Keeping it Queer

Gay Chicago Closes

2011-11-11T22:27:00.001-06:00

I came to write for Gay Chicago Magazine after running into the partner of someone I'd been involved in a political action with. He worked there, mentioned they were looking for columnists, and set me up. At first I was writing monthly editorials, then I was working with someone else and writing two columns a month. At times I wondered if it was the right publication for my work, but I was glad for the opportunity to offer something. My time writing for them was really good because it gave me an outlet for a kind of writing that I wasn't able to do elsewhere, but at times it was difficult because I sometimes felt tokenized and misunderstood. Still, I'm grateful for having had the opportunity because the writing I did was incredibly helpful for me and I hope to a couple folks out there.

As of recently, Gay Chicago has ceased to operate either in print or online. Good luck to you who are moving on from your time there. Thanks too for the experience.

History Yet To Be Written

2011-07-06T15:49:00.004-05:00

This essay now posted on Bilerico under the title "Standing with Queer 'Riff Raff'"

Once upon a time, a bunch of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, transsexual, and otherwise queer people liked to hang out in certain parts of town. The world looked down on them—and the most resentful of their presence were the respectable neighbors who lived nearby. Now "lewd and lascivious acts" (including gay sex) were against the law, but that didn’t stop people from frequenting cruising spots, gay clubs, and gay bars. Since they distrusted the police, they sometimes solved their disputes in less-than-healthy ways. They sometimes fought, often got drunk, took illegal drugs, had sex, and generally ran amuck in places where they made the neighbors feel uncomfortable, fearful, and even unsafe...

Be sure to read my other posts on this topic:
Working for Safety in Lakeview: 3 Suggestions
Safety Concerns Meet Racism in Lakeview?
“Hoodlums and Thugs” in Boystown

Working for Safety in Lakeview

2011-07-05T17:22:00.002-05:00

[Posted at Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erica-chu/working-for-safety-in-lak_1_b_890720.html]

Working for Safety in Lakeview
by Erica Chu

Right now, people in the historically gay neighborhood of Lakeview (AKA Boystown) are becoming more concerned about safety. Justifiably so—a series of violent incidents has underscored to many that the places they once felt safe don’t seem as safe anymore. At the same time, racial tensions are rising in this predominately white neighborhood.

The vast majority of Lakeview residents are happy to welcome people of every color to the neighborhood, but there is definitely a caveat: Make yourself at home—as long as you live up to middle-class standards—be polite, be fairly quiet, and don’t gather on sidewalks, in alleys, or on streets. Of course, inconsistencies exist. If you’re a middle-class person blocking the sidewalk, urinating in an alley, being loud, calling out to strangers, or lingering outside while en route to a Cubs game, your favorite bar, or a good brunch spot, all is well. Drunken, rude, and inconsiderate behavior is apparently tolerated as long as you’re supporting local businesses.

The youth of color who come to Lakeview can’t afford such entertainments and are definitely not middle-class. Like the poor homeless youth among the rioters at Stonewall Inn, young people have migrated to the part of town that is most accepting of queer identities. Each person has taken a good look at the danger and rejection they feel among the family and neighborhood they were raised in, and they come to Lakeview seeking refuge and the opportunity to meet others like themselves. Many have permanently left their families of origin. The lucky ones stay with friends, and many others wander the streets at night or try to sleep in some quiet place, braving all kinds of weather. Still others commute.

While few middle class whites feel hatred for youth of color, racism and classism are exhibited in much more subtle fashion. Annoyance and resentment over minor infractions by poor youth build up over time, and when opportunity strikes, the middle class turns with suspicion, fear, intolerance, and accusation.

I’ve heard over and over again, that those rallying for increased safety measures are not making any statements about race or class—they just want safety. I believe that they do want and should work to make Lakeview safer. I also believe that they have assumptions and biases about race and class which cause them to target black youth in unknowingly sinister ways.

Every summer, there is increased violence in Lakeview and across Chicago. Some violence is committed in an attempt to steal, and some in an attempt to gain respect. Both cases are unfortunate and, I believe, wrong. We should try to prevent such violence, and one method that has been adopted by the majority of those decrying the lack of safety is increased surveillance by the state, by police, and by citizens with access to the internet. For one, this method is often done in ways that focus on the infractions of blacks or the poor and not the same infractions committed by whites or the middle class. More importantly, I don’t think this is quite right or even the best route to ensuring safety, but I understand why many want to take it.

Another method of preventing violence that I believe is more effective is to attend to the root causes such as injustices that bring about the desperate need for resources and respect. Poverty is one of those injustices and has all sorts of ramifications—educational inequality, fewer employment options, even health risks and greater discrimination. Residents of Lakeview may find it daunting to address those injustices and prevent things like gang activity, but there are a few very tangible things that can be done more quickly to prevent some of the violence that has occurred.

First is to prioritize the issue of LGBTQ youth homelessness. In this era of “It gets better,” it’s a damn shame if we do nothing but say “Move on” to the youth who don’t even have a place to stay for the night. We need shelters specifically dedicated to LGBTQ youth, who face harassment and abuse in other shelters. We need these shelters to be open year-round and to have enough beds to house all who need them.

Secondly, we need to provide safe space for LGBTQ youth to express themselves and explore their present and future. We can do this by providing useful and affirming programming organized by compassionate staff who include the youth in planning. We also need to keep safe spaces open as long as possible. Closing doors to youth early in the day will not make them disperse sooner, it will encourage them to find other things to do and find other places to socialize. Some youth may choose the streets and sidewalks over youth centers and that is their right, but when we provide options for youth, we make them less vulnerable to being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And most importantly, respect the youth. Respect their right to be in the neighborhood they call home. Be intolerant of violence, but be tolerant of ways of expression that may not be similar to your own. If the noise they make is disruptive, ask them to be quiet as you would ask any other group. If they are belligerent, warn them you will call the cops if they don’t quiet down or move. Some of these kids don’t always make wise decisions, but they are worthy of your respect. They are individuals with their own stories and reasons for making the choices they make.

Even if we do these three things perfectly, violence will not stop completely. Some matters are too big and would need cooperation and resources beyond what Lakeview has access to—but if we who are progressive claim to care about the LGBTQ community, we must care about this very vulnerable subset. And if safety really is our concern, we will find that when we do these three things, we will absolutely make this community and its streets much safer for all.

Safety Concerns Meet Racism in Lakeview?

2011-06-30T18:58:00.001-05:00

It’s true there have been several incidents of violent crime in recent years. Two summers ago, a wave of violent muggings in the Lincoln Park area resulted in many people being injured and even more fearful for their safety. More recently, several subway thefts and “flash mob” robberies in the downtown area have involved many perpetrators and left some victims and bystanders injured. In Lakeview, robberies have even put some in the hospital. People are afraid, and you know what, they have a right to be. No one wants to be a victim of violence, and no one deserves to be treated in such a way. But here’s the thing: when people get afraid, sometimes bad things happen to innocent people.

Remember the two young men who killed Matthew Shepard in 1998 because, they claimed, he threatened their heterosexuality by making sexual advances? Remember the two Detroit auto workers who murdered Vincent Chin in 1982 because they blamed the Japanese for damaging the US auto industry? Remember the Germans who in the 1920s were experiencing such economic hardship that they lashed out at and eventually exterminated large populations of Jewish people, who they characterized as economic leeches?

Each of these acts of extreme violence was committed because resentment became fueled by fear.

Though seemingly not as severe, such resentment and fear is building up in Lakeview. I’ve heard stereotypes invoked and discriminatory statements made by people I know, and I’ve seen racist and classist statements written all over social media sites, most predominately on the Facebook group “Take Back Boystown.” The concern is safety, but the result is bias and resentment against youth of color.

Who are the suspects of committing the recent wave of violent crimes? Most often, the description is of young black men. The logic of some therefore leads to suspecting all young black men of being criminals—especially the sketchy ones. And what constitutes “sketchy”? Well, people who don’t look respectable. And respectable, of course, means dressing the way you think is normal, talking the way you think is normal, and treating you, the middle-class observer, the way you think is normal. Now, what separates “the normal way” from the “sketchy”? Well, you just know, right? Well, that internal feeling of knowing what way is the normal way to do things is actually rather subjective and is based on your experience, your identity, and your desires. Trying to force one’s ambiguous expectations about normal behavior on others often takes the form of racism, classism, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism, and a whole lot of things that are not good.

Take for instance what happens when a person of East Asian descent has a role on a television show with a predominately white cast. This person does not look like the “normal” characters and so she’s not so much known as “Tina” but as “the Asian girl.” And if we were watching Glee, and someone suddenly said “An Asian person just robbed a store” the audience immediately thinks “the Asian girl” did it, and if not her, it was one of her relatives or friends.

Glee has trained us to be discriminatory toward Asians (what with “Asian kisses,” “Asian Camp,” and “Other Asian,” come on.). The fear and bias of history, written from the perspective of white elites, has trained us to accept stereotypes about youth of color. This being said, we are each responsible for what we do with the discriminatory skills we’ve unwittingly learned.

Of course we need to take action to keep ourselves and our neighborhoods safe. Walk in groups at night and when possible in the day, keep your expensive items hidden away in public so as not to cause unwanted attention, be aware of your surroundings, and if put in any position of danger, it’s better to lose an iPhone than risk a bruised rib. Is it fair that you have to take such precautions? No. But it’s not the fault of every young black man you see in the neighborhood.

At one time gays were seen as trash bringing all sorts of unwanted behavior into the neighborhood. We know those who judged were wrong, so don’t give into being wrong this time. Black youth should be as welcome in Lakeview as anyone else is. If they aren’t, racism—not safety—reigns.

I’m not saying colorblindness is a realistic or even positive way of seeing the world, but when we give into our tendencies to see race, class, age, and style of dress instead of individuals each with their own story and their own journey in this world, we give in to prejudice. Perhaps our racism and classism don’t come in the form of hatred, but disapproval, suspicion, and support for stereotypes are nearly as bad.

In predominately white, middle-class neighborhoods like Streeterville, Lincoln Park, Lakview, Edgewater, Andersonville, and parts of Rogers Park, long-time residents have grown accustomed to seeing mostly white, middle-class people. Some meet the neighborhood’s standards of behavior and some don’t, but when poor youth of color don’t meet their standards, tolerance quickly runs out.

Poor youth in Lakeview are making efforts to figure out their identities and their lives. Many deal with homelessness, family difficulties related to their sexual and gender identities, economic hardships, difficulty attending school and finding work, and harassment and even abuse from people who should be protecting them. Whatever your race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, or other identities or characteristics, you are susceptible to falling into prejudicial thinking. If a black man of a certain age and style of dress robs a store, all other people that seem or look like him are not also likely to rob a store. There is no need to fear black men or any people group. Violence is to be feared.

In our quest to prevent violence, let’s all be aware of the possibility of our fearful and prejudicial thinking and work tirelessly to make our neighborhoods safe for all—especially those who are most vulnerable.

See also my post from yesterday: "Hoodlums and Thugs" in Boystown

Correction (updated 7/2): The above post alludes to robberies in Lakeview that resulted in hospitalization. In fact, the incident referred to does not appear to have been a robbery. More information here.

“Hoodlums and Thugs” in Boystown

2011-06-28T12:33:00.002-05:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

“Hoodlums and Thugs” in Boystown

“OMG, did you hear about the mob violence during Pride? Some fucking thugs got all ghetto on some people at Pride, and I hear a police officer was hurt. Those people need to take their ignorant asses out of Boystown till they can act right. This neighborhood sure has gone to shit.”

I got on Facebook and saw a picture posted of several (mostly black) people crowded around a scuffle. The comments were flooded with sentiments similar to those represented above.

I was outraged. I was horrified. And I felt incredibly sad. When crowds and alcohol mix, results are often ugly, but the public rhetoric surrounding that picture is focused completely on race, class, and a very limited vision of who is allowed to be in Boystown and a part of Pride.

Who are the “hoodlums”? Well, poor youth of color of course. Everyone knows that the South and West sides are full of them (and even up north in Uptown). That’s why all the peace-loving folks who can afford it move to places like East Lakeview, where they can eat brunch, party, and shop in a place where they feel comfortable. When other people start occupying the same space and make these respectable people feel uncomfortable, well “Uh-uh! Get these hoodlums and thugs out of our neighborhood!”

These are the times when overt racism and classism bubble up and reveal how prejudiced the community really is.

“Now wait a second, there are lots of people of color in East Lakeview who are welcomed and accepted and who are as mad about the hoodlums as whites.” That is certainly true, but take a moment to paint a mental picture of the people of color who are welcomed in East Lakeview and then compare that picture to the mental picture of people of color who are labeled hoodlums. Does the way they dress, speak, or act have anything to do with it? Yes, and that’s why we’ve got a problem. Whether it’s middle-class folks (white, black, or otherwise) who look down on “white trash” or “ghetto trash,” we’ve got a major problem with prejudice in the form of classism and racism.

We often unfairly turn to blame the people we are otherwise made uncomfortable by.

The people loitering on your favorite corner are no longer middle-class people (mostly whites) in their late twenties to mid-forties sipping Starbucks and greeting you when you walk by. Now there are poor youths (mostly of color) who are hanging around, and they not only fail to smile—they seem actually to resent you. Why do they make you feel so uncomfortable?

Because they are loud? Because they aren’t friendly? Because they resent you? Because they remind you that you are privileged? Because they aren’t as respectable as you?

Here are a few truths to help deal with the answers to those questions:
• Middle-class people tend to tolerate the noise when other middle-class people are the ones making it.
• Poor youth don’t tend to warm up to people who think they shouldn’t be around.
• Middle-class people tend to take pride in the fact they aren’t rich, and they resent the fact that much of what they have and do is considered an extravagance by others.
• People—including poor youth—need space to freely explore their gender and sexuality.
• Middle-class people tend to believe in stereotypes about poor people.
• LGBTQ people have always been criticized for not being respectable.
• Respectability is overrated.

The bottom line: Be critical of your own discomfort.

No one likes being called out for racism or classism, but denying the possibility that you could be demonstrating prejudice only confirms the fact that you probably are. This article could very well contain elements of my prejudice, and I want to be open about that possibility and willing to confront and if possible correct it. I hope the rest of the LGBTQ community can be similarly willing to explore how we need to be more critical, respectful, and diligent in pursuing a safe and just world.

