All Fâd Up
LaTrisha sighed and shook her head. âSo, I come back to school after summer break, which was great, by the wayâI had this amazing internship at the state Capitol. And some of the people on my floor in the dorm are like, âOhhh, we heard youâre with that other R.A., Alexis. Does this mean youâre a lesbian now? Or, bi?â I mean, god! Iâve been back on campus like a week and this shit is going on, and Iâm supposed to be leading all the freshman orientation stuff. Give me a fucking break!â
Iâd known LaTrisha, a 21-year-old cis Black woman, since she was a freshman in college. I provided her with counseling support throughout her fatherâs struggle with cancer. Now sheâs an R.A. and a senior, and apparently dealing with other peopleâs imposition of identity conclusions.
âDamn,â I said. âThat sounds super frustrating. What do you call it, the thing you need a break from?â
Without missing a beat, she said, âPeopleâs fâd up idea that we all gotta be a thing they can put their finger onâŠand keep it there!â
âDo you have any ideas about what gives people this fâd up idea?â
âI donât know. I mean, I get it; I guess I do it myself sometimes, too, but I try not to. Itâs like, we want to know who people are, or we think we know who they are, so we know where to put them in our mind. I suppose it comes from people always doing it.â
âSo, everyone does it and that keeps everyone doing it, is that right?â
âYup.â
âWhat about that is fâd up to you?â I asked. âWhat about that has you so mad?â
LaTrisha looked down, shook her head, and then looked up again and met my eyes. âIâm mad because I didnât think I had to make an announcement to date a girl. And, I certainly didnât think I had to get a whole new ID card stamped âQâ on it. I mean, if I donât declare Iâm queer or bi, people throw all this shade and say Iâm homophobic or in denial. Thatâs some bullshit! My favorite uncle is gay, and my best friend is queer. I was in the GSA in high school for three years. Why canât I just like who I want to like?â
âWhat ideas do you have about why people want you to declare a new identity?â
âOh, you know⊠people assume they know who you are based on who you date or have sex with, so they want to put you in a place. Itâs all pretty dumb.â
âYeah, itâs pretty dumb,â I said. âSo, do you see smart people making this dumb assumption?â
âYup.â
âDoes that mean theyâre not so smart, or does that mean the assumption is really powerful? What do you think?â
âHell, yeah! The Force is strong in that assumption!â
âOK, General Organa! You said people âput you in a placeâ based on who you have sex with. Whatâs important to you about refusing to be put it a place, at least based on that?â
âSo, I think itâs about the assumptions. People assume straightnessâthatâs the biggest assumption people always make, and itâs fâd up. I never told anyone I was straightâthey just assumed it, probably âcuz I dated a dude for a few months. But I never said, âYo, Iâm a straight girl!â But I totally think that assumption is part of whatâs happening now, because itâs just like when people thought I was straightâIâm not supposed to change or be flexible at all. The assumption is that people have to stay the same. Thatâs fâd up, too. Because thatâs what people want to put a finger onâwhat label they can pin on you! Now, they want me to choose a new label to fit their assumptions about who I am, now that Iâve dated a woman. Itâs all fâd up.â
We both paused a moment. We let her words, and the revelations they carried, settle into us.
I asked LaTrisha if I could ask some more questions, and she agreed.
âFor you, is the fâd up part that people want to label you? Or that they want you to stay and not move from a label? Or that they assume things about who you are, and donât ask you? Or is it something else?â
âAll of it. Itâs fâd up that people want to put you in a box and label you; itâs fâd up that they have assumptions about what those should be and donât ask you; itâs fâd up that, once youâve been labeled and sorted into a box, youâre supposed to stay there; and itâs super fâd up that people think they get to have an opinion about any of this. Why canât I just like who I want to like? Get with who I want to get with?â
When I share stories like LaTrishaâs with other therapists, I often hear them say some of the same things that her friends told her: that sheâs in denial about her âtrue selfâ (i.e., her sexual orientation), or that sheâs struggling with âinternalized homophobia.â They hear her question, Why canât I just like who I want to like?, as avoidance of the inevitable: coming out to herself and then to others.
