class is long over, but I couldn't think of any other people that might want to read this more. or discuss it more.
http://jezebel.com/5928306/the-shining-knights-of-the-aurora-movie-theater

Last Post =(

I think I’m a little late to the party on this one, my apologies. School has taken a back seat to life this week.

I have to say, of all the reading we’ve done, I enjoyed the hell out of The Queer Art of Failure. Halberstam makes me think about queer in an entirely new way than the new way I learned to look at it this semester. I’m currently making my girlfriend read it, too.

I love the idea of queer as failure, as anti-capitalism, as community, as forgetting, as alternatives to the nuclear family. It’s the queer way of knowing that makes failure an art. “The white man who made the pencil also made the eraser,” as the proverb states. According to Halberstam, Dude, Where’s My Car? “is a meditation on the precise terms of the relationship between whiteness, labor, and amnesia” (Halberstam, 61). I was surprised by my agreement with her assessment of this film, not that I believe it is queer in any intentional way, other than maybe the kiss scene between the two main characters. It is interesting to see the two white characters as dumb failures whose context includes guidance by very queer characters, such as the transgendered couple.

Halberstam also explores the queerness in Finding Nemo, which speaks to reliance on coalition and the unreliability and fault of family. Dory puts friends first, and “in her lack of family memory, her exile in the present tense, her ephemeral sense of knowledge, and her continuous sense of a lack of context, Dory offers fascinationg models of queer time, queer knowledge practices, and antifamilial kinship” (Halberstam, 81). The emphasis is NOT on the structure of nuclear family, as Dory neither fills in as a mother for Nemo nor a lover for Marlin.

As we also see in the example of Auschwitz, the act of forgetting can lead to a queer knowing that rebuilds memory in a way that is vital for the Holocaust survivors. “Never forget” is a slogan for those who aren’t directly affected and don’t understand the value of forgetting to the survivors.

Failure a la Halberstam and stuff

Failure – it’s the hallmark of the other, the queer, the outsider.   Halberstam links it to animation, performance art, painting, photography, and writing.  For Halberstam, it is in attempted revolution, in forgetting, in passivity and negativity, in fascism, and in running the heck away from danger.    

Why failure?   Does success necessarily imply a lack of queerness or sleeping with the enemy?   Does succeeding in, for instance, a civil rights movement, mean that one has become the dominant power, and is now the one who creates the otherness?  It is not as is we could truly know this, since no civil rights movement has had such a total success – they are all rife with failures, or, as a good Americans, what we could call successes not yet achieved.

When the animated chickens revolt and the females reject individualism for collectivism, they do succeed in escape, though not in the American individualist Clint Eastwood sense that the rooster attempted.  But it’s not a failure.  It is just a failure of individualism.  It was a raging success for collectivist bird behaviors.

Similarly, when penguins or albatrosses engage in same sex mating (I might say “lez it up” if I were a reporter), they successfully rear their young as much as they need to do by their biological imperatives,  though not by our anthropomorphistic models.   Clearly a success from a biologist’s point of view, if not a filmmaker’s or priest’s.

I fail (ha) to see how collectivism that works is a failure or reproduction that results in living offspring is a failure.  I reject the idea that a life lived to the tune of its own religion or politics is necessarily a failure.  If Halberstam is only speaking from the context of capitalism, Christianity, and heteronormativity, then she is taking a point of view that is almost entirely U.S.-normed, not even necessarily merely colonial or Western. 

From the U.S., John Wayne, heterosexist, racialized, individualist, capitalist, masculinized point-of-view, then, yes, these are all failures.  But they achieve the ends to which they are striving. 

In the name of failure at traditional family, Dory the fish creates a family of friends.   I have done the same, but I see my family of friends, of queers, of weirdos, of loonies to be a complete and total success, even if it was a failure at heteronormative family.  Three of the five children in our blended family of failures are planning to be in our “getting committed” party in drag – the only girl in a suit as the Ring Bear (in a bear mask).  The two youngest boys in dresses, because they like to feel pretty.  My partner and I will be in Praying Mantis masks, and my sister wants to be my best man in a cowgirl outfit.  How can we say no to this kind of raucous, delicious, lively, ludicrous success at failing to be a Protestant heterosexual wedding party?
If this is failure, I, for one, never wish to succeed.  If failing means that I will never see a salary over $25k a year, because I am psychologically incapable of wearing suits and working for the man to ruin people’s financial situations, then so be it.  I will be a brilliant success at financial failure like my father.

Yes, it sucks to be on the wrong end of the stick.  Yes, it’s disappointing to be in last place, but has Halberstam been to a race?  Experienced waiting till the last people trail, and watching them,   complete and utter failures, picking up their feet and crossing the finish, somehow?  Has ze met two friends at the finish who were picked up by the bus, seen them proud of failing, because failure still meant they succeeded in trying?  Perhaps so.  Perhaps that’s why ze admires failure so highly, especially  in the context of  US normativity. 