I have much more to say about the “hoodlum problem” in East Lakeview, but it will have to wait until next time. Until then, let me just say violence committed by poor youth of color is a shame, but a bigger shame is the rhetorical and political violence committed against poor youth of color by a community that should seek to welcome all who wish to claim it.

Be sure to read my other posts on this topic:
Working for Safety in Lakeview: 3 Suggestions
Safety Concerns Meet Racism in Lakeview?

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. They manage the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

The Gayest Day of the Year

2011-06-14T17:23:00.000-05:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

The Gayest Day of the Year

Sunday is the gayest day of the gayest month of the year. In Chicago, the parade’s official name is the Chicago Annual Pride Parade, but it’s also commonly called the LGBT Pride Parade, PRIDEChicago, and most famously the Gay Pride Parade—and these are just the terms used by parade organizers.

Perhaps you’re reading this on Sunday while comfortably sitting in a lawn chair, beer in hand, staking out the best place for watching the parade. It can’t get any better than this, right? Well, if you’re gay, it is pretty sweet. But what if you are a member of the LGBTQ community but not in fact gay? What does the gayest day of the year mean to you? Well, look no further for a bit of feedback because I’m not gay. I am, however, queer and genderqueer, which I suppose gives me double membership in the LGBTQ community because I’m both a sexual and gender variant. I of course can’t speak for all nongay LGBTQs, but I can tell you that every time I hear “gay pride,” I feel a bit untrusting. Yes, yes, I am all for gays, and I’m all for pride, rights, recognition, fun, and a movement for gay people, but most of the time, the “gay” in phrases like “gay pride” is used as an approximation for all LGBTQ people. As a nongay LGBTQ person, that makes me feel like I’m invisible, or rather that people refuse to see me.

As simple as it may seem, the fact is we’re not all gay, and what makes someone like me different from a gay person is as important to my sense of self as what makes a gay person different from a straight person. We are all human, but even for those of us who experience same-sex attraction and share in common a desire for recognition in a world that devalues us, words like “gay,” “bisexual,” “pansexual,” and “queer” have four very different meanings and consequently represent four very different communities and kinds of identities.

If you’re gay, I imagine you get frustrated when a social or political group you belong to assumes everyone is straight. You may want to yell out, “Hey, I’m here, and I’m gay!” You may well get angry and remind everyone that this group is for you too, and you’re not straight and don’t have to be. Well, we nongay LGBTQs feel similarly. The LGBTQ community is supposedly our social and political group, but often gays just expect us to celebrate their gayness and ignore our own needs and identities.

For gender variant people such as trans and genderqueer folks, “gay pride” can be even more frustrating. There is a whole host of issues related to gender identity that goes completely unnoticed by many supposedly LGBT organizations, and even some organizations that work on trans issues operate in such a way that issues related to sexual orientation always trump those of gender identity. I often hear complaints that trans people are tokenized, meaning organizations and campaigns primarily interested in benefiting gays will claim that they help trans people even though doing so is just an afterthought. Such organizations advertise their connection to trans people as a way of making their work seem progressive and inclusive even if they’re working exclusively for the benefit of gays.

Pride Month and Pride Week can be frustrating for nongay LGBTQs because their invisibility is made even more obvious. Though the parade has many marchers and floats dedicated to quite a few bisexual, queer, and trans causes, we nongay LGBTQs often feel like the tokenized guests at someone else’s party.

In addition to the matter of non-gay LGBTQ invisibility, recent manifestations of Pride Month and Pride Week also represent a major change in what was once a project focused on minority rights, political organizing, coalition building, and visibility. When the Chicago Pride Parade first began, the purpose was overwhelmingly political. The Chicago Dyke March Collective builds upon that tradition, but sadly Chicago Pride has been depoliticized and become all about partying, corporate sponsorship, advertising, and profits. There is of course an attitude of celebration, which is a much-needed political tool, but Pride has definitely lost its intense political edge.

The gayest day of all the year is unfortunately not as wonderful as we may have imagined it was. Not only does it highlight the invisibility experienced by a large non-gay segment of our community, the commercialization of Chicago Pride distracts from the radical political work that Pride was founded in. This year, I encourage you to sit back and enjoy the parade, but once it’s over, get up, take a critical look at all the revelers, the signs, and the trash left in the parade’s wake. Leave motivated to start educating yourself about what needs to change, and join in the work of helping the gay community refocus its energies on being more inclusive and more radically political.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. They manage the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Normal Sex

2011-06-14T17:22:00.000-05:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

Normal Sex

I will try to fight the urge to sing a certain Salt-N-Pepa song right now, but the topic I want to talk about today is sex. Most of us probably grew up with certain expectations about what sex would be like. The typical narrative is that a man and a woman fall in love, fool around a bit, get married, and enjoy a reasonable amount of sex for the next several decades.

It’s clear that this narrative is not quite accurate for most.

Despite the sexual orientation of the majority of Americans, same-sex relationships have proved more suitable for a large number of us. We who are a part of the LGBTQ community have also come to respect the different narratives that we and our peers have written: some spend years frequenting cruising spots, some permanently incorporate such spaces into their lives. Some seek out and value monogamy, and others find it best to embrace open relationships, polyamory, nonmonogamy, or other forms of nontraditional sexual relationships.

As LGBTQs, we’ve all broken with the sexual narrative that has been accepted as the norm, but we don’t always notice that what is typical is changing. Most heterosexual people have also strayed from the imaginary norm. Even those who seem to fit the traditional narrative by waiting to “have sex” until they’re married tend to get quite intimate during the pre-marital “fooling around” phase, often participating in sexual acts ranging from fingering and hand jobs to oral and anal sex—the same acts that often serve as main courses for same-sex couples. Heterosexuals, like LGBTQs, are often becoming more open about their kinks, fetishes, and other sexual interests, preferences, and acts.

We have a history of making a claim to acceptance based on orientation, personhood, and identity rather than acts, preferences, and interests. The logic goes: because homosexuals exist, homosexuality should be accepted and valued. Well, other aspects of sexuality don’t always define our identities but are of value anyway. Our sexual preferences, interests, and chosen acts add great value to our experience of life, and as such can be valued and protected even if—and maybe even because—they don’t define us.

Too often, I hear folks making disparaging statements about others who have attitudes about sex that stray from the norm. For some, monogamy is the imaginary norm they’ve come to expect. For others, nonmonogamy is the expected norm for all progressive people. This column has often critiqued the category of the norm, and today is no different. The norm is imaginary, and the norm is often oppressive. The majority’s experience is not a just reason to determine the lives of the minority, and the minority’s experience cannot be the ruler by which we measure further marginalized minorities or even the majority.

Whatever choices you make, whatever preferences and interests influence your life, don’t think for a moment that you are normal. And don’t think for a moment that you should even want to be. That being said, we’d be unwise to discard all manner of sexual ethics. Though sexual ethics will vary based on our own values, partner expectations, and ethical communities, the BDSMers have a creed that’s an excellent starting point: be safe, sane, and consensual.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. They manage the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Asexuality as Identity

2011-06-14T17:20:00.000-05:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

Asexuality as Identity

“After this failed relationship, I guess I’ll be asexual for a while.” I’ve overheard a lot of people make joking comments similar to this. What they mean is their sexual relationships aren’t quite working out the way they want, so they are accepting their unfortunate circumstances. Though the joke may seem appropriate, such comments ignore the fact that many people are asexual. Asexuals don’t just happen to be sexually inactive at the moment—they actually claim asexuality as a sexual orientation and identity.

In my last column, I pointed out that there’s a difference between romantic and sexual attraction, and we shouldn’t feel bad if we don’t experience one or the other. In fact, there are a number of people who identify as asexual because they do not experience sexual attraction.

The asexual community is actually quite diverse—some seek out romantic partnership, others prefer a solitary life, forming friendships but not partnerships. Some asexuals find partners who experience sexual attraction and choose to engage in sex, some asexuals masturbate only, others prefer absolutely no sexual contact. Some asexuals are homoromantic, some heteroromantic, some are gender variant, others cisgendered. Though the community is diverse, asexuals take seriously their identity. It’s not a joke, it’s not phase, it’s not about sexual repression, and it is very real.

You may go back to your family tree and wonder about an unmarried older relative. “I bet she was gay,” is often the response I hear. Maybe she was, maybe she just didn’t find the right person…or maybe she was asexual. Unlike many other identities, someone’s asexuality is difficult to notice because many pass (often unintentionally) as straight, gay, bi, pan, or any other kind of sexual identity. Because many asexuals are in romantic relationships or even sexual ones, it’s hard for outsiders to identify them. This can be frustrating for many asexuals who feel society has rendered them invisible. On the other hand, it can be frustrating for any of us who belong to sexually variant communities because we’re always being seen only for our gayness, our queerness, our bisexuality, or our asexuality.

I was at an LGBTQ and Women’s Studies conference a couple months ago, and after my presentation on the relationship between asexuality and other queer identities, a lesbian professor made the off-handed comment “I’m not asexual, and I don’t know why anyone would want to be.” I felt devastated. I do not identify as asexual, but I do not consider my queer identity to be an unfortunate circumstance or an unwise choice. Straight people often don’t understand my orientation, my relationships, my life, and my choices, but as a community, we often force them to learn respect, tolerance, and self-education. People who experience sexual attraction often don’t understand asexuality, so it’s time we also learn to hold ourselves accountable.

For more information on asexuality as an identity, check out the Asexual Visibility and Education Network at Asexuality.org.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. They manage the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

7 Things to Consider When Coming Out (as Anything)

2011-05-18T14:59:00.000-05:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

7 Things to Consider When Coming Out (as Anything)

Yes, there are many identities you can claim and come out as. Besides the typical sexual identities that we’re all used to, many people also come out as having a different gender than the one people assume. Others may affirm something most people don’t recognize or that society has devalued. Some examples include coming out as: being fat, undocumented, asexual, polyamorous, or having a disability--whether it’s more visible (like using a wheelchair) or less visible (like having HIV or a mental illness). Though the following list doesn’t apply to all identities, it does expand the typical notion of “coming out,” and it serve as a challenge to many of us who think we have ourselves pretty much figured out.

I was saving this piece for the next National Coming Out Day, but since tonight I’m initiating a long overdue coming out talk with my dad, I thought we could all use the reminder of what to consider when coming out.

1. You can choose your own identity. You may not have chosen the raw material that is your body, genetic background, and the experiences that have shaped your life, but you can choose your identity, which is comprised of both the words used to describe who you are—gay, fat, and butch for example—and the definitions you assign those words. Others may use different words and definitions to describe your life, but you have the option of accepting, rejecting, or modifying what others offer.

2. Identity is rarely stable. The words and definitions you choose to describe yourself need not explain your entire life story or even remain permanent. You may realize later that you were wrong about either the word, the definition, or both, but it’s also possible you will someday realize that you just want something different. Be okay with changing your mind. Don’t worry about “discovering your true identity.” Figuring out today’s identity is a hard enough project.

3. There is a difference between romantic and sexual attraction. Romantic attraction describes what kinds of people you want to date/be partnered with, and sexual attraction describes what kinds of people you want to have sex with. It’s okay to feel none. It’s okay to feel one and not the other. It’s okay to feel one or both in ways that are uncommon.

4. Sexual attraction, gender expression, and gender identity are very mixed up. Sexual attraction is who and what kind of person you want to have sex with, gender expression is how you dress, cut and style your hair, even what kind of underwear you choose, and gender identity is the word you use to name your identity—man, woman, genderqueer, etc. The “do-be syndrome” (questioning whether you want to do someone or be them) may or may not apply to you, but also keep in mind that your sexual or romantic feelings may show up differently when you change your gender identity and gender expression and when you are treated as a different identity. Don’t be afraid to experiment with your gender expression. Doing so does not automatically threaten your gender identity.

5. Your body is your body. It isn’t anyone else’s—your parents’, your partner’s, your friend’s. If you want to change it, you can. If you don’t, you don’t have to. Educate yourself, but be critical of the materials and advice you get. It might take a lot of work, a long time, and maybe money you don’t have, but making goals is sometimes more important than the end result (as if there really were one). Be wary of making decisions to please others or be accepted by others. Be as sure as you can before making big changes, but remember to trust yourself. It’s okay to take years and years to decide if and what changes you want.

6. Be prepared to stray from the paths you’ve encountered. The models of identity you’ve seen (whether straight, gay, trans, genderqueer, asexual, queer, monogamous, thin etc.) may or may not apply to you. You don’t need to conform to other people’s narratives of how and why they came out and who and what and how they live. You can write your own narrative. Be especially wary of narratives that are nonnormative. Just because you aren’t a girly girl doesn’t mean you are a lesbian or that you’re a transman. Consider many options and be critical of each one. Find the identity and expression that best fits your life right now.

7. Take it as slow or as fast as you feel comfortable. Sometimes, people just want to come out and tell everyone all at once. That is great, but it’s also okay to only tell yourself. Tell people as you feel comfortable—just try to be good to yourself. If you want to start looking or acting differently, coming out can help a lot, but it’s not required. Coming out to some people also provides a lot of emotional support that you may need, so consider that as well. Only you can know the right (or necessary) time for when and how you should come out.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. They manage the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Celebrating Characteristics A-Z

2011-05-01T23:08:00.000-05:00

[This is actually from a couple times ago--I forgot to post these in the right order, so here you go. Better late than never I guess!]

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

Celebrating Characteristics A-Z

Imagine a world that rewards all people with “Characteristic X” but punishes people for exhibiting all other characteristics.

This is in fact the world we live in, and Characteristic X can be things like heterosexuality, cisgenderism (not being transgendered), monogamy, or whiteness. Yet sometimes Characteristic X is something unreal and imaginary, and we can get so caught up in the cultural shame, we fail to recognize its impossibility.

Mental illness. There, I said it. Now who wants to fess up and say they’ve got one (or two…or three…)?

Whether we call it mental illness or just issues related to mental health, the LGBTQ population is especially susceptible. Perhaps you’ve been lucky in this regard. Perhaps not. But consider this: perhaps you’re so caught up in the assumption that you are as sane as they come that you haven’t even stopped to consider if your mental health needs some attention.

Characteristic X is perfect mental health, and as we should have figured out by now, perfection is impossible and often undesirable.

