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Queer Community

The context for this work is defined by a second wave of social and political
activity contextualized by queer. For example, three, self-identified black,
queer women started the Black Lives Matter movement. For a new genera-
tion, the first-wave reclamation of queer speaks to their position in a world
that continues to marginalize and oppress, particularly sexually and gender
fluid and non-normative people.
Using empirical work carried out by the author, Queer Community de-
scribes queer-identified people, their intimate relationships, and how they
are evolving as a unique community along politically charged, ideologi-
cal lines. Following an exploration of the history and context of ‘queer’ –
­including activism and the evolution of queer theory – this book examines
how queer-identified people define the identity, with reference to ‘queer’ as a
sexual moniker, gender moniker, and political ideology.
Queer Community will appeal to scholars and students interested in soci-
ology, queer theory, sexuality studies, gender studies, cultural studies, and
contemporary social movements.

Neal Carnes works for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a
Behavioral Scientist in the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention.
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Identities, Intimacies, and Ideology
Neal Carnes

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Queer Community

Identities, Intimacies, and Ideology

Neal Carnes
First published 2019
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© 2019 Neal Carnes
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work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
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Typeset in Times New Roman
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To all the people who love to live a queer life; to all the
people who have struggled, fought, and died to live a queer
life; and, to all the people who have supported me as I have
attempted to give voice to the amazing group of queers
that participated in the study that informed this book.
To my husband, Steve Moore, my mom, Janet Johnson,
my friends and family, thank you. And, to the person who
encouraged me in life, and remains with me after her
death, to my Grandma Mary: May you be resting in peace.
Love you 2-2!
Contents

Acknowledgments or credits list ix

Preface: a “first-waver’s” lens in a “second-wave” world xi

Introduction 1

1 Queer in practice and in theory 5

A brief her/istory of “queer” 5
The evolution of the queer moniker 7
The first wave’s reclamation of queer 9
Queer theory 13
Queer: people, relationships, and communities 16
Theoretical approach: queer theory and grounded theory 17

2 Profiles of participating queers 19

Participant profiles and queer awakenings 19

3 Is there queer community? 41

“I am queer”: a shared identity 42
Queer as an identity 43
“Don’t yuck my yum”: policing queer 58
Queer aesthetics and body image 67
The personal is political and the political is personal 78
Code for conduct 85
Performing queer 85
Fighting the good queer fight 104
“Southern Fried, Queer Pride”: queer in Atlanta 110
viii Contents

4 “We’re here, we’re queer, and we ain’t going nowhere”:

The evolution of queer community 121
Implications for queer theory and theoreticians 129
Conclusion 130

References 133
Glossary 141
Appendix: Methods 145
Index 151
Acknowledgments or credits list

I am indebted to those who gave their time and laid bare their stories,
the participants. I also extend my sincerest gratitude to Dr. Eric Wright,
Dr. Maura Ryan, and Dr. Katie Acosta of Georgia State University’s
Department of Sociology for making this a more insightful and contribut-
ing piece. Finally, a shout out to my cohort of graduate students at Georgia
State University for inspiring the dissertation and this book; you reminded
me that queer matters.
Preface
A “first-waver’s” lens in a
“second-wave” world

