To Queer From Non-Queerness: Overcoming the Collapse of Cis-Hetero Refusal

Introduction

Although some confusion remains, people generally know what one means when they use the word queer as a noun. Homosexuality, transgender identity, neopronouns, etc. They understand that queers are some vague group of people with genders and sexualities that refuse normative scripts and standards. Use queer as a verb, however, and all of a sudden… people are lost. They can’t even begin to piece together what you could possibly mean when you say you queered your gender or your sexuality, heaven forbid anything else. Look closer and you’ll find that people will begin to experience a sense of anxiety, unease, and agitation when queerness as a verb is used. Look even closer, and you begin to see a deeply interesting clash occurring within people between their desire to conform to normative scripts and their desire to negate them. 

In this essay, I’m trying to help allies with their treacherous journey into including themselves in queerness rather than remaining outside supporters.  While a central focus of this essay will be understanding and overcoming the discomfort of queering (which I define as actions that trouble normative scripts and standards), the real task at hand for me will be to assist in this understanding and overcoming so that the ally can wield their agency and become actionable within the discourse of queerness. When our allies remain oppositional to queering it causes me concern not only because I recognize how antithetical it is to queer people flourishing, but also because I am aware of the ways in which it is also detrimental to the ability of allies to thrive as well. In conceptualizing queering this way, my aim is to illuminate the path from being an ally to becoming something more- an accomplice. 

Admittedly, this paper is intended to trouble a division and cause discomfort, but it is written in the spirit of love. I want to be a warm hug, not a cold accusation. I want to welcome allies into queering and discuss some of the confusing trains of thoughts they may be headed down upon even the idea of an invitation. I want to show them a different way of thinking that will allow them to become freer than they want to be. I want us to go together and sit in the beauty of letting go and watching things fall apart. 

Internal Conflict: Conformity v Refusal

 

Throughout my entire life, I have witnessed cis and straight people challenge and trouble cis-heteronormative scripts and standards, by which I mean commonly held narratives about what is normal, acceptable, beautiful, and/or appropriate composure and conduct within cis-hetero identity and expression as well as the normalization of those narratives, identities, and expressions as a default standard. A common, but not universal or necessary, feature of cis-hetero opposition to cis-heteronormative scripts and standards is the manner in which the refusal collapses back into conformity. There are many examples of this happening, but I will allow myself to focus on three. 

[1] “Real men wear pink.” While this trend was at its peak in the mid 2000s, I feel as though I’ve always remembered it being around and it’s a discussion that lives on. Conversations where cis and straight people of all walks of life ask deep and layered questions about gender and sexuality. What connects the color pink to women? What about the history of its association to men? Doesn’t it make men weak if they’re scared of a color? Why is pink gay? Why is gay not masculine? Isn't the refusal of that script actually strong and brave and cool? Isn’t the willingness to be seen as feminine and gay actually masculine and straight? The internal contradiction that accompanies conversations about men wearing pink is the necessary aspect of realness. It’s not that one is masculine because they wear pink, it is that they are a real man. The attempt to refuse the normative script through the claim that men can engage in something associated with femininity and homosexuality becomes the attempt to conform to the script by proclaiming oneself as actually being the real man. 

[2] “How can I be a better ally?” This is a beautiful question I’ve had the honor of being asked many times. It is an inherently uncooperative question in a world that has constructed a normative script that queer people are immoral, irrational, and unhealthy. However, this question often presents itself to me conjoined with an internal contradiction. The ally, in pursuing such a question, will often collapse back into conformity through several avenues. Their allyship may be conditional upon the queer handholding the ally and doing all the emotional and mental labor. They may ask about how to do better, but then will provide pushback and skepticism upon hearing a suggestion as if they were the ultimate authority of good allyship despite admitting they are unknowledgeable. The ally may be more invested in the curation of a moral profile than with providing support. The attempt to refuse the normative script through seeking information about becoming a better ally becomes the attempt to conform to the script when the ally places the burden of labor onto marginalized people, believes themself to be intellectually superior, and/or focuses on their own sense of righteousness above the plight of the people they claim to care about. 

[3] “They were born that way.” The normative script in the United States about transgender and homosexual people is that they are confused, diseased, and/or manipulated. It is usually not the case that someone will believe one literally chooses to be transgender or homosexual. However, the history of conversion therapy necessarily grounds itself in the belief of the ability to change queers into non-queers. Queer people who advocated for themselves would stress that these things could not simply be changed and, thanks to the hard work of queer people, conversion practices have greatly diminished (though not disappeared entirely.) “Born this way” is now a pro-queer slogan that recognizes that queer people cannot change their internal sense of self and desire through choice, medical intervention, or psychoanalysis. When allies say “they were born that way,” however, an internal contradiction sometimes emerges. They confuse the inability to change an internal sense of self and desire with queerness being something entirely inactionable. This enframes their allyship as antagonistic to queer actionability. This occurs because, while the normative script does not claim gender and sexuality are a choice, the opposite of the “born this way” slogan is “not born this way,” which often means “choosing to be this way” but could also refer to being affected by something like a social contagion, an environmental factor, or a political agenda. The ally does not stand in opposition to the normative script- after all, diseased people can also be “born that way”- but rather, they oppose the opposition of their value. In attempting to create as much distance between themselves and the opposite of their value, allies sometimes paint with too broad of a brush and avoid engaging in discussions about queer actionability entirely. The attempt to refuse the normative script by advocating for the freedom of queer life becomes the attempt to conform to the normative script by avoiding and uninvesting in the queer choices that make queer life possible and only focusing on queerness as a group of people. 

