Queering the self? : Reclamation and Use of Queer

Recent discussion in my LGBT Studies course has prompted much thinking on the use of the term "queer" and my personal identification. I have for the recent past identified as a gay man, largely because that is the political community to which I most strongly feel I belong. I am now finding, however, that my political beliefs are somewhat anti-assimilationist in nature and are overtly "queer" in nature, or at least fall under the paradigm of "queer politics".

But does the fact that many of my political values align with queerness mean that I should change my self identification as a gay man? What would this change mean to me, and how would it affect society's view of me as an extension of a community? I have been resistant to the term queer for several reasons: 1) identity politics are often difficult for me to conceive as something that is holistically personal and holistically political, and 2)The term queer still has vestiges of its pejorative meaning both for me personally and for society as a whole (or at least outside the academic community), and 3) I'm really struggling with associating myself with a community that can only be defined in the negative (or lack), as in a community that uses a lack of definition as its definition.

Allow me to comment on this last reservation. I believe, or perhaps I've just be been taught, that this lack of definition stems from the post-modernist de-centering of meanings and reality. Butler argues that Feminist movements are having trouble organizing themselves simply because there cannot exist and overarching and essentialist term that is "woman". Therefore, I believe that the term "queer" is an effort for people of marginalized sexual groups to provide a political face to a community while expressing the post-modernist decentralization of identity.

But I often wonder how useful this multiplicity of meaning is when it comes to identity politics and notions of selfhood. To allow for identity categories to be both constantly salient and constantly contestable sounds a bit like chaos to me. If a college student is in dire need of a self realization, but can't come to a sense of self simply because meanings of identity categories are constantly fluid, then how detrimental will her search for self be to her psyche? Will she ever be able to find "herself". And even if she is successful, then what's to say that her identity will not change tomorrow?

Now obviously identities change over time. What it means to be a women when one is ten years of age and what it means to be a married women with children at age 45 is holistically different. Identities are malleable and our societal scripts are edited as we negotiate our way through life. But to build a communal politics around identities that are never stable (and who would ever want them to be?) seems a bit dangerous to me. Moreover, I see using the blanket term of "queer" to mean gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, gender-queer, etc. as a faulty method of gaining political visibility. By using a blanket term to give a voice to the voiceless, you are removing the visibility of difference, which is what the whole movement was trying to give voice to in the first place.

Perhaps I'm still just a little too reserved on this issue. Today's class discussion has made me more open to the term, at least in an academic sense if not personally as well. My ideas of what it means to be "queer" are changing, and I'm hoping its for the better. Perhaps I need to reconceptualize my ideas of personal identity politics and what it means to me to be a gay man, or a member of the gay community. What privileges could I be unknowingly holding on to by my self-identification? Would identifying as queer demonstrate my want of a gender-inclusive movement that is not present within the gay community (since lesbians are so often left out)?

Look for more on this issue as the semester unfolds. :-)