Who is "the queer community"?

Who is queer? What does it look like, or sound like, or feel like, to be queer? How do you know someone is a fellow queer? Are you queer? If not, what is your community and who's in it?

For me, “queer” implies that someone violates the norms of sex and/or gender in some way. I know gay people who are queer and gay people who are not queer. I know trans people who are queer and trans people who are not queer. I know hetero people who I think of as queer by virtue of their being kinky and/or poly, even though they don't have sex with people of the same gender. I also know kinky and poly people I wouldn't consider queer. Is asexuality queer? Because it seems pretty “strange” to most non-asexual people of all preferences, and queer means strange or odd, so it seems to me that asexual people can identify as queer if they want. What do you think?

Most of the queer people I know are white, although this is getting less true. Are most queer people white? What's up with the racial dynamics of being queer?

Re: Who is "the queer community"?

Isn't everyone, regardless of gender/race/identification/nationality/etc, a little queer in one way or another?

Maybe white people seem to be more queer because they were the ones who set the “norms” for such a long time and now that we are moving into a more diverse era where all dynamics are possible, explored and accepted, the old and outdated caucasian standard has, in the end, become the most queer of all?

What if no one really cared anymore about things like this? What do you envision the world would be like?

;-)

Re: Who is "the queer community"?

Hm. What I meant was the people who seem to identify themselves as queer, and be seen as part of the queer community, tend to be white. Not that white people are more queer. Am I making that difference clear?

Re: Who is "the queer community"?

No, you were clear…I wasn't clear in organizing my thoughts around a response. I think my original intention involved freedom (or desire/need) of expression.

I think that its probably a reflection of cultural influences. One of the things that I think I have noticed is that caucasian families tend to be less cohesive than other cultures and in talking with gay people of other ethnicities, family plays a much more important role in their lives, Therefore, it may not be as easily acceptable for them to be expressive in their “queerness”.

I'm a mutt amalgam of caucasian and native but my genetic manifestation is primarily caucasoid and I was raised in the typical (you're family, but your 18, now get out) caucasian cultural style. I have spent a great deal of time talking with friends of other ethnicities and they do talk of the importance of family and the bonds to the family in a much more influential way than I could identify with.

I think that there also may be a much larger contingent of “nonqueer” (whatever that means) people out there living lives in which they do not feel the need to express themselves as “queer” in the public eye.

A couple of questions that I would have are:

What defines the queer community?
What is the importance of the queer community?

Re: Who is "the queer community"?

For me, queer also signifies deviations from heteronormative gender roles. (For the sake of reference, Wikipedia has a good listing for heteronormative– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteronormative).

However, as far as 'norms' go, whenever identities have margins, a community's or an identity's guidlines of who can and cannot identify or have membership within a community, it means that new local 'norms' have been created.

An example that i have personally experienced has been from both the 'gay/lesbian' and 'trans' communities. I have been told by a lesbian that if I identified as a trans, I could not identify as a 'dyke'. I have been told by Trans communities that I am not really trans if I do not identify as a man or a woman.

I do presently identify as both a dyke and as a fag (I have personally reclaimed both of these terms and both are positive to me in the context of which I have mentioned them here). I also identify as transsexual. However, I'm not trying to go from one polar sex to another. I live aware of a world where there are more than two sexes, more than two genders, and people who can identify as being without a gender.

Because of these things, I have been told by certain trans identified people that I cannot be trans.

If these aren't oppressive norms like those of heteronormativity, then what is?

I am a huge advocate for personal gender rights and the right not to gender. I am also aware of a new movement within identity politics where a person can belong wherever they say they belong. This is the movement, however the resistance is coming from many directions, even within many queer communities. I feel a lot of this comes down to hierarchy, and also the fear that a group may not be able to seek rights for themselves if they are all inclusive.

Also, I know several queer identified people of color.

However, I believe that the media plays a large part in the image of a 'white gay culture'. I cannot at this time speak for other aspects of queer and color that are not gay identified.

On another note, 'People of color' does sound strange to me. While I am aware of dominant western culture color gradiants, these are not universal. I understand that we cannot be color blind until we are actually blind to color, individually, as well as institutionally.
But with regards to color aside from that of the institution of advantage and disadvantage, I don't know of two people who are actually of the same color. And as far as ancestral background goes, people have been traveling and intermixing genetics for thousands of years. I really feel that we are all from everywhere and that we are all related genetically by now if we ever weren't before.

Amiko-Gabriel


Gender Schmender–Refusing to play by their margins, choosing to define my own.
http://groups.myspace.com/genderschmender

ISAH–Refusing the stigma, choosing to recognize the differences between, and the validity of, every single body. http://groups.myspace.com/intersexes