A question about colonized identities...

I was doing some freelance reading in Making Face, Making Soul, and I came to notice that a colonized identity is a very important starting point for understanding difference. The underlying notion of a colonized identity is that a dominant colonizer penetrated, defiled, literally or figuratively raped the subject of the colonized identity.

My question is this: can queer identity be seen as colonized? My initial impulse is to suggest that there is a strong parallel if you agree that the oppression if sexual difference is indicative of a certain sexual violence. There is no doubt that sexual others are subjected to sexual violence under many contexts.

Another aspect of colonized identity worth thinking about is the possibility that, while queer identity exists in large part to confront dominant dichotomous constructions of sexuality, these constructions frame the ways in which many see themselves, and dictate how these subjects are visible. Gay identity, I would argue, is a colonized identity. Its construction is somewhat contingent on the constitution of its members, however dominant, hierarchical discourse continues to define the reality of gay identity. Gay identity is colonized by its history of being named, categorized, represented - through the mechanisms of health, science, psychology, religion and the state - without regard for the subjects at the center of the identity.

The colonized/colonizer dynamic is very important in the texts from women of color/third world women. bell hooks uses colonized next to the word oppressed to underscore that oppression is not/cannot be understood simply as an abasement of a group by a dominant group, rather that the dominant group created the conditions by which the oppressed/colonized group came to experience oppression.