Vanguards

A Review of the Book Gay LA-

What occurs to me as I read Gay LA is the way that we as gay/queer/homosomething or other in the 21st century think about and regard our history. “A group cannot be effective without a sense of urgency” (320), I fear that it is this urgency that we lack today. We “survived” the AIDS crisis and gay bashings of the past, although it is not so much survival as normalization of these tragedies. Queer youth grow up today with no attachment to the history and trauma of the past. Although the homophile movement declared that homosexuals are a cultural minority, the fact that we often disassociate so heavily with family structures that pass down cultural memory seems to lead to a youth culture of vanguardism.

"'Vanguardism had long poisoned the movements of the Left, most recently in the sixties. Casting yourself as the 'vanguard' meant that you were morally superior because you had suffered the most and had therefore gained the right to lead the much-awaited 'revolution'"

This Quote is from The World Split Open: How the Women’s Movement Changed America by Ruth Rosen. In this she describes the struggles that the women’s movement went through as it evolved over time. Often intersecting with the Lesbian/Queer movement women’s liberation can offer insight into the problems that Queer movements also face.
Since when is the vision of liberation that exists at the end of the book actually liberation. “Among the most encouraging developments for lesbians in the industry has been the comedy-drama series The L Word.” (360). The L Word does little more than thrust over sexualized rich white femmes into the spotlight. Meanwhile the lack of portrayal of women of color (or very few), working class women and gender variance excludes and hides the struggles and lives of these groups. What happened to the chapters on the struggles and great contributions of communities of color early on in the book? The epilogue seems to exist in a post-racial world of indifference where representation, any representation is positive. And yet these representations of lesbians are stabbing us in the back. They seem to empower, but really these tokenized queer characters enforce models of passivity and quell the urgency that we once had, the drive for liberation. Where is the radicalism in watching our stereotypes on TV?
Queer narratives are riddled with poor associations with birth families. Since most queer kids are not raised by queer parents they often do not have queer role models in their lives from an early age. Having no cultural role model means that queer youth grow up with out the same cultural historical memory that members of other minority groups might experience. Without these histories queer youth growing up today lack the association with the trauma and struggle that an earlier generation of queers fought through. This community of elders dealt with hostile circumstances to pave the way for the youth of today, and yet our interrogations of their identities and choices in time of crisis do not account for the context of the situation in which those decisions and identities were formed.
This failure to learn and understand histories leads us into patterns of disarray. Each new generation believes that it is the best, the vanguard, the improved model of the former. Because of this association our tendency is to disregard the histories that others have created. If only we built up the tools to unite the history of our movements with the present conditions of them. There are surely strategies from early resistances and attitudes that we would benefit from; not to mention more acknowledgment of history can help queer youth to develop a better understanding of their place within a broader less selfish movement.

Respect the Elders and Envision a Future

I wonder sometimes at night why I have never seen my future past the age of 40. Perhaps its my youth, incapable of imaging spending another 20 years on this earth, but at the same time I realize that I have almost no role models past the age of 40. I exist in a community with few visible elders, and I wonder, does 'queer' age well? There are aspects of queer society that do not in fact age well, through a combination of disease, substance use, depression and other issues that infect our community there are many who live on a different time-line of life events, much shorter than the hetero-normative standpoint.

Another factor that plays into that is that the concepts of queer and genderqueer as identifying terms is rather new and there are very few older queers who grew up around this language, and while some do identify with these terms many do not. However, that does not mean that sexualities and gender deviance that we think about today in connection to the queer and genderqueer community, are not represented in the older generation. Speaking with my aunt once she told me that had the terms 'transgender' or 'genderqueer' been available to her at my age she would have likely chosen to identify as such. However, despite not having these terms as definition I would say that my aunt still lived a very genderqueer life.

Within the "young/hip" queer community today we have created labels and identities that "fit" our needs. However, in the mess of this search for identity we often loose the people who could be of most value, the elderly. Queer chronology doesn't work in the same way as hetero chronology. While we all have families and connections to them, we also have a legacy of gay people who came before us a paved the way for us to be there. WE need to stop thinking about terms that only apply to modern subcultures as the end all be all of identity. Identity is molding and changing every second; within the ways that we perform for the camera and with the ways that we perform for others (/how others see us).

Regardless hopefully as the queers I know begin to age I will be able to envision a model for myself; although of course, there is always something relieving in the concept that I will die before age 50.

Who wears the strap-on?

I had gotten up to go to the bathroom before the movie started during a date with my high school girlfriend and when I returned to my seat I sat down and kissed her. As I settled into my seat we heard the 20/30 something (presumably) straight male behind us turn to the female that he was with and say "I wonder which one wears the strap-on?". Of course we turned and pointed at each other.

