the ch!cktionary

    17 Feb 2012

    High fashion, minus the labels | CNN.com

    Quick read for your Friday afternoon! A CNN piece I was quoted in:

    Twenty-year-old, 6-foot-1 Andrej Pejic is a model for success: a women’s size 2 or 4; angular cheekbones; full, pouty lips; bleached-blond hair; and impossibly long legs. Yet the walk down the runway — often squeezed into a ladies’ size 10 shoe — hasn’t always been a smooth and glamour-ridden one.

    Bosnian-born Pejic grew up as the younger son to a single mother of two. He spent most of his childhood in a Serbian refugee camp before moving to Melbourne, Australia. While others are quick to attach labels to Pejic — he’s been referred to in the media everywhere from “James Blond” to “gender bender” to “femiman” — androgynous sensation Pejic isn’t so quick to constrict himself to a particular description… [continued]

    I don’t think there should be an “acceptable” way to dress or to present yourself according to your gender, so I think it’s pretty awesome that Andrej Pejic has taken the fashion world by storm. As I mention in the linked article, however, visibility can only do so much to counter the existing gender binary, and let’s not forget that profit interests are the reason why Pejic’s strutting down the runway.

    In fact, rather than subverting norms, might this trend in gender ambiguity reinforce them? Pejic’s look is first and foremost a source of profit for the agency and designers who employ him. There’s a big difference between appearing androgynous and being trans or gender-queer, but a fashion spread is not going to articulate all those nuances, nor does it even touch upon the kinds of prejudice or outright violence that many trans folks encounter because of the way they dress. Your average 20-year-old transgender person is not a highly sought after model, yet they’re the ones who aren’t insulated from harassment, discrimination, and physical violence. That isn’t to say that Pejic doesn’t encounter ignorance as well, but he enjoys some economic insulation, which shouldn’t be underestimated. Employment is a privilege that many trans people can’t count on (since gender identity and expression aren’t constitutionally protected rights). All in all, I have my doubts about whether this trend actually challenge mainstream ideas about beauty and gender or if it merely fetishizes androgyny.

    23 Jan 2012

    Dealbreaker: My Wife Is Gay | GOOD

    This may be one of the most beautiful stories I’ve ever encountered about marriage. Though I am pretty opposed to the institution, I’m touched by this piece precisely because this couple illustrates that the bonds of true friendship and partnership don’t have to come in the form of a heterosexual, nuclear family. Despite all the prejudices and misconceptions working against them, they’ve managed to support and love each other in a more authentic manner than many folks who are in normative relationships. The fact that they’re doing it honestly and openly - well, that just takes my breath away. I only wish I could be so brave myself.

    9 Nov 2011

    “A fag hag is not just a straight female friend. In a friendship, your bond isn’t based on the novelty of your gender or sexuality. A fag hag is not your friend. She’s an insult. Contrary to popular belief, a fag hag is not necessarily fat, lonely, undateable or so socially damaged that she couldn’t possibly have her own love life. Nor does she necessarily own cats. Any woman I’ve met who has tried to become my hag (whether or not they employed the term) believes that a gay man can give her something a straight man cannot—platonic friendship, an outlet for hetero-verboten sex talk, someone to check out boys with, and often, an outlet for her annoying commentary about gay men.

    Every gay man knows a girl like this. She is the girl who you used to see movies with in college, the one who you thought viewed you as a person until she screamed “Ooh, I just saw you check out that guy’s legs!” as if you had subtly invented cold fusion in the cafeteria. Soon, it turns out she “loves having gay friends.” She is the girl who plans bachelorette trips to gay bars the way some people take their kids to the zoo. She is the girl who screams “You’re going to Town? You’re so CRAZY!” at you on the street when she ascertains that you are headed to a popular gay bar. She is the girl at the party who needs to tell you all about gay men.