When we refuse to participate, refuse to assimilate, then, in that context, we’ve failure miserably as Americans.  The supermercados in Georgia, then, are full of failures, people who refuse to learn the language, who advertise their employability on bulletin boards.  The gay Hispanic owned coffee shop in Cumming that closed for financial reasons was a colossal failure that brought together the gay community, the Hispanic community, and the EMT community in one place to eat mango helado and drink lattes.  Tragic failure.  Total success at queering up a small town.

What about the gigantic failures?  Was the Nazi movement a failure because of, despite of, in conjunction with its homosexual membership and prosecution?  That’s not entirely clear to me.  Or is the failure that they lost the war, while simultaneously embracing and rejecting male homosexuality?  Is the pink triangle a salute to this failure or to survival, fighting, and running away successfully?

When Dory lost her memory, her family, she found a new grouping, not a heteronormative family, not a reproductive family unit.  But that unit fails mightily, loudly, and with police sirens and gigantic court cases on a day to day basis, and those are the successes?  Halberstam doesn’t really address failure within the white capitalist, male world.  Maybe because there is still a real winning for the men in those cases, and the women are still the majority of the brilliant failures, falling into bizarre communities like mine that include every weirdo who fails to fit the paradigm of success.

On a completely irrelevant note: I wish Halberstam would have looked at nerddom, since ze addressed so many of the underdogs of the world.  Those of us who have pushed our glasses up our noses and been shunned by the ones who do have sex wouldn’t mind being included in that failure milieu.

oh who the fuck knows.

On page 111, he describes the swimming pool, empty and lifeless, and to think of it in terms of cost, of loss, the cycles of wealth. The empty swimming pool is the wasteland of broken dreams, of all that could not be accomplished. The buoyancy of the water will not keep you afloat. The stairs reaching for the bottom, but never quite getting there symbolize all that is hoped for and yet never achieved.

The empty swimming pool is symbolic to me of the queer art of failure. Or  The Queer: Art of Failure. Or The Queer Art: Failure. It is understanding what is normal, what is supposed to be, and then subverting those hopes/wishes/ideals. 

you forget these things as you grow older- to be a dweeb, to fall short, to get distracted. As a child, they are part and parcel of who you are, of your daily life. You go to school and it is drilled into your head to work hard, to be smart, to pay attention. In my life it was that and the pool, be the best, don't give up, don't quit, work harder than anyone else out there.

The queer art of failure helps you to understand that it is a-ok to lose your way, to find a limit, and to forget mastery. To know that the pool will not always be filled and the stairs won't reach the bottom- embrace it, revel it. Fail in it.

The Anti-Glamour of Losing: Resisting Success and Embracing Failure

The reimagining of failure as a way to deconstruct the normative mode of thinking is both fascinating and uncomfortable. Halberstam’s perspective regarding failure as “standing outside of conventional understandings of success” is a unique way to present the queer (not solely in terms of homosexuality) identity. Queer Theory, as I understand it, is the antithesis of the normative mode of thinking and being in the world; however, Halberstam further pushes this thought by positing that failure be considered optimistically. By re-evaluating the characteristics of capitalistic notions of success, we are able to see failure as a means to an end.

My favorite part of this text is the section in Chapter 3 entitled The Art of Losing. I am particularly drawn to this because Halberstam juxtaposes the dignity of losing with the anti-glamour of losing. Indeed, we live in a country where children are admonished for being “sore losers;” yet, these same children are made to believe that anything but first place is unacceptable. In reading this section, I immediately remembered an episode of Lifetime TV’s “Dance Moms.” The girls (all 9-11 years of age), lost the first place trophy by 1/10 of a point. Just as Halberstam suggests about 4^th place, Abby Lee Miller (the founder of the dance studio) heatedly advises her team that it would have been better to be dead last. It is the rejection of being “almost good” or “almost a star” that makes the idea of failure appealing and queer.

Lastly, I am extremely drawn to the idea of hidden history. In chapter 5, Halberstam writes that “gay and lesbian scholars have also hidden history, unsavory histories, and have a tendency to select from historical archives only the narratives that please” (148). It is in the hidden history that we see the all-encompassing fear of failure. I feel the need, in this instance, to draw a parallel between the African American and Queer communities. It is also true, that the African American story, (I reluctantly admit this), hides history and presents both pleasing and expected narratives. We expect to hear about that white community’s role in chattel slavery just as we expect to hear about the Nazi’s staunch homophobia. Each of these communities, in my opinion, has earned the right to present a positive image; yet, Halberstam would argue that the beauty in the failure should not be ignored.

While I'm not exactly sold on all of the ideas that Halberstam presents, I must admit that there is value in embracing failure. In order to successfully do this, we must change our ideas of the things that failure represents. Halberstam does not suggest that we embrace addiction, joblessness, and unproductivity, but rather that we alter our opinions regarding failure and sieze some opportunities to fail as a way to abolish the hegemony.

The Queer Art of Failure

I don't know about anyone else, but I couldn't put this book down! I appreciated how he took the time to think about how the public looks at LGBTQ's and understands that part of the misconception and trepidation people feel is based on a lack of concrete knowledge. When I examined myself coming into this class, I wondered what it would be like? Would I understand the theories and concepts? And what I have come to love about this class is it's honesty, I can say I asked myself if I would feel weird. I am a heterosexual married woman who has been with her husband since we were in high school. But I think the cheesy cliche's end there, because I have always had the mindset that people and their choices are their business. Who am I to judge them? There's enough judging going around the world, that's for sure, so why add any more onto someone's plate? I say all that because The Queer Art of Failure captured what I felt coming into this class and delivered to me a beautifully funny and irreverent yet serious message that I understood.

