21 posts tagged “queer”

1. Before I analyze the behavior of feminine women, perhaps I should analyze the fact that my rejection of feminine beauty practices confirms feelings about my gender identity which I experienced long before I encountered feminism at university.  And before I say that feminine practices are disempowering, I should acknowledge the power which my own performance brings me and the fact that I love that power.
2. Before I berate feminine heterosexual women for using their gender performance to attract men, I should look at how my own gender performance is linked to desire and sexuality.
3. Before I accuse heterosexual women of being constrained by gender norms, I should look at the way my own gender performance engages with feminist and lesbian gender norms and ideals.
4. Before I assume that taking part in feminine beauty practices oppresses other women, I should stop and think about how my (supposedly) feminist attitudes oppress other women.

These 4 reminders aren't of my authoring--I found them in another blog on October 22, 2006.  I liked 'em so much that I wrote them down in the pocket journal I carry with me everywhere, and titled them as this blogpost.

That source blog (desperatekingdoms.blogspot.com) has apparently disappeared since then.  I'm glad I wrote it down.

Last night, the sound of my breathing was inseperable from the endless clattering rumble of a nearby passing train.  My sighs and cries were likewise indiscernable from the shrill whistle.  Was that the rhythm of bodies moving against bedsides or the rocking of steel wheels against steel rails?  Was that my breath stirring your hair, or the wind in the cottonwoods outside your window?

The name unknown, unwritten, untranslatable and untranscribeable--I hear it pronounced again and again in the moment of motionless silence between your inbreath and my outbreath.

Initial reflections regarding my attendance of a Defender's evening at the Chain Drive:

• how lovely it is to be without the gaze of the Other in the usual way
• I was one of the two sexiest people there (a tie between myself and The Poet)
• At this elevation, much closer to sea level, it takes four vodka gimlets to make me feel as tipsy as two beers in Boulder.
• Bears are very kind men, worthy company in all regards.
• Nipple piercings, pot bellies, and lots of body hair just work, somehow, in a very cuddly/nonthreatening/nonsexy way.
• I  completely adore the aforementioned Poet for her zesty embrace of the evening, scintillating conversation, and so forth.  It is incomparable to have such amazing friends. 
  
• I still don't know how the Defenders rectify their faith and their kink, but perhaps I'll find out in their workshops tomorrow
  

The view from my hotel room window.  I'm sitting in a comfy chair with my feet propped up, enjoying the view, and reading:

Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation

070507_10111.jpg

It seems appropriate, given that I'm here to attend a GLBT Catholic conference.

Last night, I saw bats fly out of the world's largest urban bat colony--the Congress Ave. Bridge, on the right side of the photo to the left.  Later in the evening, after I'd gone for a stroll around, post-fireworks, I saw that bats were flying around the parking lot lights, catching moths and the like.

Today, my Dad and I are going to go wander around downtown Austin, and tonight there's some kind of fancy reception banquet I have to dress up and look queer for.

My most significant pondering of late: how out can I be/do I want to be?  My parents are effectively outing me all the time.  And it's not like I'm in, but it does raise the question of: how out can I be when in the most mundane settings, like in the elevator in the hotel, walking down the street, getting a beer at the bar, etc?  Does not my general appearance speak volumes?  I don't pass as straight.  I'm too flamboyant :)

Yesterday, I spent something like six hours shopping for a shirt that goes with my suit, shoes, a belt and a bag that match well enough, and a bra (that fits, unlike all of my other bras that are sized for 15 pounds ago).  I managed to get the shirt (which is damn near perfect) and the shoes, but as yet no belt nor bag.  I'm hoping I can find a bag suitable enough that I'll want to use it again.  I have a great leather shoulder bag in the absolutely wrong color.  I suppose I could get away with it, since it's a kind of buttercream color that will compliment my shirt.

Special thanks to She-who-is-in-need-of-a-less-common-name-as-a-nickname for shopping with me.  I got unsufferably cranky after the third or fourth hour, and she was a great help the whole time. 

This whole girly thing totally freaks me out. I put on heels yesterday for the first time EVER and walked around and experienced the kind of existential dread that I associate with my essential discomfort with the feminine gender I've been assigned but do not feel is my home.  Seriously, I felt like I was going to throw up.  But, it's okay.  It was a moment that gives me a kind of empathy for folks who are way more gender queer than me.  And so I'm going to try to play with it, but the literal feeling of groundlessness in heels is, frankly, fucking scary.

