035 - Genderqueer [Gq]

May 082011

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035-Gender-Queer

Reflective Description
By: YOU?

May 21, 2011 Note 2 from Jen on the Allies category: Changes are coming! Thanks everyone for your feedback, especially Zeo and Evan (at the Seattle Erotic Art Festival).

May 20, 2011 Note 1 from Jen on the Allies category: Trans, Intersex, and Genderqueer were placed in the Allies category because people who identify as such can also identify as straight. To me, queer is about your sexuality, not your gender identity. There will, of course, be some overlap but I don’t want to assume it.

The word “Allies” was the best that we could come up with. If you have a better suggestion we would love to hear it.

Further comments and suggestions on the topic are very welcome.

Note that in the May 2011 iteration of the project, Genderqueer is one word. Old buttons have two words but once they have sold out the button/magnet will be one word.

Your thoughts? What does this element mean to you?
Please share your ideas and read comments from others below.

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femmestyles

From what I can see from the larger Queeriodic Table, the “Allies” category seems to include Intersex, Trans, Gender Queer, Fag Hag, and Lesbro, and I’m wondering how that all came together. I’m just guessing that Intersex, Trans, and Gender Queer are in this category to avoid that thing where people erroneously assume that gender identity and sexual orientation are one and the same. I appreciate that distinction, but I wonder if calling these “Allies” is making too much of a division between who is and isn’t an “ally” , considering the overlap that would occur if one was, say, a genderqueer femme, or a trans homo – or even a trans lesbro, for that matter. Ally of whom? And then how do those terms connect with regard to “fag hag” and “lesbro”? Apart from some of the issues of so-called “allies”… Anyhow, I’d be interested to hear how this categorization came about, and hearing what other folks think.
- http://queeriodictable.com Jen Crothers
  
  Thanks for the insightful comment.
  
  Itâ€™s a personal pet peeve of mine that people conflate gender identity and sexuality. There are lots of straight-identified trans people for example. So it was important to me to make that distinction.
  
  I suspect that most people who recognise themselves on the table will identify with more than one element. Allies was the best catch all term we could come up with. It doesnâ€™t entirely sit comfortably with me either.
  
  I would love to hear some other suggestions.
  - femmestyles
    
    Ah, I forgot to check back for replies! Thanks everyone who has commented. I’m going to think about it, and maybe chat with some folks about it. xox
  - jp
    
    To be a straight-identified trans person means that you are binary-identified. this is not the case with us non-binary folks.
http://saffolicious.blogspot.com Saffo

umm, genderqueers are queers. wtf are you talking about?
- http://queeriodictable.com Jen Crothers
  
  Hi Saffo, I think it all depends on how you define genderqueer and queer. To me genderqueer is about gender and queer is about sexuality and those two things aren’t the same. I think it is possible to be a straight-identified genderqueer person, which is why this element currently lives in the Allies group.
  
  Obviously not everyone will agree. That is one of the wonderful things about this project, the discussions that it starts.
  
  We totally welcome further suggestions and comments.
  - jp
    
    If anyone reading this identifies as both genderqueer AND straight, please correct me, but I am relatively certain those two terms are mutually exclusive.
    - Jen Crothers
      
      You’re right.That was a silly thing to say. I was trying to make my broader point (that gender and sexuality are not the same thing) fit this discussion under genderqueer. That didn’t work.
http://nubianimpprojects@gmail.com Kona

@femmestyles & Saffo: I wonder if each of you (or one of you, or someone eles reading this) might take a crack at writing a Reflective Description of this Element. 100 or so words that define it for YOU and that reflect your understanding of the word in YOUR world.

We’re curating descriptions for all the Elements so if you would like to try your hand at others please do so! More information is available over here: http://queeriodictable.com/participate.

Thanks for being passionate enough to write.
!Kona, co-creator
http://ratbagqueer.wordpress.com Ratbag Queer

Creating a project with a surface goal of representing a minority group, and then using it as a means to erase the identities of other, less powerful subgroups that you’d rather kick out? It’s an old trick, but it still stings.

Genderqueer, trans and intersex people have been a vital part of the queer community since it’s inception. To attempt to brush us to the gutter as ‘Allies’ of the community is not only incredibly offensive (I’m well aware that offense is cheap), but more importantly it erases our identities as queer people. And we are queer people just as much as anyone else is.

“To me, queer is about your sexuality, not your gender identity.”

Well, that’s what counts, isn’t it? Thankyou so much for telling us that because you’re cis and we’re not, you’re allowed to redefine the cultural label of ‘queer’ to erase us, because we dirty up the nice, cleanly cut idea of Your Community that you’d like to present to the world.

“There will, of course, be some overlap but I donâ€™t want to assume it.”

We’re allowed in, oh of course! But only if we fit one of the other categories. Being trans alone isn’t enough to join this clubhouse anymore. Or at least, that seems to be the author’s ideal. How patronising.

Surely you assume it by including gay, lesbian, bi, et cetera? There are many people of all of the above who find the idea of being labelled as ‘queer’ deeply unsettling, and refuse to identify as such. So that argument appears to be unequally applied here, specifically targetting trans, intersex and genderqueer people because the creator of the piece would rather they weren’t considered part of the community.