Conventional gay-affirmative practice would involve helping LaTrisha accept and love herself (not that thereâs anything wrong with that, but thatâs not what LaTrisha thinks her problem is) and to âclaimâ a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or queer identity.
But why? LaTrisha isnât hiding or minimizing the relationship she had with Alexis. In fact, she wants âto like who I want to and get with who I want to.â Sheâs contesting something else. LaTrisha is questioning identity categories based on sexual desires or practices. In a nutshell, this is also what queer theory does.
Whatâs in a Word?
Before we address queer theory, itâs important to talk about the word queer.1 Until the late 19th century, people used queer as an adjective, and it meant âodd or eccentric.â It wasnât necessarily pejorative or malicious; it was simply a way to describe a person or experience as peculiar.
It became a pointedly derogatory epithet, used as a slur against effeminate men and people with same-sex desires, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I grew up in the late 1960s and early 1970s playing âsmear the queer.â This was a âkeep-awayâ game in which the person with the ball was âthe queer,â who was then chased and tackled by everyone else.
In the 1980s, in response to the Regan administrationâs deadly refusal to address the AIDS epidemic, and to an escalation of anti-gay violence, the radical activist groups Act Up and Queer Nation began using queer in their messaging. While the use of the word disturbed many (including some gay and lesbian people), it proved effective in disarming the word of its hurtful power.
This use of queer by queer people (against whom the word has been used) is an example of a reverse discourse (Foucault, 1978). A reverse discourse occurs when a group, instead of contesting or resisting a word or phrase thatâs used to oppress them, takes up the use of the word or phrase on their own terms and for their own purposes.
This taking back of the word queer has proven very successful. It has integrated into mainstream culture in TV shows like Queer as Folk (2000â2005); Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (2003â2007); and its 2018 re-boot, Queer Eye. The mainstreaming of the word has led to its use as an umbrella term for all non-normative genders and sexualities.
Although this use of queer is ubiquitous, it is important to note that many people also use it in a disruptive and destabilizing way, one which intends to critique identities, rather than to establish or describe one. This radical and politicized use of queer is about challenging all forms of normativity and unhinging binary assumptions.
Queer theory organizes around this more radical elaboration of the word. Here is the definition of queer that I use in this book:
Queer is a critique of identities, not an identity of its own; it stands in resistance to fixed identity categories; it stands against ânormalâ; and it signifies resistance to regimes of normativity.
There can also be generational and regional differences in peopleâs use of (and comfort with) the word queer.
What is the significance for you as a therapist of this fast and furious history of the word queer? Why do you need to know this history?
One important reason is so you can check yourself. Please ask yourself these questions:
What do you think about the word queer?
What are your reactions when you hear it? Is your reaction different when a straight or cisgender person uses it than when a gay or trans person does?
Given your reactions, what might you need to do to be better prepared to work with people who prefer the word queer to describe themselves?
What might you need to do to be better prepared to work with people who do not like the term, especially when applied to themselves?
In your therapy practice, if you typically use the word queer but your client doesnât, please donât call them queer. It is a very unqueer thing to insist that someone use the word queer if they describe themselves differently (Tilsen, 2013).
Now letâs flip that around. If your client uses queer, use queer with them, even if itâs not a term you would ordinarily use (or a term that usually makes you cringe). Itâs linguistic violence (Strong & Zeman, 2005) when we impose language on people that is different from what they use, especially when it has to do with their identity. Refusing to honor clientsâ language is a refusal to understand how language matters to themâand understanding is always our first imperative as therapists.
Hereâs another reason why this is important: when we understand that there are many ways people use queer, we are better prepared to suspend our assumptionsâand, when someone uses the word, to ask them what they mean and why that meaning is important to them.
It can also further your understanding to ask someone who doesnât use queer why they donâtâprovided that you ask it to understand, not to challenge.
I always want to use the language that people use to describe themselves. I also want to understand what that language does, and how thatâs different from other potential ways of languaging their identities.
Lastly, itâs important to be familiar with the history of the word queer because it illustrates the way power flows through language to produce meaningâand to create worlds. This is the process of social construction and discursive production. Narrative therapy is based on this understanding that language is produ...