Some Critics of Queer

A brief overview of the arguments against queer. I have used Jagose for the summary, and have made additional comments.

Jagose, Annamarie. Queer Theory: An Introduction. New York: NYU Press, 1996.

Destabilization

Susan J. Wolfe and Julia Penelope note that queer works to generalize marginal sexual identities. Their particular fear is that lesbian identity, which had previously been marginalized in the feminist movement, would be co-opted by the use of queer, another strategy using lofty, poststructuralist theory to disguise while patriarchal hegemony. Other critics lament the disappearance of identities (chiefly lesbian and gay) whose legitimacy has not yet been realized or appreciated (i.e. Terry Castle, 1993). In some cases, critics understand the importance and usefulness of queer in the gay and lesbian studies discouse, but express the fear that it has come at the wrong time. These critics are working in the early '90s, and while their criticism reads today as somewhat reactionary, a critical analysis of queerness continues to seem relevant for some specific reasons I will list:

- National gay and lesbian strategies rely an the stability of these two categories (gay and lesbian) to advance the agenda of "equal rights." Queerness upsets the apparent unproblematic representation of classes of people for whom equality is desired.
- Queer has a self-marginalizing effect, and its use as a title for discourse engenders exclusionary theoretical practice, both as opponents say within the myriad queer subjects, and from other critical theorists, other types of scholarship, and certainly from mainstream or popular discourse.
- Of particular interest to me in this endeavor is the way queer makes people feel. Assuming that its radicalism is a part of its functionality, the discourse may exclude people that have not yet come to terms with other identities such as lesbian, gay, trans, bi, etc. In lieu of a pervasive societal homophobia, perhaps queer upsets the wrong boundaries.

The Gay Generation Gap

A simple explanation offered as to the reasons one might contest queer comes from the very relevant observation that queer is the buzz word, and even perhaps the hope of a new generation. It follows that memories of the slanderous use of the word exclude previous generations, for whom again the terms is offensive and conjures up the pain of coming to age in sexual silence, perhaps encountering solidarity through a disease epidemic, and having to have previously fought for the legitimacy of "gay" or "lesbian" identity. Only time will (has) show(n) the degree to which this critique will hold.

- As a member of this so-called new queer generation, I think it is important to continue to evaluate the term and its uses. This is one reason I'm interested in faggot. Its negative effects are still palpable in my mind. I still react emotionally and physically to its utterance.

Political Utility

In an era of "gay marriage," the political utility of queer is an important criticism. Fighting for queer rights or engaging in a queer agenda again linguistically constructs queer as other in a potentially damning way. There is also perhaps no subject of queerness, and therefore it may be difficult (in a discourse of rights) to identify the subject of these rights.

- As a counter to the political utility argument, I might suggest that the burgeoning list of identifying acronyms is equally cumbersome and may delegitimize the core for whom they represent.

Naming Strategies

From within the world that might certainly find the most comfort in queer, the critical theorists, comes the criticism that queer is useful because it shifts the focus of discourse from the subject to politics, a move that fosters a certain anonymity of the subject. Queer functions, then, purely as a discourse, and it becomes difficult to claim such a thing as queer rights. It certainly becomes almost impossible to define a queer community or a queer politics as doing so fixes a center to something that is constructed to be dynamic.