Last night I felt beautiful

[eumelia]

Last night there was an evening (academically) celebrating the writing of Joan Nestle.
She founded The Lesbian Herstory Archive, she's been Out since the 50's and is an advocate for LGBT and Queer rights and writes the most amazing Lesbian writing.

Recently several stories from her books A Restricted Country and A Fragile Union have been translated into Hebrew (and if rumours are to be trusted, they will be translated into Arabic as well some time soon).

I bought the translated book a few months ago, as a treat for myself and my dear friend arnavtul lent me her copy of Nestle's book in English.

There aren't a lot of books that enable you to see yourself more clearly.

Last night was a community evening.
My friend V said that these evenings haven't changed in the past 15 years.
For me there was something so beautiful about knowing that these evenings exist in my Uni, that they are sponsored by academia and that I know without a shadow of a doubt, that I'm part of the majority in a space in which that majority really is a community.
For me these cultural evenings are new.
So while I understand V's frustration at it being the same people over and over again, for me it's fantastic.

It was in my IDF service that I met, for the first time, other Queers.
People with who I could talk about my desires and know they understand.
My daily lunch breaks were more than just a break from the tedium of office work and the oppression I didn't know was crushing me with Dacron uniforms and a military mindset that drove me nuts for two years.
These breaks were also a kind of community building in which my queerness wasn't odd, it was the norm.
It was awesome.
And after my service that little community disappeared and I was Queer alone except for the internet and seeing a portion of the U.S. LGBT community while I was in the States was very a good thing, it was also when I really freed myself of all kinds of things I didn't know were crushing me - the oppression I couldn't name.
I shaved my head.
I travelled alone.
I knew I belonged in Israel.

Entering Uni was great.
Studying what I study - Literature and Women & Gender - Those are the fields (any of the Humanities, really) in which we tell ourselves who we are and who we perceive ourselves to be.
The head of the Lit department is Gay and visible about it - not in the sense that he talks about it, but in the fact that the closet is just not there. Same with so many other lecturers that I love and admire and hope to eventually speak to on an even keel.

The visibility of LGBT lecturers and LGBT evenings and conferences is so precious and important.
For most Straight and Cisgender* people they are sub-cultural events which are fun to attend (it's awesome that Straight and Cisgender people attend) but I always get the feeling that they attend because they want to see something Different, even if they are very close friends with Queers, their world view is filtered through the default and it's probably thrilling to be in a place in which they feel different because of their sexuality and gender identity.
Queers feel excluded every day because of that.

It may sound dramatic, but my friend V told me of violence I've had the privilege not to experience.
The double standard of dates because I'm with another grrl and not with a boi.
The assumption that everyone is straight unless proven otherwise.
That we chose this life.
This hard life in which same-sex couples have to go to court in order to adopt and travel to Canada in order to marry.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.

Last night was so good.
I felt beautiful.

I felt as though I was bubbled in a cocoon of a culture that really is my own and not one I am on the margins of because of what's between my legs and in my heart.

Thank you Joan.

Foor Notes
*Not Transgender

Comments

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

Imma go a bit grumpy on your discourse here.

these evenings exist in my Uni
Oy, nu srsly. It's the university of tel aviv, if gays aren't visible there then I don't know who is. All the queer thing is very in in the merkaz, and has been for a while now.

the oppression I couldn't name... Queers feel excluded every [day?] because of that.
I'm pretty sure that this isn't the experience of all queers. Other questions come into play here, notably class. E.g. German filmmaker Werner Schroeter once said in conversation with Foucault that he was puzzled by all these rights-demanding gay activists, seeing as if there was one thing he never felt oppressed due to it was his homosexuality.

Also, strongly self-identifying on the basis of sexual orientation seems to me about as productive as self-identifying on the basis of race, nationality, sex, religion, IQ etc - i.e. may negate fears of abandonment by creating a community, but has many limitations.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Oy, nu srsly. It's the university of tel aviv, if gays aren't visible there then I don't know who is. All the queer thing is very in in the merkaz, and has been for a while now.
Yes, there's even a whole academic conference that is dedicated to LBGT studies and Queer theory.
Your point?

I'm very sure my experience isn't that of other queers. I'm talking about myself and the people who surround me. Most of my Gay (male) friends have told me that they've never felt oppressed in their life.
I didn't feel oppressed by my Queerness until recently.
And the fact that Schroeter was puzzled was his own problem. Seriously.

Identity politics by their very nature are problematic. Doesn't mean they're not useful. I see it as a way of appropriating the oppressive discourse and making it into something good.