Binaries of gender are perpetually created by the queer community as often as they are projected on us my straight communities. Who wears the strap-on? How does that legitimize sex, specifically looking at couples where the dominant partner does is not the typical hetero-normative masculine figure. What does it mean for the femme to strap it on and fuck the butch? Does this act take some how diminish the masculinity of the butch, or better yet can a trans-man identify as a trans-man and still like to be fucked by a cock?

We use our roles in the bedroom to legitimize our identities, to examine ourselves and to define our selves. And yet if the concept of queer is about embracing fluidity then why must we divide ourselves into who wears the strap on?

If You Seek Amy/cheesy pop songs/the soundtrack of spring break 09.... in my head

I wish... that I could be your romeo...
"marry me juliet, youll never have to be alone,
I love you and thats all I really know..."


but alas, I have spent way too much of my spring break listening to the radio...
which brings up the point of my newfound appreciation and mixed feelings about Britney Spears....



ok, so yea yea big deal, at this point most people know but I will reiterate,

"All of the boys and all of the girls are begging to if you seek Amy"
'if you seek amy" - eff.u.see.kay.ME - f u c k ME
that line at first doesn't make sense but if you examine the sounds of 'if you seek amy' what comes out is the spelling of 'fuck' me. This would be part one of the appreciation, but part 2 of admiration and mixed feelings come out in the first half of that line...
if she is indeed saying (and I for one believe she is) fuck me at the end, then what does it mean that she says that both the boys and girls want to fuck her...

so points of interest as I continue to explore this song...

the meaning of all of the boys and all of the girls
the implications of the constant representation of seeking> 'amy', a clearly feminine name
the idealism of Britney eventually heading out side the suburban home with the pie 2.5 kids, husband, etc... as she retreats from the world of the wild partiers and into the psuedo rhelm of the american dream...
the role of the news clips placed on either side of the "actual video"...

and more...
there are answers coming I swear...

and btw- incase you forgot the josie and the pussycats existed, now seems like a good time to put some in...



ps- remember to count down...

6 whole hours,
5 long days,
4 all your lies to come undone, and those
3 small words came way
2 late, cuz you cant see that I'm the
1...



o, and i do know that this has been a little scattered, but its kind of like watching a little brain explosion...

Names.

So I don't know when it started, but as far back as I can remember the name Hannah never seemed to fit me,
as far back as I can remember I recall my knee-jerk reaction whenever hearing my name,
as far back as I can remember I have always felt like other names fit me better,
I have sought refuge in nicknames, some of my relatives call me magz, derived from my middle name,
My most prominent name was Mouse, given to me by a school friend in the 6th grade, and then stuck at camp,
I remember wanting to change my name everytime I changed schools... but I never found the courage.

High School:
1st day of 9th grade, study hall period:
senior: Whats your name?
me: Hannah
senior: thats such a nice name
me: you can have it...

I think his name was Ricky, I like Ricky better...
Although this happened in 9th grade I can remember feeling like that was my auto response when people complimented my name...
no matter where I went I always heard how pretty my name was, and I always talked about how much I hated it...

When one of my current best friends came out as Bi just before 10th grade I remember hearing the word, and although I probably couldn't put together a definition of the word I immediately knew what it was, and knew that I was one. I had the same reaction when I first heard about genderqueer, it was about 11th grade, and I was watching coming out stories on Logo (the gay channel) and there was a young, female bodied GQ coming out to their mother, immediately I identified with that person, on the TV and that term.

I founded my schools GSA, although we wern't technically a GSA, we were a diversity club. My senior year we were having a discussion about trans issues and immediately the tone of the room switched, I remember my then girlfriend shouting passionately at the room that you could be as butch as you could be but you should never change your gender. She then asked if anybody disagreed with her and I raised my hand, but I was the only one... in an instant I felt very alone, and I stopped talking about my gender. But I never stopped thinking about it...

By the time I entered hampshire I knew that my gender was not clear cut, for the most part I think about it as fluid, or non-identified... at this point I am using FTQ to express my gender, female to queer/questioning... im not FTM, im not female... FTQ

and so we are back to the name... I am using the name Helyx, it fits better, it makes more sense internally, and it doesnt have the same knee-jerk reaction, and so I think its worth a try...


-Helyx

Jealousy

for the 13 year old boy:

I am so jealous of you
you turned 13 and all of the sudden you were taller than me
your muscles grew, nice and toned and big
your voice dropped.

I am so jealous of you,
because I will never be tall like you
and I have to work a million times harder to make my muscles grow like that
and my voice may never stop sounding like this...

you live to easily in your world
and I wonder if it is something I want to pass into
but at the same time, I am still jealous
........