I am a television and movie nut. Although I think I should have prefaced that by saying I am a Food Network and Cooking Channel nut who throws in some other shows so the icons don't get burned into the bottom of the screen like the HSN logo on tv's in old folk's homes. I felt a kindred spirit in Jack. (I hope that is right--I would hate to feel connected to what he was saying and get his name wrong! I know the book says Judith but I believe he is going by Jack now so I am taking a leap of faith!) in that he uses popular television and film culture to explain high theory in a low theory kind of way so that people--much like myself walking into a class like ours--would understand and hopefully have some of those moments like I did where they say "Hey, I understand that!" or "I can relate to that!".

I think that as graduate students we are already those folks who walk into the program with an enormous amount of pressure. If you think about it, we are those people Jack describes as being on the precipice of failure, but where I think graduate students are blessed is that if we do fail at this monumental financial and mental burden that is our desire to be Master's we are still miles ahead of most people. We are college graduates and just based on that can go be a manager at McDonald's should we so desire to do so. Where I feel Jack deviates from the fall-off-the-horse-and-get-back-up motto is that he says it's not about that you can get back up it's that you fell in the first place and experienced some of that crushing tidal wave of despair at seeing your plans go down the crapper. It is here in that place that we are open to understand what the Queer community goes through just to be themselves. This is what opens minds and hearts to embrace something different. It doesn't mean that you fail grad school and decide that means you should be a trapeze artist now, but it means that you understand that being a trapeze artist is just as much a gift and expression of inner strength and beauty as holding that grad school diploma.

In closing I would like to say that I enjoyed this class VERY much and I am sorry to see it end. I hope to see you all in another class.

And Dr. Whitlock--thank you for teaching such a class. I truly enjoyed every minute and every page that you assigned. It opened my eyes to new ideas and even if I had to break out the dictionary on Butler I still enjoyed the experience. Blessings to you and your family and I hope to see you again.

--Amber--

Halberstam review.

Halberstam begins with a wonderful title and introduction. Failure is painted with quite a positive brush here, and the reversal is refreshing and queer in the very best way. The failure referred to here is the act of not living up to the roles that society has demanded of us or expected of us. If these roles are met we are considered inferior or lacking in some way. Sometimes we are even considered defective. Halberstam turns this failure into an art and a deliberate objective. The knowledable refusal to stay within the pre-existing boundries gives us freedom to live life according to ever-evolving guidelines that are informed upon our growing intellect and progressive development.

Halberstam, for me, was a joy because of the way she deals with movies including several animated films. I had never been much of a fan of animated films, save for a few classics like Toy Story, but this book has given me new interest in them. According to this book, animated films are some of the ripest for queer and psychoanalytic analysis. I had never thoguht of Dory and Marlin in Finding Nemo to be in a "queer temporal mod governed by the ephemeral, the temporary and the elusive"(pp.54)  but Halberstam clearly identifies Dory as a "Queer Fish"(pp. 54.)

Her analysis of Dude where's my Car is hilarious and confirms what I've always thought about that film; there is more to it than meets the eye. This goes the same for Halberstam's writing on Chicken Run, Bee Movie, Toy Story and many others. Halberstam has given a very interesting template for "queering" films. Films do not have to be read with the grain, sometimes, or most times, it provides a more revealing look at the film if you read it for what is under the surface. With film, there is the potential for increasingly subtle and interestingly subversive moves and at the same time there is room for insideously propagandistic moves.

I'm glad that the book was so pre-occupied with films because that is what I primarily study. This was a fantastic read, and I would even say a required read for Queer Studies.

Critical Review of Halberstam

Jack Halberstam’s book, The Queer Art of Failure, is unlike many other books on queer theory in that he glorifies the use of low theory, and insists everything can be explained in simple popular culture animation and goofy films. This book not only dumbs down complex queer theory, as complicated by such renowned authors as Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, but it goes so far as to create a middle ground for queer theory in failure. Learning more from this book than the more complex theory, this book is a must read for those attempting to delve into queer theory.

A particularly interested chapter was “Dude, Where’s My Phallus,” a delightfully queer reading of the ridiculously goofy film Dude, Where’s My Car. While the author uses these popular culture examples, he also goes to great lengths to fully explain the scenes he is examining as not to limit the readers that have not had the foresight to see the film. Like with many of the shows and movies Halberstam reviews in this book, he takes an insanely close queer lens to pick apart the obvious male-centered, white privileged, and ultimately queer quirks in the film. From transsexual characters to blatant male on male kissing, Halberstam is able to point out every piece to this queer puzzle of a film, many that the average viewer easily overlooked.

