opening eyes

Cathy J. Cohen's essay "Punk, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens" offered an abundance of terminology, information but most important, understanding. I learned quite a bit about the creation and the attempted re-creation of queer politics. So much that squeezing my new found knowledge into two paragraphs is going to be interesting, so bear with me.

What I’ve learned about queer politics is that sexual “fluidity” is encouraged and that an individual’s sexual expression does not have to be defined or concrete. This is not the first time that fluidity has come up. In one of our readings from last week, I believe it was Judith Halberstam, that mentions the idea of fluidity and how some queers don’t want to have a category, rather they want to float around in that “grey” area. A particular aspect of queer politics that I found interesting is the fight against “heteronormativity”. This terminology first of all is very clever, and true, because in our society heterosexism is the norm and anything that deviates from that is “wrong”. Queer politics seeks to fight this socially constructed image that “all heterosexuals are represented as dominant and controlling and all queers are understood as marginalized and invisible”(440).

"Many of us continue to search for a new political direction and agenda, one that does not focus on integration into dominant structures but instead seeks to transform the basic fabric and hierarchies that allow systems of oppression to persist and operate efficiently"(437). This statement in the beginning of the essay really stood out to me because it is not just "queers" that long for new politics. The political platforms today are already fully constructed with permanent boundaries. If we want to “fit in” we must force ourselves to adopt the standards and structures already set in stone. Queer politics are necessary in this patriarchal society we live in today. Queer politics seek that left centered approach, an approach that takes queer experiences as a “starting point[s] rather than as [a] footnote”(444). In a more general sense queer politics seeks to create a political stance that refutes “dominant institutions” and demands a change of “values, definitions, and laws” that continue to oppress. This fight for a true queer politic seems as though it can benefit more than the queer population.