When Characteristic X is assumed to be heterosexuality or whiteness, we resist the assumption that sexual and racial minorities ought to be punished for not meeting this standard. We stand up and scream, “We are valuable human beings, and what you say is worthy of shame, we embrace with pride.”

We don’t, however, tend to extend the same logic to issues of mental health. In some ways, it’s for good reason. For example, we who have or do experience depression know we’d rather have it otherwise; however, depression can sometimes be very productive. It gives us new and valuable perspective, it forces us to reassess the paths we take in life, and it sometimes provides the impetus for new motivation, deeper relationships, and richer life experiences.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not suggesting we try to embrace the negative aspects of our life to the point we don’t fight for what we want and need, but I am suggesting there is good in what we often assume is too shameful to even discuss.

In some periods and even still in some communities today, homosexuality is discussed with shame by those who practice it, but we who have learned to turn shame into pride celebrate our sexual identities and embrace how our differences enhance our lives. I wish embracing my sexual and gender identity had not caused me to become alienated from those with whom I once had a strong connection. Yet I celebrate myself, and I labor so that others can see the value I see in myself.

Mental health is not so very different. We may wish the negative aspects were not present, but we must value ourselves enough to turn shame into pride—getting the help we need along the way, grieving for what we’ve lost, but most importantly accepting and loving who we are.

This of course extends to others. So the next time you start to judge someone because of your perception of their mental health, think again. Turn shame into pride, and value the different characteristics that each person offers. The world is much better because LGBTQ people are full of pride. It can be even better when all differences are supported without shame.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. They manage the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Religion and Sexuality: A Reflection

2011-04-21T20:02:00.000-05:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

Religion and Sexuality: A Reflection

When I was 8 I asked Jesus to be my savior. When I was 14, I dedicated my life to the Lord. When I was 20, I told God, “I’ll go wherever you send me.” When I was 24, I came out as queer.

You could say I was a late bloomer in large part because of the sexual repression I had experienced and the limiting cultural and religious environment in which I’d been entrenched. Some people hear my story and immediately understand that religion has done me wrong. That’s at least part of the story anyway. If I had not been surrounded by such a restrictive environment, my life would definitely have been easier, been less filled with shame, loneliness, and at times despair.

The rest of the story, however, is that my life was full of a lot of good. Though many religious arguments ultimately did damage to me, the religious people that surrounded me were full of love and light. They were also filled with some ignorance, bigotry, and misunderstanding, but my life was richer because I knew them. I know everyone can’t say the same thing. In some cases, religious people have been full of hatred, and they’ve used their God and love as weapons, but in my particular case, the damage was not so severe.

My life is better now. I have made peace with my sexuality and with the sense of sexual ethics I have gained from my relationship with God. I am happy to have come out as queer and to have distanced myself from the limiting cultural environments these religious communities foster, but it’s not easy. I am hurt that I am no longer accepted among those I used to call my spiritual family. I am angry that I’ve worked so hard to make them understand, but it so often seems they are incapable. I am offended that those who say they stand for God’s truth misrepresent the God I know, who is loving, is righteous, is holy, and who accepts a wide variety of sexualities.

Judgments and clashes over religious ideology are common—especially between LGBTQs and traditional conservatives, but it’s also common among LGBTQs. Many of you have faced similar issues with religion—whether Christian or otherwise. Some of you may have left religion behind, and some have renegotiated your relationships to spirituality and to certain religious communities. Others of you may have been nonreligious your whole lives yet can’t avoid interaction with those who represent religious perspectives.

I am a Christian, and I regret none of my former or present zeal. I do regret having at times been unwise, uneducated, and judgmental about sexuality—regrets that extend to mistakes I make about other issues today. Whatever your religious situation and your ultimate choice, be wary of making judgments about what religion means to your fellow LGBTQ. Religion may have been used to do a lot of damage to LGBTQ individuals over the millennia, but in wiser, more educated, and less judgmental hands, religion is also a source of much strength for our community.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. They manage the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Musings on Minority Status and Mental Health

2011-04-02T01:23:00.000-05:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

Musings on Minority Status and Mental Health

Despite my title for this week, I’m actually really uncomfortable with the way many gay people refer to themselves as minorities, often making inappropriate comparisons as a way of justifying their political goals (i.e. “Gay is the new black”). Systematic oppression has limited the economic opportunities and political power of generations of people on the basis of such things as race and ethnicity. LGBTQA folks face oppression, and often of an economic and political variety, but minority status for one group is not the same kind of oppression another group experiences. Even if they share similarities, the causes are often vastly different—as are the results. The point I want to emphasize, however, is that regardless of type, all minority groups share one thing in common: they face the difficult challenge of existing in a world that expects them to be otherwise.

We who are a part of the LGBQA community understand what it’s like to exist in a world that expects us to be something that we aren’t. Whether we’re kids, young adults, middle-aged, or aging, we face pressure and judgment from a culture that treats heterosexuality as the only “normal” possibility. Somehow, we’ve managed to “come out” and boldly resist the standards others would try to set for us, but the process is often very difficult.

We who are gender variant experience the pressure to be “normal” in even more dramatic ways. To be gay is often considered strange or sinful, but to identify with a gender that doesn’t fit social expectations is considered even more deviant and abnormal. It seems everyone thinks they’re an expert on who has a “normal” gender and who doesn’t, and transpersons and other gender variant folks have to navigate through all these judgments to find what they want and need.

Resisting societal pressure because of minority status is very taxing to our personal strength, but after some initial difficulties many of us make it through with relative ease. Others of us slog through the best we can, snatching up moments of happiness along the way. Still others of us have an even harder time.

The mental health of the LGBTQ population is often discussed in the media—especially in light of all the recent attention given gay teen suicide, but mental health is not necessarily something spoken about in less formal settings. Despite our reluctance to speak about these things, as a community we face increased susceptibility to such mental health-related issues as depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and self-harm.

1.6% of the general population has attempted suicide at least once in their lifetime, but according to a 2008 publication from BMC Psychiatry, twice as many gays, lesbians, and bisexuals have attempted suicide. A 2010 joint study released by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force reports that 41% of transgender people have attempted suicide in the last year. As startling as these statistics are, suicide is just one aspect of our community’s relationship to mental health issues, but among friends, colleagues, and neighbors, it’s just not something we talk about.

Admitting to issues with mental health is often unthinkable. Such vulnerability makes us feel weak, incompetent, and crazy, but there should be no shame in being real with ourselves and others. The world does not make life easy for our differences. Just as coming out as gay can encourage others who are struggling with their sexual orientation, acknowledging our mental health struggles can provide hope and support for both our friends and ourselves.

Don’t be afraid to share your experience with mental health issues, and when someone opens up to you, support them as best you can. Even if they don’t take you up on offers of support, an ally is always good to have.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. They manage the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Combating Bullying by Affirming Variation

2011-03-13T23:57:00.000-05:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

Combating Bullying by Affirming Variation

In my last column I talked the root causes of anti-gay bullying: the policing of gender norms. Whether it’s chastising your sister because her eyebrows aren’t tidy enough or teasing your friend because his jeans are a little too feminine, enforcing “normal” gender standards on others does nothing but limit the potential happiness of others and the possible range of human expression. We who are LGBTQ understand what it’s like to be pressured into being something we can’t or don’t want to be, so as we think of what must be done to prevent anti-gay bullying, we have to start creating an environment that accepts all kinds of gendered expressions: from showtune-singing men and toolbelt-wielding women to men in heels, women with facial hair, and people with all manner of clothing, hair, ways of looking, being, and talking about themselves.

Despite these insights, the lingering question for many responding to the recent increase in attention to bullying is “Why is anti-gay bulling the central concern?” The short response is it shouldn’t be. Bullying has been a very serious problem for all kinds of people for quite a long time, and it has played a central role in many people’s experience with depression, suicide, and violence. Most kids taunted with anti-gay slurs never end up identifying as LGBTQ—this kind of bullying damages straight kids too. Expecting young people to be and act like a very limited standard of masculinity and femininity is constraining and costly even for those who pull it off.

Maintaining an image is difficult, but it’s something we all end up doing (for good or ill) whether it’s trying to act straight enough, gay enough, masculine, feminine, or some other kind of normal enough. When we can’t pull it off, we’re bullied or we’re reminded in more subtle ways that we need to try harder.

As an adolescent, I was rarely bullied with anti-gay slurs, but I was often treated like I was too fat, not pretty enough, not white enough, not American enough, not Chinese enough, too strange looking, not rich enough, too religious, too smart, too weird, too goofy, and basically not normal enough. For every person, the list is varied in content and length on what we supposedly need to work on to be more acceptable in the world.

Our cultural obsession with normalcy is what causes judgment, which then leads directly to bullying. If we want to stop bullying, we must stop striving after normalcy, stop trying to enforce normalcy on others, and start accepting and affirming variation.

Variation is good. Weirdness is good, and failing to affirm others in their departure from the norm (no matter how weird it seems to you) is just as bad as telling them they shouldn’t be gay because heterosexuality is normal.

The end of bullying may seem along ways off, but we can start now by making sure we’re not supporting the logic bullies use. The next time you start thinking “That is so weird/ugly/too ___/not ___ enough,” challenge yourself to affirm the choices of others. Don’t give up the battle to stand up for the outsider—even the battle taking place inside your head. If you can change your own mind, you’re on your way to changing the world.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. They manage the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

The Roots of Homophobia

2011-03-13T23:55:00.000-05:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

The Roots of Homophobia

A few months ago, the suicides of several young men caused us all to take pause. Some have argued that bullying is an inevitable part of growing up, but the stakes are too high for such easy dismissal.

The world has responded to what we’ve labeled “anti-gay bullying” with campaigns encouraging youth to make it through the difficulties of adolescence so they can experience the happiness that comes after. As much as these encouragements are helpful, some among the LGBTQA community have pointed out that waiting is not an option, and the happiness that comes after is often laced with a whole lot of other difficulties.

Change needs to happen now, but how do we stop anti-gay bullying?

The first step in bringing about change is to reexamine the question. Why is anti-gay bullying our central concern? What about bullying against people because they’re perceived as “too ugly,” “too fat,” “too weird,” “too foreign,” or in some other way too different from the imaginary norm? The gay community of course has an interest in anti-gay bullying, but it’s important that we realize that bullying is the problem—a problem neither limited to gay folks or to young people.

I recently heard Riki Wilchins, a noted writer and activist, give a presentation about the damaging consequences of gender policing. She pointed out that when kids use words like “fag,” “gay,” “sissy,” or “pussy” to taunt each other, it has nothing to do with sexual orientation but rather gender. Adults and children use these kinds of words to correct their peers about meeting the common expectation of masculinity, and the ideal masculinity has less to do with the gender of a male’s sexual partner and more to do with the colors he wears, the inflection of his voice, and the ways he relates with others. Yes, sexual orientation is a part of that masculine ideal, but the bullying is centered on masculine behavior, not sexual orientation.

Whether gay or straight, all kinds of people are confined and damaged by the rigid gender roles perceived as ideal or acceptable, and most of the time we don’t even know we’re being damaged.

Gay people are typically able to express their gender identities in more fluid ways than straight people, but often we don’t even think about the gendered options available to us. What underwear do you wear—boxers, briefs, panties, or thongs? What kind of jeans or shoes do you wear—those in the men’s section or the women’s? If you’re male, have you ever thought about growing your hear long or wearing eye liner? If you’re female, have you ever thought about shaving your head or growing out your facial hair? For the most part, we just accept the gendered boundaries enforced on us. Women shouldn’t have beards, and men shouldn’t wear bras. Why? Because that’s the way it’s always been.

Something the gay community needs to understand is that if we’re going to stop anti-gay bullying, we need to stop policing gender. Sandy Woulard was killed in recent months because she dared to transgress the boundaries of expected gender norms. I would hope you are not likely to engage in ruthless violence and hate, but do you trashtalk those who do not meet your expectation of what a man or woman should do? Do you use words like “tranny,” “dyke,” or “queen” to enforce your gender ideals on others?

As much as we try to eliminate hate and bullying in our own lives and behaviors, our assumptions about what’s “normal” tend to creep in. Be brave enough to admit when you bully others with your actions, words, expectations, and assumptions. If everyone could do that, this world would be a hell of a lot better already.

I’ll return to the topic of bullying in the context of race, class, body type, and ability in my column in two weeks, but in the mean time, I hope that as we fight anti-gay bullying we realize that fighting bullying on the basis of gender expression should be our top priority.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. They manage the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Seven Things Allies (YOU!) Can Do

2011-02-11T13:54:00.000-06:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

Seven Things Allies (YOU!) Can Do

The world is an incredibly unjust place, but one of the best things you can do to make it better is to acknowledge the advantages you receive for being read as “normal” (whether it’s because you’re middle class, formally educated, able-bodied, slim, or not transgendered) and then make the conscious decision to ally yourself with those who are ill treated because they are read as “abnormal.” We all know what a difference it makes when straight allies speak up and become part of overcoming homophobia, and so it’s all the more important that we also come out as allies in the fight against the systems of injustice that devalue the lives and experiences of: ethnic and racial minorities, people struggling to make a living, people struggling to get an education, people with disabilities, transpeople, genderqueer folks, intersexed people, and so many other kinds of people.

So what can you do to be an ally? Glad you asked. Here’s my list of seven things allies (you!) can do.

1. Be responsible for your own ignorance. Although a lot of people enjoy talking about their experiences as a person with disabilities, as a transperson, or as some other kind of minority, there’s nothing more annoying than answering a series of mundane (and often offensive) questions because the person you’re talking to has been too lazy their whole life to try to figure out the answers on their own. Curiosity is a wonderful attribute to have, but when you voice your curiosity about a transperson’s genitals, for example, you’re liable to get smacked. A little research on your own can fill you in on the basics and prepare you for what kinds of topics are not acceptable for randomly bringing up with acquaintances. The internet is a beautiful thing, and never before has it been so easy for you to figure out what you don’t know. Don’t have regular access to the internet? Try the library, use dictionaries, ask friends for books and other reading materials. Yes, research can sometimes be time-consuming and difficult, but don’t you wish all the people you’ve known through the years had been knowledgeable about your identity and what offensive things not to say to you?