Accessibility seems to be the author’s number one goal, and while some may argue theory should only be dumbed down for profits sake, Halberstam seems to truly have a passion for making theory relatable to popular culture. Whether it is Finding Nemo, Spongebob, or 50 First Dates, Halberstam was able to take a quirky story and bring out the ever-present queer themes of failure. 

Halberstam CR~Sean

Judith “Jack” Halberstam’s text (Halberstam, 2011) creates a certain level of accessibility into understanding queer theory for both academic and non-academic readers alike. The author takes on ideas that have evolved from many decades of theory by people with names like Foucault, Butler, and Sedgwick. In what can be considered “dumbing down” some extremely complicated theory, Halberstam introduces the notion of low theory and relates the material to that of popular media. Remarkably, Halberstam has selected media metaphors that do not rely on the reader having viewed the material.

            Through reading this text, I can now understand what the more challenging readings were truly about. They were all about failure and to be more precise, they were about queer failure. Over the course of the semester we have learned that anything that resists the hegemony of accepted states of being, are essentially queer. The art of failing and being queer can be understood to be synonymous to one another because they each rebel against the heteronormative forces that be. To drive that point across using media aimed at children is in my humble opinion, queer genius.

            The genius of using animated films works naturally within the given contexts because one of the main fears that heteronormative society has is that “the children will be tainted” by knowledge of things that are not “normal”.  The ironic part is that many parents stick their children in front of a DVD on repeat and tune out while their children are being acclimated to a multitude of consciousness that escapes the minds of people who are shut off to queerness.

           

Reference

Halberstam, J. (2011). The Queer Art of Failure. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Queer Failure

The explanation of low theory is very interesting. I totally agree that we can find out more about our culture through its everyday media than through the supposed “high arts.” The use of animated works throughout the book are inspiring... and the questions that she raises with them are inspiring. However, low theory doesn't seem to be revolutionary, it just seems inter or anti (I'll let you argue out that point) disciplinary. Cultural studies of all kinds have always looked at “low” sources, but the difference seems to be in the fact that she treats the texts with the seriousness of any other literary text, and based on her arguments, it seems rightfully so. In a way, the book almost serves as a guide book for disrupting our standard ways of thinking about learning – it is a handbook on unlearning. But this, in and of itself, is not Queer – and I think that is okay, because it means it applies in many many places. However, Halberstam makes the work Queer by subverting the goals of the western world and focusing on stupidity, darkness, and failure. I do have a problem with the idea that she stretches out the meaning of Queer. By focusing stupidity, darkness, and failure she is stepping away from simply gender, XY, and desire... that being said, maybe this is how Queer grows and stays relevant.  

Frantz Fanon biography on Youtube

Just started watching it - I keep finding his name again and again as I research my PK.

Here's part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJultMJejiE&feature=relmfu

The other parts are easy to find under the same username.

Edited to add: this one looks like the whole thing, maybe?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNnHrdqHMMA&feature=related

Body Image

I like the readings this week in that they dealt with a subject that everyone can identify with. Body image satisfaction is a hard goal to attain, and I would venture to say dang near impossible. I am especially sensitive to the topic of body fat because I am not thin—not even close. The problem for some members of my family is that at one point I was—115 pounds of Brittney-body-wannbe. Then the years went by and I was no longer that size and it amazed me how much my family would comment on it. To this day I cannot understand why the size of my tush is indicative of who I am as a person. The older I get however I notice how much people’s attitudes towards weight and body image affect how they interact with other people. If you sit and watch people even here at school you’ll see the 19 year old guy hold open a door for a tiny girl in booty shorts and then let it swing closed in front of a larger girl in sweats. Those sort of incidences only reinforce what that girl is having drilled into her head daily on billboards, commercials, television shows, movies, and magazines—that she is less of a person because she weighs more than what that guy thinks she should. I have very good self-esteem and when a 19 year old pipsqueak doesn’t hold the door for me I usually holler THANK YOU! at him just so he knows that I know. J But not everyone has my attitude, and those daily reminders from society that he/she is somehow less important because they weigh more or walk or speak differently are hard to deal with. I love that the The Fat Studies Reader used language as a catalyst for understanding and change. On page 21, “That is, the past can be used to change the present, where we understand our fat bodies outside the terms dictated by the dehumanizing, objective, pathologized categories like “obesity.” Words are so powerful and can be used to inspire the world like Ghandi or rouse hatred like Hitler. Like in my PK presentation this week and as that loony preacher shows, the fear of queer (whether that means sexuality or body image) lurks under the surface. To change that, LANGUAGE MUST BE CHANGED! A new dialogue started that embraces everyone.

Bearing the Body (Woof Woof)

Having a few ties to the so-called “Bear Community,” I was very interested in the fat studies reading. As the author notes, fat wasn't always a negative thing: “To be fat was to the ruling elite to be vicious, common, and unlearned (20).” The bear community seems to want to reclaim or take ownership of nonstandard body types. Body hair, large bodies, and over the top masculinity mark the terms the bear community uses: bear, cub, wolf, pup, otter, and chub. The occurrence of “chubby-chasers” must be in some part be a reaction to a nation that acts out against people of nonstandard weights; I'm thinking about Fast Food Nation, The Biggest Loser, as well as the host of shows that litter BBC America and The Learning Channel. In this way, I see the bear community as an act of resistance against the idea that all homosexual males are feminine, and an ownership of the nonstandard body types. That being said, the bear community points to the fact that it is more acceptable for males to be large bodied than it is for women to be large bodied.

