Dear Judith Butler, Thank you for the agency you allowed me to recognize I had when a jackass called me out for kissing a girl in public.
…That’s right. While our dear professor has told tales of good ole citizens, and even police, calling her out for GPDAs (gay public displays of affection) I had never had it happen to me. An ever-so-discreet bar-smooch was turned into a loud request to cease and desist from a (not-sober) patron. Regardless of the sobriety involved in the interlocutor, unneeded attention was called to the scene that would have never been noticed had the “incident” been between a man and a woman. Thank goodness I was equipped with the knowledge that I could render this interpellation (“dyke”) impotent, as Butler had instilled in me the notion that I had the ability to “refuse,” “rupture,” and “rearticulate” that which “calls into question the monotheistic force of its own unilateral operation” (1993, 122). My reaction, therefore, was not to slink away ashamed of my innocuous indulgence, but rather to indulge again with yet a bit more conviction, which revealed his lack of juridical authority and sent him silently packing.
I call this to attention not to bring yet another story of homophobia to the table, but rather to recognize the significance of equipping students with language and knowledge that allows them to recognize the social structures inhibiting their (and others’) desires, and to interact with them from an informed, active platform, rather than cowering to convention – to understand that “power relations that characterize any society are never as transparently clear as the names we give to them suggest” (Gordon 100). This is just one example among many our class has raised this semester that reinforces Avery Gordon’s “one simple point”: that “social justice needs theory” (99). We ask ourselves if what we are learning matters, if reading Butler will really change perspectives beyond the body of our classroom circle, if watching a Sadie Benning film will subvert the male gaze, or whether us acknowledging cultural disparity will really change anything, and it is my humble opinion that, in my life, it already has. There are at least 20(-ish) of us that are much less likely to judge others based on polyamorous, sadomasochistic, or transsexual behavior, nor are we likely to gloss over nationalistic narratives that subjugate homonormative discourse that evoke violence and political compromise. Not too bad for one semester, ay?
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