People with gender variant identities and experiences have been an integral part of the queer movement and cultural identity from the very beginning. Refusal to comply with normative assumptions of male and female roles and behaviors is at the very core of queerness. To attempt to excise those who have less presence and voice in this community because of your own preferences is damaging and oppressive.

If this post sounds angry, it’s because having one’s identity trampled over and erased is rather bracing.
- http://queeriodictable.com Jen Crothers
  
  Thanks for your comments Ratbag Queer. I don’t think I’m trying to redefine queer, so much as I have a different understanding of what the word means.
  
  Nevertheless, we acknowledge that the term Allies is problematic (Kona and I have always felt uneasy about it) and we’re going to change the table.
  
  This project is iterative and interactive and adapts as we receive feedback. We really appreciate people taking the time to engage, discuss, debate, call out, challenge and contribute.
Transdyke_Biochemist

First, kudos for a brilliant idea and wonderful execution! It’s wonderful, and I can’t wait to put a poster up in my lab. :)

If I may make a suggestion, you might consider changing “Allies” to “Gender identity”, or perhaps even better, creating a new category&color for gender-related queerness? Perhaps the *transition* metals? ;) It could be a sly joke.

As a lesbian transwoman, I share your frustration that so many people conflate gender identity and sexual orientation — our friends, our family, and even our therapists! :( The more we can do to educate the public about the difference, the better, which is why an explicit category/color for gender might be desirable.

I have to say that it would personally hurt if we trans people weren’t counted as genuinely part of the queer community, regardless of our sexual orientations. I call myself queer all the time. In my experience, people use the word “queer” as an all-encompassing word, basically the opposite of “straight&cis-gendered”. There are other words for the opposites of “straight” and “cis-gendered” (such as gay and trans), again in my experience.

Hoping this is helpful…
- http://queeriodictable.com Jen Crothers
  
  Yes that is certainly helpful Transdyke_Biochemist. Thanks for your input and kind words.
  
  We are definitely going to change the table and I think we’ll have a gender related group. Though then Intersex wouldn’t exactly fit… It’s a tricky thing to make it work in an intelligent way but we will persist! Transition metals indeed. :)
  
  The posters that exist are from the first iteration and aren’t the same as the table represented here at the moment. We’ll print more posters after the third iteration is complete. Maybe hold off buying a poster until then? New! With better representation of our queer world!
Pam

I think Stonewall made T for Trans “Classic.”
doubleN

Ratbag Queer and Transdyke_Biochemist and Pam all have good points.
I am potentially interested in buying buttons and “posters after the third iteration is complete” so I look forward to seeing the changes!
jp

“Some will read ‘queer’ as synonymous with ‘gay and lesbian’ or ‘LGBT’. This reading falls short. While those who would fit within the constructions of ‘L’, ‘G’, ‘B’ or ‘T’ could fall within the discursive limits of queer, queer is not a stable area to inhabit. Queer is not merely another identity that can be tacked onto a list of neat social categories, nor the quantitative sum of our identities. Rather, it is the qualitative position of opposition to presentations
of stability – an identity that problematizes the manageable limits of identity. Queer is a territory of tension, defined against the dominant narrative of white-hetero-monogamouspatriarchy, but also by an affinity with all who are marginalized, otherized and oppressed. Queer is the abnormal, the strange, the dangerous. Queer involves our sexuality and our gender, but so much more. It is our desire and fantasies and more still. Queer is the cohesion of everything in conflict with the heterosexual capitalist world. Queer is a total rejection of the regime of the Normal.”
–Toward the Queerest Insurrection

Reducing “queer” to a stand-in term for lesbian, gay, and bisexual is not only offensive, but inaccurate. Queerness is about challenging the limitations of these limited categories and binaries. There are plenty of LGB folks who neither identify as queer or with the ideas underlying queer politics (if those can be said to exist). There are a whole lot of us queers out there who refuse to be labeled merely as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Identity policing non-binary gender identities and writing them off as “allies” and not “queer” is incredibly problematic.

All that aside, as a genderqueer individual, how could I possibly be straight? Straight would mean that I was a binary-identified individual who was attracted to individuals who identify with the other side of said binary. How could I possibly be straight if I am not binary-identified?

Please stop excluding the identities of so many queer folks. This kind of attitude is steeped in cis privilege, and I implore you to re-consider the patterns of thought that lead to this kind of trans* exclusion.
- Jen Crothers
  
  Thanks for you input. We are creating a new version of the table that will better include gender.
Ander

Here’s hoping “bigender” also makes it into the new version.
=)
- Anonymous
  
  Interestingly, I think you’re the first person to suggest that. Thanks! (JC)
Rory Thomas

Genderqueer is a massive part of my queerness. To be genderqueer, that is, nether a man nor a woman but something else entirely, means that I *cannot* be straight (a man attracted to women) OR ‘gay’ (a man attracted to men). If I’m neither a man nor a woman, I can’t fit those categories, which is the very point of queerness. Queer is about breaking down the false binaries.

To reduce this whole concept of gender to being an ‘ally’ is minimising and excluding.