{"id":2790,"date":"2025-04-03T18:49:28","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T22:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/?p=2790"},"modified":"2025-04-03T18:49:28","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T22:49:28","slug":"all-the-world-is-queer-save-thee-and-me-and-even-thou-art-a-little-queer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/2025\/04\/03\/all-the-world-is-queer-save-thee-and-me-and-even-thou-art-a-little-queer\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cAll the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>\u201cNow the fact of the matter is that you are not the first or the only one of your kind in this place. You grow up here and you don\u2019t realize almost everybody in this place wish they could be somebody or something else? That is the story of life here in Lantanacamara.\u201d<\/strong> (237-8)<\/p>\n<p>Otoh\u2019s mother unpacks quite a bit in this statement, with all facets pointing towards the oppression of non-conforming identities. First, she adresses, inadvertently, the erasure of queer narratives, even in the conciousness of other queer individuals. By suggesting that Otoh is unaware that there are, and have been, others like him (referring to trans identities in Lantanacamara), she implies that their identities have been silenced or erased. We can reason that this is either because they pass as cisgender as well as Otoh does, or that they have been driven out, ostracized, or silenced due to shame.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, it is suggested that it is not just trans lives that are hidden from public knowledge. Rather, it appears that everyone in Lantanacamara has an aspect of their identity that they falsely present to the public \u2013that is, everyone wishes they could change some part of who they are in order to live what they authentically feel they are, or should be. By saying that \u201calmost everybody . . . wish they could be somebody or something else\u201d, it becomes apparent that everyone\u2019s identity has been silenced in some manner because they are unable to authentically represent themselves. In this way, everyone in Lantanacamara is queer \u2013not necessarily in the current sense of the word, but in the older form, simply meaning \u201codd\u201d\/ \u201cdifferent\u201d. This may be a result of an internally oppressive societal nature, but likely also a result of the theme of settler sexuality. The impact of this \u2013from colonization\u2013 results in a lack of flexibility\/fluidity in identity\/sexuality, resulting in the notion that everyone who is not a colonizer is \u201codd\u201d and must be \u201cfixed\u201d so that they conform to the ideology of what is \u201cright\u201d in the minds of the colonizers. Thus, it is not just queer individuals \u2013such as trans identities\u2013 who would be hidden\/oppressed; <em>everyone<\/em> becomes alienated, and, thus, is queer in some manner.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Title is a quote by Welsh businessman and political philosopher Robert Owen in 1828; his use of &#8220;queer&#8221; here is meant in the original context of &#8220;strange&#8221;\/&#8221;odd&#8221;\/&#8221;different&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cNow the fact of the matter is that you are not the first or the only one of your kind in this place. You grow up here and you don\u2019t realize almost everybody in this place wish they could be somebody or something else? That is the story of life here in Lantanacamara.\u201d (237-8) Otoh\u2019s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/2025\/04\/03\/all-the-world-is-queer-save-thee-and-me-and-even-thou-art-a-little-queer\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">\u201cAll the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer.\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5605,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[346812],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2025-class-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5605"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}