the thing about creating and analysing intersectional queerness in text is that it’s not the opposite of straightness. it’s not the opposite of straight cisness. or even the opposite of straight cis white able-bodied perisex correctly performing gender in a million other ways-ness
it’s always there - it’s a ghost
what bodies are allowed to have gender and sexuality in narrative - what bodies are allowed to relate to themselves and others on their own terms, and how aware are they allowed to be of the roles they perform?
1. a man
queerness in analysis consists of questions and challenges to the narrative - it is a ghost in the textually created society - it asks how the bodies of that story’s society inhabit space
if that body is, say a white guy (no other descriptor and I’m being generous with using “white” here, when that often wouldn’t be mentioned either - straight is the default, queer is the add-on) who’s a boxing champion, how does he embody his masculinity in and out of the boxing ring
what if he’s a black guy who’s a boxing champion?
are they allowed access to masculinity in the same way? how hard would they have to perform heterosexuality in order to be A Correct Man? what are the rules of heterosexuality that they each have to follow in order to be A Correct Man? if one or both of them isn’t heterosexual, is there one that will have to fight harder to be A Correct Man than the other?
what does the ghost say of men who can only embrace other men once they are bloody and beaten? what does it say of intimacy between men under strict, heterosexual constraints?
when is a Man a Man? if he’s performing manhood under constraints and threats of violence, how can he know his own gender?
1. a woman
queerness is a liberating force that not everyone within text has access to - take the 60s bored housewife whose dreams of married bliss have transformed into alcoholic bitterness.
but she doesn’t know that she has other options, as defined by different rules created within queer politics - perhaps she’d even be disdainful of those types if she ever thought about them at all. mostly, though, she doesn’t think about them. she only thinks about her own misery, rightfully pegging that misery on her husband, who after all doesn’t have to be at home all day, can have conversations in which he’s considered “smart” (regardless of actual intelligence) and only really talks to her when he wants sex. if she fails too badly at her role, she could even be locked up somewhere, legally
the housewife can be read as queer, but she doesn’t have to be - “heteronormativity is a heavy, dull performance” is already queer analysis - the story in which the housewife is fingered by a butch she’s befriended is when we get really interesting of course, because now we’re acknowledging the queerness - it’s not just a ghost. the queerness has been brought to life, raw and powerful and overwhelming
does the woman become Woman first when she can be around women who love women and who love being women? or is her original bitterness the only tether she, desperately, can hold onto? how might she punish others for straying into her pain and daring to proclaim womanhood based on freedom from pain? how might she be liberated?
3. an assimilationist
if your narrative is textually queer, it’s likely that the bodies inhabiting the space are pretty aware of themselves, and sliding-scale moreso the more intersectional that text is
although this is where we get into the limitations of storytellers who don’t know what intersectional queerness is really about. thus, often, the queer analysis is kind of disappointed by toothless queer narrative, but I’d argue we need to be a lot more open-hearted towards it - it too, is queer analysis on a meta level – how queer are queers allowed to be in queer stories? are we even allowed to tell them ourselves?
are we - our politics, our themes - ghosts to our own stories - will we be assimilated, those of us whose bodies are juuust acceptable enough that a violent system will let us in if we play nice and don’t complain?
will we be allowed in the story then? if we’re nice enough? what is the cost? who do we throw under the bus in order to be allowed to ride? and how do we define “queer enough?”
perhaps bell hooks summing up tim dean: “queer not about as who you’re having sex with, that can be a dimension of it – but queer as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”
4. a horror story
I think a lot of cisgender straight white ablebodied perisex creators have good intentions, but they think of marginalisation in narrative as a character descriptor
this character is Straight (unexamined)
this character is Black (examined, with varying levels of success)
this character is Asexual (mentioned, perhaps, perhaps cured, perhaps a symptom of madness)
this character is Disabled (but the actor isn’t)
etc.
but marginalisation isn’t simply a trait in narrative - it’s a code. it’s a language. queerness especially is coded
a deeply heteronormative narrative (say, marriage story) can be analysed for its lack of queerness - and in that analysis we would also delve into their status as white and financially well off and generally “mainstream pleasing to the eye” - not fat, not disabled, not “ugly” as defined and redefined and punished over and over again by society
why are these straight, acceptably performing, white, upperclass people so deeply unhappy? I don’t personally care, in this case - nor am I saying they’re queer. I watch the narrative and I flinch - this is the world that was sold to me as what I had to become in order to succeed no matter what. thank goodness I did not. I conceive of heteronormativity through the lens of stories like gone girl
it’s a horror story
5. a myth
the code is a ghost. it’s embedded into mythological stories about transgressive gods and people, especially tricksters and fire-stealers (the kinds who speak against hierarchies that deny people the right to be safe and warm and free, but also may risk playing to their own tune to the detriment of others)
it appears (on purpose) in the most obvious white western male popular storytellers like shakespeare, doyle, tolkien, who are working off frameworks of language and relationships that have been whittled down - a backwards slide of knowledge, now semiotic, and unearthed in and by writers that were always more obvious about it, aphra behn, audre lorde, leslie feinberg
it’s given more of a shape in the 20th century with the word “queer” and the term “queercoding” - naming the politics and the narrative tool
popular writers and performers may be queer, as long as they are not too obvious about it - “not everything is about queerness,” a commenter should be able to sneer
“why do you read queerness into everything?” because its code is everywhere
its ghost is everywhere
6. a character - a narrative
a character can be straight. but queerness asks - why is this character straight? can you prove it? without a doubt? because queer people have had to prove it, purposefully celebrate it, protest for it, speak it out loud, and even then it’s disputed, when it should be far easier to assume a broad range of experiences, affected by time, place, gender, race, (dis)ability, body type, etc.
but
we also know that plenty of people who could find liberation under the banner of queer may never even know it’s an option for them - or may never choose it even if they do - or may only whisper it quietly to themselves one time their whole life - or only to a lover - or only in a letter discovered a hundred years later - or to nature, which doesn’t judge - or in prayers or poems - or in a million other ways —
this is queer
this is storytelling
this is the ghost
a narrative cannot be “straight” thematically - it can ask “am I A Correct Woman” or “am I A Correct Man” if it wants. it can have people struggling in their roles and yet still persist in them, because it is their narrative destiny. it can have them - even in the most stupid, shallow story - blindly follow the beats that are required of them
but the ghost is always there, asking why they follow
7. a joke
once upon a time a gay trans guy walked into a bar. at the bar were sat three acceptable cisgender straight men - an Absent Father, a Failed Boxer, and A Gangster on the out and out
the first man looked at the guy: “tranny” he said
“yeah,” nodded the guy, enthusiastically
the second man looked at the guy: “faggot” he said
“yeah,” the guy nodded again, with equal enthusiasm
the third man - maybe because he was in a maudlin mood, thinking about how he’d likely be garrotted in the next couple of days by his second in command - very seriously leaned over and asked (slurring his words): “how can you be so cool man?? all of the shit we’re saying and you’re so -you’re so cool about it”
the guy shrugged: “I love being a man. don’t you love being men?”
as if on cue, all three of the men burst into tears and for the rest of the night they paid the gay trans man’s entire tab