Teaching & Learning Guide for: Queer Theory and its Future in Psychology: Exploring Issues of Race Privilege
Authors: Riggs Damien W. 
Published: July 2009

Author’s Introduction

Having spent several years researching and writing about the experiences of lesbian and gay parents, alongside conducting research on issues of race and whiteness in Australia, I was invited to contribute a chapter to an edited book on lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer psychology on issues pertaining to race and whiteness to. I was unable at first to think of a way to go about this, despite the fact that in my writing on whiteness I had struggled with my own positioning as a white gay middle‐class man: how did my feelings of marginalisation on the basis of sexuality sit alongside or against my experiences of privilege as a white person living in a colonial nation? Writing this book chapter became my first foray into thinking about what it means to identify as a white non‐heterosexual person, and how we think about the lives of people who occupy social locations of both privilege and marginalisation.

Subsequent to writing this chapter, I came to see many instances where white non‐heterosexual people were making claims to rights, or speaking about their experiences of living in a context of homophobia, and yet were failing to equally examine their race privilege. This led to an increasing interest in understanding how white non‐heterosexual privilege functions. At times this has put me in an uncomfortable relationship to other white non‐heterosexual people who have seen my work as undermining the right claims of this group. I like to think instead that my work challenges us all to think about how rights operate, how privilege always comes at the expense of marginalisation, and how right movements can better understand and account for the intersecting experiences of all people. My approach to understanding white non‐heterosexual privilege firmly centres upon the importance of context, and as this applies to Australia, the histories of colonisation that shape the nation.

In my teaching, these ideas about privilege inform the texts that I draw upon, the attention that I pay to intersections of identity and the emphasis I place upon recognising both resistances and complicity within white non‐heterosexual communities. I find that students engage with this approach in ways that open up a space for considering a wide range of identities as intersectional, and from this strive to engage in the work of unpacking privilege and marginalisation as intimately related to one another.

Author Recommends:

Crenshaw, K. M. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43, 1241–1299.

In this early and ground‐breaking work, Crenshaw outlines an African–American standpoint on the intersections of identities that continue to inform much of my own work and that of others examining the multiple ways in which we are all positioned with regard to norms of gender, race, sexuality, ability and class.

Barnard, I. (2003). Queer Race: Cultural Interventions in the Racial Politics of Queer Theory. New York: Peter Lang.

Written by a white gay academic, this book was the first, and possibly still one of the most exciting, texts that I have read looking at the whiteness of queer theory, and the implications of this for how we understand the lives of white‐middle‐class people.

Hutchison, D. L. (2000). ‘Gay rights’ for ‘gay whites’?: Race, sexual identity, and equal protection discourse. Cornell Law Review, 85, 1358–1391.

Hutchison, an African–American legal scholar, provides an incisive and detailed analysis of the ways in which white privilege operates in claims for gay rights.

McBride, D. A. (2005). Why I Hate Abercrombie and Fitch: Essays on Race and Sexuality. New York: New York University Press.

This text, written by an African–American cultural theorist, is the perfect bookend to Barndard’s text. It examines the endemic nature of racism within white non‐heterosexual representation, and the fetishisation of African–American men in particular.

Moreton‐Robinson, A. (2003). I still call Australia home: Indigenous belonging and place in a white postcolonizing society. In S. Ahmed, C. Castaňeda, A. Fortier & M. Sheller (Eds.), Uprootings/Regroundings: Questions of Home and Migration (pp. 131–149). Oxford: Berg.

Moreton‐Robinson’s theorising of place and belonging, from an indigenous standpoint, clearly outlines the problematic claims of white Australians to belonging and emphasises an indigenous account of ontology that renders visible the limitations of (primarily feminist) accounts of essentialism.

Thomas, G. (2007). The Sexual Demon of Colonial Power: Pan‐African Embodiment and Erotic Schemes of Empire. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

This text sits perfectly alongside Moreton‐Robinson’s indigenous critique of white epistemologies of place and identity. Thomas outlines some of the founding assumptions of research on gender relations among African people since colonisation, and the ways in which they fundamentally fail to understand the specificities of African experience.

