Thoughts on Normativity, Hetero- and otherwise:

[capri0mni]

(Icon chosen for the rainbow)

(I've had this as a draft for weeks, in my Notepad -- been planning to post this both here and on Tumblr (where I'm spending more time, lately) -- and then, my posting agenda got derailed by the Drump going high-key evil, with kidnapping children. And I hate that. Anyway, I want to post this now, before Pride Month is over)

On Tumblr, many (a few? several? Anyway, a bunch) of very vocal younger bloggers are arguing that those in the LGBTQ community should never use the word "queer" to refer to themselves. because it's a slur (much to the annoyance of older folks on the site). So in May of last year, I entered the fray, by posting excerpts of course descriptions for "Queer Studies" available at colleges and universities around the U.S., as evidence that "The Q-Word" has a much richer, and older history than simply being a slur.

...And as I was reading through them, I kept thinking: "Damn! If these courses had been listed in the college catalogs in the '80s (when I was getting ready to graduate from high school) I would have signed up, even as a "Straight" person." Because I love me some interdisciplinary discussions, and the connections between art, cultural trends, and public policy. And if I had been in these classes as a twenty something, maybe I would have realized I was some flavor of queer before I became a fifty something.

I've been thinking about that again, during this year's Pride Month -- that maybe I'd be "queer" even if I were straight, because "heteronormivity" also excludes bodies like mine from what society considers "normal" sexual partnerships. And that got me thinking about the interdisciplinary course I did end up taking, in my Junior year of college (my academic advisor, by then, knew what intellectual buttons to push)

This would have been (*mumbling and counting on fingers*) in 1988? I think it was... ('twould be nifty if it were a round number of years ago) It was an experimental course called "Science and Society" that was taught cooperatively between a professor of philosophy and a professor of physics, focusing on two key points:

1. The scientific method is a particular thing, and not just a vague belief like faith or intuition. It is also the best tool we humans have to figure out the truth of the world. And
   
   
2. Scientists are human beings, with human limitations, and are swayed by all the bigotries and biases awash in their cultures, just like the rest of us... And that influences how they use the tool that is the scientific method.

Anyway, one day in class, we were discussing when "Homosexuality" was removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), in 1973, because actually, Homosexuality is Normal.

And one of the professors explained what the distinction between "normal' and 'abnormal' actually means, in a mental health context, versus what people think it means:

Normal, she said, is something that occurs naturally, even if it occurs rarely, that causes no harm to the individual or the people around them. Gays and lesbians may only be 10% of the population (trans and nonbinary, bi, pan, and ace people weren't on our radar, yet). But even though it's unusual, being attacted to people of your own gender is something that happens naturally, and causes nobody any harm.

Therefore, homosexuality "normal."

She then went on to contrast homosexuality, which is considered 'abnormal' because it is rare, to antisemitism in to Nazi Germany where the inaction of people to resist rhe Holocaust has been excused "Because that's what everyone believed back then -- it was just 'normal'. ...But it harmed millions upon millions of people.

Therefore, Nazism is "abnormal."

Although we didn't use the word in class, I now think what our professor was actually talking about was "normativity."

According to Wikipedia, in philosophy and the social sciences, "normative" refers to those cultural expectations and beliefs which we presume to be healthy and natural, based on our prejudices:

"Normal" = Is. "Normative" = Should Be

So: being heterosexual and being some flavor of LGBTQ are both "normal," in that all variations of sexuality and gender identity are part of the natural range of human experience, and don't, in themselves, cause anyone any harm. That's why pedophilia, beastiality, and incels have no place in the LGBTQ community: they can label themselves with "Alternate" sexuality all they want. But the 'urges' they want the freedom to act out causes harm to others.

And so does "Straight Pride" and "White Pride."

LGBTQ Pride: We're here. We've a normal part of the human race. And we are healthy and loving, even if we're different.

Straight Pride/White Pride: We demand that you submit to our power over you, and be happy about it.

---

So... Anyway: ...I was hoping to have come to this point and have a really strong, coherent, closing paragraph to wrap this all up. But I don't. I guess this month has just got me thinking about Queerness, and Nazis in equal measure. And that brought up the memory of a classroom discussion from 30 years ago.

Also: I'm queer... in more ways than one (I count at least 3).

Comments

This is good. Normativity is a useful concept.

[jesse_the_k]

I have another log for the fire, though I'm presently so overheated as to be a tad incoherent.

The statistical concept of "normal" refers to the most commonly appearing items among a range. This online stats textbook helpfully defines seven important characteristics of the Normal distribution, aka the Bell Curve.

