic trend and, hence, come to align itself with neoliberalism in the Indeed to ask for and imagine another time and cultural sphere. Supporting neoliberalism includes place is to embody and make possible a desire that promoting militarisation through its campaigns is both utopian and queer. To participate in such a against discrimination in the armed forces, ‘queertopian’ enterprise is not to imagine an promoting the privatisation of and isolated future for the individual but to instead healthcare guarantees through its focus on marriage partake in a collective futurity, a notion of futurity as a social cure-all, and promoting the excesses of informed by hope and possibility. The present is not capitalism over development through its general enough. It is bankrupt and toxic for who do infatuation with the free market and consumer not feel the privilege of majoritarian belonging, society as the best way to ensure gay ‘visibility’ and normative practices, and ‘rational’ expectations. equal participation in North American society. And Hence, this is our version of a queertopia; a although the assimilationist rhetoric of neoliberalism future that can be brought to the present: promises equality for ‘all’, in reality, only gays and • Marriage would be banned; all citizens would lesbians with enough access to capital can imagine get the benefits that are currently afforded to a life integrated within North American capitalist married people. culture. It goes without saying that ‘all’ actually refers to normative citizen-subjects with a host of • Gender would be eradicated or multiplied rights only afforded to some (and not all) queers. exponentially.

The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work 69 2010 No. 3 www.dulwichcentre.com.au 2010 No. 3 www.dulwichcentre.com.au • Gender Identity would be taken out of the was created by Carl Buijs, a from the DSM; transgender people would no longer be Netherlands, in 1995. It originated as a way to shift the focus off of a marginalised group, by defining not pathologised. In fact, there would be no only the minority group (transgender) but also the DSM. Period. majority (not transgender). can be used in • Bathrooms/washrooms would not be place of less accurate terms such as ‘biological’ male or female since transgender people are also ‘biological’ gendered; people could ‘pee in peace’. (and not made from some non-biological material). • Cisgender privilege3 would be unmasked and 4. Rubin interrogated the value system that social groups undermined. – whether left- or right-wing, feminist or patriarchal – attribute to sexuality which defines some behaviors as • Much needed medical services (hormones, good/natural and others (such as sadomasochism) as surgery, for example) for gender transition bad/unnatural. In this essay, she introduced the idea of would be affordable. the ‘Charmed Circle’ of sexuality; that sexuality that was privileged by society was inside of it, while all • There would be a sex-positive society. All sex, other sexually was outside of, and in opposition to it. if consensual, would be good sex free from the institutions and discourses of medicine/ References psychology, religion, and law (see Rubin, Doty, A. (1993). Making things perfectly queer: 1993)4. Interpreting mass culture. Minneapolis, MN: These queertopian imaginings may seem naïve University of Minnesota Press. in face of the extremely pragmatic agenda that Duggan, L. (2002). The incredible shrinking public: currently organises LGBT activism in . Sexual politics and the decline of democracy. Boston, Many, including some in queer communities, would MA: Beacon Press. dismiss our queertopia world as impractical. Yet we Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality, Vol.1, An introduction (R. Hurley, Trans.) New York, NY: contend that these queer ideals, along with a Pantheon. (Original work published 1976). critique of the present LGBT movement, are of Halberstam, J. (2005). In a queer time and place: significant and essential value if real justice is to Transgender bodies, subcultural lives. New York, NY: occur. We are not content to just describe these New York University Press. ethical principles. More important, we advocate that Madigan, S. (2010). Who has the story telling rights to queer utopian possibilities of freedom, liberation, the story being gold: Narrative therapy theory and and collectivity are more than what could be, but practice. Chicago, IL: American Psychological what should be. Can you think of your own Association Press. ‘queertopian’ ideas to add to our list? Please join us Munoz, J. E. (2007). Queerness as horizon. Utopian in escaping the straightjacket of homonormativity hermeneutics is the face of gay pragmatism. In M. and embracing this queertopia. Thank you. McGarry & G.E. Haggerty (Eds.), A companion to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and (pp. 452–464). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Notes Rubin, G. (1993). Thinking sex: Notes for a radical theory 1. Proposition 8 (or the California Marriage Protection of the politics of sexuality. In H. Abelove, M. Barale, Act) was a ballot proposition and constitutional & D. Halperin (Eds.), The lesbian and gay studies amendment passed in the November 2008, California reader (pp. 3–44). New York, NY: Routledge. state elections (US). The measure added a new provision to the California Constitution, which provides Rudy, K. (2000). Queer theory and . Women that only marriage between a man and a woman is Studies, 29, 195–216. valid or recognised in California. Spivak, G. (1987). In other worlds: Essays in cultural 2. Iowa, a modest agricultural state in the Midwest not politics. New York, NY: Routledge. generally known for progressive politics, legalised Sycamore, M. B. (2008). That’s revolting: Queer same-sex marriage in 2009. strategies to resist assimilation. Berkeley, CA: Soft 3. Cisgender is a neologism meaning ‘not transgender’, Skull Press. that is, having a gender identity or performing in a Warner, M. (1991). Fear of a queer planet. Social Text, that society considers appropriate for one’s sex. The prefix cis- is pronounced like ‘sis’. The term 29, 3–17.

70 The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work 2010 No. 3 www.dulwichcentre.com.au 2010 No. 3 www.dulwichcentre.com.au