Brown, W. (1994). States of injury. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Brown’s feminist theorising, written as a white woman, holds to account the claims to ‘injury’ spoken by some marginalised group members who also occupy positions of privilege. Brown examines the implications of claiming injury as a means to gaining rights and the limitations of this in relation to racial politics.

Riggs, D. W. (2006a). Priscilla, (White) Queen of the Desert: Queer Rights/Race Privilege. New York: Peter Lang.

Riggs, D. W. (2007). Recognising race in LGBT psychology: Privilege, power and complicity. In V. Clarke & E. Peel (Eds.), Out in Psychology: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer Perspectives (pp. 59–76). West Sussex: John Wiley.

These are two of my own works that best exemplify the attention I have paid to issues of white non‐heterosexual privilege. I focus on a range of sites in the book where white queer activism has failed to examine its racialised politics. In the chapter, I examine how research on non‐heterosexuality in psychology typically presumes a white norm for all LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer) people.

Online Materials

Special Issue of the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies e‐journal focusing on issues of race and sexuality and their intersections:

http://www.acrawsa.org.au/ejournalVol2no22006.htm

Kim Diehl and Barbara Smith in conversation about the US LGBT Millenium March and its racial politics:

http://www.colorlines.com/article.php?ID=73

Two Dads documentary. Excellent resource for examining how white privilege shapes the lives of gay men who choose surrogacy as an option for starting a family:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sfr3Nr9Jyc

Destiny in Alice documentary. A clever piece of filming that explores the lives of white and indigenous lesbians living in Alice Springs, Australia. The documentary examines how white‐indigenous lesbian relationships function and the issues of privilege and marginalisation that shape them:

http://caama.com.au/productions/catalogue/destiny‐in‐alice‐2007/

McIntosh, P. (1998). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. In M. McGoldrick (Ed.), Re‐Visioning Family Therapy (pp. 147–152). New York: Guilford. Online at:

http://www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf

Riggs, D. W., & Choi, P. Y. L. (2006) Heterosexism, racism and psychology: Challenging or colluding with privilege? The Psychologist, 19, 288–291. Online at:

http://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/archive_home.cfm/volumeID_19‐editionID_135‐ArticleID_1023‐getfile_getPDF/thepsychologist/0506rigg.pdf

Sample Syllabus

Teaching about intersectionality in the lives of white non‐heterosexual people is challenging as it requires the educator to create ways in which heterosexual (and typically white) students can understand the lives of white non‐heterosexual people in non‐pathologising ways. In other words, it is possible that focusing on white privilege among white non‐heterosexual people can provide opportunities for students to consider as legitimate the marginalisation of white non‐heterosexual people and to thus see as justified the denial of their rights. Teaching in this area thus requires educators to first address issues of diversity among all populations, and to clearly outline an understanding of privilege that is grounded in the experiences of individuals. From there, is it possible to carefully and respectfully introduce an analytic focus on the intersections of privilege and marginalisation in the lives of white non‐heterosexual people in ways that does not allow for the legitimisation of discrimination.

Topics for a Brief Course on White Non‐Heterosexuality

Week I: Introduction & Overview.  Understanding diversity involves critiquing the notion that ‘diversity’ applies only to non‐white, non‐heterosexual, non‐western individuals. Encouraging a relational understanding of identity that locates all individuals within a relationship to one another can be an important aspect of developing an inclusive understanding of ‘diversity’ as encompassing all people, rather than simply those who experience marginalisation. From here, it is possible to introduce privilege as a concept that requires a response: one of reciprocity and responsibility, where addressing marginalisation is understood not as ‘special rights’ for marginalised groups, but rather as redress for the effects of social norms.

Braun, V. (2000). Heterosexism in focus group research: Collusion and challenge. Feminism & Psychology, 10, 133–140.