A recurring theme that ties these three examples together is how their internal contradictions relate to the negative thoughts and feelings associated with queerness as a verb. In [1], the action of wearing pink to subvert gender and sexuality becomes too uncomfortable, so the ally collapses the subversion down into realness and creates a bad faith justification for creating distance- the feminine and homosexual actions were actually the mechanism for producing real masculinity. In [2], the action of working with and alongside queerness to liberate itself becomes too uncomfortable, so the ally collapses the allyship into the queer as the laborer and the ally as the enlightened and/or moral. In [3], the action of advocating that queer people can’t change their internal sense of self or desire becomes too uncomfortable, so the ally collapses the advocacy down into the queer as a static object and the ally as a protector of the queer object from outside danger. 

The problem is that allies have a desire to refuse normative scripts and standards, but they keep collapsing back into conformity. Understanding why this problem happens is simple: it’s because allies still feel uncomfortable about queer actionability. However, just because we understand the problem doesn’t mean we know how to overcome it yet. 

Dead Queerness, Dead Refusal

This section will mostly be concerned with overcoming the problem outlined in the last section. However, in order to overcome the problem, we first must take a brief moment to reflect on the consequences that result from the problem. Across [1,2, and 3] from the previous section, there are three consequences as a result of the collapse from refusal to conformity: allies see queerness as a static object, they see it as something inactionable, and they see their own allyship as exclusively an external project. 

The full picture we can gather when we view all of these consequences is that allies live with dead queerness and dead refusal. What do I mean when I say “dead?” I borrow this use of “dead” from Lewis Gordon, and what he meant was that someone believed in a version of a thing that wasn’t actually that thing. So when I say dead queerness, I mean that what allies usually think of as queerness isn’t very queer. When I say dead refusal, I mean that what allies usually think of as refusal isn’t very uncooperative. People come to believe in dead versions of things when they never critically reflect on what it means for those things to be what they are. Once the ally recognizes that the queerness and refusal they know is dead, they can apply a critical lens and bring life back to those concepts. Only when allies bring life back to queerness can they become more actionable, because to be critical you have to make a decision. In death, these things are collapsed into static objects: social roles, hierarchies, and identities. In life, these things blossom into dynamic action: becoming, rejecting, creating, dismantling, recognizing, negotiating, etc. 

When we become critical about something, we search for criteria that justifies our judgement. A criterion that is fundamentally necessary for justifying our judgments is possibility because a judgement based on criteria that are impossible to meet is unjustifiable. When allies become critical about queerness, this criterion of possibility often plays a major role in informing their decisions, and they more often than not come to the conclusion that queer actionability for themselves is unjustifiable even if they perceive it as justifiable for queer people. After all, what is a non-queer who engages in queering and gets queered if not just… a queer? In order to overcome this question, I think it is important to reflect on four things. 

[1] It is not that one necessarily becomes a queer by queering, but rather, it is that they necessarily produce some queerness. Producing queerness ≠ Becoming a queer. The production of queerness is what brings queer people into being, but not all queerness is produced by queer people. 

[2] While becoming queer isn’t necessary to producing queerness, queerness is an open modality that is not foreclosed to anyone. In other words, queerness as a modality allows for possibility in the justification of non-queers queering. 

[3] Even if someone believes non-queer queering is impossible, isn’t it in the spirit of queerness to hope for, reach for, and imagine impossible and unrealistic things within a system of legibility and legitimacy that create the illegible and illegitimate queer?

[4] The Queer Lichtenberg Objection: rather than  supposing an entity that is queering, one should instead say “queering is occurring” not that “I am queer.” In other words, maybe the real problem was never queerness as a verb, but rather, queerness as a noun?

Combining these four ideas leaves us with an incredibly radical picture of allyship. Perhaps queer people and non-queer people aren’t necessarily different sorts of things, but rather, one people with the same opportunity to participate in an open modality of refusal. Perhaps it is possible to queer from non-queerness, or even more beautiful, perhaps we deserve to move beyond what is possible and dream impossibly in a world that denies us flourishing within its possibilities. Perhaps lots of people were queer who thought they weren’t, and likewise, lots of people weren’t who thought they were. 

Conclusions

Allies want to refuse cisheteronormative scripts and standards, but they remain uncomfortable and uncritical of refusal so they collapse into conformity while believing themselves to be disobedient. They see queerness as merely the homosexual and transgender characteristics of a group of people and, therefore, foreclose themselves from queer actionability and believe queering to be impossible. This belief of impossibility is the source of the discomfort that collapses refusal into conformity. Applying a critical lens allows us not only to discover that allies can queer too, but also allows us to believe in impossible things when possibility leaves you impossible. 

Queerness is not a static object and allies are not external supporters of this static object. We are one people with equal opportunity to refuse the terms and conditions given to us that make us homeless in our homes and impossible in our possibilities. We cease to exist as queers and allies when we stand together and engage in this modality of refusal. Instead, we become fugitives, accomplices, and co-conspirators. We embody our refusal as “movement in excess of an unchosen starting point to an undisclosed destination… (Marquis Bey, 2019)”