Journal Entry: Queering Diaspora

Response: I find myself shocked at my own reaction to the article by Meg Wesling, "Why Queer Diaspora?" At the very beginning of the course, we discussed the topic personal diaspora vs. ethnic/religious/political/racial diaspora, and I commented that I thought there was no reason for the two not to be equally valid representations of diaspora. I am now finding myself wondering how people can justify queer diaspora on the same level.

This is not to say that I don't believe there are similar types of hardships surrounding the difficulty of coming out to friends, family, the town/city you live in, etc, and finding your sexuality so rejected by them that you feel you must move. I do, however, feel that there are inherent differences and choices to make surrounding these very different types of diaspora. In particular is the visibility of sexuality; it is a little easier to hide, so to speak, than gender or ethnicity, which makes the ability to choose your new home a little easier, and also with less of a sense of urgency.

There is also the problem about thinking globally about queerness and queerly about globalization. Do mashing these two issues together reduce the importance of one or the other? I do not believe that it is possible to address both of those issues equally while considering them together, and would best perhaps be considered apart from one another.

I do definitely have a very big problem with the parallel drawn between the disruption of national sovereignty and disruption of gender normativity, as Wesling puts it. I think it is very easy to see how this might paint me in the light of a homophobe, but I cannot allow such an unequal parallel to be drawn between the two. The disruption of national sovereignty is most often due to a visible difference, which one cannot hide, no matter how hard one tries, and one does not have to talk to someone to determine that their race is different. However, in the case of sexuality, one may assume someone's sexuality (much like one can assume race), but it is impossible to tell one's sexuality based solely on appearance. I am not trying to say discrimination does not occur regardless of this, but that it is a little less easy to do so, visually speaking.

Self-Critique: Wow. I definitely surprised even myself by some of the things I typed out and thought. I did not give much thought to what I was saying, I simply said it, and I think that is abundantly clear in the above paragraphs.

I am not thinking in terms of queer theory very well at all, and I think I am grossly misrepresenting several of the points Wesling made in her article. It is very clear I am not well educated on queer theory, nor have I spent much time researching it prior to reading this article. I am entirely unfamiliar with queer diaspora, not only as a concept, but I do not have anything to really base my speculations on aside from assumptions I have made.

I obviously consider LGTBQ problems and minority problems as two entirely separate things, when this is not true at all; there are people who belong to both cultures, and experience the institutional discrimination from both sides.

Cultural Critique: In the culture(s) I belong to, queer theory and LGBTQ rights are actually quite a prominent and popular type of activism. It might be cynical to call it thus, but it is a favourite "white" type of activism. My response, however, tells me that it is still quite popular to assume that LGTBQ people do not "have it all bad," and that they do not experience discrimination on the same level as minorities might in the same situations. It is still part of dominant culture to ignore the difficulties involved in LGTBQ culture, as well as to compare their hardships to those of minorities, as I have in my response. I also did not take into consideration those people who belong to both LGTBQ culture and minority culture, which is often considered a subculture of its own.

My response is telling. The dominant culture in Canadian society is still resisting LGTBQ issues from a minority stand point, and refuses to truly consider that similar problems can really be similar. This also leads to the point of labelling - problems belong in their own little, separate boxes, and should not be mixed. This mixing of issues and theories must be considered for this culture to move forward.