Queer Identities Rupturing dentity Categories and Negotiating Meanings of Oueer WENDY PETERS Ce projet dPcrit sept Canadiennes qui In the article, "The Politics of constructed by available discourses shpproprient le terme "queerJ'comme InsideIOut," Ki Namaste recom- (Foucault). Below, I describe some orientation sexuelk et en explore ks mends that queer theoreticians pay of the meanings participants as- dzfirentes signt$cations. Leur identiti attention to the diversity of non- cribed to queer, and explore the et expiriencespointent rt. certaines ca- heterosexual identities. I created the ways in which queer was under- tigories sexuelles existantes comme les- following research project through stood and represented by people biennes et hitirosexuelles. my interest in queer theory and a who claim, or have claimed, queer subsequent recognition that queer, as their sexuality identity category. In the 1990s, the term "queer" gained as described in queer theory, is an The first person to email the new acceptance within poststruct- excellent description for my sexu- listserv identified herself as uralistlpostmodernist thought. In ality and gender practices. Since "Stressed!" Stressed wrote often part, this was an attempt to move queer is a term that resists a static about trying to finish her gradu- away from reproducing the hetero- definition, I was curious to see who ate-level thesis, and chose her alias sexist binary of heterosexual and ho- else was claiming queer as an iden- to reflect her current state of mind. mosexual. Queer theory contends that tity category and what it meant for She related how her claiming of in order to challenge heteronorma- them. After sending an email to queer as an identity category came tivity, we need to go beyond replac- friends and various listservs detail- through her coming-out process ing one restrictive category with an- ing my interest in starting an aca- and her reluctance to choose a sexu- other. To illustrate, queer theorists demic study of queer identities, I ality category that seemed to "fix" argue that in challenging heterosexu- heard from seven queer women her changing identity. She found ality with homosexuality, we are re- from across Canada who were will- that in coming out, queer seemed placing one inadequate categorywith ing to let me study their notions of "to roll off [her] tongue more easily another similarly inadequate cat- being queer.' As we were far apart than lesbian or bisexual." She ex- egory. The perceived inadequacy of geographically, I set up an Internet plained that she rejected the term these categories stems largely from listserv where we could discuss our lesbian in order to avoid "a discus- their application as fixed identities. reasons for claiming queer, and sion of the mechanics of [her] Queer theory offers an alternative collectively debate the differing brain." For her, queer seeks to de- conception where sexuality and gen- meanings ascribed to this shifting essentialize sexuality and marks it der are fluid and unstable categories. ~ategory.~Experience is central to as a shifting identity. Stressed in- Queer allows for a complex and this project, as I examine my own voked queer as an identity category changing identity, where people lo- experiences and those of the other first in opposition to heterosexual- cate themselves in different places at participants as my source of "data." ity during her coming-out process, different times. It is seen as a category I do not view stories about experi- and then in opposition to other that can change theform of sexuality, ence as offering the "truth about non-normative sexuality categories. rather than just the content. Queer, queer identities unproblematically. On the listserv, queer was fre- in this context, is also used as a verb, Rather, I view these experiences as quently defined in opposition to to queer. To queer is to seek to trou- constructed by the discourses that "normal" (heteronormativity) ble, undo or unfix categories. are available to us, just as we are when the participants realised that 102 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIESILES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME they themselves were no longer con- for some ~eople,queer is seen as a Sometimes, i think i would feel sidered to be "normal" sexually. term that is directly connected to comfortable in simply tellingpeo- However, it is important to note larger political projects. ple that i like girls . oh, and i that queer was also frequently ref- The next participant who joined guess i am dressed like a boy today. erenced in opposition to other non- the listserv claimed her name from normative sexuality identitycatego- a goofy and likeable teenage boy She described her life-long queer- ries such as lesbian or bisexual. character from the Canadian teen ness in this way: Stressed focused on the limits of television show Degrassi Junior "LGB" identity categories as they High. In her first email to the Iwoulddaydreamforhoursabout didn't quite "seem to fit."3 Stressed's listserv, "Joey Jeremiah" explained beingthe boy who broughtthegirl queer identity was claimed as a pre- that she had first heard of the term flowers, the boy who got to hold a ferred alternative to all other sexu- girl? hand, the girl who was se- ality categories, normative and non- duced by other girls (occasionally normative. 