At the Borders of Queer Nation
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Truth
There is a
distinction that is not often made, for
political reasons, although the
language sometimes harbors it: that between the "
natural," "
true,"
sexual impulses and the
community,
identity,
ideology, which are political. Ideally, they would be
inextricably linked, the latter growing naturally out of the former
1. Bisexuals sometimes feel a
tension (not that lesbians or gay men never do) and
negotiate for themselves categories like "
sexual orientation" versus "
sexual identity"; one of which is more
real (it encompasses "the entire complexity of our experience"), the other which is more
imprecise (read: not true) but
safe and allows
community and
recognition at the cost of certain freedoms in
self-definition and actions (Gibian 1992:8-10). For other bisexuals, their position outside of given identities allows them a certain kind of
strategic (and possibly
epistemological) advantage. The politics that do not differentiate orientation and identity, those that
essentialize queerness through assertions of a
natural identity "often deny their
strategic character ...{they are} operating within
Enlightenment standards of truth....{because} In the modern understanding, truth and strategy are opposed" (Phelan 1993:769) i.e., It is because gayness is a true natural trait, not a chosen political one, that it has strategic weight: it is
non-political in this "
modern" understanding.
- Except for the people who came to their sexualities by way of their politics. Friedland and Highleyman address this for feminist bisexuals; lesbian feminists have already addressed this otherwise. I don't know if it occurs in male spheres.
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