2. Listen first, listen second, speak later. The saying goes, “You’ve got two ears and one mouth for a reason.” Sometimes our eagerness to show support can come off as being condescending, creepy, and even rude. Remember that even if you’ve read up on how to be an ally to people with disabilities, you’re not the expert on experiences with disability. Keep your ears open. Be available. Wait for an invitation to be in conversation with someone about disability, but remember you’re here to learn, to show support, and to listen.

3. Remember that there is a time for questions (and that time is usually not now). Similar to numbers one and two, this is a reminder that curiosity is not always a good reason to voice questions about personal issues. What is your waiter’s ethnicity? How’d the guy in accounting lose his leg? What was your transgendered colleague’s birth name? Does your neighbor who has two partners have sex in a group or one at a time? The answers to these questions do seem pretty interesting, yet when you presume to have the right to ask such personal questions, you assert your “normal” privilege in really hostile ways. Wait till you’re close enough friends that the subject comes up more naturally. Even then, ask in such a way that it’s still safe for the person not to answer.

4. Check your privilege. We tend not to notice our privilege till it’s gone. This makes it extremely difficult but also extremely important for allies to be aware of what gives them advantages in this world. Perhaps you can’t change how people read you, but you can try to stop taking advantage of it.

5. Don’t try to prove that you’re an ally. Be an ally because it’s the right thing to do not because you like having a reputation for being a good person. Don’t talk about your support for a minority group so that others think you’re really progressive. Live a progressive life. Stand up and talk about the things that are important to you, but save the “evidence,” name dropping, and showing off talk for the posers.

6. Be understanding, not uncritical. People with disabilities are the experts on disability. Trans people are the experts on transgender issues. But every person experiences these issues differently. Always respect a person’s perspective, but don’t accept it as the gold standard of what it means for all people to have a disability or to be transgendered.

7. Don’t stop caring. A lot of times, people come out as allies for a few months or a couple years and then stop. Maybe you’ve stopped being friends with that transperson from work. Maybe you don’t see your cousin with MS as much because she moved to California. There are all sorts of reasons for losing that heightened awareness that you’re an ally, but don’t stop caring. Look at the world differently. Is it a safe and affirming place for every kind of person? What can you do to work on that? It’s easy to go back to our comforting privileged perspective, but if we want that better world, we have to keep on caring.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. They manage the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Follow up on Sandy Woulard Story

2011-01-28T14:25:00.000-06:00

I've been considering and may again return to the story of Sandy Woulard--a person I did not know, but an important person to my own personal history and political involvement. I've been in a funk and not been writing much, but I hope to again soon.

In the meantime, make sure you read Joseph Erbentraut's very well-done piece on tackling the social problems that make people like Sandy at risk to such horrendous violence. It's from a couple months ago, but definitely worth the reread.

Why You (Yes You!) Should Be An Ally

2011-01-28T09:45:00.000-06:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

Why You (Yes You!) Should Be An Ally

You may be skimming through this article and thinking, “But I’m gay. Why would I need to be an ally?” Well, by the time you get to the end I think you’ll understand.

One of the worst things a society can do is to act as if the experiences of one group is the universal human experience. A conversation I had with my grandfather when I was eight might help explain this problem. All my life I’d eaten white rice with Chinese food, eggs, or occasionally with some meat and gravy dish, but one day I got in an argument with my Anglo-Nebraskan grandfather, who told me rice was a food exclusively served with sugar, cream, and raisins. I was shocked, horrified, and vehemently against the idea of this rice pudding monstrosity replacing or even supplementing rice the way God intended. I insisted that rice was not a sweet food and that everyone eats plain rice, but he argued that it was a dessert.

Even though I am still uninterested in rice pudding, I can now acknowledge that my experiences and preferences are not universal, and the fact that I like plain white rice and am around a lot of people who also do doesn’t mean everyone does or needs to. It’s fairly easy to come to those conclusions when it comes to food, but the difficult history of minority groups in this country has taught us that such lessons are not so easily learned.

Gay people have historically been treated as outsiders and even been labeled sick, sinful, or somehow set apart from the “normal” people. We have all witnessed the social and emotional pain that a belief in “normal” sexuality has caused and have come out against such unfair treatment, but being straight is not the only sign of “normalcy.”

In the US, there is a persistent belief that normal Americans are of white European ancestry, speak English as a first language, are middle class, heterosexual, cisgendered (nontransgendered), Christian, formally educated, able-bodied, slim, and believe strongly in monogamy, raising children, patriotism, and capitalism.

These qualities are great qualities to have and there is quite a large number of people who this description accurately describes, but there is absolutely no reason someone should be given preferential treatment because they fit the description of “normal” more closely than another. Yet this is exactly what happens in most civic, professional, and social environments.

When we’re shown favoritism by coworkers, people in the street, or by larger institutions such as educational systems and the government, we become privileged. We expect that we’ll be treated in a certain way, and we have options for taking action if our expectations are not met. There’s nothing wrong with expecting to be treated well, but the problem is when we demand that we be treated well at the expense of others.

Privilege comes with how we are perceived, so even though I don’t make much money, because I have fairly new clothes, I am perceived as middle-class and therefore able to gain the privileges that come with being fairly well off. For instance, I’m not followed in clothing stores, I am seated right away in restaurants, and I am not harassed by police. If at any time I am, I have the option to fight back through talking with supervisors and appealing to my “upstanding” qualities. If I tell the supervisor, “Your employees should not harass me because I’m not a thief” they will likely not believe me. I might then be tempted to say, “Look at me: I am clean, my clothes look nice, I have a job, I come from a good family, I am a college-educated person—how dare you!” These comments would likely elicit an apology from the supervisor, but appealing to my class, education, and employment only supports a system that would reward that narrow definition of “normal.”

This is where you being an ally comes into play. Look again at the description of the “normal” American and note how many of these qualities describe you. Yes, you may indeed be a minority on more than one count, but it’s time to take a look at all the privileges you do receive for appearing “normal.” This is your starting point for figuring out how you can help make this world a safe and affirming place for every kind of person.

Make sure to read my column in two weeks, which will be titled “Seven Things Allies (YOU!) Can Do” for more specifics on this theme.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Dinosaur Rage

2011-01-28T09:43:00.000-06:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

Dinosaur Rage

My partner T has recently changed jobs, and in her new work environment, everyone assumes she’s like most of the women there who are heterosexual and who value things like getting married or being a good wife or mother. Of course there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being that type of person, but T wants people to recognize her as queer. Even when she tells them, they don’t quite get it because she likes her hair long, wears heels on occasion, yet she’s not a femme. She’s about as much masculine as she is feminine, but no one seems to understand. Common narratives of masculinity or femininity are difficult for her because they’re all too confining—she wants to identify as something unaffiliated.

Our language and culture are not very accommodating, so despite her attempts to be the non-gendered or multiply-gendered person she wants to be, she gets angry when these expectations are placed on her. She’s filled with rage that everyone assumes they know what she is. She jokes that the rage she experiences justifies a new identity as a dinosaur.

It all makes a good joke, but there is a large amount of seriousness involved. Most of us have felt the pain and anger caused by a straight world that expects heterosexuality or assumes stereotypes. The classic protest chant, “We’re here, we’re queer” comes from the same kind of rage against a society that refuses to see us for who we are and what we want to be. For some of our straight friends it’s difficult to understand where some of our anger comes from. Why should we get angry when someone stares at us on the train? Why should we speak ill of overprotective parents who think movies that reference same-sex attraction is too obscene for young people? Open conversations help our straight friends to really understand where we’re coming from and how this rage forms.

The same thing is true when talking about race. Members of racial minority groups sometimes develop negative attitudes because of continued assumptions about who or what people should be based on what they look like. I have a chip on my shoulder about a lot of white people, yet that chip didn’t magically appear. It developed over time through numerous experiences that have taught me many people make assumptions about me and the world based on a very small perspective. I try to be conscious of my own attitudes and work to be fair, but the rage sometimes escapes. If you’ve been asked as often as I have “what are you?” like you’re an alien who requires immediate classification, would you blame me?

This kind of rage can develop in any group of people who’ve been a minority among a larger group that thinks they are the standard for “normal.” These “normative” groups can be straight, white, people without disabilities, middle-aged, middle-class, male, and numerous other possibilities. In the LGBTQAI community, the “normative” group in danger of alienating minority groups are gay men and to a lesser but still present degree lesbians. Bisexual, transgendered, intersex, asexual, queer, and a gamut of other identities are often ignored, or treated as if they should be gay, should be straight, should be “trannies”, or a variety of other things.

One important challenge for any community is to resist the tendency to make expectations and assumptions about people’s identities. It’s difficult especially within communities such as ours, which are based on outsider status, but in such cases it’s all the more important. Even within twice minoritized groups such as transgender or queer communities, there can be a tendency to assume a “normal” narrative of what and who should be considered trans or queer.

We’ve all had the experience of being a part of the minority group. Chances are, we’ve each also participated in the process of alienating a minority group in some manner. It’s unfortunate, but it’s also incredibly important we acknowledge past and present failings so that we can improve and make the present and future what it must become: a safe place for all kinds of people.

Rage is not the most productive of emotions, but understanding how it develops in each of us sheds light on how we can inadvertently cause others to feel similar kinds of rage. So the next time you see someone who is untrusting and maybe has a bad attitude, ask yourself how it developed. What changes can you make, what changes must we make to create a world that is safe for that person? I’ve mentioned gender, sexual orientation, abilities, and age, but what of identities we’ve not even considered? If dinosaur rage can exist, there must be a lot of other kinds and therefore a lot of other work we need to do.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Turning Over a New Leaf

2011-01-05T11:31:00.000-06:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

Turning Over a New Leaf

Congratulations! You’ve survived another holiday season. It’s now several days into 2011, and as many of us switch out the old wall calendar for a new one, we often think of what resolutions we have for this coming year. I am (probably like many of you) promising myself that I’ll eat healthier and exercise more, but I’m also thinking of what my priorities should be for the coming year. I am taking stock of my attitudes toward the unavoidable in my life—school, work, family, relationships, friends, and volunteering. I don’t usually put so much effort into New Year’s resolutions, but this year, the calendar just happens to coincide with some significant changes in my daily routine. As a result, I’ve also been considering the things I’ve not had time for, the things I’ve let slip away during the inevitable busyness of the last year.

I was once an avid journaler. I recall being nineteen, and after many months of writing in the same journal, I reached the end. I had bought a new one with a black cover, a succession of clean, white pages, and as I held this new journal in my hands, I wondered what words, what experiences, what stories would fill these same pages by the time I reached its end. It was thrilling to open to the first page, uncap my pen, and make those first few notes into what I knew it would become—a worn, dusty journal containing the documentation of a life I once lived.

That journal sits on a shelf near my desk, and as I flip through this dusty book, I am reminded of how much I’ve forgotten of that time in my life. On one particularly messy page is an entry about my concern for a friend’s well-being. This guy is still a friend, and the worries I expressed in that entry are very much a continued reality, but I am presently less concerned because the past several years I’ve been so caught up in my own life and my own problems I’ve not often thought about how I could help this friend. As I set the old journal down again, I resolve to call him and if I can, be of some support.

The more I think about making resolutions, the more I come to understand that taking stock of the present and making goals for what I want for the future is not enough. I need to look at the future in light of the past. What has been neglected that I can no longer ignore? What have I wanted and why? Do I like the goals I’ve lately been setting for myself, or are there goals from my past that I still want to pursue?

The LGBT community in Illinois is at a similar moment of reflection. As the passing of the Civil Unions Bill gives same-sex couples a sense of local security and as the repeal of DADT gives us hope that federal change will come, it’s very easy to pat ourselves on the back and say we’ve made it. We might take stock of our current situations and make goals based on what we’ve experienced lately—public validation for gay people through same-sex marriage or positive representations on popular television shows. Yet what has been written in the journals of the struggle for LGBT rights? What has been left out? What do we want to be written? What dreams have been forgotten, what priorities neglected?

There are a lot of possible answers to this question, and though I won’t pretend to know the answers to these questions, I will say I believe our priorities need to be reassessed. Passing the civil unions bill is a big step toward making life easier for many in our community, but what will make life more livable for our homeless youth? What will make life more livable for the poor among us, for those in need of safe housing, access to healthcare, access to legal documents, those contemplating suicide, struggling with addiction, or aging closeted and alone?

Whether it’s a new year or a new stage in the life of our community, as we look hopefully onto the blank page of our immediate future, it’s my hope we turn over a new leaf. The immediate past has been full of activism that is progress, but it helps only some among us while many of the most vulnerable have been neglected year after year. Next year, I want to pick up this messy page and read that we have worked for the most vulnerable in our community, so I pick up my pen, and start writing (and working) on my own personal priorities.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Double Take on Civil Unions

2010-12-07T00:58:00.000-06:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

Double Take on Civil Unions

Because of the tremendous efforts of activist organizations and concerned citizens, civil unions are finally going to be available for same-sex couples in Illinois. This is great news, but there are also other sides to the story. Below I’ve listed three of the big reasons we should celebrate the passing of the civil unions bill followed by some thoughts on what else we might consider as we move forward.

1. The passing of the civil unions bill is a sign that social attitudes are changing. It’s only been 7 years since gay sex has been legal nationwide. Since then, the nation has undergone a major change in its attitudes toward gays and lesbians. Passing laws that protect same-sex couples in the same way different-sex couples are protected sends a message to American society that such unfairness is unacceptable.

Of course the era of equality and tranquility will not arrive when the new law takes effect. It’s easy to assume all of Illinois is progressive when we’re in our accepting work environments, when we eat and shop in neighborhoods like Andersonville and Lakeview, or when our families have become more supportive over the years. Yet not everyone is surrounded by such affirmation.

Though progress is surely on the way, even with civil unions, it’s not here yet. We have to keep coming out and staying proud, protesting bigotry wherever we find it, challenging ignorance even among those we love, and we must keep giving to organizations that work to support our most vulnerable LGBTQAI members. Social attitudes are changing, but not everyone experiences relative freedom. We have to keep working to benefit our entire community.

2. People can now benefit from the rights and privileges civil unions ensure. For many couples, civil unions will allow families to make medical and legal decisions as well as share benefits and property more easily, more reliably, and with less expense. On the one hand, I’m happy this method is now available. It’s simply unfair that different-sex couples have this process available to them while others don’t.