Like so many others, my introduction to the word “queer” was smear the
queer – an inane game involving a ball or some object players seek to take
possession. While taking possession of the ball or object was desirable, being
the “queer” wasn’t, as it meant you became the target of the other players’
goal to pry the object from you, by whatever means necessary. Like most,
I grew up understanding being “queer” was not something one wanted to
be. Being queer was a pejorative manifest; thus, I understood to be queer
is to be the source of contempt, a target for bullying. This understanding
changed in 1993.
During my junior year at college, after coming out as gay, I chaired
ActOUT, the activist committee of OUT: Indiana University’s Gay, Lesbian,
and Bisexual Student Union. Early in the academic year, the committee
brainstormed activities for the up-coming semester. During the brainstorm-
ing, a committee member suggested we consider recent activities undertaken
by Queer Nation. “Queer Nation?” I am sure I asked myself; “what in the
world are they all about, and why would they chose such a name?”
Shortly after the brainstorming session, the committee member who
suggested we look at Queer Nation’s activities, shared a copy of the Queer
Nation Manifesto (1990), aka “Queers Read This,” along with a telephone
number for, what I currently believe was Queer Nation’s Chicago chapter.
After reading the Manifesto, I had a now vague phone conversation with
one of the chapter members. During that conversation, I came to under-
stand “queer” was being reclaimed to assert a liberationist stance that fights
a world hostile to anyone that isn’t “straight,” meaning heterosexual, or an-
ything that isn’t “normal.” Queer Nation was also taking a stand against
within community posturing that intended to “normalize” the lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community, as well as any moves to leave
out or extract a subgroup from the community – meaning, we must embrace
the “Ls,” the “Gs,” the “Bs,” and the “Ts” and all the intersectional dynamics
at work within the community – meaning, in light of race, ethnicity, nation-
ality, socioeconomics, education level, and spiritual belief systems, or lack
thereof. In the wake of my conversation with Queer Nation, as I immersed
xii Preface

myself in taking on institutional and societal homophobia and homonegativ-

ity, I did so, in part, by declaring, “I am queer.”
Over the next two years, I continued my involvement in the LGBT/Queer
student movement at Indiana University, and in the host city of Blooming-
ton, Indiana. Regarding “queer” as a specific moniker, after being elected
President of OUT, I put forth a motion to retitle the group, “OUT: Indiana
University’s Queer Student Union,” signifying an understanding of queer as
an umbrella term that encompassed the Gs, the Ls, the Bs, and the Ts. The
motion failed, but the passion for building an organization and movement
that addressed all sexual and gender nonconformists’ needs, hopes, and de-
sires exposed a calling.
Toward achieving this calling, our local efforts resulted in Indiana Univer-
sity (all campuses) and the City of Bloomington to include “sexual orienta-
tion” in their non-discrimination clauses, the establishment of a Bloomington
campus-­based LGBT Student Center (which remains operational), and a series
of Bloomington campus “kiss-ins” where mainly same sex and gender variant
couples displayed open affection for one another in a very public setting. The
“kiss-in” dominated local media and classroom conversations throughout the
semester (an event I remain extremely proud to have organized). From these
experiences, I grew a profound respect for what I, borrowing from feminism,
refer to as “first-wave queer” activism. Those who reclaimed and embraced
“queer” in the 1980s and 1990s acted for liberation, for change, the right to
live our lives as we see fit, and from a position of openness rather than under
a cloud of fear, docility, and oppression. The progressive dogma espoused
by Queer Nation and the in-your-face messaging and activism they enacted
fueled my involvement and dedication to foster change during the later years
of my undergraduate experience, but also served to compel my involvement
in the LGBTQ community for the decades that have since came (and went).
After graduating college in the summer of 1994, I moved to a large metro
area that presented more need for action around the dynamic challenges
facing lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, and queer people. Notably,
HIV continued to decimate the community, and other prominent and crit-
ical concerns, e.g., homelessness, poverty, breast and cervical cancer, sui-
cide, and intimate partner violence, came into view. Within a year of moving
to Washington DC, I took a position at a historically gay and lesbian health
clinic that had evolved into the second largest AIDS service organization
in the United States. At that time, HIV rates among gay and bisexual men
in the District of Columbia were sub-Saharan Africa levels, which is to say
that the situation was devastating. While I remained committed to the first-
wave queer agenda and its politically charged ethos of social justice and
communal self-acceptance, day-to-day life circumstances, and the on-going
devastation of HIV, took center stage. As a result, my attention and efforts
shifted to improving our health and well-being regardless of how one iden-
tified, or what ethos they followed or espoused.
 Preface xiii