On Thursday, I'm going to the salon, where, aside from having my hair cut and colored again, I'll get a make-up consultation so I can get the right eye and lip colors to go with my shirt and suit. 

Fashion is pain.  But damn, I'm going to look hot hot hot.

Speaking of hot hot hot, I have a crush, I have a crush, I have a crush.  More on that later, when I feel like being more self-disclosing, and perhaps quoting my dathun journal.  But in the meantime, huzzah!  It's reciprocal!  I'm totally doing a booty-shaking happy dance over this.  When I'm not awkward and nervous. 

And in other news, my therapist is totally going to laugh at me.  Totally.

Last week, after finishing the work on my thesis on Wednesday, I went to see a nifty apartment in one of the L-towns.  I then went to Kinkos to have my thesis printed and bound.  I think the timing was right, because it's like the perfect place -- lots of space, a view, kind neighbors, quiet.  And it's all inclusive for a reasonable price.  I'll be moving June 1-whenever I'm done.  Which is not far away at all.  I can pack in three weeks, right?  I'll have to wrangle up some friends to help with the heavy moving on June 2 or thereabouts.

I'm looking forward to the summer time of free time and creativity. And alone time, which I've not really had since...1999? 

.

Recently, I saw the film Shortbus for my Senior Project class. One of the actors graduated from my degree program not long ago, and took Senior Project with Carole as well.  He's coming to class next week (4/12) to speak with us.

Naropa is such an unfuckingbelievably awesome place to be :)  This film as a class assignment supplies just the kind of context I need to actually begin to speak about the role of sex and intimacy in my thesis, my thresholding project, and the overall integration of my Naropa oeuvre.

Also, I look forward to, with no small amount of giddy schadenfreude, the discomfort of my heterosexual male classmates.  They had such difficulty reading sphincter and other gay-themed poetry by Allen Ginsberg that I suspect they'll have had great discomfort with much of the movie.

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2. Bataille, G. (1989). Theory of religion. (R. Hurley, Trans.). New York: Zone Books.    (Original work published 1973)
3. Bataille, G. (1989). The accursed share: Volume I. (R. Hurley, Trans.). New York: Zone Books. (Original work published 1967).
4. Bataille, G. (1991). The accursed share: Volume II & III. (R. Hurley, Trans.). New York: Zone Books.  (Original work published 1976).
5. Beasley, C. (2005). Gender & sexuality: Critical theories, critical thinkers.  London: Sage Publications.
6. Bornstein, K. (1998). My gender workbook. New York: Routledge.
7. Boucher, G. (2006). The politics of performativity: A critique of Judith Butler. Parrhesia, 1.  Retrieved March 23, 2007 from http://www.parrhesiajournal.org/parrhesia01/parrhesia01_boucher.pdf.
8. Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the discursive limits of “Sex”. London: Routledge.
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10. Butler, J.  (2004). Undoing gender. New York: Routledge.
11. Clement, C. (1994). Syncope: The philosophy of rapture. (S. O’Driscoll & D. M. Mahoney,  Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published 1990).
12. Cross, M. & Epting, F. (2005). Self-obliteration, self-definition, self-integration: Claiming a homosexual identity. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 18.  Retrieved March 16,  2007, from PsychARTICLES database.
13. Daumer, E. D. (1992). Queer ethics; or the challenge of bisexuality to lesbian ethics. Hypatia, 7 (4). Retrieved January 19, 2007, from Academic Search Premier database.
14. Deacon, R. (2000). Theory as practice: Foucault’s concept of problematization. Telos, 118. Retrieved February 23, 2007, from Academic Search Premier database.
15. Degges-White, S., Rice, B. & Myers, J. E. (2000). Revisiting Cass’ theory of sexual identity formation: A study of lesbian development. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 22 (4). Retrieved March 16, 2007, from PsychARTICLES database.
16. Dollimore, J. (1991). Sexual dissidence: Augstine to Wilde, Freud to Foucault. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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20. Foucault, M. (1990). The history of sexuality: An introduction. (R. Hurley, Trans.). New York: Random House. (Original work published 1978).
21. Halperin, D. M. (1995). Saint Foucault: towards a gay hagiography.  New York: Oxford  University Press.
22. Hoffman, R.M., (2006). Gender self-definition and gender self-acceptance in women: Intersections with feminist, womanist and ethnic identities.  Journal of Counseling & Development, 84 (3). Retrieved November 10, 2006, from PsychARTICLES database.
23. Hoffman, R.M., Borders, L.D., & Hattie, J.A. (2000).  Reconceptualizing femininity and masculinity: From gender roles to gender self-confidence.  Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 15 (4). Retrieved November 10, 2006, from Academic Search Premier database.
24. Irigaray, L. (1999). When our lips speak together. In Price, J. & Shildrick, M. (Eds.). Feminist theory and the body.  New York: Routledge.
25. Jackson, P. A. (2000). An explosion of thai identities: Global queering and re-imagining queer theory.  Culture, Health & Sexuality, 2 (4). Retrieved March 23, 2007, from Academic Search Premier database. 
26. Jalas, K. (2005). Butch Lesbians and desire. Women: a cultural review, 16 (1). Retrieved January  16, 2007, from Academic Search Premier database.
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29. Leyland, W. (Ed.). (2000). Queer dharma: Voices of gay Buddhists (Vols. 1-2).  San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press.
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    shaman.  New York: The Penguin Group.
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        and community. New York: The Penguin Group.
    
