Contested identity politics: assimilation, queer radicalism, and the middle ground

Question 1

Engel & Timothy: What are the 4 reasons that they are skeptical about dignity as a foundation for LGBTQ+ equality?

Answer 1

1. Dignity refuses to engage with queer values, as it is defined within heteronormative and neo-liberal values that promote privacy, romance, and coupled monogamy -> limits the scope of what behaviors and identities can be recognized by the state as deserving respect
2. It does not follow the pathways of equal protection jurisprudence cut out for race and sex equality, thus invoking a limited vision of government rather than a more robust government responsibility to promote equity
3. Dignity is malleable and has been used to support conservative outcomes, such as anti-abortion and anti-affirmative action
4. Dignity cannot be used to resolve contemporary disputes, as everyone has an equal right to dignity

Question 2

Engel & Timothy: What is a “suspect class” in US constitutional law?

Answer 2

Laws affecting a group that has 1) suffered historical discrimination, 2) has an immutable trait, and 3) lacks political power must pass heightened judicial scrutiny

Question 3

Engel & Timothy: How does suspect classification differ from suspect class?

Answer 3

Recent move in the Supreme Court, where suspect classification focuses on whether a law uses race or sex distinctions to classify, regardless of the intent of the law (good/bad). Ignores suspect class’ look at discrimination history and political powerlessness = colorblind understanding

Question 4

Engel & Timothy: What does it mean that dignity is a “neoliberal response” to suspect class analysis?

Answer 4

It replaces structural, group-based protections with individualistic, abstract rights, minimizing government responsibility to address inequality

Question 5

Engel & Timothy: How does dignity create boundaries of respectability?

Answer 5

Tying dignity to marriage, it makes all other familial forms that queers create and value invisible and stigmatizes those who do not conform to normative notions of romantic love and monogamy. And dignity also depends on state recognition, meaning the state can create boundaries of respectability

Question 6

Engel & Timothy: Have gays and lesbians been classified as a suspect class?

Answer 6

No, even though they fulfill the criteria -> issue has been avoided through the use of dignity

Question 7

Warner: What are the 2 purposes of his writing?

Answer 7

1. To revise social theory through queer politics, as it has often left sexuality and queerness at the margins of its study
2. To urge queer intellectuals to critically engage with social theory through a queer lens and thereby challenge pervasive heteronormativity

Question 8

Warner: What does it mean to be queer?

Answer 8

“Queer” is aimed not just at toleration or equality, but at challenging existing institutions such as gender, the family, the state, reproduction, class etc. It is a resistance to regimes of the normal

Question 9

Warner: What is repro-sexuality and why is it problematic?

Answer 9

The notion that our lives are made more meaningful through reproduction, and that reproduction is the logic of sexuality

Often leading to the logic: if everyone were queer, the race would die out -> don’t be queer

While this logic has been made natural by countless institutions, it is illogical as it ignores gay parents, heterosexuals having sex not just for reproduction, sex not just meaning coupling etc. It asserts a paradigmatic status for heterosexual coupling against all reason

Question 10

Warner: Why is sexuality central to the rethinking of social theory?

Answer 10

Because queer life exposes and resists the deep entanglement of sexuality with institutions and norms, and because heterosexuality has a totalizing tendency that can only be overcome by actively imagining a desirably queer world

Question 11

Warner: Why do queer theorists need to break away from alliance politics of “race, class, and gender”?

Answer 11

It often assumes parallel forms of identity and overlooks the unique ways queerness is experienced. While these frameworks tend to rely on inclusion and reifying (treating something fluid and complex as fixed and stable) identity categories, queer politics should challenge those norms.

For example, the family may be a site of solidarity and value for racial/ethnic struggles, but is oppressive for gays and lesbians

Question 12

Warner: What is the task of queer social theory?

Answer 12

Confront the default heteronormativity of modern culture with its worst nightmare, a queer planet

Question 13

Murib: What is the main argument regarding the GLBT coalition?

Answer 13

It is a politically constructed coalition (rather than biologically determined) that emerged from strategic interest-group organizing against external threats, and it masks internal exclusions by privileging the interests of dominant groups such as white gays and lesbians

Question 14

Murib: How did the GLBT coalition form?