    What does the fag get in return? A constant companion at bars so he never has to drink alone, yes. A den mother to cook him dinner and coo over his problems, sure. But there is an even more sinister use for this special “friend.” On nights when he doesn’t want to get laid, a gay man can head to her house for movies and ice cream. On nights he does, he just deploys the girl to introduce herself to a guy he likes. When he’s done with him, he can use her to deflect additional advances. She is his pimp and his Dear John letter all in one. She’ll facilitate date after date until she realizes that at the end of the night, she won’t be the one with the boy in her bed.”
    — Zack Rosen, Dealbreaker: He Has a “Girlfriend” - Health - GOOD

    My initial reaction after reading this essay:



    So, let’s get some disclosures and conflicts of interest out of the way: I am, what most people would describe as, a “fag hag”. The male portion of my social circle can be neatly divided into two groups: dudes I’ve fucked and dudes who don’t fuck women, with the latter far outnumbering the former (trust me, no easy feat). In short, Dorothy and I have got an awful lot of mutual friends, BUT (and this is an enormous BUT) I don’t personally identify with the label “fag hag”, for all the reasons outlined in the excerpt above. I’ll admit, I was prepared to be offended when I first encountered this piece, but then I realized that this caricature of the “fag hag” actually describes a lot of people I’ve met.

    Rosen is talking about a particular type of woman, the type of woman who believes that her friend’s sexual orientation plays the major role in their friendship. You see the “gay best friend” phenomenon play out in trend stories and pop culture (think: Sex And The City or Will & Grace). A whole generation has grown up thinking that homosexuality is trendy, rather than an aberration, yet they’ve replaced fear and hatred with equally ridiculous and ignorant generalizations along the way. It’s as if gay people have gone from being considered sexual deviants to being hailed as fairy godmothers bearing gifts of Chanel. Like really? Your friends are not accessories, people. And yet, I’ve heard perfectly intelligent, self-identified liberals spout off the most offensive bullshit ever about their so-called “friends”. Some of these gems include arguments like:

    “Gay men can’t be friends with straight men.”
    “You’re either a bottom or top. You can’t be both.”
    “Gay men don’t settle down.”
    “There is a gay fashion gene.” (ACTUAL QUOTE)

    And these are gay people’s supposed allies. Clearly, we’ve got a long way to go. The part of Rosen’s piece that most resonated with me was the following: “Any woman I’ve met who has tried to become my hag (whether or not they employed the term) believes that a gay man can give her something a straight man cannot—platonic friendship, an outlet for hetero-verboten sex talk, someone to check out boys with, and often, an outlet for her annoying commentary about gay men.” Though it sounds out-there, I’ve actually had women approach me to ask how I acquired my very own gay mafia, like there’s a technique or networking skill involved. It makes me wonder if the fetishization of gay men just further contributes to their marginalization. Is the Sassy Gay Friend the new token black friend? Is it a necessary, albeit fucked-up step toward progress? Does mainstream acceptance always have to lead to the co-optation of progressive movements? A bunch of stereotypes is not exactly the foundation for friendship. Real people must get hurt as a result, right?

    The reality is that queerness is not a monolith, and there’s no such thing as the universal gay male experience. I have gay friends who are caricatures of what you might see on TV, gay friends who “pass” as straight at work everyday, gay friends who only want to talk about sex with me, and others who don’t even mention a romantic interest until it’s serious. There’s absolutely nothing that they all have in common besides their propensity for fucking other dudes, yet this single shared trait is enough to prompt people — both the well-intentioned and the bigoted — to form preconceived ideas about them. While Rosen’s account clearly doesn’t hold true for all gay male-straight female friendships, one thing is for certain: with friends like these, who needs enemies?

