Identities within Queer Resistance: How Identities can be Compatible with Queerness
I conducted a survey by posting on Facebook and Instagram, which are the two main social platform that I connect my friends. The post reads below in both English and Chinese: “Can you share three identities that are most important to you? For example, Taiwanese, female, student, and mine are Taiwanese, queer and feminist. You can comment below this post or message me.” I received 117 replies.
Subjectively speaking, I will describe my social net work is constituted by energetic, supportive people who are devoted in making social changes. I met most of them in sociology major of National Taiwan University, gender studies program in Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Taiwanese Student Association, NTU feminist club and Taiwan LGBT Hotline.
In the results, a lot of the respondents identify with national/cultural/ethnical as one of three primary identities. Most of them identify as Taiwanese or Hongkonger. Many respondent also identify with their gender, occupation and sexuality. Besides the common genre of identities, there are also a diversity of smaller identity categories. There is a few things that I found interesting and want to share:
(1) Denaturalizing normalcy: When heterosexuality becomes an identity
Among respondents who identify with their sexuality, there are approximately 1/4 of them identify as straight. This may seem trivial, or even unrepresentative to the reality, since statically there are much more than 1/4 of population who are straight. However, it need to be considered under the context that straightness has long be considered as a given norm.
When Crenchew conducted a similar informal survey in her class, which she requested her students to answer three features of themselves. She observed that students with dominant feature does not usually identity with that feature, while the student with minority features answered their minority feature.
Therefore, there is a significant meaning that people starting to identify as straight, which symbolize that straight isn’t seem as given normalcy but rather one of the possibilities of sexuality. In other words, this is a queer success which denaturalize the heteronormality, yet it happens within the framework within identity categories.
(2) Identities as Projects rather than Destinies
In Connell’s Gender Politics, she describe the young generation of women are more “being inclined to see women as a project rather than a destiny”. This survey reflects that the quote does not only apply to woman as an identity, but apply to many identities in broader contexts.
In this survey, respondents often refuse appropriating the established identities based on social emphasized biological features. Rather, they explore their unique social situation or personal experiences, and reflex on how these positions intersects with their life narratives, then form their own unique identity. Very often, they also try use these self-defined identities to locate themselves in the greater structural inequalities and make social-political changes.
For example, one respondent answered me with two sets of answers. They are their “creative identities “ and “social identities”. They defines their creative identities are identities that they create for themself, which represents their ideologies, moral life, and identity as how they build up their own life. Creative identities are different from social identity, which are the the most concrete influence on the choices they have in their life and how they are perceived.
For their creative identities are “queer, instigator / creator, pro-regenerative economy radical anthropologist tree person”, while their social identities are “white, middle class metropolitan, queer”.Many other responds also fits in the definition of creative categories. There are people who identifies with “observer of the world”, “humanity students who are not productive（廢物文組）”, “happy fat person” and “person with free will”.
The attempts to identify with “creative identities” is important because it rejects a deterministic attitude on identities. Identities are not given nor objective. Rather, people create identities to make sense of their experience and their life goals. On one hand, it is similar to queer attempts to deconstruct the existing categories; On the other hand, it does not only deconstruct, but it creates a unique situation for people to understand themselves and serve as a standpoint to pursue their goals, which is usually political.
(3) Fluidity of Identity
Supporters of identity politics often argue that without stable identity categories, the collective agency cannot be maintained. However, two of the respondents rebutted the assumption. Identities can be fluid, yet it does not undermine agency.
One respondent, who studies in sociology and dedicated in equality movement of ethnic minorities, replied “vegan, human life, ongoing one”. She explains the “ongoing one” means that she believes in relatively relativism, who is always in transformation as time goes on. This directly challenges the past imagination of identities, which was continuous and fixed. The fluidity allowed her to be highly reflexive in the movements, and served as a form of empowerment.
Another respondent, who is a Mozambican feminist artist, responded “Migrant, African, Creative”. She explained how she decides priority of her identities. She said “Last year when I was in Berlin, I felt it important to identify as Black, Queer. Here in Japan where I currently live, the racial dynamics are so different that it doesn’t require a racial identification. In my hometown, I identify myself as a Feminist, because it really matters.”. The fluidity of identity does not undermine political agency. On the other hand, it offers individual great mobility to set priority of their personal and political agenda.
These fluid identities may not necessarily have uniting effects in sense of creating a community, yet they can still be inherently politically motivating. Both of the respondent reject the traditional identities, yet they are both politically active. This further questions the bases of identity politics which political actions need to be based on collective experience, in order to fights for rights for a certain groups.
(4) Identities and Intersectionality
The criticisms to group-centered intersectionality approach is often it ignores power relation behind the structure, and it may make a structural problem seem specific to a certain group. This dilemma of intersectionality also happens to people with multiple marginalize identity and/or experience.
The respondents tackle the dilemma by identifying with a broader identity, which is mainly defined by their political ideology. Regardless of backgrounds, there are respondent who identify as feminists, social activist, Taiwanese independence activists and many other categories.
For example, among those who identify as feminists, there are respondent of different gender and sexuality. There are queer, lesbian, gay, straight men and women feminists. Feminists detached with the narrow imagination of women’s identity politics. Rather, it become a new political identity of those who wants to make change to the current gender hierarchy.
This is a radical approach that goes beyond the boundaries of identity politics and collective experiences. Their approach echos Braidotti’s idea that “collective agency is a reflective political choice”. (Braidotti, 1997) The identities can be rooted in the shared political analysis based on the same political power relation.
This is empowering because it directly tackles the structural intersectionality and the structure that creates inequality. The process of mutual identification does not restricted to biological features but common ideals. We first identify as feminists, which we understand there is no essence, and then we learn to understand the different life experiences as feminists.
Conclusion: the possible queerness within identities
The debate of identity politics starts with feminism, yet the impact of identity politics influenced many different political struggles. Observing the identities in my own social network shows a broader imagination of identity politics.
Identities are not inherently incompatible with queerness, while the fluidity and fragmentation of identities may not necessarily undermine political agency. The diversity of identity that respondents offers, represents the rich possibility of reflective identities. These reflective identities helps the respondents act as a situated being, and respond flexibly in the changes of social conditions and structure.
Crenshaw, K. (1990). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stan. L. Rev., 43, 1241.
Braidotti, R. (1994). Nomadic subjects: Embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist theory. Columbia University Press.
Mouffe, C. (1997). Feminism, Citizenship and Radical Politics. Feminists Theorize the Political, New York: Routledge.
Connell, R. W. (2013). Gender and power: Society, the person and sexual politics. John Wiley & Sons.
Bose, C. E. (2012). Intersectionality and global gender inequality. Gender & Society, 26(1), 67–72.