On the other hand, if I want my sister to make all my medical decisions or a close friend to be in charge of my assets should I become incapacitated, I’d have to hire a lawyer, pay a lot of fees, and keep my documents up to date. If our friend MJ were to move in with T and I, she couldn’t be added to my health insurance plan no matter what I pay a lawyer, and why not? The government is only interested in my romantic relationships (only one at a time at that), and my relationship is a central factor in my ability to obtain medical coverage, to share or leave property, and to designate who should make decisions for me.

Should the right to decent healthcare be determined by relationship status? Why should the government favor one kind of family structure over others? Shouldn’t a wide variety of kinship structures be valued? It’s inconvenient that legal protections cost so much and are so difficult to obtain, but why should romantically involved couples (gay or straight) have access to a major advantage while others aren’t? A much fairer system would value the individual no matter what kinship structure is chosen.

3. Civil unions are a step toward full equality. Civil unions are not recognized in all other states or by the federal government, but as more and more states work toward civil unions and ultimately civil marriage, the chances for federal recognition and protection increase.

Marriage is a useful pathway to justice, but it’s my hope that the fight for gay marriage causes state and federal governments to lose interest in the romantic relationships of their citizens. Non-traditional familial structures in all their diversity should have the same access to legal benefits as straight couples. State and federal governments should focus on the individual’s ability to easily, inexpensively, and reliably make and share decisions about their life and property with whomever they choose—regardless of romantic relationships.

As many among us look forward to planning our civil union ceremonies, let’s remember that just because we might taste a bit of justice, these new laws don't actually benefit all. Equality would allow all citizens the same rights no matter what sexual orientation, kinship structure, or chosen life. Let’s keep taking step after step because the road to justice is long indeed.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Of Cereal Boxes and Kinship

2010-12-07T00:56:00.000-06:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

Of Cereal Boxes and Kinship

My last article spoke about dealing with families during the holiday season, and now might be a good opportunity to raise the issue of kinship—especially the queer variety.

We’re used to the idea of family—our parents, siblings, grandparents, cousins, uncles and aunts, and all the rest—but family can certainly extend beyond the biological or legal. These traditional structures are the families that get pasted onto billboards and into television shows, movies, and commercials. Even cereal comes in “family sized” boxes. As ridiculous as such a marketing tool is (buying in bulk doesn’t have to say anything about your kinship structures!), I think a cereal box is a good image for understanding what family and kinship are and can be.

I recently bought a “family size” box of Cheerios. I normally eat a bowl every morning, but my partner T helps herself to a handful or two every now and then. The box is still sitting in my cupboard half-full, and I wonder who will consume the rest of it. Maybe MJ will come over, maybe Jack, and if they’re hungry, I’ll offer them whatever I have. When Isis stays over, she’ll certainly have some. These folks are part of my life, and it’s easy to share my life with them—cereal included. Even though I would share cereal with my parents, sisters, or cousins, I probably won’t since they aren’t often nearby.

A “family-sized” box of cereal is just as likely to be eaten by a husband, a wife, and their kids as it is to be eaten by T, me, and our friends. I’m also more likely to share my cereal with friends than with biological family. In the same way, kinship is a complex structure that is more than just the images of family that society encourages us to accept.

We in the LGBTQAI community have become accustomed to stories of family estrangement and the need for chosen family. We plug ourselves into social networks, political and service organizations, and community groups, but do we ever really consider these friends our family? If we really stop to consider who is important and why, we may discover that our kinship structures are a lot more complex than we thought.

Romantic relationships are similarly complex. Socially, we’ve been taught to accept a husband and a wife as normal. We fight to have same-sex relationships recognized, but are we guilty of being less accepting of other kinship structures? A mom, dad, and some kids are a family. So two dads or two moms and some kids are a family too. But what about two moms and a dad, or two dads and a mom? What about single parents, variantly gendered parents, couples who don’t have or want children? What about individuals who are permanently single? What about polyamorous configurations in all their diversity?

The lesson we should learn from the difficulty in gaining recognition for same-sex couples is that kinship is as diverse as the people who comprise them, and the structures that work for some do not necessarily work for others.

Perhaps “family” will never lose its biological and legal context, but there is a certain warmth in the word. I hope you cherish your kinship relationships in whatever form they come. I hope too we do more than tolerate alternative structures and affirm them just as we wish ours to be affirmed.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Dealing with Family and Keeping Sane over the Holidays

2010-12-07T00:54:00.000-06:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

Dealing with Family and Keeping Sane over the Holidays

It may not seem like it quite yet, but the holidays are quickly approaching: Christmas music is playing in stores, Starbucks has red wintery cups, and our coveted vacation days are fast approaching. Whatever holidays we observe, his time of year is supposed to be happy and wonderful, but more often then not, it ends up too busy and extremely stressful. Holiday pressure only becomes more complicated when we have to consider our families and the expectations they have for us.

Happiness seems far away when all we want is acceptance, but for many of us LGBTQAIs, mothers cry, fathers disapprove, siblings say terrible things, and grandmothers refuse to talk about it. Family gatherings are often pressure-filled opportunities for us to feel strange, unloved, and pushed back into a closet. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do but bear it, but that means being good to yourself is all the more important. To help us as we enter this holiday season, I have four reminders for we who scurry around trying to please family and keep sane.

Don’t be afraid to say no. My grandma never liked Christmas, and when my uncle died one December, Christmas became even more difficult for her. For the sake of children and grandchildren, she has bravely endured the holidays year after year, but I know she’d rather skip the whole thing and stay home reading a book. I admire her devotion, but at some point, you’ve got to just say no.

Sometimes, you just can’t not show up for the holiday gathering, but don’t let your feelings get swept under the rug. Every year, people try to get my grandma interested in shopping, watching holiday specials, or cooking special foods, but she says no. She brought a ten-dollar bill for each kid, a frozen apple pie, and her books, so we leave her in peace to read. Like her, you may need to make room for yourself in the social systems your family creates. So tell your mom you’re bringing your boyfriend for dinner. Tell your dad you’re playing by his rules this year, but next year will be different. Tell your nieces and nephews you love them dearly, but you hate the sugar cookie tradition and this year you’re bringing Oreos.

Savor time with your chosen family. Many in my family disapprove of “my lifestyle,” and when I’m with them, I feel out of sorts and not myself. When my chosen family gets together though, whether at a restaurant or someone’s house, I feel just fine. We love each other, support each other, sometimes get on each other’s nerves, but mostly just enjoy each other’s company. Because these relationships are so fun and often easy, when it gets busy we tend to push them down on our priority lists, but even when you have more social obligations than time, remember your chosen family. You need them just as much as they need you.

Be nice to your given family. When family is unsupportive or just plain stubborn, we wish we could just forget them. I think it’s worth considering whether or not your birth family should play a significant role in your current life, but no matter what you do, remember to be kind. Make decisions that are good for you and fair to them, but even when your family is dead wrong, the pain they feel is very real. Demonstrating kindness during difficult times is never the wrong move.

Give where it makes a difference. Be good to yourself, make decisions that are good for your mental health (and your credit score!), but remember there are a lot of people suffering in this city. It’s good to be reminded what they’re going through and help where you can. Your aunt may never come around to appreciating what you have to offer, so trying to impress her with your green bean casserole may just be a frustrating waste. The folks down at North Shore Housing and Support Services, however, would love a good casserole. When you use your resources to serve those who actually appreciate it, everyone wins.

You deserve sanity (and happiness too). The holidays are hard, and family even harder, but be good to yourself, and you’ll make it through. You might even find a little happiness along the way.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Community (Not the TV Show)

2010-12-07T00:51:00.000-06:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

Community (Not the TV Show)

The past few months I’ve been in hiding. Several major projects have been demanding my attention, but locking myself away from the eyes of people I know has also been rather empowering because it’s freed me to consider myself and my possibilities apart from the people I’m usually close to. It may seem like a sad and cold existence, but there are times in every person’s life when solitude is useful, comforting, and empowering.

It is comforting, and as much as I’ve tried to make use of these months alone, lately I’ve been reminded how important being a part of a community is even if my immersion in it only happens in waves.

I saw a friend yesterday, a person I love dearly but hadn’t seen in a while. He was struggling, and I reached out to him. I’m not silly enough to think I solved any of his problems, but opening ourselves up to each other and sharing hugs between tears meant something—to him and to me—and it means something still. We both left somehow changed even if it was all confusing.

It’s hard to figure out exactly what that moment meant, and the general meaning of community is similarly elusive. All I know is there are hurting people in every social circles we navigate through each day, and it’s a damn shame if we regularly hide from those with whom we could form real bonds.

I love the term “fellowship.” It makes me hungry actually because in my growing up years, fellowship meant there would be food. The truth of the matter is that when there’s food, people tend to let their guards down, let go of their private thoughts, and start acting like family. Fellowship can even be a kind of meal: we feed each other with our words and our support.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting we all go out into the world trying to feed everyone with our great wisdom and experience. We may indeed have something to share, but when I sat down with my friend the yesterday, I felt community most intensely when I wasn’t saying a word. I felt incredibly close to him when my mouth was shut and when my whole heart and body was in tune with what he was saying and feeling. His pain was heavy, and by sharing it with him for just a moment, I felt its weight.

Community is not just a fun television show, and fellowship is not always a carefree meal. Both require a willingness to suffer, a commitment to learn, and an acceptance of ambiguity. I will never know what it means to feel the pain my friend is feeling, and to presume I know would only hurt him more. Being in community means opening ourselves up to learning what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes and feeling their pain with them.

Of course it also means celebrating the good things and trying to find solutions for the bad, but it seems the most ignored aspects of being in community are the moments we let go of our self interests and focus on the joys and pain that someone else is feeling.

We can also extend this discussion to larger groups. For example, when gay men on the north side of Chicago spend time among themselves, they gain a sense of comfort and empowerment, but if they were to consistently isolate themselves from other groups, they would lose the potential for being in community with lesbians, bisexual men and women, queer and trans people, and the whole spectrum of LGBTQAI identities, ethnicities, abilities, and backgrounds.

Queer homeless youth in Boystown are harassed by police on a regular basis. You don’t have to be homeless, trans, or 16 to feel something with these young people or to find and listen to their stories. You may not know what it all means, but feeling sorry for them only further separates you from them. Being in community means listening to them, feeling their joys and pain with them, and struggling with what it all means.

Whether you sit over coffee comforting a friend or sit at your computer reading about the experiences of homeless youth, community is a powerful thing. It’s sometimes heavy, but even though I puzzle over its meaning, I guarantee community is transformational.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Coming “Out”

2010-10-05T14:26:00.000-05:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

Coming “Out”

October 11th was National Coming Out Day. Most people I meet know I’m not straight, but here’s my confession: I haven’t told anyone I’m genderqueer.

Well, there you go. Maybe you don’t even know what that is, and for now, I’ll just say it’s a kind of transgender identity. My heart’s racing even as I write this—I’m new to saying it to myself let alone others, and I also hesitate to commit to a label. It makes me nervous to come out in public, but I’m putting myself through this exercise because lately it’s become all too apparent that LGBTQAIs need to know they’re not alone.

In the past several weeks, seven young people have committed suicide, and all seven were being harassed because they were gay. Reading what little is available about their lives and deaths is heartbreaking and has left me wondering what I can do. Many have participated in vigils, suicide prevention events, and have promoted organizations like the Trevor Project. Others, like Dan Savage, have turned to internet forums like YouTube to share stories about how we can make it through the hard times.

Gender identity and sexual orientation are sensitive areas for many children, teens, and adults, but there are as many sites of conflict as there are kinds of people and types of personal expression. People are discriminated against and sometimes taunted everyday on the basis of things like economic status, clothes, body size, accent, language, ethnicity, disability, hobbies, interests, and so much more.

I can attest to the fact that it’s been hard. I was told repeatedly that I was not feminine enough. I was mocked, called names, and spit on because I was too quiet, not white enough, and not “American” enough. I was made to feel ashamed because I didn’t weigh the same and dress the same as everybody else. As an adult I often face derogatory comments, unfair treatment, and judgmental attitudes from strangers, peers, and even family. I’ve been depressed. I’ve considered suicide.

Though mine is a common story, it shouldn’t be; children should not expect to go through this and worse. The adage “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger” fails to account for the many who die despite their strength. In the past few weeks, seven people died because the world treated them like they weren’t wanted. Whether it’s because people think they’re too fat, too brown, too loud, or too gay, this is unacceptable.

We tend think of ourselves as underdogs because as LGBTQAIs we’re a minority class. We watch Glee and think that because we root for the unpopular kids we’re safe people, but bullying doesn’t end when we’re not in school anymore. Office gossip, email, Facebook, texting, and blogs like People of Walmart give people of all ages the opportunity to judge, belittle, and devalue individuals and types of people. The sad thing is we’re rewarded when we log in, giggle, and pass it on: we assert our membership in the “in” crowd.

Being a part of the “in” crowd isn’t worth it. We’re not in high school anymore, and it wasn’t even cool then.

Gloria Anzaldúa writes about el mundo zurdo—the left-handed world—which is home to all the queers, misfits, and outsiders the “in” crowd rejects. Being a part of this kind of outsider community is difficult because everyone is so different, but what can hold it together is the knowledge that the “in” crowd isn’t always right. It’s an easy thing to forget—especially when it seems so natural to make fun, to laugh, or to say nothing when someone reveals their judgmental attitudes.

Being LGBTQAI is one thing, but to come out as an ally to all kinds of misfits and rejects is about practicing justice and doing good more than claiming a label. Being a member of the “out” group means being a safe person and making every environment you’re in a safe space.

So let’s go ahead and come out, tell our stories, and remind others that they’re not alone. Things will get better, and life does get more manageable. The world can even get more welcoming…one person at a time.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

My “Dorky” Identity

2010-10-03T21:29:00.000-05:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

My “Dorky” Identity

Little known fact: I’m a huge dork. Actually, that’s been a fairly consistent aspect of my being for as long as anyone has known me. For Halloween one year, I dressed up as a super-hero version of myself named Super Chu. I made a chest logo with puff paint, an elaborate utility belt equipped with a banana gun, and even attached a cape that the night before had served as my bed sheet. Then I insisted on wearing it all to school. Did I mention I was 16 at the time?