    31 Aug 2011

    “Truth was, I had to swim thousands of miles away to see what was right in front of me. It wasn’t his past that had me super-sleuthing all those months before: It was mine. And that’s when I knew it was over. Not because he was “sexually free,” as he called it that night after “the email,” but because I wasn’t as evolved as I’d previously boasted to myself and to him. All that time, I thought my “eccentric” personality would trump his “Eurocentric” tendencies. And maybe in Barcelona it could have. But back in Bloomingdale, it wasn’t just another adjective—it was a wedge between us. Or between the me that I thought I was—tolerant, free-thinking, above-it-all—and the me that I really was—heteronormative and stereotypical.”
    —

    Helena Andrews, GOOD: “Dealbreaker: He’s Dated Men”

    The above is taken from a heartbreakingly honest essay by a woman whose mother is lesbian and who considers herself progressive. Yet when she get into a relationship with a man who has been with other men, she finds herself unable to move past his dating history. I read some of the comments to the piece, and they’re not terribly understanding, which is disheartening, because I think this is a really hard truth to admit. Though I agree that people should be more open-minded about gender roles and expectations, the reality is that homo/bi/trans-phobia exists — and it’s not just scary conservatives who can’t move past their prejudices. Sometimes, the people struggling with prejudice consider themselves allies.

    To my knowledge, I’ve never been involved with a man who’s been with other dudes before, but I have hooked up with guys (three of them, off the top of my head) who have gone on to do that after the fact. (Only one of the three identifies as gay, and we’re both pretty sure I’m the person who “turned” him.) Would I have been interested if I’d known that these guys were also attracted to men? I’d like to say yes, but I really don’t know.

    When people ask me why I see sexual liberation as not only a women’s issue, this essay is what I want to direct them toward. Would a woman who had previously dated women be subject to the same scrutiny? Men are just as likely to be sexually oppressed, to self-silence for fear of judgment, to face prejudice, even from those who consider themselves to be, as Andrews calls her former self, “above it all”.

    27 Jun 2011

    And that’s it for the NYC Pride coverage! For more of my thoughts on marriage (gay and otherwise), refer here and here. My friends and I also ended up in The New York Times homepage slideshow yesterday. (Surreal!)

    And that’s it for the NYC Pride coverage! For more of my thoughts on marriage (gay and otherwise), refer here and here.

    My friends and I also ended up in The New York Times homepage slideshow yesterday. (Surreal!)

    27 Jun 2011

    Me, Jason, and Tiff at the end of the parade route yesterday.

    Me, Jason, and Tiff at the end of the parade route yesterday.

    11 May 2011

    On Transphobia & Self-Criticism in the Gay Rights Movement

    I’ve been so busy this past week that I keep putting off an entry I’ve been meaning to write about the trans exclusionary practices within the gay rights movement. Here’s the gist: if you look into the history of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) or the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), there are examples galore of trans people being thrown under the bus in exchange for political expediency. And if it were just about being instrumental (or in kinder terms, “practical”), that’d be one thing. But it’s not. The reason why it’s so easy to dismiss certain letters in the LGBTQ alphabet soup is because here’s the not-so-pretty truth: being queer and being bigoted are not mutually exclusive. Some of the nastiest things I’ve ever heard about women have come from the mouths of gay men, and folks who routinely claim to be “born this way” dismiss offhand the notion of bisexuality and sexual fluidity. Gay rights is no less susceptible to intolerance and binaries, just because it purportedly seeks to destroy them.

    I bring this up because I came across a comment in an article about Harvard’s reinstatement of the ROTC program on campus (despite continued trans discrimination in the military violating University policy for student organizations). It’s written by someone who claims to be a big supporter of gay rights, yet insists on viewing transgender people’s gender identity as “fake” and illegitimate:

    Your cause has managed to align itself with another, more legitimate one, and every time someone points out your issue is different we get called a homophobe for no good reason, even if we fully support gay rights … Many people, including me, will always feel you are walking around as a fake. I happen to be more tolerant that a lot of others because I don’t think you should be completely ostracized. You can have your surgery and live your life and I won’t try and stop you, but I will always see you as someone who is faking something you are not.

    I don’t want to conflate gender identity and sexual orientation, especially since there’s already a tendency to confuse the two, but it often seems glaringly obvious to me why those who sympathize with gay liberation should view trans liberation in similar terms. Not so long ago, in the supposedly free Western world, same-sex couples might have been told that they, in fact, were the imposters, that they looked as if they were mimicking heterosexual relationships and “faking something [they] are not”. What do we call opinions like that now? Bigotry.