As the years passed, my use of “queer” as a self-moniker subsided. In

part, espousing a gay identity was more convenient and easier to navigate.
While I remained committed to the mantra of “Queers Read This,” I also
came to understand many within the LGBTQ community take offence to
the word “queer.” Ultimately, defending the adoption and use of “queer”
as an umbrella term, social/personal distinction, or as a means to reshape a
phenomena according to one’s sexual or gendered social position, wasn’t the
battle I wished to fight. [In hindsight, I took the easy way out.]
Traveling life’s path, I have found myself more and more integrated into
social circles dominated by gay men. As my networks evolved, I have at-
tempted to bridge the gay male world with my fellow lesbians, b ­ isexuals,
transgender persons, and queers. Along the path, I noticed “queer” seemed
to fall out of favor among most as a means to describe oneself, one’s ac-
tions, or one’s ethos. Where “queer” remained in vogue was regulated to
academic settings, kept alive and advanced by queer theory and queer
theoreticians.
Since its inception in the 1980s, queer theory has grown as a relevant
theoretical framework, particularly regarding phenomena related to sexu-
ality and gender. The theory primarily focused on how socially “othered”
people enact, thus experience phenomena. [For example, how same-sex
couples adapted marriage prior to legalization – as such, they queered mar-
riage.] ­Successive stints in graduate school, most prominently my time at
San ­Francisco State University in the Human Sexuality Studies Program,
brought this theoretical framework back into view, and provided a tempo-
ral understanding of queer theory and how it was being applied. Contrary
to my initial understanding of queer, as an umbrella term for lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and ­transgender, queer theoreticians had positioned the concept
as an anti-identity, meaning it wasn’t necessarily a moniker one donned.
Generically speaking, queer theory positioned people as queering activities
and philosophies, but given the breadth of what queer referenced it held
little meaning to say, “I am queer,” as queer meant so many things. It wasn’t
until 2013, when I moved to Atlanta, Georgia, to complete doctoral stud-
ies in sociology, did I find “queer” once again used by people to describe
themselves, as well as what they do and how they do it. This reintroduction
sparked the interest in conducting this study, and writing this book, as well
as inspecting how I understand and frame my own lens.
Originally, I planned to study health, well-being, disease, and illness
within the LGBTQ community. When thinking about Atlanta as a base for
this research, I noted that a number of self-identified, cisgender men who
called themselves “queer” were less likely to report having HIV than the
self-identified, cisgender gay men. As a result of this observation, I planned
a subsample of queer identified people. This inclusion resulted in a faculty
member’s advice that I conduct a “mini ethnography or descriptive study”
on the queer subsample given “we don’t know much about queer identified
xiv Preface

people.” On this suggestion, the Chair of my dissertation committee and

I conceived this study.
As discussed, driving the updated research question, a group of people
in Atlanta embraced “queer” and expressed their embrace in terms that
sounded like an identity, in contrast to some queer theorists’ assertion of
queer as anti-identity. These “queer” people noted they socialized in distinct
networks with unique media outlets, events, and centers for socialization
and political action, thus it appeared they had formed their own commu-
nity. From these preliminary discussions and observations, I selected to
study queer as the potential source of community.
I understood from early conversations with another faculty member that
such a study may challenge some theoretical assertions (and theorists).
­Indeed, some may view such a study as an aggressive affront to the body
of work informing queer theory. Of concern, it was suggested that a formal
study of queer from an identity-based lens may bind queer in ways theoreti-
cians find antithetical. To study queer in the manner proposed (i.e., qualita-
tive interviews) would involve defining queer, and by nature, definitions are
bounded in ways some queer theoreticians refute. Therefore, such a study
may come across a blasphemous act to those who view queer in ways that
cannot and do not function as an identity, and thus cannot be studied in
ways similar to gay, lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual, men, women, or trans-
gender as queer is theorized to escape the boundaries of traditional identity
labels. In addition, even if I can make the case, as I hope I have achieved
in this book, that this study makes a valid contribution to queer as a liv-
ing, breathing phenomena with personal and social meaning, could I, as
a first-wave adopter that subsequently took on more traditional identities,
be able to conduct a sound inquiry of queer community given its evolution
since the early to mid-1990s? While these questions and sentiments are valid,
the choice to pursue this study was grounded in the reality that people label
themselves “queer”; I didn’t label them as such. My role was to ask and hope
to understand what is going on here, and how is it meaningful? What is the
effect of queer on contemporary understandings of sexuality, gender, poli-
tics, and community?
Ultimately, I designed and implemented this study with a sympathetic,
nonconfrontational eye to the participants’ understanding and experiences
rather than grapple with, or confront their experiences and perceptions in
light of the body of theoretical and observation-based work that makes up
the crux of queer theory. This work speaks to the lived experiences and
understandings of queer people in their own words. At best, I hope this
work achieves a semblance of authenticity that reflects what my participants
stated and meant.
Introduction