Of course these dorky tendencies had begun much earlier in life. At seven, I could not stop telling (and laughing about) unfunny knock-knock jokes; at ten, I sang Christmas carols to my dogs. One day when I was eleven, I was told to fold the laundry. My mother, a well-endowed and curvy lady, was quite surprised when twenty minutes later I came into the living room modeling her underwear and bra, both of which were stuffed with an assortment of clean (but unfolded) whites. A chic pair of violet suspenders brought some unity to the whole ensemble.

I could describe a large array of past dorky behavior, but there is an actual point in all of this reminiscing: my identity was not self-evident. I did not come out of the womb and into the world with the letters “D-O-R-K” tattooed on my skin and its Webster’s definition applied to my life. When I walked into school on October 31, 1997, I was labeled “dork” not because my appearance and behavior were inherently dorky. I was given that label by classmates who recognized some aspect of how I appeared and connected it with a pattern they had come to associate with words like “dork” or maybe “nerd” and “weirdo.”

What does “dork” even mean? It’s just a string of letters, some vibrations in your throat that sound a certain way. This and every word has a certain etymological history which shapes its use, but language is a living, vibrant, and changeable structure. Words come to mean different things over time and across contexts. What is dorky today may mean something entirely different ten years from now.

In this case, the word is “dork,” but in other cases the words may be “woman,” “gay,” “trans,” “Asian,” “disabled,” “queer,” or any other variety of identity categories. Every word is relational—the person being called “dork” or “gay” may claim that identity or refuse it or be indifferent about how others think of them.

The point I want to make is that identities come in a lot of different forms, and everyone probably claims multiple identities on the basis of things like race, gender, sexual orientation, maybe even occupation, sports affiliation, or hobbies. And just as every person is different, so does each person experience identities in different ways. Some people are born being called male and claim maleness and socially defined masculinity as an identity and a value. Other male-assigned people may decide to adopt traditionally feminine interests and attributes but still claim and assert masculinity in those settings. Still other people assigned male at birth may refuse to accept that identity and permanently claim a female identity or some other very personal mixture of what we commonly associate with masculinity and femininity.

The same may be true for other identities. Words are just words, and the meaning changes constantly. We may be forced to confront the words and meanings others like to assign to us, but it’s important that we as individuals name ourselves and make choices about how we want to live and be in this world.

I may have been called a dork from a young age, but I do not need to accept the whole identity. Today I claim a bit of that dorkiness, but tomorrow I may refuse to be called one.

I sent a text to T today that ended in “(smmoooch!).” When she reads it, she will probably think “Wow, I’m partnered to such a dork,” but if she doesn’t also smile and feel loved, she probably doesn’t know me very well.

I can change. I can stay the same. I can attempt to control how those close to me perceive me and maybe work to make society see me in a certain way too. Yet even when no one understands, I name myself, and I negotiate my own identities.

There are some who say “I was born this way” and feel it very strongly. I tend to think yes, you were born a certain way, but the words that people use—whether good or bad—shape how we understand ourselves.

Is there a binary or spectrum for dork to cool, gay to straight, or female to male? Frankly, it doesn’t matter. You be you or some version of yourself. Let those around you be their version of themselves. All the rest is just words.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Little Things

2010-10-03T21:26:00.000-05:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

Little Things

It’s the Sunday night before Labor Day. My partner and I walk down the stairs of the el station after enjoying a dinner out. Inwardly, I groan when I see how crowded the platform is; I had thought the crowds would have thinned by ten. At the bottom of the stairs, my eyes are immediately assaulted by the sight of a young straight couple locked in slobbery embrace despite the dozens of people standing in very close proximity. I look to my left, and another couple is standing close by, kissing every few seconds, the man’s hands resting inside the woman’s back pocket. I mutter a bit too loudly, “What the fuck.”

I’m disgusted by their blatant heterosexual privilege. I’m probably jealous too because when T and I hold hands, or give a peck on the cheek, we’re stared at, judged, spoken of like freaks, called out to, or worse. Mostly, I’m angry at the crowd because no one is batting an eye. If I did something similar, all hell would break loose, but this scene on the platform is normal?

T gives me mean looks. She gets annoyed when I let myself get upset over little things.

Two trains later, we finally get enough nerve to squeeze ourselves into a car, and after several stops, there’s a little room to breathe. Eventually we find seats. All the passengers seem exhausted after being packed sardine-style for so long, and everyone is quiet. Everyone but one guy, who breaks the silence to very loudly hit on a girl. The girl is being more than polite, but she’s not interested. T seems embarrassed for them both. I roll my eyes.

As the train car moves further and further north, a murmur of chatter begins again. Suddenly a loud voice says in ultra-stereotyped feminine ditziness, “Show me, I want to see everything!” A young woman is carrying on wildly with a guy who I had noted earlier was alone and looking very drunk. I am beyond annoyed. Is this what it means to have a “normal” sexual orientation and gender identity? If so, I’m thanking the Lord I’m as queer as they come.

Still, what if some guy tried hitting on another guy? The whole car would be staring and whispering disapprovingly. Some jerk might even start something.

As T and I breathe fresh air on the sidewalk leading home, I grumble about “damn breeders,” and T tells me how one of her students asked about whether gay people can oppress straight people. The student had been called a breeder and been made to feel unwelcome. T told her class that in order to oppress, one has to have power, and though this student had obviously been treated rudely, it takes the misuse of power to produce oppression.

Had we really been oppressed that night? Well, we’d certainly avoided a lot out of a desire to prevent problems. T and I held hands on the street, but not on the platform. We kissed briefly in the restaurant, but not when very many people were around. I had thought of wearing a tie but decided I’d rather not deal with any unwanted attention. Maybe we were being overly cautious, but most of these decisions were made unconsciously. The bottom line is that the anticipation of negative attention should not be as commonplace as it is.

So, yes, we had been oppressed in a way. Still, I had not really felt oppressed, just upset and annoyed by the little things. The people I got annoyed with didn’t realize they made me feel like an outsider. Everyone was just doing their thing, and for the most part, there’s nothing wrong with that. My anger was a little misplaced. The problem is not straight couples but a social system that encourages everyone to accept some behaviors as “normal” and others as not.

Am I powerless? No. In many ways, I have more power than a lot of the people on that train, and that means I have the responsibility to try to keep myself from making others feel like freaks. But how often have I judged a person based on their appearance? How many times have I thought I knew better when I didn’t even fully understand the situation? How often have I made assumptions about someone based on a stereotype?

Yes, we as a community face oppression, but we are often in a position to misuse what power we have and thereby oppress others. We may not even know we’re making anyone feel like an outsider, so let’s be tireless in learning about our own privilege and fighting against social tendencies that mark some folks as “normal” and others not. It’s little things that need to change, but it will take more than a little effort. I think we’re up for the task.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

New Title and a Little Queer Reflection

2010-08-17T00:29:00.000-05:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

New Title and a Little Queer Reflection

After over a year of running this column under the title Feminist Thoughts, I’ve decided to switch it up a little and offer more of an accessible title for all the people who think feminists are just hairy-legged, bra-burning lesbians. (But for the record, though I do have hairy legs and am not currently wearing a bra, if my partner T were a man, transman, bi-, pan-, omni-, or ungendered person, I’d totally be into her/him/hir).

My first article for Gay Chicago Magazine addressed the word “queer,” and since my blog and new column title are both Keeping It Queer, I think it’s fitting we return once again to that term.

A lot of people are offended by the word “queer,” and I don’t blame them. If someone goes around menacingly calling you ugly, it isn’t pleasant when one of your supposed friends calls themself or others ugly. If for you the word queer is tinged with accusations, shame, and pain, I’m sorry. Try though if you can to understand how and why others may choose to reappropriate and use that word.

In its original contexts, “queer” just means different, strange, eccentric, maybe even suspect. It later acquired more negative connotations, leading eventually to its perhaps familiar usage as a derogatory term for homosexuals. My question, and the question a lot of people are asking is What’s wrong with being different, strange, and maybe even suspect?

In this world, gender variant and same gender loving people are despised, and when they are tolerated, they are expected to at least stay out of the way and act as much like straight people as possible. In recent years there has been so much attention on topics like gay marriage and adoption by monogamous gay couples that other kinship structures are ignored and often criticized. LGBT people are normal—that recognition is what we’re fighting for, right?

Choosing to be known as different or strange and aligning oneself with what is suspect is a way of trying to resist the social structures that mark some people as inside the norm and others outside. If all respectable people have good table manners, claiming to be different/strange/suspect means showing up at the table making use of your elbow patches and chewing with your mouth wide open.

In my first article in Gay Chicago Magazine, I used “queer” as an umbrella term for LGBTQAI identities. Over the course of my time writing this column, though, I’ve realized I was wrong.

Queer has so much of its own specific cultural and political meaning. People who identify as queer (not as say “gay” or “bisexual”) tend to understand themselves as relating to a community quite a bit smaller than the larger LGBTQAI crowd. Queer-identified folks tend to spend more time with trans and gender variant folks and many from those subsets consider themselves queer. There are specifically queer dance parties, social groups, blogs, zines, discussion groups, artistic collectives, political organizations and more.

When I identify as queer, I like that saying “I’m queer” allows me the ability to identify the group of people I share political and social kinship with but also the freedom to name myself with as much or little detail as I feel comfortable sharing. I’ve quickly found that to use “queer” as an umbrella term is as insufficient as calling the LGBTQAI-and-all-the-rest community “gay.” It often gets the meaning across, but it’s not really accurate.

I hope to keep the title Keeping It Queer longer than I did Feminist Thoughts. Though I’ll still be writing feminist articles, I write for the unity and encouragement of the LGBTQAI community as a whole and from a distinctly queer perspective. From what I can tell, there isn’t a thing wrong with being different, strange, or eccentric, and if aligning oneself with the suspect can help other disenfranchised folks find commonalities with our communities, well, I hope you too will lend a hand in keeping it queer.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Misperceptions and the Media

2010-08-17T00:25:00.001-05:00

Keeping It Queer
By Erica Chu

Misperceptions and the Media

How often are there big-name actors playing gay roles in movies you can see at any major theater franchise in the country? Well, there was Philadelphia (1993), Brokeback Mountain (2005), and Milk (2008)—all receiving incredible box office success and at least two Oscars each. And movies about gay women? Well, there are fewer to choose from, and even fewer portraying the lives of transgendered or queer people (notable among these are Boys Don’t Cry and Transamerica).

Into this relative void of sympathetic representations of lesbian life comes Lisa Cholodenko’s new film The Kids Are All Right, which has been getting a lot of attention in part because the lead actors are incredibly famous and talented. Julianne Moore and Annette Bening play a partnered couple who have two teenage children.

This past week, my partner and I decided to go check out this movie even though up to that point we’d heard nothing about it. I was prepared to like the film, and as I settled into the characters, story, and plot, I became more and more disappointed. (Spoiler Alert—in what follows I will mention some of the important plot elements). The disappointments I just can’t get over are:

1 – Despite their acting talent, the version of intimacy this film produces looks very much like two strangers putting their arms around each other in desperate attempts to convince the audience they could have lived in the same house for twenty years.
2 – The couple’s son asks if they thought he was gay. They both reply “Of course not!” as if being gay were a completely unnatural thing that no good mother would ever suspect their child of.
3 – When Moore’s character makes the unfortunate choice to cheat on her partner with a man, she looks at his penis like she’s been pining away her whole life in distressing need of what only a male’s genitals can offer.
4 – There are three characters in the film who aren’t white. Each one is a canned stereotype (lazy manual laboring Latino, exotic and sensuous racially mixed woman, and nerdy and passive Asian American male), and each is casually used and abruptly dismissed by one of the white main characters.

What bothers me so much is not that these things happened in a film that I was watching but that they happened in a film that everyone is raving about. Yes, I was thoroughly impressed with quite a few aspects of the film. Yet as the lights turned on and all the upper middle-class white heterosexual couples started jabbering about how this was such a powerful film and how Moore and Bening should both win Oscars, I started to feel a little queasy. All these people were fooled into believing this film depicts life as lived by lesbians—even a pair of very messed up ones. And it seemed to me that the audience was congratulating themselves on having such progressive views. Of course they don’t mean lesbians and racial minorities any harm, but limited and skewed assumptions do harm against individuals and communities every day.

As a queer woman of color, it’s disturbing that their view of our lives could be so inaccurate and even offensive. It makes me angry. It hurts. It gives others leeway to render me invisible.

It would be easy to just throw up my hands, spit complaints of fire, and go on, but this whole situation also makes me a little terrified about my own views. What do I quietly congratulate myself for? How do I know that my thoughts about particular kinds of people aren’t canned images thrown at me so frequently that I accept them as reality?

Confronting our cultural views with suspicion is one of the most difficult things we can do, but it’s necessary if we are going to see the world for what it really is and if we’re going to work toward any kind of justice. I hope movies, television, and the media at large make us angry sometimes, but let’s not lose sight of where that momentum can take us. We who’ve been misperceived also have may be guilty of similar crimes.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Are You A Closet Feminist?

2010-08-17T00:19:00.000-05:00

Feminist Thoughts
By Erica Chu

Are You A Closet Feminist?

I’m contemplating changing the name of this column because I’m afraid the “Feminist” bit might seem a little scary to some and too specific to others. Before I do though, I better take the opportunity to talk about what all these hairy-legged, bra-burning radicals have to offer.

First off, the stereotype isn’t really accurate (unfortunately perhaps), but in mainstream culture there definitely is a sense that feminists are overzealous women on the fringe of sane society. We who move among the LGBTQAI crowd know a little better, but let’s be honest, even in our community feminists have a bad rap. With the label comes the image of an ultra sensitive bitchy woman unwilling to enjoy conversation that is not critical of everyone and everything.

Well, let’s just put away the vicious stereotypes—I think we can all understand that when you’re in a heterosexist or sexist world, sometimes you have to go ahead and say the unpopular thing. We could go ahead and actually look at what feminists believe, but it’s easier said than done because “feminism” is a term claimed by many many different types of people.

Some organizations have longstanding reputations for setting standards about what feminism is, and they tend to say that feminism stands for abortion rights or the protection of women from a prominent rape culture. Some say feminists value and celebrate womanhood or they work for female empowerment. This group may look to conservative figures like Elizabeth Dole or Sarah Palin for examples of positive feminist models. How are we supposed to know who’s right, and who’s wrong?