    I think that someday we’ll look back on this moment in queer history with considerable shame and embarrassment. Because sadly, these opinions are rampant and sometimes, they’re expressed by the very people who should know better. It would be easy to point to the typical enemies: religious people, brown people, people who live in Red States, pick your stereotype. But how often do we look in the mirror? The marginalized can forget that even we’re not immune from the same prejudices as everyone else. We call ourselves liberals and we donate money and we march and fight and care immensely, but it does not mean that we are the flawless sexual revolutionaries we purport to be. Quite the reverse: the fact that we pride ourselves in being open-minded only acts as a barrier to admitting our own faults. And what’s a revolution without self-liberation?

    27 Apr 2011

    “Gay people—generally speaking—have a responsibility to our own community and to future generations of gay people to come out, if and when we feel that we can. We should all get to decide for ourselves the ‘if and when we feel that we can’ part of that.”
    — Rachel Maddow, (via The Frisky)

    I think it’s worth noting that Maddow is speaking from a position of relative privilege (of which I suspect she’s aware). Not everyone has the luxury of being able to “come out”, and queer folks who are further marginalized because of socioeconomic status, disability, geographic residence, and religion (just to name a few factors) may feel particular pressure to make symbolic statements, but they’re also the ones who face the greatest repercussions for leaving the closet.

    I myself have a lot of openly queer friends from college, but Harvard was a very tolerant place (not perfect, but definitely a bubble compared to the real world). Now that we’ve graduated, we largely live in yuppie neighborhoods in Boston, New York, and metropolitan areas with significantly higher rates of sexual diversity than your average American town. The threat of bias, bullying, or even violence is still present, of course, but the latter is never something that any of my friends are actively concerned about. (And even some of them aren’t entirely out to their family or friends.) So, when we look at someone who doesn’t have the same advantages, who may not be able to access accurate information about sexuality, who hasn’t grown up with positive queer role models or mentors, the task of “coming out” is much more complicated than simply swallowing one’s pride. Until the world is an entirely safe space — and let’s not kid ourselves about our “free and democratic” nation, because there are many areas of America that do not count as such — I don’t think there can be an expectation that queer folks have a “responsibility to [their] own community” to come out, especially when that community is fragmented across racial, geographic, economic, and national lines and when the mainstream face of gay rights serves a very specific demographic that is largely unaffected and unconcerned about the mental and bodily harm done to queer people with less privilege.

    I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: the gay rights movement in America is specifically concerned with gay rights, usually those of very privileged people. It is not a queer rights movement no matter what it purports to be. (Actions speak louder than words, HRC.) As I once stated on the blog:

    While I do consider myself a queer ally, I’ve become rather disenchanted with mainstream queer activism, which emphasizes sameness and commonalities rather than empowering their constituents to embrace the ways in which their identities reveal to them the injustices of our society. Mainstream queer activism (that is, what most people call the “gay rights movement”) is concerned largely with an educated, gay, and male constituency and is focused on the attainment of straight privilege. More radical queer activism has historically emphasized differences and criticized major lobbying groups, like the Human Rights Campaign, for encouraging assimilation rather than revolt. Rather than advocating for the dismantling of marriage contracts and the military industrial complex, these organizations spend millions upon millions on same-sex marriage advocacy and the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal. That’s hardly what I would call social change.

    The whole “coming out” narrative is a big part of increasing the social acceptability of queerness, but for it to be effective, it doesn’t hinge on coast-dwelling, Ivy League grads outing themselves. Rather, it would require those individuals in communities of little queer visibility to literally risk life and limb in order to make a statement. I’m not comfortable suggesting that this symbolic action is worth taking, especially as queer people get left in the dust by the mainstream movement, which is concerned not with smashing the state, but with achieving symbolic victories and forging alliances while being more than happy to throw under the bus those who don’t fit their neat narrative of happy, coupled, and gay yuppiedom.

    (Can you tell that I’m completely disgusted with the direction this movement has taken?)

    (Source: jessicawakeman)

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