AmosL
08-10-2006, 11:10 AM
LOOKING AT OUR LIVES AND OURSELVES
Amos Lassen and Literary Pride-- a gay reading circle
I have remarked before that in order to acquiesce in the life we have now as compared to what gay and lesbian life was like just a few years ago, we should be aware of the changes and how they
came about. It is so easy to be gay now--much easier than it was when I came out. Even though we still have many issues with which to deal, it is just so much easier than the 70's, the 80's and even the 90's. To actually understand our freedoms, it has been necessary to look in many different places because change has happened so fast that there is no single gay and lesbian history book that will give us everything. But then when I went to pick up my mail today I found among the bills a brown envelope containing a fascinating new book that looks like it can be the one to tells us about ourselves.
American Queer edited by David Scheer and Caryn Aviv (Paradigm Publishers, 2006) is a collection of primary and secondary materials that give a full picture of American gay and lesbian life from the past to the present. All of these sources are grouped in such a way as to explore the meaning and the practice of the word "queer". The editors use newspaper and magazine articles, autobiographies, court rulings, plays and newsletters and medical documents to bring us to understand who we are. Starting with the dictionary definition of "queer", Scheer and Aviv show an evolution in the meaning to be both a call to social action and a rallying cry for political activism. In the end definition that is presented of "queer" moves from being a term of derision to "a way of proudly identifying with a group of people" and as "a way of seeing the world" which brings one to develop "a sense of difference from the norm". What a difference that is from our having been taunted as queers! (Remember how much we hated that word?)
The book reminded me of a dear friend that I taught with when I first began teaching. She was a beautiful and elegant African American woman who would regale me during recesses with stories of how her race had changed names in a short period of time. "Let me tell you how it was when I was 'colored' and then I was a Negro who later became black and then Afro American and today I am African American--why can't I just be a person?", she would say. And the same was true of us. We were faggots and later f***ing faggots and fruits and homos and flyboys and pansies and bulldaggers ad lezzies before we finally became gay and queer. And we have our own nicknames as well--we are power bottoms and flamers and butch dykes and gender queens and so many others. But we all share is a common history and the desire to be ourselves--within our society but free from the constraints of being considered as not "normal".
The editors of this amazing book take us on a trip through queer America beginning in chapter one which shows us the power of names and labels and how they affect human experience. Chapter two complicates the matter by asserting that to be queer is to love the same sex. Moving through the book we have our movement through America in real times and real places and chapter four concentrates on sex. What is queer sex? What is taboo? How do transgender people complicate the issue? Chapter five takes us to queer marriage and family. Chapter six deals with self portrayal and our portrayal by others-movies, TV and the stage. Putting queerness in its place is chapter seven and chapter eight takes us to activism. The final chapter deals with where we are now and where are we going. Now that closet doors are wide open and we are in the movies and on television and living in suburbia and state governments are seriously debating our right to marry, we can only wonder what's left for us to do. "If queerness is defined by difference, and if being in love with someone of the same sex or gender no longer seems very different, then what's so queer about being queer?"
American Queer does not have everything we need to know--if it did it would be several volumes long and too big to deal with comfortably .It deals with the important issues by the important writers as well as those that have made a difference and it gives us a place to start. Most important is beautifully discusses the meaning of being queer in America in the past and what it means today.
Amos Lassen
Amos Lassen and Literary Pride-- a gay reading circle
I have remarked before that in order to acquiesce in the life we have now as compared to what gay and lesbian life was like just a few years ago, we should be aware of the changes and how they
came about. It is so easy to be gay now--much easier than it was when I came out. Even though we still have many issues with which to deal, it is just so much easier than the 70's, the 80's and even the 90's. To actually understand our freedoms, it has been necessary to look in many different places because change has happened so fast that there is no single gay and lesbian history book that will give us everything. But then when I went to pick up my mail today I found among the bills a brown envelope containing a fascinating new book that looks like it can be the one to tells us about ourselves.
American Queer edited by David Scheer and Caryn Aviv (Paradigm Publishers, 2006) is a collection of primary and secondary materials that give a full picture of American gay and lesbian life from the past to the present. All of these sources are grouped in such a way as to explore the meaning and the practice of the word "queer". The editors use newspaper and magazine articles, autobiographies, court rulings, plays and newsletters and medical documents to bring us to understand who we are. Starting with the dictionary definition of "queer", Scheer and Aviv show an evolution in the meaning to be both a call to social action and a rallying cry for political activism. In the end definition that is presented of "queer" moves from being a term of derision to "a way of proudly identifying with a group of people" and as "a way of seeing the world" which brings one to develop "a sense of difference from the norm". What a difference that is from our having been taunted as queers! (Remember how much we hated that word?)
The book reminded me of a dear friend that I taught with when I first began teaching. She was a beautiful and elegant African American woman who would regale me during recesses with stories of how her race had changed names in a short period of time. "Let me tell you how it was when I was 'colored' and then I was a Negro who later became black and then Afro American and today I am African American--why can't I just be a person?", she would say. And the same was true of us. We were faggots and later f***ing faggots and fruits and homos and flyboys and pansies and bulldaggers ad lezzies before we finally became gay and queer. And we have our own nicknames as well--we are power bottoms and flamers and butch dykes and gender queens and so many others. But we all share is a common history and the desire to be ourselves--within our society but free from the constraints of being considered as not "normal".
The editors of this amazing book take us on a trip through queer America beginning in chapter one which shows us the power of names and labels and how they affect human experience. Chapter two complicates the matter by asserting that to be queer is to love the same sex. Moving through the book we have our movement through America in real times and real places and chapter four concentrates on sex. What is queer sex? What is taboo? How do transgender people complicate the issue? Chapter five takes us to queer marriage and family. Chapter six deals with self portrayal and our portrayal by others-movies, TV and the stage. Putting queerness in its place is chapter seven and chapter eight takes us to activism. The final chapter deals with where we are now and where are we going. Now that closet doors are wide open and we are in the movies and on television and living in suburbia and state governments are seriously debating our right to marry, we can only wonder what's left for us to do. "If queerness is defined by difference, and if being in love with someone of the same sex or gender no longer seems very different, then what's so queer about being queer?"
American Queer does not have everything we need to know--if it did it would be several volumes long and too big to deal with comfortably .It deals with the important issues by the important writers as well as those that have made a difference and it gives us a place to start. Most important is beautifully discusses the meaning of being queer in America in the past and what it means today.
Amos Lassen