{"id":617,"date":"2015-04-02T00:49:41","date_gmt":"2015-04-02T04:49:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/?p=617"},"modified":"2015-04-02T00:51:09","modified_gmt":"2015-04-02T04:51:09","slug":"were-here-were-queer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/2015\/04\/02\/were-here-were-queer\/","title":{"rendered":"“We’re Here, We’re Queer!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WHWQ\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This chant is a classic\u2014the <\/em>classic, really, when it comes to LGBTQ rights. It came to mind as I\u2019ve been grappling with Sedgwick\u2019s assertion that \u201cthere are important senses in which \u2018queer can signify only when attached to the first person\u2019\u201d (9). Upon first read I was dubious: after all, don\u2019t we as community members strive to \u201cqueer\u201d spaces all the time? Spaces cannot self-identify and thus rely on us as third parties to prescribe them identities (already, an important use of queer that does not use the first person.) Another issue: wouldn\u2019t queer individuals want to be recognized and described as queer by others, who would then not be using queer in the third person? It felt to me as though the ability to call oneself queer was simply a<\/em> use, and that to even begin to construct a hierarchy of queer\u2019s best uses was to undermine and trivialize the word.<\/p>\n

Then, I started to really reflect on the significance of the self-identification in this chant. Although not exactly in the first person, the singular of \u201cwe\u201d is \u201cI\u201d in the same way that the singular for \u201cthey\u201d might be \u201che\u201d or \u201cshe.\u201d So if a singular queer person was to hold up a sign in protest, ze might shout \u201cI\u2019m<\/em> here, I\u2019m<\/em> queer.\u201d This is the two-fold assertion that yes<\/em>, I am actually physically standing here and yes<\/em>, I am different from you. For a queer person to say this is for zem is reject the systemic erasure that commonly refuses zem name or recognition. Another person, on the other hand, cannot bestow the title of \u201cqueer\u201d upon someone else. To call someone \u201cqueer\u201d before that individual has first called zirself queer is dangerous \u201cbecause of the violently different connotative evaluations that seem to cluster around the category\u201d (9). The word \u201cqueer\u201d is so rooted in strangeness and violence and hate that it is always an act of reclamation in the first person and always a potential thread in any other tense. I now feel much more amenable to the idea that \u201canyone\u2019s use of \u2018queer\u2019 about themselves means differently from their use of it about someone else,\u201d and that the use of the first person is significant (9). I ultimately contest Sedgwick because I think there are other worthwhile uses of the word, some of which I mention above. I just now see the \u201cimportant sense\u201d embedded in the first person, and it is amazing for someone who identifies as queer to understand the power in my language.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This chant is a classic\u2014the classic, really, when it comes to LGBTQ rights. It came to mind as I\u2019ve been grappling with Sedgwick\u2019s assertion that \u201cthere are important senses in which \u2018queer can signify only when attached to the first person\u2019\u201d (9). Upon first read I was dubious: after all, don\u2019t we as community members … Continue reading “We’re Here, We’re Queer!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2611,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93618],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2015-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617","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\/2611"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}