Tannoch‐Bland, J. (1998). Identifying white race privilege. In FAIRA (Ed.), Bringing Australia Together: The Structure and Experience of Racism in Australia (pp. 195–203). Wooloongaba: Foundation for Aboriginal and Indigenous Research Action.

Weeks II: Intersectionality.  Drawing on the work of Crenshaw, this lecture should explore the idea of intersectionality as it applies to all people, with clear application to a wide range of groups. Specific examples should be provided from psychological concepts or theories where the norms for one group are applied to other groups to their detriment (e.g. attachment theory normed on heterosexual mothers to all parents; intelligence tests normed on white people to Indigenous people). Students should then be encouraged to understand identities not as ‘problems’ of addition, but rather as simultaneously producing individual effects.

Crenshaw, K. M. (1991) Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43, 1241–1299.

Wettinger, M. F. (1997). Psychological Assessment of Aboriginal people. Available at: http://www.gtp.com.au/ips/inewsfiles/Psychological_Assessment_of_Aboriginal_People.pdf

Week III.  This final lecture should involve the screening of documentaries or other media that show the lives of white non‐heterosexual people in positive ways, but which nonetheless draw attention to their race privilege. A key way of doing this would be to screen three brief documentaries: one of the several now available on Youtube or Amazon that focus on white gay men having children through surrogacy; a documentary on the experiences of non‐white parents and the problems they face living in a primarily white society in western countries; and a documentary on fatherhood (that primarily or typically solely examines the lives of heterosexual fathers). Placing these three documentaries in a relationship to one another, and guiding a discussion among students, can help in generating a grounded understanding of how non‐heterosexual race privilege operates without taking it out of a broader context of homophobia and heteronormativity.

Rick and Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in all the World [Allan Brocka DIR, 2007]: a humourous stop‐motion animation series documenting the lives of Rick and Steve and their friends (including a lesbian couple, Dana and Kirsten), who all live in the fictional ‘gay ghetto’ of West Lahunga Beach. Dana and Kirsten and Rick and Steve have a baby together. The episodes clearly draw attention to white non‐heterosexual privilege in clever way.

Man Made: The Story of Two Men and a Baby [Emma Crimmings DIR, 2003]: this Australian documentary tells the story of Tony and Lee, two white, middle‐class gay men who start their family through surrogacy. Documents their travels to the United States to negotiate and witness the birth of their child, and the beginning of their life as a family back home in Australia: http://www.marcom.com.au/product_details.php?prod=6SBMIM

Being Dad [Leslie Marsh DIR, 2008]: Australian documentary on the lives of heterosexual fathers and the challenges they face: http://www.beingdad.com.au/babydvd/

Tracking the Intervention [SBS Production, 2007]: Australian documentary looking at the effects of regressive government policy on Indigenous families: http://www.abc.net.au/programsales/s2085247.htm

Optional

Focus Questions

Recently in Australia federal laws have changed to recognise non‐heterosexual couples after considerable campaigning by rights organisations. What might be the implications of this for some non‐heterosexual couples? Consider, for example, information available at: http://www.acon.org.au/about‐acon/Newsroom/Media‐Releases/2009/10

How might analogies made between racial discrimination and sexuality‐based discrimination potentially overwrite the experiences of non‐white, non‐heterosexual people, or conversely, how may they be seen to trade on the experiences of non‐white people in general to the benefit of primarily white non‐heterosexual people? Consider the key reading by Hutchison (2000) in this regard.

Looking at Braun’s (2000) examination of heterosexism, and McIntosh’s (1997) elaboration of white privilege, consider how these two intersect and come up with a similar list that would capture the same message about white non‐heterosexual privilege.

Seminar/Project Idea

Individual Project.  Based on information provided across the three lectures, students should identify a text (documentary/movie/book/article) that focuses on white non‐heterosexual people. From this, they should conduct an analysis examining the complexities of the text with specific focus on intersections of privilege and marginalisation, and an emphasis upon locating the individuals in a broad social context where certain groups experience privilege at the expense of others.