Some feminists are content to say feminism is a term in flux, so we shouldn’t try to pin it down. They may have a point, but I’ve found bell hooks very helpful on this front. She says we need a clear definition because there must be a goal we work toward. According to hooks, “Feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression,” and feminists ought not value women over men or any specific race or class over another. Sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism, homophobia, cisexualism, and transphobia are all matters central to this definition of feminism.

In this light, Dole and Palin may be interesting female figures, but they are no feminists. Some organizations invoking their status as feminist are only operating in partial support of feminism since they may focus on issues specific to only a certain class and perhaps religious and ethnic background as well. Significantly, these organizations deal almost exclusively with issues specific to heterosexual cisgendered women (heterosexual women assigned female at birth).

Even some LGBT rights organizations only partially fulfill a feminist mission because they cater to the majority of LGBT people (that is, GLBs). These organizations focus on immediate success even if it’s at the cost of fairness. Take for example the issue of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, which for years only took up the issue of sexual orientation because it was more likely to pass in a form that excluded the needs of transpeople. In other situations, the focus on predominant groups (such as white GLBs) puts ethnic and gender minorities at risk especially when public funds and private donations are scarce.

To be feminist is to do so much more than complain that men are called bachelors and women spinsters. Feminism may be that too, but it also deals with issues the LGBTQAI community holds very dear: human rights, safety, respect, equal protection under the law, justice, and changing the world.

Feminism has the potential to transform the lives of every person, so even though being a “feminist” seems to have negative stereotypes attached, don’t be afraid to speak and act with confidence against sexist oppression. You don’t have to claim the name “feminist.” The important thing is to be someone who supports and advocates feminism.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Queer/Trans 101

2010-07-19T13:20:00.000-05:00

The following is a handout I prepared for a workshop at Broadway United Methodist Church. The workshop was an introduction to Queer and Trans issues. Other workshops in the series specifically addressed sexism and racism. Because we weren't able to have a workshop specially dedicated to disability and body image, I also included a brief disability keywords section at the end. The handout is not comprehensive, and definitions may be simplified and un-nuanced, but for a very general audience, this information may be very useful.

Education Hour, Broadway UMC, June 20, 2010

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” Col 3:28

Introduction to Trans and Queer Identities

Gender: In common usage, “gender” is typically used interchangeably with “sex” and is used to refer to the condition of being either a man or a woman. In more specific conversations, the term refers to a wide range of behaviors, social roles, and identities. For example, gender can be used to describe large categories like “men” and “women” as well as gendered roles among men or women (such as “femme,” “butch,” “top,” and “bottom”). Gender is also used to describe cultural or personal practices that are perceived as “masculine” or “feminine” (such as wearing makeup or sitting with your legs far apart).

Most scholars emphasize that gender roles are socially constructed: For instance, in the US men typically do not wear dresses while women are encouraged to. It’s not that wearing a dress is more natural or right for women; rather American boys are taught by their families and schools that dresses are inappropriate attire for boys, and the rest of American media and culture support and enforce that view.

Sex: The condition of being male or female. These categories have traditionally been determined by the presence or absence of a combination of factors including: penis, vagina, testes, ovaries, uterus, levels of testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone, and X and Y chromosomes.

Many scholars argue that sex is also socially constructed. They ask if the definitions of male vs. female stable are over time, and whether these definitions are adequate. For example: If a “man” has a penis and testes but is unable to produce sperm, is he male? If a “woman” goes through menopause and takes estrogen and progesterone therapy, is she still female? If a child is born with neither a recognizable penis nor vagina, what sex is the child? If a “woman” with breasts, functioning ovaries and uterus takes a gender test and is found to have chromosomes other than XX, is she female?

Intersex: A person born with genitals that medical professionals consider ambiguous or a person with genetic information that results in uneasy or impossible classification within the XX or XY binary is an intersex person or person with intersex. Because our culture so highly values sex/gender, in most countries intersex is medically classified as a disease whose treatment is surgery typically performed on babies followed by hormone treatments at puberty. Parents are typically uninformed about any other options. Very often, babies with intersex are categorized as female because doctors find it simpler to shape a clitoris than a penis. The medical community typically believes that it’s better to cut an intersex baby’s genitals to the size of a “normal” clitoris than to allow the child to grow up as a female with a large “clitoris” or as male with a small “penis.” These procedures often result in the inability of the adult to experience sexual climax.

An intersex movement has been gaining more attention in recent years. Many adults who were medically diagnosed as intersex are coming out as intersex. Others argue that “intersex” should not be recognized as a category because it was entirely invented by the medical community to enforce sexual difference and gender roles. Many prefer that intersex or disorders of sexual development (DSD) remain strictly within the confines of the medical establishment; they say that people with intersex belong as much to the LGBTQA community as persons with any other medical condition. Most people with intersex would not classify themselves as trans or queer, but all three groups experience oppression from the medical and social establishments for not adhering to strict gender norms. In addition, Cheryl Chase and the Intersex Society of North America has worked together with trans people and organizations to develop theoretical ground that would benefit both groups.

Queer: Many people use “queer” as an umbrella term for lesbian, gay, and related sexual orientations, but a definition that is more congruent with the Queer in LGBTQAI is an identity that acknowledges the constructedness of the categories of sexual orientation (gay or straight), sexual difference (male or female), and gender roles (being a “real” man or woman). Those who claim a specifically queer identity emphasize the choices they make to create their own identity apart from societies that value adherence to specific kinds of gender and sexual norms.

In a world where we’re constantly given directions to “check the box that describes your identity,” a queer identity chooses a mode of expression that purposefully disrupts the assumptions behind such directions.

Cisgendered: A person with one of two gender identities that is recognized by society as matching the sex one is assigned at birth. For example, a person who adopts male pronouns, a male social role, and who has had a medically recognized penis and testes since birth. Most people are cisgendered. Using the term cisgendered recognizes the fact that traditional gender/sex combinations are not natural but have been culturally constructed.

Transsexual: Someone who adopts a gender role that society recognizes as opposite the sex they were assigned at birth. Transsexuals use surgery or hormones to modify their bodies. Examples are FTM (Female to Male) transsexuals and MTF (Male to Female) transsexuals.

Transgendered (Trans): A person with one or more gender identities that do not conform to traditional definitions of gender. Transgender is often considered an umbrella term that includes transsexuals, cross dressers, drag queens, drag kings, genderqueer folks and androgynous persons (among many others). All trans identities can contain folks of any sexual orientation or preference.

Transgender is often used more specifically to describe those who adopt a gender role considered opposite their assigned sex and who do not use surgery or hormones to modify their bodies. Examples are FTMs and MTFs.

Genderqueer: Similar to the definition for “queer,” “genderqueer” refers to expressing one’s gender identity outside of the binary of male or female. There are many possibilities within the genderqueer category; examples are those who alternate gender roles and pronoun use and those who prefer gender neutral pronouns, but there are many others.

Gender Neutral Pronouns: Many gender variant/ gender nonconforming people prefer gender neutral categories. Instead of He/She, use Zie. Instead of Him/Her, use Hir. Some may also prefer to use They and Them as gender neutral pronouns; some may use other forms or words.

Want to Learn More? Be honest with yourself and others about your limited experience in defining gender and sexual difference. It’s important to educate yourself. Utilize Google, Wikipedia, UrbanDictionary.com. Ask people you think may know for book and article recommendations (feel free to email ericachu@msn.com or tricianowacki@gmail.com). A good, useful, and fun book to start with is Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein (1994).

Discussion Questions:

· How do you think a trans/queer person would feel coming to our church for the first time?

· What can we do to help a trans/queer person feel welcomed (we want you here), affirmed (you are beloved by God and us), and a necessary part of this community (part of “us”)?

· Have you felt that you’ve always been free to make choices about your dress, hair, body, behavior, and pronoun choice? Have you felt forced into certain kinds of gender expression? Have you always felt comfortable with the choices you’ve made or been forced to make?

· What can we do to help all sizes and shapes feel welcomed (we want you here), affirmed (you are beloved by God and us), and like a necessary part of this community (part of “us”)?

· How do you think a person with a disability would feel entering our church?

· What can we do to help a person with a disability feel welcomed (we want you here), affirmed (you are beloved by God and us), and like a necessary part of this community (part of “us”)?

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Key Terms for Disability Studies

Medicalization: the process by which human conditions and problems come to be defined and treated as medical conditions and problems, and thus come under the authority of doctors and other health professionals to study, diagnose, prevent or treat. The process of medicalization can be driven by new evidence or theories about conditions, or by developments in social attitudes or economic considerations, or by the development of new purported treatments. Medicalization is often claimed to bring benefits, but also costs, which may not always be clear. Medicalization is studied in terms of the role and power of professions, patients and corporations, and also for its implications for ordinary people whose self-identity and life-decisions may depend on the prevailing concepts of health and illness. Once a condition is classed as medical, a medical model of disability tends to be used rather than a social model. Medicalization may also be termed pathologization (from pathology), or in some cases disease mongering. (From Wikipedia entry “Medicalization”)

Disability Studies: Following the lead of critical race, gender, and queer theory, the study of disability is growing worldwide. Disability studies often takes as its starting premise that the disadvantage typically experienced by those who are disabled reflects primarily the way society defines and responds to certain types of 'difference'. (From Wikipedia entry “Disability Studies”)

The Medical Model of Disability: This model is presented as viewing disability as a problem of the person, directly caused by disease, trauma, or other health condition which therefore requires sustained medical care provided in the form of individual treatment by professionals. In the medical model, management of the disability is aimed at a "cure," or the individual’s adjustment and behavioral change that would lead to an "almost-cure" or effective cure. In the medical model, medical care is viewed as the main issue, and at the political level, the principal response is that of modifying or reforming healthcare policy. (From Wikipedia entry “Disability”)

The Social Model of Disability: This model sees the issue of "disability" as a socially created problem and a matter of the full integration of individuals into society. In this model, disability is not an attribute of an individual, but rather a complex collection of conditions, many of which are created by the social environment. Hence, the management of the problem requires social action and is the collective responsibility of society at large to make the environmental modifications necessary for the full participation of people with disabilities in all areas of social life. The issue is both cultural and ideological, requiring individual, community, and large-scale social change. From this perspective, equal access for someone with an impairment/disability is a human rights issue of major concern. (From Wikipedia entry “Disability”)

Accessibility: a general term used to describe the degree to which a product, device, service, or environment is accessible by as many people as possible. Accessibility can be viewed as the "ability to access" and possible benefit of some system or entity. Accessibility is often used to focus on people with disabilities and their right of access to entities, often through use of assistive technology. (From Wikipedia entry “Accessibility”)

Dear Sandy

2010-07-13T13:56:00.000-05:00

Feminist Thoughts
By Erica Chu

Dear Sandy

I didn’t know you. I don’t know you—my careful internet searches have yielded only scattered accounts of your death. I know little to nothing of your life though I’ve heard you left behind a mother, a sister, other family and many friends. Fear of intruding kept me from your funeral and from catching a glimpse of what you were like, who you were, what you loved, and who loved you. Perhaps it’s better I didn’t break the intimacy of those gathered in your memory. Yet I’m left wondering how I can speak of you in humble tones, acknowledging my own ignorance of your life while at the same time speaking of what I know is true.

You were a black woman. You were a transwoman. And on a Sunday night just a few weeks ago, you were murdered at the corner of S. Halsted and W. 75th.

I want to ask why this happened, but I already know. You were killed because the world is unsafe for sex workers. The world is unsafe for transgendered people.

The mainstream media hasn’t pressured law enforcement to make your case a priority and there just isn’t much public outcry because the sad truth is that racism and classism are principle organizers of American society. The Sun-Times said you were a man dressed in women’s clothing. Other media outlets didn’t even give more than the name and address on your ID. Had you been a pretty little blond thing from a rich family, your picture would be on the front page, and the person who took your life would be in jail.

I’m angry, disheartened, and disappointed in myself as well. Crimes like this have happened to others before you, and shamefully, I’ve taken little notice. I don’t remember why I wasn’t stirred to action by stories of other instances of anti-trans violence, but hearing about your death has changed me.

Some activists and organizers have spoken up about the economic systems and cultural ignorance that caused your death; I am thankful for their words and actions. During the past few weeks I’ve been stunned first that a crime like this could happen in the city where I live, and secondly that violent crimes targeting trans people are so incredibly common. I’m sorry I was so presumptuous to think that just because I feel safe that you would too.

I can’t stop thinking about you. Pride week came and went, and I couldn’t help thinking, “What’s the point of all this partying and celebration when the threat of violence against transfolk is so present right here in this city?” Without an answer, I walk a bit more somberly.

I don’t know how to adequately honor your memory—it’s made all the more difficult by the fact I don’t know you. I’m sorry I didn’t know you and that I let the geographic, racial, and economic distance between us render you invisible in my life.

Though its grossly inadequate, I do promise to try to honor your memory. I’ll educate myself. I’ll work for justice. I’ll voice my disapproval when someone makes negative comments about anyone on the basis of race, economic options, gender identity, body type, or anything else. I’ll try, no matter how messy it gets.

Sandy, you were a person worthy of safety and respect, and though I have little power in this very big world, I promise to take every opportunity I can to learn what it means to be an ally to every kind of person. I hope I’m not alone in that promise.

In memory of Sandy Woulard, 1982-2010

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Letter to Sun Times Media Wire

2010-06-29T21:16:00.000-05:00

From: Erica Chu (ericachu@msn.com)
Sent: Tue 6/29/10 9:16 PM
To: wire@suntimes.com

To the Editor of Sun-Times Media Wire:

The story I'll be referring to in this letter is entitled "Man found slain near South Side church" dated June 21, 2010, and the web address is http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2414716,south-side-church-death-062110.article?plckCurrentPage=2&sid=sitelife.suntimes.com

Your recent story addresses the murder of Credale Woulard and identifies this person as a man dressed in women's clothing. Though the article eliminates some potential motives for the murder, I am shocked and completely taken aback by the fact that there is no mention of this person being transgendered or being potentially targeted because of his/her variant gender identity.

The matter of transgender discrimination and particularly violence against transgendered persons is a major concern in the LGBTQAI community, and one that has motivated hate crime legislation such as the Matthew Shepard Act, which passed in Congress last year.