Here's the BMJ's almost comprehensible discussion of 'normality' in the context of medical research.

In this context the name “normal” causes much confusion. In statistics it is just a name; statisticians often use a capital N to emphasise this and to clarify that Normality does not necessarily imply normality. Indeed, in some medical specialties normal distributions are rare.

So: statistical normal conveys how frequently something does or doesn't happen.

And speaking of medicos, they're often fond of splitting disabled folks like us into "normal" vs "pathological," or "broken."

The final log for the fire is Rosemary Garland Thompson's term "normate." Which I adore because it's a much more informative and truer descriptor than "abled." (If anything, non-disabled people are "enabled.")

/another glass of cold tea.

Re: This is good. Normativity is a useful concept.

[capri0mni]

I love Garland's "normate!" ... Though I've only seen it referred to/ defined by other writers in Disability Theory -- haven't found it described by Garland herself, yet. I'm wondering if it was something she said in a symposium panel discussion, and everyone in the audience that day just picked it up and ran with it.

Here's the definition as Jay Timothy Dolmage wrote it, in his book Disability Rhetoric:

[‘Normate’ is] the constructed identity of those who, by way of the bodily configurations and cultural capital they assume, can step into a position of authority and wield the power it grants them.

I love: a) the link between "bodily configurations" and "Cultural Capital" (who gets represented in media, who's considered the preferable customer, etc.) and b) that "bodily configurations" covers a wider definition of just ability/disability, but also race and perceived gender.

So yes. I want this term to enter the the lexicon of common chatter, in the same way 'Straight' and "honky" have.

Re: This is good. Normativity is a useful concept.

[jesse_the_k]

...and bet you thought I'd forgot about this! But instead I was finding a copy of Garland Thomson's book. I hope to make a post about this Real Soon Now, but I did get this just for you:

---

Extraordinary bodies: figuring physical disability in American culture and literature - Rosemary Garland Thomson

from “Preface to the 20th anniversary edition”

My work has been to throw words at what we think of as disability. I’ve come to say things in ways that seem circuitous but are in fact accurate about the meanings, experience, and materiality of disability. The more academic way of saying this is that I have contributed to explicating the cultural work of language and re-narrating the embodied variations we think of as disabilities. (page x)

[… snip …]

Probably more than “extraordinary bodies” the neologism “normate,” coined in the book, had legs (as I say with irony). It has moved into the vocabulary of disability studies because it answers the need to name with a single word something previously unnamed. Whereas “extraordinary” can slip into disability studies talk somewhat unnoticed, “normate” sticks out like, well, a sore thumb. I hear and read it used often, apparently now a recognizable bit of critical jargon that may still have the audience to poke at the altogether unremarkable word “normal” that haunts disabled people every day of our lives. “Normate,” then, is my signature contribution to disability dtudies. Here’s the full definition of it offered up in Extraordinary Bodies:

this neologism names the veiled subject position of cultural self, the figure outlined by the array of deviant others whose Marked bodies shore up the normate’s boundaries. The term normate usefully designates the social figure with which people can represent themselves as definitive human beings. Normate, then, is the constructed identity of those who, by way of the bodily configurations and cultural capital they assume, can step into a position of authority and wield the power it grants them. If one attempts to define the Normate position by peeling away all the marked traits within the social order at this historical moment, what emerges is a very narrowly defined profile that describes only a minority of actual people. (8)

“Normate” is not my word however. The word came to me at my first Society for Disability Studies (SDS) annual meeting, probably in 1989. The president of SDS, Daryl P. Evans, mockingly flung out the word “normate” from an SDS session podium with confrontational ironic distance. At first encounter, Daryl, an established sociologist like all of the SDS leaders at the time, looked like a typical, hip academic type with cool glasses, big wiry hair, and a sensitive mouth that was quick to sneer. Only his delicate, paper white skin – eerily like the drowned Ophelia in Millais’s haunting painting – revealed a fragility in Daryl that emanated from his tightly managed seizure disorder and the vigilance that bodily supervision required of him. Daryl could pass for a Normate, which is a burden for anyone, of course, because it is such an unstable position. He committed suicide in 1999. With the word normate, he gathered the cumulative burden of stigma theory’s hard truths and spewed it out with the force of an exorcism. (pp xii - xiii)

[davidgillon]

maybe I'd be "queer" even if I were straight, because "heteronormivity" also excludes bodies like mine from what society considers "normal" sexual partnerships.

