Are You "Queer"?

[Guest jinks]

What I have found is if I as a "Gayman" use the term Queer in conversation with a "straight" to describe myself it stops other derogatory being used. Using it oneself removes any hurtful sting.

 

The best UK TV series was Queer as Folk. Sadly dismally copied on US TV.

 

As I watched the original I saw so much of my teen/20's lifestyle being acted out on TV.

 

I AM QUEER and proud to be so.

[Guest fountainhall]

The whole “queer” issue is, I find, extremely interesting and worthy of a lengthy debate – even though, unlike Jinks, I object very strongly to be called “queer”.

 

The fact is – the desire to do what they call “reclaim” the word “queer”, is more or less restricted to a few younger gays on the east and west coasts of the USA and a some other parts of the world. Living in Asia for 33 years and in all my many, many regular travels around Asia, I have NEVER, EVER heard it used by any gays anywhere - young, middle aged, older - until I noticed it on a fridae forum. Some young, overseas-educated gay activists, mostly based in Singapore, are now trying to promote its use continent-wide. (Clearly their activism has not produced much in the way of results in their home city, as the Singapore government even bans a "Gay" Pride Parade there!) They claim it is used by young people around Asia. I have asked them to name me some examples. Earlier I pointed out for them the example of last year’s Taipei Gay Pride Parade where "queer" was never used, despite its being organised by an activist organisation. To date I have not heard further from them.

 

We all know that almost all societies in Asia are more traditional and more conservative than in some parts of the USA and Europe. As the Asian LGBT community struggles to form identities and to press for social change and acceptance in this continent, many 'straight' people in Asia have very slowly come to understand - and some accept - the terms gay and LGBT. Now, activists want to turn the clock back and tell everyone that it's perfectly OK to call ourselves "queer" - and in the process undo a great deal of the progress that has already been made!

 

I wonder if this handful of activists realises that they are actually being very selfish. By pushing their own agenda, they reopen old wounds, they reinforce stereotypes we had all hoped were on the way out, and – much more seriously – they actually impede further progress in acceptance. To me that is 100% clear. Being gay in Asia is easy for me and, I assume, all posters on this Board. Can the activists not accept the fact that for many millions of others – the millions who live in countryside towns and villages in Thailand, mainland China, South Korea, Japan and so on, and the millions of young Muslims in Indonesia and Malaysia – it is really hard trying to come to terms with being gay, to say nothing of being able to live openly in those communities as a gay person? Can the “queer” promoters not accept that by promoting the use of the term "queer", they are in fact making life a great deal more difficult for these many millions of people?

 

Yes, we all owe the early activists a debt of gratitude. But this is 2012 – not the mid-1960s. And this is very definitely not the USA. This is the huge continent of Asia.

 


The best UK TV series was Queer as Folk

 

Yet, that was an example of taking a word used long before "queer” came to mean homosexual and giving it a homosexual reference. "There's nowt so queer as folk" has been in use in England for countless generations. So if people want to reclaim the word "queer", why stop at the 1960s/1970s usage? And whilst we're at it, if you're in the reclamation business, why not, as I suggested in an earlier post, let straight people reclaim the word "gay"?

[Rogie]

What I have found is if I as a "Gayman" use the term Queer in conversation with a "straight" to describe myself it stops other derogatory being used. Using it oneself removes any hurtful sting.

 

I can understand the reasoning, and those confident of their homosexuality may decide to use it as a strategy if he often has dealings with other people who may possibly become belligerent once they know his sexuality. I could be wrong but I do not think many reading this will have many dealings with people likely to start hurling derogatory insults at them. Rather than use the Q-word 'just in case' I would never want to have any dealings with such people in the first place.

 

Yet, that was an example of taking a word used long before "queer” came to mean homosexual and giving it a homosexual reference. "There's nowt so queer as folk" has been in use in England for countless generations.

 

The producers of this programme were lucky. As FH desribes they latched on to an old familiar British expression and coupled it to a ground-breaking format, clearly meant to shock, and the catchy title just landed in their lap, so to speak.

 

To my mind Queer as Folk is heir to the British tradition of Kitchen Sink Realism.

 

Kitchen sink realism (or kitchen sink drama) is a term coined to describe a British cultural movement which developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in theatre, art, novels, film and television plays, whose 'heroes' usually could be described as angry young men. It used a style of social realism, which often depicted the domestic situations of working-class Britons living in rented accommodation and spending their off-hours drinking in grimy pubs, to explore social issues and political controversies.

 

The films, plays, and novels employing this style are set frequently in poorer industrial areas in the North of England, and use the rough-hewn speaking accents and slang heard in those regions. The film It Always Rains on Sunday (1947) is a precursor of the genre, and the John Osborne play Look Back in Anger (1956) is thought of as the first of the idiom

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_sink_realism

[Guest fountainhall]

Interesting Rogie mentions kitchen sink drama. Isn't that all we need? A bunch of queer queens in the kitchen going at each other hammer and tongs with rolling pins?