Imagine a world where we are freed from bounded identities. In this world,
how we perceive our self, how we manifest the self, and the relationships that
result, transcend etiologies set in motion by chromosomes, genetics, check-
lists of social circumstances, and normative expectations spelled out in so-
cial scripts – “metaphors for conceptualizing the production of behavior
within social life” (Simon and Gagnon 1999: 29). Regarding sex, sexuality,
and gender, having a strong or absent parent, a medical designation at birth,
a double x or an x-y chromosomal structure, or a variation of chromosome
Xq28, may influence, but does not produce a specified identity. The varia-
tion inherent in gender and sexuality, as socially constructed phenomena,
complicates the categorical boundaries delineating the biologically per-
ceived male from female, masculine from feminine, and homosexual from
heterosexual. Even bisexuality and transgenderism, as predicated and often
contested alternatives, fail to define a person, let alone a class of people.
In this “imagined” world, even if our biology, desires, and behaviors exist
within the boundaries of a particular sexual or gender identities, we are not
trapped by these boundaries. From this vantage point, sexuality and gender
are fluid and diverse states whereby the endless possibilities are available to
the willing.
Scholars and activists in the 1980s and 1990s asserted this nonbounded
world is the world we live in; some live in it more explicitly than others.
They argued, in practice, gender and sexuality are fluid and diverse, more
so than can be explained by the dominant roles and identities of male, fe-
male, masculine, feminine, transgender, homosexual, gay, lesbian, heter-
osexual, straight, and bisexual (Alexander and Yescavage 2009; Morland
2009; ­Sedgwick 2013; supported by, Cohen 2013). Indeed, some scholars and
activists assert we live in a postmodern era in which embodied practices
refute the epistemology and ontology that maintain the modern identity
system defined by bounded identities and the realities that inform the labels
(­Nicholson and Seidman 1995). The primary forum in which these perspec-
tives were defined, and have since been refined, is queer theory.
2 Introduction

As a theoretical framework, queer theory evolved from arguments laid

out by social constructionism (identities are created through social in-
teraction; Berger and Luckmann 1966), poststructuralism (the modern
identity system is binary, hierarchal, and imparts notions of normal and
abnormal; Foucault 1979), and postmodernism (the world is messy, con-
stricted by language, and there are no universal truths; Rosenau 1991)
(Kirsch 2000; Ritzer and Stepnisky 2013). By titling their assertions queer,
these theorists and activists embraced a liberationist stance toward under-
standing meaning as well as our collective experiences. They purposefully
reclaimed a term used as a derogatory slur referencing gender, sexuality,
and their intersection, and repurposed it to an academic and political ral-
lying cry. This reclamation positioned queer to reflect our ever evolving,
non-normative, fluid, and messy human existence; they refuted either/or
binaries, questioned the notion of normal and abnormal, and fought to
dismantle the privileges afforded to those societies have deemed “nor-
mal.” They saw the beauty in the other, the oppressed, and the socially
deemed deviant.
A quarter century later, contemporary queer theory is grounded in di-
versity, fluidity, and a counternarrative of “non-normativity,” champion-
ing life’s endless possibilities (Kirsch 2000; Namaste 1996). This ethos
takes to task social distinctions and forces privileging that which is la-
belled, “normal.” Furthermore, they recognize the self, as informed by
experiences, desires, and social interactions, are ours to define, or not.
Any definition is subject to change based on new experiences, knowledge,
and perceptions; identities, thus the self, is porous. No sense of sexuality
or gender is better or less than the other, given a consensual world, and we
certainly aren’t always dichotomous and fixed.
If queer theory explains social reality, and it must to be relevant, the
theories assertions and tenets must hold up under empirical investigation,
which to date remains fairly anemic beyond observational and content/­
media analyses. As an embraced and embodied practice, the theories’ ethos
begs the question, who are these people that call themselves queer? What
do they do, what do they think and believe about what they do, and how
do their practices complement or refute what is philosophically understood
to be queer? Do queers embrace and live a sexual and/or gender fluid life
that resists normalization, as asserted by queer theoreticians (Jagose 1996;
Kirsch 2000; Luibhéid and Cantú 2005; Warner 1999)? And, if so, does
queer’s diverse and fluid sexuality and gendered embodiment take form
collectively?
As a social scientist, I wonder: have queers formed a community? If so,
how is participation meaningful? How is the queer community distinct?
­Before I get ahead of myself, the primary research question was, are we wit-
nessing the evolution of a queer community?
 Introduction 3

