From: anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson)
Subject: Re: New queer terminology
Organization: Madison Academic Computing Center, UW-Madison
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 00:18:35 GMT


In article <1992Aug16.225820.13089@reed.edu> nelson@reed.edu
(Nelson Minar) writes:

Now you've gone and done it, my friend.  I suppose it was
inevitable.

My initial reaction to your taxonomy was this: looks like
I'm being drummed out.  I suppose it was inadvertent.  I
hope it was.

>But "Queer" is most definitely *not* "Gay".  It's not just a
>different word for the concept, it's a new consciousness.

Is it?  New, I mean?  I'd agree there's a difference, but I
wonder whether the distinctions you're drawing are really
getting to the heart of the difference.

>Let's do a portrayal of extremes:

Is that an appropriate strategy?

>To me, "Gay" means an apolitical

I'm political.

>white man in his middle thirties

I'm in my late 50s.

>with a clone moustache.

No moustache, though I wore one from 1965-1983.
Never was a clone.

>He wears nice jeans (with the crotch worn by sandpaper),

"Nice" jeans doesn't compute.  Crotch-wear is from, uh,
natural causes.

>goes to the bars to hang out with his friends

Used to, but apart from cons, haven't been in one in years.

>and has exquisite taste in furniture.

In *everything*, thank you very much. :-)

>To me, "Queer" means a young androgynous person of any race
>in his or her early 20s.  He wears slightly beaten jeans,
>bright white t-shirts that say "I'm a faggot", and a black
>leather jacket with black on orange stickers in Antique
>Olive Bold.  She wears black denim pants, a dark loose
>shirt, and a black leather jacket with black on orange
>stickers in Antique Olive Bold.  He or she goes to protests
>to hang out with his or her friends, doesn't own furniture
>but has great taste in music.

I'd look ridiculous in what people in their early 20s are
wearing these days.  The world does include more than youth.

>That's the extreme personal stereotypes.

But is it useful?

>On to the real reasons why "queer" is different from "gay".

Incidentally, I didn't find reasons, only examples.  The
reasons would indeed be interesting, if they exist.

>gay is apolitical
>queer is radical

That's not real.  I'm as political as anyone except those
who do it full-time as a profession.  I would claim to be
more radical than 90% of the self-identified queers I've
met.

>gay is exclusive to homosexual men

A *very* substantial number of people have disagreed every
time that subject has arisen here.

>queer is inclusive of women and gender/sex minorities

I wouldn't dispute that, but I would dispute the perception
that gay excludes these things.  Traditional gay liberation
movements were often if not always inclusive.

>gay is from a different era, the time of civil rights,
>   Vietnam, women's lib, gay lib.

We're pass'e, eh?

>queer is new, challenging.  The time of AIDS, Ronald Reagan,
>   Jesse Helms

Gay isn't (wasn't, to use your terms) challenging?  Coulda
fooled those of us sticking our necks pretty far out in
fairly dangerous circumstances.

These are admittedly different times.  That could be said of
any contiguous periods in history.  That history, the
chiefest thing to which your taxonomy does considerable
violence, if not disrespect, includes much that you do not
take into account.

>gay is a lifestyle

Knowing, as you must, that the notion of labeling us as "a
lifestyle" is intensely odious to (I think) most of us, I
wonder what was really in your mind when you wrote that.

>queer is a philosophy - we have our own literature, our own
>   literary analysis, our own political understanding.

With the implication that gay does not, presumably, and
furthermore that there's no overlap between your categories.

>I agree that "queer" is a fashion, but it's a fashion that
>reflects a new time.

>Is "queer" postmodern?

I'm caught between wanting to take what you say seriously
and being on the face of it unable to because it seems
facile and unreflective.  

I don't think you've even scratched the surface of the
difference between gay and queer.  In the process, however,
you've suggested that gay is something irrelevant, useless,
outmoded, inert, reactive rather than proactive,
backward-looking, self-indulgent, and otherwise uniformly
negative.

Since you are talking about me, in addition to others, I
hope you can even things out without further trivializing my
existence.  I'm not quite ready to be swept off into the
dustbin of history.

<> The goodness of morals depends upon what the morals say,
<> not just the fact that they are morals.
<> -- Rob Bernardo (rob@mtdiablo.concord.ca.us)

-- 
Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
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