Queer Corner

Month 2 of the monthly mini-lessons on everything Queer: The struggles ARE real.

Even after winning the right for same-sex marriage, the queer community still has countless challenges that we must face on a day-to-day basis. Whether it be from the government, society, or even other community members, these stressors are something that genuinely needs to be addressed. This month's vocabulary and books focus on some of those challenges, and how we as a society can eliminate them. 

Vocabulary!

Coming Out:  “Coming out" describes voluntarily making public one's sexual orientation and/or gender identity. It has also been broadened to include other pieces of potentially stigmatized personal information. Terms also used that correlate with this action are: "Being out" which means not concealing one's sexual orientation or gender identity, and "Outing, " a term used for making public the sexual orientation or gender identity of another who would prefer to keep this information secret.

Internalized oppression: The fear and self-hate of one’s own target/subordinate identity/ies, that occur for many individuals who have learned negative ideas about their target/subordinate identity/ies throughout childhood.  One form of internalized oppression is the acceptance of the myths and stereotypes applied to the oppressed group.

Microaggressions: Brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative slights and insults about one’s marginalized identity/identities.

Oppression: exists when one social group, whether knowingly or unconsciously, exploits another social group for its own benefit.

Individual Level: beliefs or behaviors of an individual person; conscious or unconscious actions or attitudes that maintain oppression.

Institutional Level: institutions such as family, government, industry, education, and religion are shapers of, as well as shaped by, the other two levels.  The application of institutional policies and procedures in an oppressive society run by individuals or groups who advocate or collude with social oppression produces oppressive consequences.

Societal/Cultural Level: society’s cultural norms perpetuate implicit and explicit values that bind institutions and individuals; cultural guidelines, such as philosophies of life, definitions of good, normal, health, deviance, and sickness, often serve the primary function of providing individuals and institutions with the justification for social oppression.

Phobia: In terms of mental/emotional wellness - a phobia is a Marked and persistent fear “out of proportion” to the actual threat or danger the situation poses, after taking into account all the factors of the environment and situation.  Historically this term has been used to inaccurately refer to systems oppression (i.e. homophobia has been used to refer to heterosexism.) As a staff, we’ve been intentionally moving away from using words like "transphobic,” “homophobic,” and "biphobic" because (1) they inaccurately describe systems of oppression as irrational fears, and (2) for some people, phobias are a very distressing part of their lived experience and co-opting this language is disrespectful to their experiences and perpetuates ableism.  

Privilege: a set of unearned benefits given to people who fit into a specific social group.  The concept has roots in WEB DuBois’ work on “psychological wage” and white people’s feelings of superiority over Black people.  Peggy McIntosh wrote about privilege as a white woman and developed an inventory of unearned privileges that she experienced in daily life because of her whiteness.

Stereotype: A generalization applied to every person in a cultural group; a fixed conception of a group without allowing for individuality. When we believe our stereotypes, we tend to ignore characteristics that don’t conform to our stereotype, rationalize what we see to fit our stereotype, see those who do not conform as “exceptions,” and find ways to create the expected characteristics.

Check out these books for more information, and be sure to check back in next month!

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

Call Number: 741.597 B391f 2007

ISBN: 0618871713

Publication Date: 2007

A fresh and brilliantly told memoir from a cult favorite comic artist, marked by gothic twists, a family funeral home, sexual angst, and great books. This breakout book by Alison Bechdel is a darkly funny family tale, pitch-perfectly illustrated with Bechdel's sweetly gothic drawings. Like Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, it's a story exhilaratingly suited to graphic memoir form. Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift, graphic -- and redemptive.

Blue Is the Warmest Color by Julie Maroh

Call Number: 741.594 M354b 2013

ISBN: 1551525143

Publication Date: 2013

A New York Times bestseller The live-action French film version of Blue is the Warmest Color won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013. Originally published in French as Le bleu est une couleur chaude, Blue is the Warmest Color is a graphic novel about growing up, falling in love, and coming out. Clementine is a junior in high school who seems average enough: she has friends, family, and the romantic attention of the boys in her school. When her openly gay best friend takes her out on the town, she wanders into a lesbian bar where she encounters Emma: a punkish, confident girl with blue hair. Their attraction is instant and electric, and Clementine finds herself in a relationship that will test her friends, parents, and her own ideas about herself and her identity. Vividly illustrated and beautifully told, Blue Is the Warmest Color is a brilliant, bittersweet, full-color graphic novel about the elusive, reckless magic of love. It is a lesbian love story that crackles with the energy of youth, rebellion, and desire.

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

Call Number: 824.914 L867s

ISBN: 0895941414

Publication Date: 1984

The leader of contemporary feminist theory discusses such issues as racism, self-acceptance, and mother- and womanhood.

 

 

The Celluloid Closet by Vito Russo

Call Number: 791.4309 R969c

ISBN: 0060961325

Publication Date: 1987

Praised by the Chicago Tribune as "an impressive study" and written with incisive wit and searing perception--the definitive, highly acclaimed landmark work on the portrayal of homosexuality in film.