'I iam queer Madonna), the girl who was se- Stressed was planning to start a because it is the duced by a boy in my school, and teaching position in the upcoming theperson who m& my twoschool fall, and in her last message to the easiest way for male crushes kiss. I fantasize listserv she expressed her concern other people ;t.o about being a man, a sleek dark- about the need to overhaul the edu- haired boy. I love it when my cational system. She wrote that understand me. female partner calls me 'girly. " I because such an overhaul was un- Sometimes, i think wear make-up. I get along well likely, she planned to try "queering iwould feel withguys andget nervous around it from within." She would queer women. I love cars-I wouldlove the existing- educational system by comfoHable [n to be a tau& mechanic boy. seeking out simply telling In explaining her queerness, Joey Jer- either current educational initia- people that iIike emiah described a series of sexual and tives orprograms outside of the ed girls ... oh, and r" gender "roles," and seems to see the system that actuaIly take into ac- guess I" am dressed category lesbian as precluding some count social exclusion/inclusion ofthem. She chose the category queer that actually acknowledges racist, likea boy today," over the category lesbian because she sexist, colonialist, heterosexist saw queer as allowing her desire for pedagogies and systems. women, her desire to play man to the queer about two years previous. She woman, her desire for men, her de- She described this queering ofthe described how she had spent most sire for queer men, and her desire to system as her "utopian vision." Al- of her life "being queer" and that it be the man to another man. She though her articulation of queer was through the process of coming explained that she feels that this term was mostly related to personal iden- out to friends and family that she "allows other people to understand tity, she named "queering" as part realized that her desires were asso- something about [her] (if someone ofan educational project concerned ciated with a whole new (lesbian) dares to ask)." Her assertions that the with racism, sexism, colonialism, identity for everyone else. She ex- category queer helps other people to and heterosexism. Here we can see plained that she was not comfort- understand her non-normative sexu- queer as a way to think (theory) able with the term lesbian, but went ality and gender performance, sug- and a way to act politically. In the with it because it seemed to help gest that queer "explains" or encap- conversations on the listserv, there her friends and family make sense sulates sexuality and gender. It also was often an assumed leap between of her new sexual relations with suggests that queer is a category that "queer is the category that I am most women. Joey Jeremiah explained people recognize and can use to order comfortable with)) and "queer is a that she has come to prefer queer as and make sense of these non-norma- term that has political potential to an identity marker because she be- tive identifications. be disruptive and challenging." lieved that it fits with her sexuality Joey Jeremiah claimed queer as Stressed demonstrated this when and gender practices. As she ex- an identity category while keeping she moved from using queer as a plained, queer theory at an arm's length. category she claims, to using queer She writes, "i think that i have been as a verb-"to queer" the educa- i have to say that i think that i am a living breathing queer since i tional system. This slide between queer because it is the easiest way have known myself. .. without any identity and politics suggests that for otherpeople to understand me. theory to denounce 'hetero-nor- VOLUME 24, NUMBERS 2,3 103 mative practices' to inspire me or rect" (men's) washroom or give her for me to refer to." Queer theory I liked the sense thdt I could work strange looks. With this informa- is not an authority for Joey Jer- against homophobia and be seen tion in mind, Sheila ironically chose emiah and she seemed to invert1 as an allpa strong enough ally her alias with the following expla- subvert the statement "I am queer" thatlcouldbea )artDofthings.. nation, "Sheila-(my alias, for al- by writing "queer is me." She re- maybe even claim the same name though it's also the one on my driv- iterated that queer is an identity and bits ofidentity Idon t mean er's license, i sure didn't pick it)." marker that she chooses for herself to say that I thoight that I was Sheila "came out" and claimed les- because it helps others to under- homosexual and could then "re- bian as her identity marker because stand her sexual practices and gen- ally-know-what-it?-like" to suf- she was "too afraid of the implica- der performances.