Queering the body-Sean

Queering the body to me, means many things. It means the way that we have categorized what types of anatomies, and body parts are or should be considered the ‘norm’ according to heteronormative and homonormative persons alike.

In the Fat Studies reader, Levy-Navarro writes that “Typically, however, larger-than-average weight among Black women is viewed as a symptom of the deleterious effects of other forms of oppression, and the effects of anti-fat bias within society…”(p.59). I see this from multiple viewpoints.  It can be seen from a viewpoint of sexual expectation and race. In our society everything is typically deemed sexy and or beautiful according to white men and their idea the perfect woman. White women are deemed beautiful, and classy and women of color are seen as more animalistic, aggressive and ravaged with sexual lust. This plays into the body image of those women who happen to be overweight or “fat” as our text puts it. When it comes to weight, there seems to be a different playing field. Black women with extra weight are primarily seen in a positive manner because they fulfill a gender and race stereotype of being voluptuous. White women in the same weight class on the other hand, are considered in a more negative light because they do not uphold the body standards set forth by those in power. When you remove men from the equation and consider lesbian women who are either of color or not, then you encounter different dynamics. I found it interesting that for lesbian women it seemed that the emphasis became more about the social causes to their health stressors. I think that since this article however, perhaps many image ideals have become less constrained and more fluid to interpretation, otherwise known as queer.

Gendering bodies seems to be something that is taught to us all as young children. We were told that women are mothers and they have girl “privates”, men are fathers and they have boy parts. This seems simple enough to understand until you begin learning of other genders beside the usual binary genders. In regards to trans bodies, Butler mentions in Undiagnosing Gender on page 99 “what is most worrisome, however, is how the diagnosis works as its own social pressure, causing distress, establishing wishes as pathological, intensifying the regulation and control of those who express them in institutional settings”.  What this translates to me is that while having a diagnosis may have been what worked for the gays and lesbians many years ago, it can only and has only been a negative association for trans people. A diagnosis is but one of many hoops to jump through to get beyond the gatekeepers of medical gender transition. One must be declared (as of the DSM 4 TR) a dysfunctional person with a mental irregularity and condition in order to fund one’s own surgery, and that is only after having one or more gender and psychotherapists write letters verifying such. A diagnosis of GID remains the last identity of the LGBT… spectrum to continue to be banned from military service due to mental illness. Overall, I thought these were great reads and will definitely have to go back and revisit this more when I have more free time. I swear I could talk all day about bodies and gender.

The queered body

Again, we see the binaries: between heteronormative abled, thin, cissexed bodies and the others - the disabled, fat, and trangendered bodies.  


When I worked with developmentally disabled adults, most people were uncomfortable with their sexuality - their parents, other people who worked in the building with us.  We were janitors, and they barely saw us, but my clients were treated like children, not like people in relationships.  They would tell me about their partners, their crushes, and their disappointments over dinner.  Like physically disabled people, they were sexual, whether they acted on it or not (the cloistered ones couldn't).  The "restrictions on sexual behaviors and expressions, characterizations of groups according to stereotypes sexual (or asexual) natures, and sexually related violence"(McRuer, 8), were part of everyday existence.  When one of my coworkers made an inappropriate comment to an able-bodied(minded?) security guard, he was treated not with a reprimand, but a reassignment to an unoccupied building.  More severe consequences than were ever levied on my able-bodied coworker who regularly harassed me.

One night a few months ago, a curiosity about Sandie Crisp led me through queer crip theory and dance.  I only wish I could find the path I went down, through that rabbit hole, into sexualities we pretend we can't see in heteronormative land, "compulsory able-bodiedness and heteronormativity"(McRuer, 13).

A connecting thread is in the Susan Wendell quote in McRuer: "Idealizing the body prevents everyone, able-bodied and disabled, from identifying with and loving his/her real body."  That applies to all of our readings: Fat, trans, and crip, in different ways.


Levy-Navarro rightly points out that fat bodies are loved in other cultures, and that the U.S. winds together racial/ethnic prejudices with anti-fat sentiment, and that this sentiment was starting to rear its head in England in Ben Jonson's time.  "To be fat was to the ruling elite to be vicious, common, and unlearned."(Levy-Navarro, 20)  That hasn't changed much, has it?  Workplace discrimination, healthcare discrimination, and everywhere discrimination are based on the same assumptions.


Wilson brings up a really important perspective: the science is not clear.  To hide behind the correlation between weight and health so as to prop up one's fat prejudice is to ignore the myriad other factors that affect the health of black women, of lesbian women, of people.  To care more for the overall wellbeing of people, rather than pointing the "you're fat" finger at them every time they go near a doctor will result in healthier communities.  