Answer 14

First, the political leaders wanted to organize loose coalitions to avoid internal marginalization and exclusions

However, due to less political opportunities in the early 2000s, the leaders reconsidered this strategy and began to advocate for unification in order to pool resources, enhance efficacy, and project an image of critical mass. This resulted in the absorption of difference under GLBT rather than maintaining an inclusive and broad agenda

Question 15

Murib: Who ended up being marginalized in the formation of the GLBT alliance?

Answer 15

Trans people, bisexual people as well as butches, fairies, cross-dressers, queer people of color, and intersex people

Question 16

Murib: Who did the GLBT coalition favor?

Answer 16

White, middle-class cisgender lesbian and gay people - by prioritizing same-sex marriage and military inclusion

Question 17

Murib: What is frame and stigma transformation?

Answer 17

Describes a process through which political actors modify existing framings of group identity and associated political interests to generate new understandings of the group that will attract more participants and support. Is called stigma transformation when applied to negatively stereotyped groups

Question 18

Murib: What was the external threat against LGBT people that prompted coalition formation?

Answer 18

The Conservative Right waging increasingly visible attacks on a “radical gay agenda”

Question 19

Murib: What ended up being the link that bound queer groups together?

Answer 19

Sexuality, silencing concerns pertaining to racial, class, or gender identification

Question 20

Murib: What does Murib urge political scientists to do?

Answer 20

Disaggregate GLBT to better understand internal inequalities and avoid assuming that all members share the same interests or experiences of marginalization

Question 21

According to Murib and Warner, what is the tension between radical queerness and liberal identity politics?

Answer 21

Liberal identity politics flattens/ignores differences, privilege most advantaged groups, and aims for assimilation rather than transformation of heteronormative social structures -> it suppresses the radical, critical potential of queer politics

Question 22

Daum: What is the main argument on marriage equality?

Answer 22

That while a legal victory for gay rights, it also represents as assimilationist liberal triumph that undermines queer pluralism and reinforces homonormative values

Question 23

Daum: What 4 benefits did liberal LGBTQ+ activists have for marriage equality?

Answer 23

1. It would give equal rights to gays and lesbians, thereby reducing stigmatization and discrimination
2. It would give gays and lesbians access to marriage’s legal, economic, and social benefits
3. Since same-sex relationships are the same as heterosexual relationships, they deserve the same rights -> emphasizing similarities
4. It would increase validation of same-sex relationships for the couple themselves and others

Question 24

Daum: What are 8 critiques that queer theorists have of marriage equality?

Answer 24

1. It promotes assimilation into heteronormative and sexist structures
2. It ignores non-normative identities and relationships, which are seen as “less than” legally recognized marriages
3. It marginalizes those who cannot or do not wish to marry
4. It reinforces the logic of reproduction and the idea that families must be headed by married, nuclear couples
5. It risks neglecting issues like trans rights, racial justice, economic inequality, workplace discrimination etc.
6. It presupposes that assimilation is an important and desirable goal for all LGBTQ+ movements
7. It undermines the queer movement’s radical transformative potential
8. It does not eradicate the systemic and intersectional discrimination, and homo- and transphobia that many LGBTQ+ individuals face

Question 25

Daum: What is homonormativity?

Answer 25

A depoliticized, domesticated LGBTQ politics that upholds dominant heteronormative values like monogamy, domesticity, and consumption

Question 26

Daum: Why do queer activists oppose using identity politics in the fight for rights?

Answer 26

Because identity is fluid and socially constructed -> focusing on fixed identities like "gay" and "lesbian" marginalizes those who do not fit into normative categories and ignoring the racial, ethnic, gender, and class differences within the community

Question 27

Daum: What does queer activists want?

Answer 27

To challenge the status quo and institutions such as marriage and the nuclear family that maintain heteronormative privileges

Question 28

Daum: Which approach does Daum favor?

Answer 28

The queer pluralist approach that seeks to disrupt and transform traditional stereotypes and institutions