Deconstructing the 'Queer normative'

From an outsider’s perspective, the Queer community may appear to be a unified place where everyone is accepted. However, beneath its welcoming exterior, Queer spaces can be surprisingly exclusive. 

To me, to be ‘Queer’ is to experience sexuality, romance, and/or gender differently from the cisgender/heterosexual norm. The essence of that definition allows queerness to mean something different to every member of the community. So the phrase ‘Queer normative’ at first sounds like an oxymoron – how can there be anything ‘normative’ about such a broad community? But, when most people picture what a Queer person is, there exists a homogenous image – and it’s become accepted both inside and outside Queer spaces. 

In the recent past, this image of queerness was a cis, white, male couple who are legally married and have adopted children. For some, this is what happiness looks like, but for many Queer people, a rejection of these heteronormative lifestyle choices is actually a large part of what it means to be Queer and experience life different from the norm. 

The increasing corporatisation of Pride is a major contributing factor to this homogenous image. Companies want to make queerness a sellable marketing point, which can increase the visibility of the Queer community and be financially beneficial for individual Queer people. However, it also risks reducing the Queer experience to a representation that is easily digestible to a heterosexual audience. This includes media that is centred almost exclusively around white, cis couples, leaving the rest of the Queer experience underrepresented.

Alternatively, there are examples of people subverting the rules of heteronormativity in all aspects of their life, choosing to live in an entirely ‘Queer’ way. For example, blended Queer families can include a lesbian and gay couple raising a child together. This structure ‘queerifies’ the whole idea of a nuclear family and is a way of living entirely estranged from how society expects us to function. 

Arguably, the cis/hetero conception of Queer people is slowly shifting into one that is more gender non-conforming and reflective of our diverse community – which is certainly a move in the right direction. However, this has not come without pushback from some sections of the Queer community.

While at Warwick, I’ve even heard other Queer people express the sentiment, “it’s gone too far”, in relation to trans* people. However shocking, this rhetoric is unfortunately not an isolated incident: there has been a recent political shift to the right occurring on a global level. Regrettably, this has bled into the Queer community itself, a space that should be the most supportive of different identities. Among some Queer people, anti-trans* rhetoric has become alarmingly acceptable. Rather than extending the empathy needed to learn about other Queer experiences, some in the community prefer to reject experiences they cannot relate to or understand. 

For example, in America, campaigns including the so-called ‘bathroom bills’ and other enforcements targeting trans* people have seen some other Queer people jump on the bandwagon of trans* hate, preferring the ‘safety’ of discrimination to solidarity. This perspective is clearly a survival instinct, in the hopes that they will be accepted as traditional enough for conservatives. But when it comes down to it, right-wing governments never lead to safety for any Queer person, and these Queer people siding with the right will not have to wait long before they are more directly targeted. The only way we can fight this deadly rhetoric is by joining together as a community to support our most vulnerable members.

Despite the Queer resistance movements of the 1960s being spearheaded by a diverse range of Queer people, many of us have forgotten what we owe to each other. It is only united that we can truly fight the right-wing’s regressive ideas. We have to remember that the most dangerous myth fascism perpetuates is that we are helpless to stop it. Together, we can look forward to a Queer utopia and create a world in which everyone is free. 

Images: Wikimedia Commons