LeBesco brings me right back to my developmentally disabled coworkers in her discussion of eugenics.  The fat gene, the gay gene - those have not yet seen their eugenicist wet-dream ends, but down's syndrome and other causes of developmental and physical disabilities are detectable, and result in high abortion rates.  My children likely won't grow up with school friends who are excited beyond description to read their schoolbag's one word "Enjoy!" as I did.  They may never take notes for the children who are unable to write.  It's sad that we've lessened our diversity that much - and we are asking to take it further, to save people from the torture of being gay, of being fat.  Those things that make us unique are stripped away, one by one, until we are one homogeneous US (not them).  Hell no.


As for Butler, I have a lot more to say on that than I could fit in a page.  I am tempted to expand on it for my presentation, but suffice to say, I think the whole DSM should be thrown out the window, and diversity of mental states should be acceptable.  I had to jump through the psycho-medical hoops to be granted the magical special permission for top surgery, and I think the system is a giant pile of horseshit.  I do take a libertarian stance on this, rather like one of the views she mentioned, especially because we don't have socialized medicine in the U.S. of A.  Friends from other nations can, at least, get somewhere by jumping through the hoops.  I spent a thousand dollars to appease the psychology profession and the medical profession just to get through the door, before I ever started to pay for the surgery.  And there is almost zero coverage by insurers, so there is no benefit to the vast majority of non-gender-conforming people to the current medicalization system.

Queer Body, Queer Life

In “Undiagnosing Gender,” Judith Butler examines Gender Identity Disorder in the context of the DSM, which diagnoses and medicalizes gender queerness in the context of sexuality. “The regulatory discourse,” Butler says, “takes on a life of its own: it may not actually describe the patient who uses the language to get what he or she wants…” (Butler, 91). The controversy surrounding the diagnoses of GID brings to light a struggle that has valid arguments in both camps: do we diagnose GID as a legitimate disorder in order to allow those with queer gender identification to access the health services they otherwise would not be entitled to if not for a diagnosis? Or do we appreciate autonomy in a way that serves the individual rather than the collective (which could, arguably, benefit the entire trans/queer community – to have medical needs served in the context of pathology). Regardless, I’d argue that the very fact that this question can be presented is a combination of the failing of our medical system and a failing of politics as a whole. Of course, the advancement of queer gender identities will not occur overnight; not in this conservative country. However, the privatized medical system, as it is, serves as nothing but a hindrance to the needs and basic rights of human beings (Butler uses the butch lesbian who desires to get rid of her breasts as an excellent example.)What line is to be drawn? Why is wanting your breasts away any different than wishing your curved nose away via plastic surgery? If it is different, then how? Rhinoplasty is, I guess, considered cosmetic and as far as I know, not covered by insurances, and yet it carries a different kind of rhetoric than breast reduction, and I don’t think this is in question.

“Illness…becomes both the turning point in that life and the unique gift that gives it value” (McRuer, 12).

That statement makes a point about both ability and queer identity: that identity can be defined by the “queerness” of both; by the relative lack of ability when compared with an able, active world, and/or a heteronormative context.

What struck me most in this reading is the almost obvious argument that, in a queer sense, to be handicapped is not to want a distinct autonomy from the “normal” population, but a collective dependence that includes all people, regardless of ability or orientation or gender. The relative importance to society of the individual in this case comes down to their identity as handicapped. They are the hero stories and they are the pitiable occasionally destined to create their own surprising good fortune, but they are never contextualized as a component of normal society, which brings an entirely new element to the “handicapped” relation of “normal” sexualized society. It is a startlingly Foucauldian perspective that we can draw from this; that sexuality is reserved for those with power, for those with “normal” functionality in a heteronormative and able society, and all “other” is decidedly undesirable and possibly queer.

This week's Butler reading was much more comfortable than the last. I believe its just because I'm "back in the swing of things." It takes a bit to develop that theory reflex that allows you to read comprehensively about more abstract things.

Here, we have Butler doing a fantastic job, as always, poking holes in white, hetero, dominant vernacular constructions, this time from a medical perspective. After this reading it is difficult to deny that there needs to be a queering of medical terms to allow for a more balanced view of the human condition.

This lack of terminology is disconcerting because it is in regards to psychological and physical health issues. These things should be tailored to fit the patient, not the other way around.

The Fat Studies reading was coincidental with my viewing of the documentary called "Bigger, Stronger, Faster." There does seem to be a focus, especially in America, on looks that causes health disorders, low-self esteem, depression and consequences.

I have been focusing on my health much more in the past year, since I can already tell that my metabolism and digestive system are not 17 years old anymore. In America there is actually a problem with diabetes and obesity. This is not in reference to larger people or different body types, but to unhealthy weight gain.

Much of this is due to the corporate structure of America. Foods with high carbohydrate content, sugar, high fructose corn syrup are almost literally shoved down our throats, while healthy sources of protein, vegetables and fruits are becoming harder and harder to come by. Even shows like "the biggest loser" have absolutely no focus on nutrition and health, just on appearance. I believe that there would never be a show allowed on television that actually told the truth: America's addiction to sugar is killing people.

Race, Class and queer identities-Sean

I have always found the intersections of race, identities that are queer and how these two topics can get extremely complicated once an individual’s socio-economic status (s.e.s/class) is introduced.