Oh, interesting thought!

[capri0mni]

Yup!

And, further evidence in support of that idea, the other day I learned (through this thread) that, depending on which U.S. state you live in, if you're an adult who became disabled before the age of 22 (for example, yours truly), you can risk losing all of your social security disability insurance if you marry -- even if both of you are disabled.

Which massively sucks, because the system also expects your spouse, parents, siblings, etc. to provide the bulk of your daily living support -- my parents are dead, I have no siblings, and I'd be heavily penalized if I ever got a spouse. ... Kind of hard to look at that entanglement and not conclude that society just wants us to hurry up and die, already.

I'm coming 'round to Michael Warner's argument that the LGBTQ community was aiming for the entirely wrong goal, when it focused on winning Marriage Equality, and instead, we should aim for getting recognition for a broader range of relationships.

Personally, I think the State (in the broadest abstract sense) should get out of marriage regulation entirely.

Civil Partnerships for the Staights! ;-)

[meridian_rose]

Tumblr gatekeeping is a nightmare. I sometimes go around blocking blogs with any hint of anti-queer, bierasure, or ace-hate on them. There seems to be a hardcore of pro-lesbian and anti-anyone else of late and I've seen some discussion on the Russian bot influence on Tumblr and while I'm sceptical of how far the bots went, there's something to be said for the way the community has been split since as the discussion suggest with more "evil hets", "women are amazing men are just potatoes" and "tumblr is for gays", labelling bi characters as lesbians, refusing to acknowledge asexuals as queer, hating on the queer label and the split attraction model/labels, pro-TERF/anti-trans rhetoric and more. Infighting instead of allay-ship which is harmful all around.

[capri0mni]

Well, I think ace-exclusion and bierasure is far older and wider than even Tumblr's existence, and certainly older than the 'bot invasions.

I mean: how many people know that Alfred Kinsey noted the phenomenon of asexuality when he published his report in 1948? It's stated, flat out in the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article about it, but of course, it's not shown in the illustration chosen for it. Kinsey, himself, was sexual, and was only interested in sexual behavior, so his description of it was about a nuanced as a sledgehammer. But he did note that it happened.

And this paragraph, introducing a 2005 biography of Hans Christian Andersen, leaves me utterly convinced that the author was a biromantic asexual (though admittedly, only a TARDIS-enabled private conversation could confirm that, now). But the author of the biography describes him as "gay virgin" -- two erasures for the price of one!* \o/ And that didn't come from Tumblr culture.

Also, since figuring out I was Ace a couple of years ago, I've found more others there than other platforms online -- probably because there's just a greater number of people there than there are at AVEN. But yeah... the way Tumblr is set up, with anon asks, and the social capital of the notes system, it does enable the hostile entrenchment of different groups, and gives more power to those determined to be hostile to others.


*(and after rereading the original "Ugly Duckling" -- not the oversimplified picture book versions -- I think he might also have been trans ... or at least was friends with some).

[meridian_rose]

You're right and I didn't intend to suggest bierasure et al is a new thing :)
Merely that let's say 25 years ago I remember bisexuality being very much treated with suspicion and disgust and Not Even a Thing, and then the last say 7 years that changing, but now at Tumblr which I where I see most Discourse, there's a kickback against bisexuality *and* asexuality which is still pretty much in its infancy and frequently still treated as Not a Thing *sigh*.

Oh yes double erasure for HCA! Again there's a push to see historical figures as gay but rarely as bi or asexual let alone with a split model label :/

"Tumblr is set up, with anon asks, and the social capital of the notes system, it does enable the hostile entrenchment of different groups, and gives more power to those determined to be hostile to others." This so much, you've captured it perfectly. Plus then people reblog uncritically instead of discussing, even if they disagree a little maybe it shows up in their tags or maybe not but few people ever see tags; then that post reaches a wider audience and so on...it's a mess.

[capri0mni]

even if they disagree a little maybe it shows up in their tags or maybe not but few people ever see tags; then that post reaches a wider audience and so on...

pedanther is one of my mutuals (same url on Tumblr), and although he "likes" much more than reblogs, when he does reblog, he often leaves a comment in the tags that I think would help a lot -- that he wishes he could make it clear that he's reblogging for the commentary, and not the OP.

And then, there are the people who never tag, and that always leaves me scratching my head: "Who are you?! What is it about my post did you think was so important?!"

Also: What fandom is this? What movie/comic/TV show? is this a crack!fic? or serious political commentary? Give me something to Google, so I can learn more!