In this text, I take a descriptive, qualitative approach to understanding

queer people’s inner- and interpersonal experiences (see the Appendix for
details on methodological approach). To this end, I conducted a series of
in-depth, semistructured interviews with 36 self-identified queer people, as
individuals or as part of a relationship in which at least one person em-
braced queer. The resulting text contributes to our understanding of com-
munity, sexuality, gender, and political ideology by focusing on queer as
practiced, particularly at the micro (i.e., person) and meso (i.e., dyadic
and small group) levels of social life. Furthermore, illuminating the gap
between theory and practice is significant given the growing importance
of queer theory in the humanities and social sciences, and as a burgeon-
ing second wave of activity among queers unfolds. Living queer provides
unique insights into essential social experiences; that you can be fluid in
your sexuality, gender, race – characteristics we socially construct as well as
privilege/marginalize – as well as provide space for a range of experiences
under a single moniker.
Select works have considered queer as a distinctly lived practice. More
often, queer gets conflated or muddled with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender (LGBT). In fact, queer is often used as shorthand for LGBT.
To overcome this limitation, and in light of recent anecdotal evidence,
I conducted a descriptive research study focused on queer as a collective
identity and means of social interaction. Studying a primarily unexplored
and emerging collective with the intention of advancing theory, I found it
important to pose a broad set of questions that are theoretically based, yet
exploratory in nature. This study inspected certain tenets of queer theory,
while not being restricted to these tenets. A narrative approach provides a
unique contribution to our understanding of sexuality and/or gender-based
communities in that few have asked queer people about their personal and
social worlds. Investigating queer people, queer practices, and queer rela-
tionships extends theory in an applied direction. The importance regards
sexuality, gender, and political ideology as essential experiences that pro-
vide meaning to our lives and shapes our social interactions (Butler 1999;
Warner 1999).
The participants’ narratives speak to foundational aspects of queer as
community. As I shall show, the participants endorsed queer in identity
terms with shared features. These shared features reinforce the first-wave
tenets of fluidity, non-normativity, and diversity. Participants applied queer’s
identity features to their sexuality, gender, or political ideology, as well as
their experiences of race, socioeconomics, and intersectional experiences
that bridge identities. The participants also supported queer as a framework
for how one conducts themselves, i.e., a code for conduct. Where such a code
became evident regarded queers’ shared political ethos. Those intolerant of
marginalized people, those who wish to maintain the privileged status of
4 Introduction

the few, and those who adopt queer, but only for the “street cred,” are not
tolerated. When combined, queer as a shared identity and code for con-
duct informs queer as community. In Atlanta, for example, the queer com-
munity has built distinct institutions, such as Southern Fried, Queer Pride,
Queer House, and the bar, Mary’s, which serve those who embrace queer
as, in part, distinct. More broadly and politically speaking, queer-identified
­African American women started and defined one of the most significant
domestic social justice movements active today, Black Lives Matter. As
such, being queer collectively matters to our understanding of community
and society, and how community affects society.
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