I think that persons such as myself may queer the juxtaposition of what is visually queer (either by association or categorization) and the many identities that go unnoticed, affected and stigmatized.

 I feel that I should slow down a bit to unpack that just a bit. I liked something that Fanon wrote about the “fact of blackness” and how “not only must a black man be black; he must be black in relation to the white man” (p.110). This points out that in order to “be” one thing, you must release any attainability to be that “other” which you are held against as a gauge or measure of sorts. Once this identity is solidified as belonging to you or to not belonging to you, you are then held subject by the identity that you will forever have and that which you can and will never attain.

I see this relating to the queer population as well because there are stereotypes of queer identities just as there are with race and class. If someone is assumed to be in one box by many, they are by certain limitations, exclusions from other boxes.

 A thought that I have been focusing some of my personal research into is the invisibility that groups of people have had over history and the inciting incidents that led to their emergences as visible groups who have true causes and battles to fight to gain acceptance and freedom from the constraints that my even be imposed by their own communities. Examples are abound when it comes to the history of the U.S. and civil rights, slaves winning freedom and validation as human beings to the majority.  What happens when an already stigmatized racial minority such as black people has sub-minority groups such as poor, wealthy, educated, and non-educated people? These people are placed in a position of having  “group” spokespeople when encountered by the larger racial classes who may have no “access” to the in-group dynamics that may exist.  It always seems that when a black person makes the news, they act as a sort of mainstream minstrel for the amusement of non-black people. 

It seems that this is the reason that older generations of black people raised those of us who are old enough to know what “home training” means. It means that we do not disrupt white people, do not scare them because you may end up being cut down from someone’s tree or locked up like the character Sophia from The Color Purple. It became an unwritten tradition that was passed from generation to generation of black people (especially here in the south) that your behavior can make ALL black people look bad, which I believe created a system of in-group policing. Policing needed to control any and all that would be seen as embarrassing to “us” as a whole people. Queer identities are hard fought within the black race. You have to be a good black person, and due to religious colonization, anything not found in the Bible had and are still seen as having no place in the black community. 

I can however, say that lately there appears to have been a major shift within the intersections mentioned here.  The generational shift that is currently dominating our culture with androgynous beings, gender benders, multiracial, id oriented people, delights me with how they are queering and educating the world.

I found the readings from the Fat Studies Reader and Jack/Judith Halberstam's book to be very good. I hadn't realized how medicalized weight and gender had become. Especially weight- everyone today is bombarded on the news about the obesity epidemic and the ensuing health problems. 

Growing up my mom was a personal trainer and swim coach, my sister was a ballerina. My grandmother is a former model. We were always encouraged to watch what we eat and work out, a lot. I was on the swim team and swam two-a-day practices for a total of about 4 hours, 5 days a week. Obviously it was easy to remain trim then, now not so much. 

Struggling with my weight is a daily issue- so I work out, I watch what I eat, I lament about certain body parts in front of the mirror. Being overweight in my family would not be acceptable, so I do my best. I'm still tall and powerful for a woman, but I don't take as much pride in that as I should. My muscular legs should be source of strength, instead I'm embarrassed that they won't fit in skinny jeans.

I think one of my favorite lines is on page 88 where she writes, "We can recognize failure as a way of refusing to acquiesce to dominant logics of power and discipline and as a form of critique." Those dominant logics of power for me are the voices in my head that say, 'Never thin enough.'

Queering the Body

When I thinking about queering the body, the first thing that comes to mind now is the medicalization of terms like homosexual. As humans we feel the need to understand things scientifically and medically so much so that we take something that should be natural and dissect it down to a medical study. By doing this we are looking at the body not as a vessel in which our souls reside, but rather a specimen that needs to be studied. Everyone is different and we all have unique and beautiful bodies, therefore to get a true understanding of the human body we would need to study each and every person's body individually, and while that is not only not possible, it is also ridiculous in concept. Our bodies are special, not simply biologically, but also our only means to exist, and it therefore should not be broken down to simply science.

We also tend to break down our bodies with science in regards to sex and gender. Our society is so obsessed with being able to appropriately label everything that we cannot have any gray areas, but simply a binary system of man/woman or male/female. It is this need to create a study out of everything that keeps people close-minded to the queer identities that exist everywhere. Applying gender to body types is another way we stifle ourselves, labeling people as butch, fem, sissy, tomboy, and the list goes on. It is this need to label everyone and everything that keeps our identities in a box. We are all so different, both physically and mentally, and yet we try so hard to not only put others in labeled groups, but also fit in those groups ourselves. Butler gives some great examples of this medicalization of gender in the Undiagnosing Gender piece. As she states on page 78, diagnoses such as GID really do stem from a homophobic culture, and one that is not ready to accept the queer identities that we all have somewhere deep down. Butler goes on to describe how something like GID is diagnosed and it is truly fascinating how much scientific knowledge has been put into avoiding the queer identity.