Queer visibility may seem obvious to you, but it really isn't to me and for me, at this point, it gives me great comfort when there seems to be an attempt at normalisation of LGBT's into Straight mindset, instead of all out sexual and gender liberation.

You may feel grumpy about my discourse, but it's mine. And it's the way I feel. Meaning it is the way I experience things. If you object to my generalisations, read it stylistically.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

If you object to my generalizations, read it stylistically.

Yes, this is precisely what makes me uneasy - that instead of telling an idiosyncratic story you frame it - without a pinch of irony - within a set of rather mainstream discursive conventions. To me, you lose more than you gain. Of course, you may not feel that way.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

My dear,
I was writing about a good experience and framed it within what is, dicoursively, the social mainstream which, as we know, tries to silence a discourse that which doesn't sit as well in it.
You may think that one loses more than one gains, but that really isn't your call in this situation.
If you want to look at things from the literal view and not how things make one (me) feel, that's your prerogative.
But I find it a bit pretentious and somewhat offensive that you would presume to call on the way I experienced an evening in which Lesbian sexuality, Lesbian writing and Queer experience was celebrated.

Edited for grammar

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

I'll re-articulate what I think your premises for holding a discussion on this topic are. Please correct me where you see fitting.

When it comes to sexual orientation, I am (on the whole) oppressed. You aren't. If you want to have any sort of dialogue with me, you first and foremost must unconditionally accept my experience and the ways in which I frame it. Your criticism of either my experience or my framing of it is illegitimate.

Such a premise perpetuates (i.e. is both rooted in and gives rise to) certain limitations of the communication between dominant and subordinate groups, which I may attempt sketching if you okay my formulation of the premise.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

You know, I'd rather scrap the whole discussion by now.

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

strongly self-identifying on the basis of sexual orientation seems to me about as productive as self-identifying on the basis of race, nationality, sex, religion, IQ etc - i.e. may negate fears of abandonment by creating a community, but has many limitations.
If people weren't subordinated based on race, sex, or sexual orientation I think that you would see a lot less of that self-identification. Forming communities based on those things is a way to feel less alone in frustration at the ways that's done. Members of the privileged groups, by definition, don't have to be aware of that and therefore often don't understand that frustration.

if gays aren't visible there then I don't know who is. All the queer thing is very in in the merkaz, and has been for a while now.
I'd agree that in many ways homophobia isn't an issue in Tel Aviv (though I don't know that I'd expand that to the merkaz more generally). But there are definitely cases (in terms of sexual orientation and other issues) in which being "in" can be a form of exotification.

I'm pretty sure that this isn't the experience of all queers. Other questions come into play here, notably class.
Yeah, class factors in. But the majority of people, presumably including the majority of queer people, work with others and interact socially with their co-workers (which tends to include talking about their relationships). Having to worry about whether being honest about your orientation will isolate you socially, affect you professionally (someone working minimum wage can't really afford to sue for discrimination if they get fired, after all, even if they live in a place where sexual orientation is a protected category), or potentially get you physically attacked is common enough for queer people that my alma mater's queer group holds annual discussions about "How out to be in the workplace" that includes discussions about the (lack of) rights queer people have in that state.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

If people weren't subordinated based on race, sex, or sexual orientation I think that you would see a lot less of that self-identification.
That's a good remark. I'm not sure I automatically want to introduce the privileged-oppressed dichotomy in this context, since IRL there's typically a shifting dynamics between the two.

being "in" can be a form of exotification.
For sure. Then, isn't any "in-ness" somewhat fetishistic? Further, some queers are by any reasonable definition "exotic". Just as some straights are. That in the eyes of the non-adept those individuals come to represent the whole group of queer people is probably unavoidable. Yes, we may, and do, attempt to shrink the size of the non-adept population, but the fact that the queer community is not very clearly defined is an extra issue. For some people queerness is an experiment rather than a clear orientation, and that comes into play when assessing the queer community.

I think that a setting in which one can get physically attacked for being queer is a setting in which one can get attacked for a variety of other reasons as well. A setting in which we are discussing "minimum wage" is also a low socioeconomic one. We all worry constantly re: how out to be in a workplace, even if "out" does not involve sexual orientation, but other private issues. I refuse to buy the exclusivity of the queer question in this context. Allow me to quote Wittgenstein: "Nowadays it is the fashion to emphasize the horrors of the last war. I didn't find it so horrible. There are just as horrible things happening all round us today, if only we had eyes to see them."