 

Seriously though, I remember as a teenager seeing Arnold Wesker's play "Roots" (one of whose acts is literally set in a kitchen)! Although I was less aware of it at the time, I do think the portrayal of 'life as it is lived' compared to the frivolity that had till then been the staple of British dramatic writing helped give rise to the development of all sorts of individual rights, including gay rights. The doyen of British drama critics, Harold Hobson of the Sunday Times, even wrote of another Wesker play - "Chips with Everything" - that it was "the first play of which the establishment need be afraid." Shades perhaps of Beaumarchais' "The Marriage of Figaro", premiered in 1784 after years of being banned, which with its themes of anti-nobility and anti-society was to play its part in the French Revolution.

 

The deep rooted anger in post-war Britain finally found its way on to the stage and TV screens with stunning effect, this at a time when there was still official censorship by the Lord Chamberlain of everything that appeared on a stage. Whilst British TV was generally known for its outstanding comedy series, in a 2000 poll by the British Film Institute of the greatest British television programmes of any genre ever to have been screened, the powerful 1966 drama about homelessness "Cathy Come Home" came in second only to "Fawlty Towers" - a mark of the enormous effect it had on the viewing public and how it began to change attitudes towards the homeless.

 

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/BFI_TV_100

 

Indeed, art/drama as a powerful instrument in leading social and moral change is so clear that it is surely surprising it is not used more often in other countries.

[Rogie]

An interesting list, thanks for that link.

 

I see the Naked Civil Servant was voted in at #4. What an excellent 'play' I was going to call it, but it's official designation is TV film apparently. THis was based on the life of Quentin Crisp, something of a 'gay icon'. Talk about a queer fish, he really was, as portrayed by the actor John Hurt, quite a remarkable man.

 

Just as an aside, I take objection to this comment, taken from the link FH supplied.

 

"Sport was excluded for similar reasons, and also because many events such as the 1966 World Cup, while important to those in England, would not matter to those in other areas of the United Kingdom."

 

That's a pathetic load of PC rubbish. Yes, there is a section of the Scottish, Welsh and Ulster Irish population who would love to see an England team lose but my betting would be on almost everybody in the UK cheering England on in 1966.

 

I think I am right in thinking there have been (soccer) World Cups when England failed to qualify but Scotland did. I would have supported Scotland as our UK representives so to turn that assertion quoted above on its head, the idea it 'wouldn't matter' to me is rubbish.

[Guest fountainhall]

There’s along article in the Life section of today’s Bangkok Post titled “Breaking Down Barriers”. This discusses in considerable detail the difficulties many in the LGBT community face in Thailand resulting from “deep-seated social prejudice due to their sexual orientation.”

 

There is not much that is new here, although one thing leapt to my attention.

 

"Society in general acknowledges gay and transgender [people]. Few [parents], however, accept their son or daughter to be anything but heterosexual. Activists from the Thailand LGBT movement have only seriously gotten together since early 2000, campaigning for justice to be served in human rights violations against them."

 

The activists and researchers have teamed up to educate gay and lesbian communities on their basic rights, but Dr Narupon singled out a vibrant urban gay consumer culture as the biggest obstacle standing in their way.

 

Since the early 1980s, he said, there has been a sharp rise in entertainment areas catering to the queer crowd, and gay-themed magazines are available on supermarket shelves.

 

http://www.bangkokpo...g-down-barriers

 

Perhaps I have simply not noticed it before or my memory is playing tricks on me, but this is the first time I can recall the word “queer” being used in a mainstream Thai publication. It is no surprise that it is being used by someone who happens to be an LGBT activist, Dr Narupon Duangwises. And that is what disturbs me. As I said in an earlier post, the activists who seek to reclaim what was a word of abuse and deviant behaviour are essentially being extremely selfish, for they risk alienating many of those in conservative communities and making it even more difficult for their children to express their sexuality and live a normal life as gay people.

 

Dr. Narupon himself seems to agree with this by singling out “a vibrant urban gay consumer culture as the biggest obstacle standing in their way “

 

In my view, Dr. Narupon, your use of the word "queer" only adds to this obstacle.

[Guest fountainhall]

As a fairly stubborn individual, I am continuing my correspondence with the people who run the fridae website, not content - as I am sure they had hoped - to be brushed off with somewhat sweeping generalisations. I remain convinced - until someone can provide a sufficiently convincing argument to the contrary - that activists reclaiming the word "queer", at least in English-speaking parts of Asia, will find it backfires on them.

 

My latest letter was sparked by an article about the next Pink Dot demonstration in Singapore to be held on June 30. In typical Singapore fashion, this is only allowed to take place in Hong Lim Park. Here, demonstrations may only be carried out by Singaporeans and Permanent Residents. If you are a foreigner, tough! You can observe from a distance, but not take part! (presumably this is to ensure that the numbers do not look high to the local and international media).

 

That however was not the nub of my latest piece of correspondence. At the end of the article, there were some links to earlier related articles. One, written a year ago by the Reverend Dr. Yap Kim Hao, seemingly very much a friend of the LGBT community, is titled “If only gay people could stop feeling guilty for being different”. This is an excellent general appeal for gay men and women to come out of the closet, and for the general public to be more sympathetic and understanding.