The fat studies reader was very interesting. I had never thought of there being a fat history, but then again I hadn't thought much about a queer history either. The author makes a great point that these histories are not separate, and they should be studied cohesively and recognized and one. It has always been a mystery to me why being fat has such a negative connotation in this day and age. The latino woman's example on page 16 really stuck out to me, she doesn't see herself as fat, but rather well-cared for. Many societies throughout history saw being fat as a symbol of wealth, and even beauty, but today we idolize the anorexic models that really have more of a boyish figure than any woman I know. I would even be willing to say that the beauty we idolize today is far more queer than the beauty of yesterday.

As the second reading in the Fat Studies Reader points out, in addition to racism in queer culture, there is also prejudices against body types. While you may not be attracted to a certain body type, that does not mean a person with that body type should be shunned all together. The study on page 60 is particularly interesting, in that it describes the differences between African American woman and Caucasian woman in regards to self perception of body type. Fatter African American woman tend to see themselves as "healthy" rather than fat, and tend to embrace their body more easily than the Fat Caucasian women. This kind of blows my mind, but really makes a lot of sense too. I think about my weight probably 80% of the time, but never to I think about what it would be like to be starving myself to be skinny. While I could use to lose some weight, I am healthier than some much skinnier than me.

Good Evening Everyone!
I really struggled with the readings so far this past week. I had to go back and read them again, just to clarify my thoughts and I still think they are exceptionally muddy.
One of the most difficult readings for me was Fanon and the idea of white privilege came up for me as it did in most posts. My initial reaction when I first heard about white privilege many years ago was a knee-jerk one of:
'I don't have anything to apologize or feel guilty for.' 'I work just as hard as the next guy for the things that I achieve.' 'If you don't make it, then that's something on you- not my problem.'

I'm sure it would be more correct if I said I felt very differently now than I did then, but in all honesty, I don't. I feel, as Amber does, that I'm ME. I don't feel that I need to carry the guilt of my what my ancestors did.

Yet I do feel a social responsibility; I try to be just and fair. As David said, I try to participate in helping one another to roles of equality. Especially in regards to race, as it is a constant thought process in my head, but also with gender and sexuality.

Blog Post

I don't normally talk about race and class because when I meet someone those two things are not even near the top of the things I think of first. However, these readings allowed me the opportunity to look at what I think about race and how it may be different from other members of my community. I grew up and live in a southern community. I myself am a white Christian woman. I was educated in schools filled mostly with white kids and teachers. Throughout my life I have heard it all in regards to how as a white person I should feel and act towards a person of color. It ran the gamut of you are white so you should apologize for what your ancestors did and the benefits you receive from repressing people of color to the usual racist diatribe that populates conversations about race in a small southern community. As an adult, I continue to be white and Christian but with a few added changes. I am married to a Hispanic husband and became the first person in my family to graduate from college. I am in no way ashamed to be an educated white Christian woman. I refuse to carry the weight of men and women who made terrible choices simply because we happen to be the same color. I am responsible for myself. My husband is his own person and we are responsible for our kid until she is old enough to be responsible for herself. Maybe we are a different kind of family than that which fills the community we live in. It is your typical southern community full of southern charm and hospitality. However, I feel that hospitality is drastically different household to household. In my family, you are a person (unless you don’t show up to holidays and don’t straight away come if someone needs help—then you are in deep trouble with my grandmotherJ). I’m not saying we are some ridiculous tree-hugging-panda-loving-the-world-is-smells-like-peaches group—there are mistaken ideas in everyone. When my husband and I got married, my husband got the run of the mill jabs about building porch that come with being Hispanic. But neither of us went into a frenzy over the jabs. Maybe it’s this attitude of indifference that allows the public to continue making cracks about a person’s heritage or queerness, however I think that taking something too seriously is detrimental also. There is a difference between playful ribbing to get you to crack a smile and a full on assault on you and everything the color of your skin represents.

My husband, while he carries the truly Hispanic last name of “Martinez”, doesn’t speak a word of Spanish. His grandmother, the center of his family and one of my favorite people on earth, speaks Spanish fluently and makes the BEST Mexican rice known to man. When I read Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands I couldn’t help but envision what it must have been like to grown up as she did. Anzaldua writes on page 5 of the print-out: “In my culture, selfishness is condemned, especially in women; humility and selflessness, the absence of selfishness, is considered a virtue.” My Grandmother-in-law is the epitome of a Hispanic matriarch—she coddles all of us, worries about us, admonishes us if we act up, and loves us unconditionally—even the southern white girl her favorite grandson came home with. J She lived in Southern Texas with her family, and reading Anzaldua’s depiction of her Hispanic environment I imposed my Grandmother-in-law into the setting. Doing this allowed me even more of a connection with Anzaldua. To be a girl longing to be something more than a wife and victim of her culture and religion, Anzaldua spoke to the rebellious part of my own soul that cries out to lend her a hand. It is this desire to understand people, where they come from, what made them who they are, what they had to do to get to where they are, what they did not do to get where they are, and what they hope to accomplish in life that I am proud to say makes me a different white-adopted-Hispanic, Christian, heterosexual, married, maternal and educated woman. I do not carry the weight of my ancestors and the trappings of white privilege. I am what I am. I didn’t ask to be white and nor am I sorry or ashamed that I am. I am ME. I am a combination of all the choices I have made in life. If that is what makes me queer, then so be it.