In our reading A Desired Past by Leila Rupp (pg.134) in the "This is The Army" section it described how the war and the army heavily affected peoples lives that were gay. In one instance, a mother found love letters that were written to her daughter from a women sergeant and the mother threatened to tell the Corps that they were 'full of homosexuals and sex maniacs' and trying to use those words as a weapon and making her daughter feel bad about who she was. The army was also difficult for gay males because when joining the army or when already enrolled in the army and asked if they liked males some would have to lie to get in or some would tell the truth and had to face to consequences. Another interesting part of this section was (pg.136) when the Corps apparently tried to take advantage of this situation and place the butch and manly women in male oriented jobs such as motor transport, and tried to place the 'sissy' men in more feminine positions such as nurses.
In the section "Into The Streets" (page 159-160) Leila Rupp gives two motivational quotes that I thought were very powerful. The first quote was,"were just like you, so treat us that way," and the other quote, "we're here, we're queer, get used to it." The reason why I thought these quotes were so inspirational is because just by saying those words it feels like you are so much more powerful, and the issue at hand seems so worthless and people are making such a huge issue about something that they have absolutely no control over. The LGBT community, plus everyone that supports them, is too large a group to just diminish and think they will all go away.
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Hi Keli,
ReplyDeleteThe passages you selected from the book are interesting. You can see how stereotypes about gender and sexuality are operating in the first one (lumping together homosexuals and sex maniacs, assigning jobs in the military based on gender comportment--reminding us of the connections between homophobia and sexism).
I think the quotes you use in the second paragraph illustrate two different strategies for activists: one is to emphasize that we are all alike (LGBT people are just like straight/cisgender people); the other is to emphasize difference--embracing queer and not apologizing for "deviating" from the norm.
I do wonder why "something that they have no control over" is part of your justification for opposing discrimination. It suggests that if we (LGBT folks) did have "control over" our sexuality and gender that maybe we would be less deserving of rights? Or maybe if we had control over it we'd all choose to be straight and gender normative? I don't think you believe those things, but hopefully you can see now how it's sort of implied in what you said.
Thanks for being an active blogger! I enjoy reading about what you're learning in the course.
Im very sorry if my comment was put in wrong contexts. I did not mean to imply that LGBT people would be any less deserving if they did have 'control' over their sexuality. Being a bisexual myself, I understand how this could have been misinterpreted and I apologize for that.
ReplyDeleteJust now saw your reply, Keli. I didn't think you intended any offense, and there is nothing to apologize for. I didn't mean to make assumptions about your identity, either, though I did notice you used the pronoun "they" rather than "we." I hope the class is giving you an opportunity to try out new ideas and discover your own thinking about the issues we cover.
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