 

http://www.fridae.as...being-different

 

In one paragraph, he says this: “If only more straight people could comprehend the wide spectrum of human sexuality and regard homosexuality as normal and natural, and step forward with their support.”

 

One poster responded: ““Maybe the next hurdle, the next fight, the next step is to prove we are the same, not that we are different. And that there is neither shame nor pride, just the way we are . . . ”

 

I then went on to make a comment that will no doubt be extremely contentious. I said this (with all respect to Jinks and others who have expressed a different view to my own on this thread):

 

“How can straight and gay be ‘the same’ if a small number of activists continues to identify themselves as ‘queer’? It is as though this selfish group of gay men and women want to don something akin to the hideous stars forced on the Jews by the Nazi thugs. (For the record, I am not Jewish). Granted that is an extreme and particularly horrific analogy. But there is, frankly, very little difference in the core of these two actions, for what they mean is: ‘Hey! Look at us: we’re Jews/queer. We’re different!’ It makes zero sense. The activists cannot have it both ways.”

 

A reminder: my discussions centre on the use of the word "queer" primarily in Asia - not in other parts of the world.

[Rogie]

Did you notice the Q added as a suffix to LGBT?

[Rogie]

A link on the E-bab site takes you to:

 

http://www.queersome.com/WebObjects/Queersome.woa/cms/164/en.html

 

"Become a fan on Facebook

 

Connect with us on Facebook and see what's new in the queer community. Join our great interactive activities and win attractive prizes. And maybe you'll even find a nice companion for your next trip to the queer scene?!

 

queersome presents you the whole world of the queer community here and on Facebook. Be curious and discover the queer world!"

 

That a site called Queersome likes the Q word is probably obvious. As if anybody was in any doubt, using 'queer' five times in two small paragraphs rubs it home!

 

To rub my nose in it, they seem to have an infatuation with Facebook

 

 

[Rogie]

The new Gay Pattaya site (see recent topic in the main forum) has a couple of queer (i.e odd) links:

 

Quick sum: Warner examines the trajectory of queer theory, especially among feelings that we are postqueer, or somehow past queer theory. Warner reminds us that the nature of queer politics and then later theory, of queer analytics and scholarship, has always been one of ambiguity. When the purpose is to dismantle categories, it is difficult for the thing itself to be categorizable. Thus, queer always seems like it was, not that it is, even when it is being presently done.

 

Glad that's the 'quick' summary - I wouldn't want to have to wade through anything more verbose.

 

http://queerstrokes....queer-and-then/

 

“If sex is a kind of indignity, then we’re all in it together. And the paradoxical result is that only when this indignity of sex is spread around the room, leaving no one out, and in fact binding people together, that it begins to resemble the dignity of the human In order to be consistent, we would have to talk about dignity in shame. That, I think, is a premise of queer culture, and one reason why people in it are willing to call themselves queer…But I’m speaking now of sluts and drag queens and trannies and trolls and women who have seen a lot of life–not in the media spokesmen and respectable leaders of the gay community”

 

http://queerstrokes.wordpress.com/

 

I think he's saying or implying the gay scene has become too 'establishment' and needs to go back to its roots in order to become more inclusive. Hence it's ok to resurrect a word whose alternative meaning some had consigned to the dustbin.

 

I realise this topic originally focused on Asian academics and activists use of the word queer. I am interested in the way language is used, how new words come along and existing ones change their meaning or emphasis. Sorry if I am boring anyone!

[Guest fountainhall]

My views have already been made clear. 'Reclaiming' (which is the term activists like to use) the use of the word 'queer' is a double-edged sword with one side fairly blunt, in that the sharp side is likely to reactivate too many negative feelings in the older generation which grew up with the word 'queer' as an emotionally derogative term of verbal abuse, and excite negative feelings in younger straight people, especially in those countries in Asia where English is a first or second language.

 

I raised the issue because I had read several articles on the fridae website using the term. Even the reviewer of Lady Gaga's concert in Singapore, having gone to some lengths to denigrate the artiste for what she did not do for the gay communities in the Asian cities where she performed(!), goes on to say -

 

One last thing that Gaga has done with her tour is that she's linked us – all of us fans, all of us queers and queer-friendly folks – across the eight Asian cities of her original tour schedule. We've followed the news of her ups and downs in each metropolis, and we've felt pleasure and dismay together with each photo and soundbite. When we heard the news of the Jakarta cancellation, we were all Jakartans

http://www.fridae.asia/newsfeatures/2012/05/29/11724.gaga-in-asia?n=sec

 

- which I think is a load of nonsense.

 

Interestingly, a number of Chinese members also joined the chorus of those opposing the use of the term. As a result, this particular reviewer has said he will tone down the activism in future reviews and columns.

 

On the other hand, those of us who are anti must accept that language evolves over time and I suppose 'queer' may eventually come to embrace all non-straight people - which is what I believe the activists intend. But I do think that promoting the use of the word now, at a time when the straight community is only finally coming to grips with the terms gay and LGBT and when civil partnerships and even marriage is on the agenda in many countries, is a surefire way to rouse the anti-gay brigades. I don't believe we are still in the Stonewall era and I don't think shock tactics work now - especially in Asia. Others no doubt think differently.