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Note: this is after I pared it down to things I would actually cite, or things that, in my reading of them, genuinely influenced the creation of my thesis.

So...in early July, my parents are dragging me off to the Dignity USA biannual conference.  I've not been a Catholic since I was 19, so it's a little weird to me.  But, it's an opportunity to spend some time with my parents, who want to show me off to their queer catholic community. Apparently, they talk about me wherever they go (they're really involved in P-FLAG and Dignity), and so there's an assembly of people who just can't wait to meet me.  I hope I won't disappoint.  I'm really not that impressive, even if I do have great hair.

I hope to have some time while I'm in Austin to meet up with some of the fabulous feminist bloggers who live there.  Which means, I hope they have time to and are willing to meet with me.  Which means...I should initiate contact with them via email.

(these are notes from the handout on the Thresholding Project.  Emphasis is original.)

Like the Bloodroot, your Thresholding Project is a moment leaned into. It is a means of exploring the "between space": between past and present, self and other, part and whole.

It is the space in which you experience the noun (threshold) as a verb (thresholding). Like the Bloodroot it requires openness, curiosity, and an increased capacity to suspend judgment, knowing, uncertainty and fear. It is a time of letting go: relinquishing old habits, identities, and preconceptions. It is also a time of arriving: beyond habitual ways of understanding, into a wider, emerging whole. It requires that you stand at the threshold and notice what you notice, capable and willing to lean into the moment most fully.

For my Threshold Project, I am going to do a Queer Performative Monologue.  For an hour.  And hopefully attain enlightenment, so that I don't die of the embarrassment and anxiety.

1. My Bash Back Bat, which has elicited much appreciation from fellow queers on campus today
   
2. My sourcebook from IDIS280: Introduction to Women's Studies, which I took at Purdue over 10 years ago.  (the sourcebook has Adrianne Rich's essay Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence, which I'm glad to finally re-read)
3. My soup in a ziplock container, which leaked a little. Thankfully, I had wrapped it in my towel.
4. My digital camera, with which I took a picture of the "DIE QUEERS" scrawled on one of the big pieces of paper posted around campus (for the explicit use of students to write upon in reflection of the recent hate crime*)
5. A bunch of essays I've collected from the EBSCO Host Database, and printed out, including:

• Theory as Practice: Foucault's Concept of Problematization
• Truth-telling as an Educational Practice of the Self: Foucault, Parrhesia and the Ethics of Subjectivity
• Butch Lesbians and Desire
• Queer Ethics; or, The Challenge of Bisexuality to Lesbian Ethics
• Reconceptualizing Femininity and Masculinity: From Gender Roles to Gender Self-Confidence
• Gender Self-Definition and Gender Self-Acceptance in Women: Intersections with Feminist, Womanist and Ethnic Identities
• A study of Feminist Identity Development in Women
• Sexual Orientation Identities, Attractions and Practices of Female-to-Male Transsexuals
  

* Speaking of hate crime, please see this excellent article titled Should We Repeal Hate Crime Laws? at Ornicus.  The answer is no, and the article succinctly explains why.  Read it.