The Ish with Katy Perry

possible written article to come..... stay tuned, but for now i just needed to get this up there...

I Never Thought I Would Grow up to be a Woman

I grew up with the privilege of parents who didn’t care. Not didn’t care as in neglect, but didn’t care as in they never told me how to be, or how to dress or how to think about myself. At age 4 I wanted to be the Beast for Halloween, and so my mom made me the costume, and sewed up a beauty costume for my doll and I marched in my preschools Halloween parade as the beast with beauty on my arm. And in the subsequent years I refused to wear dresses, flowers, the color pink, and my mom never cared, we avoided sections of the store, she removed the flowers from hand-me down t-shirts and sewed jumpers and outfits for me to wear to family events so that I did no have to wear a dress. And when I came home crying one day because someone asked me if I was a boy or a girl she simply said boys don’t wear flowers, and she bought me a pair of flowery pants, and I tried it, but then I gave up, or I didn’t care, I forget which.
In the search for an education my parents moved me out of 3rd grade at public school and into 4th grade at a Jewish day school. At first I loved it, but as I grew I could see the atmosphere smothering the independence that had been fostered in me as a child. I wanted to fit in, and so I started wearing dresses, and skirts and I even stole make-up from the local drug store. And I tried, but the skills and desires that are inherent in other girls to put effort in, to be comfortable in a skirt and to want to look pretty never formed in my brain, and so I was awkward, and clumsy and messed up a lot and still I never fit in. And I remember the first time they told me that I was supposed to be a woman, I think that’s when everything changed, in 5th grade when gender mattered and boys and girls started dating, and the girls asked me to be on their basketball team because I was the best girl at basketball.
Every year in elementary school each grade did something appropriate within the scheme of Jewish Education and every year they would have a ceremony to show off a new skill or ability and then each member of the grade received a book. In the younger grades they were significant Jewish texts: prayer books, the 5 books of Moses, etc. But in 5th grade we received, “Women of Valor”, I still have that book, its nametag written out in Hebrew, with pictures of the other books I had received and would receive. It was then that it hit me, I don’t know if it was just 5th grade, or if it was my best friend who started hanging out more and more with the cool girls and less and less with me, or if it was the couples in our class, constantly rotating but never including me, but it was then that I realized that I was supposed to be a woman. I guess it changed my mindset in a way because I started to try; I pored over fashion magazines, bought books on makeup and beauty and how to be perfect. And I tried, I tried SO hard, I would stay up late at night trying to make my hair perfect and practice the art of being a woman. But it never worked.
As I grew I started to acknowledge to myself that I did not fit in as a woman and I chalked it up to immaturity and inability to accept responsibility. But then I continued to grow and I started out high school on a new foot, I would be a woman! I bought the skirts and had the hair and the makeup and I tried to make the friends. And I tried and I tried and the more I tried the more it built up until I bought my first pair of man pants. They are ripped now to the point where I cannot wear them, but I remember them. They were 10$ on sale at Kohl’s, they were dark denim with a hint of green, and I wore them with my men’s “Kiss Me I’m Irish” (I’m not really Irish) sweatshirt and something clicked. It would be a while until most of my wardrobe transformed, in fact it would be until I got out of high school that I would stop feeling the need to wear skirts or dresses when I needed to dress up. It would be until midway through my first year of college that I became comfortable enough to put my breasts away, to stop using them to get the attention that I always craved and until I was comfortable enough to try to shape them around who I wanted to be, and how I wanted to be seen.
Now I don’t bind that often, but I cannot remember the last time I did not wear a sports bra. Women complain that sports bras flatten their chest, and eliminate their cleavage. Now I don’t know what their talking about because even in a sports bra they do not disappear, and if I dare to wear a tank top you’ll see just how much cleavage I still have. But when I’m in a sports bra I can feel my self start to be in that in-between place I want to be. I never thought I would grow up to be a woman, the thought didn’t even cross my mind until 5th grade. But I also never thought I would grow up to be a man. I think of myself now as a 14-year-old boy, because 14-year-old boys are so often caught in that place between adulthood and childhood. And I haven’t met a 14-year-old boy yet who didn’t have some complex built around masculinity. I never deny growing up as a girl, a confused girl but a girl nonetheless. The question is where am I now, who am I now. I know that I am growing up, but I don’t know where it will take me. I know however, where it will not take me, I am not growing up to be a woman, and I am not growing up to be a man. Perhaps I will never know where I am going or when I get there, but hopefully I will be able to find some footing in the in between space that has evaded me so long.