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I automatically want to introduce the privileged-oppressed dichotomy in this context, since IRL there's typically a shifting dynamics between the two.
What do you mean by a "shifting dynamic"?

I think that a setting in which one can get physically attacked for being queer is a setting in which one can get attacked for a variety of other reasons as well.
So far as I can tell neither I nor the OP ever said that queer people are "more oppressed" than any other group, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a place for communities through which queer people can commiserate with people who share their experiences. Anyway, the point I intended to convey was that, while intersectionality is important, queer people have an extra concern wondering if being as open as their straight colleagues will get them harmed. That's as true when comparing two people earning minimum wage as it is when comparing two members of the professional class.

We all worry constantly re: how out to be in a workplace, even if "out" does not involve sexual orientation, but other private issues.
The more stigmatized a "private issue" tends to be, the greater the worry is going to be. Personally, I've worried about how open to be with co-workers in the States about my choice to keep kosher, but I've never felt anywhere near as worried about that as I have about disclosing my queerness. But again, even if there are other identities that are just as stigmatized as queerness and induce just as much worry for those who have them, that doesn't mean that there isn't an emotional benefit for queer people who forming communities in which they can share their experiences.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

Shifting dynamics: something like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM). I mean that the power balance between what the dichotomy would dub oppressor and oppressed is often an unstable one.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that there isn't an emotional (as well as intellectual and possibly material) benefit for queer people to form communities etc. Something like what the OP describes sounds excellent to me. In fact, I kind of regret initiating the whole discussion now because of where the thread above this one went.

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

I strongly disagree that "shifting dynamics" make the privileged-oppressed dynamic irrelevant. I've been in all black neighborhoods in the U.S. where because of my race I wasn't safe, but I was fully aware that the forces that created those neighborhoods 99% of the time work in my favor. The fact that there are communities within which a "minority" group is, well, the majority doesn't change the fact that the minority faces systemic discrimination not faced by members of the majority.

Honestly, using that video as an example of "shifting dynamics" struck me as reminiscent of white people in the antebellum U.S. who justified (more extensive) restrictions on black people's liberty by saying that the restrictions were necessary to prevent a violent black uprising. Yes, the white people who were killed in events like the Stono Rebellion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stono_Rebellion) were obviously temporarily disempowered, but they could believe with some certainty that the people killing them would be punished. A black person killed by whites had no such assurance. Even if a few individual of a "majority" group are harmed by the animosity between them and the "minority" group and want to end it, it's impossible to get rid of that division without acknowledging the systemic oppression that created it.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

My criticism of post-colonialism aims not so much at its revision of the way we write history (I am not erudite enough to do that), but at the policies that a common use of the oppressor-oppressed language entails. I would like to believe that most post-colonial theorists do not see history, or the present, in black-and-white, but common usage of terms such as privilege and oppression does appear to push towards such a view. Language suggests, for instance, that for the prosperity of all "the oppressed" should be "liberated", left to their own. Policies that are based on such a reading don't work by any definition of "work" that would be acceptable to those who promote them, at least not in the examples I've directly seen (First Nations reserves in Canada). Young, white, university educated people who believe that by embracing the privilege rhetoric they will noticeably contribute to oppressed groups' well being, and that anyone who does not embrace such rhetoric is surely an asshole who doesn't give a shit about people - those people annoy me. I think it is time to admit that post-colonialism, feminism, LGTB movements and their likes are not radical undertakings anymore, that they are by now the intellectual mainstream, and that they do have their problems to face. This doesn't (to me) mean we should abandon them, but rather that further development and thought are necessary.

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

I think we may be talking past each other...
What do you mean by, "the policies that a common use of the oppressor-oppressed language entails"?

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

Well, in the example that's in front of my eyes it's the set of policies that support the Indian reserves system. In another close example, it is the imperative "end the occupation", which glosses over the details and intricacies of Israel's military and economic presence in the Territories. The rhetoric of "end the occupation" entails the policy of "get the fuck out" (unless you don't mean that quite literally, but then why say it like that?*), which is in some ways a dubious strategy.

* Reminds me of non-literal readings of religious texts, which are sometimes used as a defense for (the authority of) these texts. But where did the idea to read them non-literally come from? It came from outside the text, and from outside religion at that. Likewise, I don't think that one should be shouting "end the occupation" if one doesn't want to remain bound within a very narrow choice of alternatives. Slogans like this are propaganda tools, and my thoughts on propaganda of any sort remain very ambivalent.