Though I am grateful that I heard of this story from a larger news outlet, I (and many others in the LGBTQAI community) are very disappointed with the insensitive way this story has been presented. It only further reveals how dangerous it is for transgendered people in this country. If the Sun Times sees Credale Woulard, often known as Sandy, and commits epistemological violence by calling her/him "a man dressed in women's clothing", imagine the kind of physical violence that can occur when a homophobic and transphobic person on the street feels their male heterosexual identity being threatened by attraction to Sandy.

Reporting like this only creates a more dangerous situation for trans people. Reporting like this renders invisible transgender identities and silently justifies the violence committed against trans people.

Perhaps you might view transgendered identities as fringe and therefore unimportant--especially when the victim of violence may very well have been a sex worker. Society may view prostitutes as unimportant, but it should not be so. If Sandy had been a cisgendered woman (what most people typically call a biological female), had she/he been white, had she/he come from some "respectable" or upper middle-class family, even if she/he'd been a sex worker, the media would treat this event much differently.

I challenge you to write a follow up story. I challenge you to bring some visibility to the problem of violence against transgendered people. Sandy's visitation and funeral is Saturday, July 3, 2010, 2:30 -7:00 PM at Midwest Memorial Chapel at 5040 S Western Ave in Chicago. For more information, you can contact the funeral home at 773-737-6959. Sandy has a sister, and she has a mother.

I also strongly recommend you read up on transgender and genderqueer identities and issues. The Center on Halsted may also be a good resource as might the Broadway Youth Center.

I did not know her/him, but I've done some internet searching to find this information. I write for the Gay Chicago Magazine and plan on addressing Sandy's murder in my latest column and may also address this story by the Sun Times Media Wire.

I would certainly like to hear from you regarding your plans to cover this story or your reaction to my accusation that you have written about this story insensitively and perhaps even ignorantly (whether unwittingly or not).

Again, I definitely appreciate that you have provided some information about this crime, but I think that the work you've done is grossly insufficient.

Thank you for your attention, and below I've copied some links to a couple stories I've seen in the LGBTQAI Chicago blogs. I also am pasting below some information about violence against transgendered people.

Sincerely,
Erica Chu

______

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/new-gender/2010/06/transgender-person-murdered-on-the-south-side-sun-times-publishes-offensive-report.html

http://www.gayliberation.net/gaypride/2010/0624prideupdate.html

Information from the Human Rights Campaign:

Hate violence. Transgender people are often targeted for hate violence based on their non-conformity with gender norms and/or their perceived sexual orientation. Hate crimes against transgender people tend to be particularly violent. Our best estimates indicate that one out of every 1,000 homicides in the U.S. is an anti-transgender hate crime. This estimation is based on data collected by the national organizers of the Transgender Day of Remembrance and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Organizers of the Transgender Day of Remembrance track the number of transgender people killed each year in hate-based attacks using media articles, community reports and other publically available data. By this count, they estimate that at least 15 transgender people are killed each year in hate-based attacks, although we believe the number to be higher based on transgender people’s common fear of going to the police and widespread misreporting. The Federal Bureau of Investigation estimates approximately 14,000 homicides in the country each year. Based on these figures, we can estimate that approximately one out of every 1000 homicides in the U.S. is an anti-transgender hate-based crime.
_______
Update as of 07.06.2010: Still no response. I thought of calling, but there seems little chance that would accomplish anything. There are three good articles worth reading that have responded to the issues raised in the letter:

http://www.edgechicago.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc2=&sc3=&id=107516

http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=27113

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/new-gender/2010/07/writing-about-gender-variance--a-few-simple-ideas-for-the-cisgender-writer.html

GCM Pride Week Issue - Learning to Listen

2010-06-29T11:26:00.000-05:00

Feminist Thoughts
By Erica Chu

Learning to Listen

Every June is full of LGBT pride activities mainly centered in Lakeview and Andersonville and culminating in Pride Week and the Pride Parade. All kinds of groups participate in the parade and attend events throughout the month, yet some ethnic groups have separate weeks specifically designated for celebrating LGBT pride in their communities. During the first week of June, a week of activities for Latino Pride took place in Pilsen, Humboldt Park, and Lakeview, and during the first week of July, Black Pride activities take place across the city in neighborhoods like South Shore, the Loop, and Lakeview.

The other day a friend complained, “If we’re supposed to be inclusive, why have separate gatherings for Black and Latino LGBTs?” This friend was just trying to express a desire for unity, but I think these questions are worth attempting to answer.

Unity is something I’ve been trying to emphasize in this column: We who have experienced some measure of pain due to discrimination ought to think about how we can interact with others in a way that alleviates the discrimination they experience. A first step in accomplishing that goal is to see how they really are a part of us. If this LGBTQAI unity that we are supposed to work toward is so valuable, then why would African American and Latino organizers seemingly damage that unified “us” by calling for separate weeks of celebration? Shouldn’t we all celebrate our rainbow identities as one community?

This is a complicated issue that activists and academics have been trying to deal with in many contexts over many decades. Since everyone has so recently been excited about hockey, it may be helpful for us to think about a metaphor along those lines.

Let’s say you live in Chicago and you’re a hockey fan in a culture that highly values the Blackhawks. Now imagine (oh the horror!) you’re actually a Red Wings fan. If you were to participate in a hockey celebration, wouldn’t you want to express your Red Wings pride? If you tried though, who would listen?

Now in many circumstances you might celebrate hockey with Blackhawks fans, but wouldn’t you feel like they were overlooking, ignoring, and even viewing with suspicion your identity as a Red Wings fan? In addition, the people who aren’t into hockey may have learned to tolerate Blackhawks fans but may have less interest in understanding you. Is it any wonder then that you might occasionally have your own party where your voice of celebrating the Red Wings can be heard?

This metaphor is not perfect: hopefully there’s not this much segregation and competition among LGBTQAIs, and even though Chicago is a Blackhawks city when it comes to hockey, when it comes to people, Chicago is very diverse.

Still, this picture of the Red Wings fan in Chicago is a kind of representation of what it can be like for black and Latino LGBTQAIs during Pride festivities (as well as for members of many other ethnic groups). Sure, it’s a celebration of rainbow flags, but it often feels like a celebration organized by and for white rainbow flag bearers. A similar feeling of marginality can be experienced by members of the LGBTQAI community who do not identify as gay or lesbian.

Racism, transphobia, and phobias of many kinds unfortunately exist, and though we try to strive for inclusivity, folks within our community can still feel that they’re overlooked and even treated with hostility.

So as we enjoy the last days of this month of celebration, let’s keep in mind that in many cases, our gleeful shouts may have the unfortunate effect of drowning out the voices of those among us with other needs and interests. Let’s try to listen for those voices and learn from them as we strive for unity.

Sometimes it’s only apart from the larger group that some of these voices can be heard clearly. At such times, let’s be sure we are listening carefully and offering our support. Learning to listen to the marginal voice takes time and constant energy. Though it can be exhausting, trying is the most effective thing we can do.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

GCM June - On the Road to Justice

2010-06-29T11:25:00.000-05:00

Feminist Thoughts
By Erica Chu

On the Road to Justice

My church (Broadway United Methodist) welcomes and celebrates gay, lesbian, straight, asexual, bisexual and any variety of sexual identities. Most churches are very segregated, but my church is intentional about fighting racism and working for a racially inclusive community. Most churches see only cisgender and able bodies, but every Sunday, the pastors welcome people of all genders and all abilities. You’d think as a church seeking justice, they’d arrived, but their theme for Pride Month is “On the Road to Justice.”

I like that. We’re on the road, but we’re not there yet.

Recently, I spent the day in one of the smaller suburbs. I felt strange walking around in public and feeling gawking or disapproving eyes when I stood too close to or looked too endearingly at my partner. It was jarring because I spend most of my time in places like Lakeview, Edgewater, Andersonville, and the Loop. Occasionally someone stares or makes a comment, but all in all, I feel free, I feel safe, I feel that for me, justice is within grasp.

Last summer, I marched with a few dozen activists in Joliet trying to give visibility to the LGBTQ population there. I also marched with the Dyke March Collective in Pilsen and will march with them again on June 26th in South Shore. It’s important to lend our support to those like us seeking freedom and safety in the places where they live. If we become satisfied with just our neighborhood, we’ll never reach justice.

More important even than fighting for justice for those like us is lending support to those not like us right in our own neighborhoods and communities. How often do we encounter racism, sexism, classism, transphobia, ageism, and outright meanness about body type, clothes, or mental ability? Sometimes people we know, our friends, maybe even we ourselves do or say something that inhibits the freedom and safety of someone else. Being on the road to justice means educating ourselves, lending support, and speaking up when injustice creeps into our lives and spheres of influence.

Too often our neighborhoods and even our Pride month seem more about brunch, bars, and dancing then about justice. Have we forgotten June commemorates a key moment along the road for justice? Today, the potential for walking that road still surrounds us.

This month, let’s be especially diligent in fighting against the ignorance that has and continues to oppress people of all kinds, colors, and shapes. The road to justice isn’t always easy or comfortable, but every step is a very necessary step in the right direction.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Si, se puede

2010-05-05T23:12:00.000-05:00

Feminist Thoughts
By Erica Chu

Si, se puede

On May first, I walked with thousands marching for comprehensive immigration reform. This was my first immigration rally, and I was spurred to this small action because of my anger over Arizona’s SB1070, a state law much in the news because many say it amounts to state-mandated racial profiling and police harassment. This march, however, was about so much more than Arizona. I listened to the chants and speeches, I read the signs, the t-shirts, and buttons. I looked at face after face, and as the crowds dispersed, I felt an uneasy feeling. I’d been wrong. I had thought immigration reform was important, but it had never seemed to be something I needed to be immediately concerned about. I stood in Daly Plaza and realized I only thought that because there had been no roadblocks in my migration story.

I think back to the story of my father coming to this country. He had $300 in his pocket and carried with him all the sacrifices of his parents, grandmother, and siblings…and all their hopes for a better life. I think of his parents’ journey from China to the then-British-colony of Hong Kong, and of their flight from economic depression and political uncertainty. I think too of the journeys my mother’s relatives made from England and Germany fleeing the same problems and of the celebrated sacrifices made by those white relatives we call “pioneers” and “homesteaders,” not “resident aliens” or “illegal immigrants.”

What all my migrant relatives have in common is that they had access to the documentation that “authorized” their move from one place to another. They worked incredibly hard over generations, taking pride in their work and contributing to the economy. Eventually, I became the beneficiary of their labor.

I think of the most recent chapter of my own migration story—how I came to Chicago to pursue my education and to find a certain amount of freedom to pursue the kind of political and sexual/gender identity I valued. Why shouldn’t others have broader opportunities to do the same?

As LGBTQAI people, we are members of class of people historically (and often currently) classified as “perverted,” “sick,” “dangerous,” or “illegal.” Many of us struggle for the documents that are freely given to others of a more “authorized” identity. We of all people should recognize the dehumanizing effects of classifications determined by those in power.

I hope you will join me in admitting how wrong we are if we think immigration is not an issue that concerns us. LGBTQAI people are joined together because we fight for the right to cross the borders of what others think is appropriate for someone of our gender. Let’s continue the struggle at our national borders and fight for the right of hard-working Americans to be recognized as such. These two seemingly dissimilar struggles are in fact working for the same goals: dignity, freedom, and equality. And yes, each is possible. Si, se puede.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

The Joy of Unknowing

2010-04-04T22:18:00.000-05:00

Feminist Thoughts
By Erica Chu

The Joy of Unknowing

I’m going to be a bit more personal here than I’ve been in the past. It’s sometimes easier I suppose to speak in the abstract, but I’m moved to be more vulnerable today if only to put into practice that standard feminist belief that the personal is political.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting on the edge of my bed looking for a pen and was suddenly overcome with a deep sadness. I just wanted to sob but couldn't even figure out what sparked this feeling or why I was experiencing it. The only thing I could think was, "I feel so lost."

The significance of this statement may not be immediately apparent, so I should explain a bit about where I'm coming from. I was raised in an Evangelical Midwestern Christian family. As an adolescent, I grabbed hold of the Christian faith with wild intensity and a deep gratitude for who I saw God to be. At eighteen, I packed up and went to a small Bible College in southern Missouri, and it was only there that I began to feel doubt. Not doubt in who God was to me or even who he/she/zie is in a theological sense, but I began to doubt the institutions from which I'd received so much religious and spiritual knowledge.

Even after transferring to a state university and then moving to this beautifully liberating city, I still thought I was sure of some things--of my faith, of my capacity in my studies and job, of my take on politics, of my understanding of the world. If you had talked to me then, I would have given you a piece of my mind. Then the last few years happened with change after change and stress upon stress. Talk to me today, and I'm not so quick to speak.

Of course, I do have confidence in the beliefs I now have and in the roads I’m now taking (some didn’t change at all), but because I was used to being so sure, I have a lingering anxiety about not knowing exactly where I am, who I am, or where I’ll be tomorrow.

Over dinner, I told my partner T about feeling lost and about the sadness I was experiencing because I was no longer sure about anything. A little later when we were talking about my sister (who is not supportive of our relationship), T said, "She needs to get lost." In addition to her beauty, wit, and charm, T is wonderfully wise. I laughed a little and thought of how my relationship with my sister could drastically improve if only she was forced to call into question all she’d learned and had become so confident about.

That moment at our little dining room table was the first time I felt grateful for the last few years of my life and all my crazy lapses in confidence and crises of faith. Unknowing was perhaps the most precious thing I’d learned.

Although this process has been spiritually, emotionally, and even professionally and romantically difficult for me, I want to underline how happy I am to know so little. Acknowledging how changeable I can be allows me so much freedom to investigate new perspectives, consider new views, and even let go of beliefs I no longer consider just.

Imagine if everyone stepped a little (or a lot) outside all they were so sure of and considered the experiences and views of others. I would encourage all of us--as individuals and as the larger LGBTQ community--to take joy in the uncertainty of what we know and in what we could learn tomorrow that would change the way we see and live in the world.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Why Repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Isn’t Good Enough

2010-02-04T12:06:00.000-06:00

I usually only post my GCM pieces after they've been printed, but this time I'm jumping the gun a bit. [It's page 7 of this PDF of the Feb 18 issue]
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Feminist Thoughts
By Erica Chu

Why Repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Isn’t Good Enough

If you’re gay and you’re interested in equal rights, you’re probably all about the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, something our community’s been trying to get rid of since it became official military policy. As a military brat who went to high school on military posts overseas and as someone who knows quite a few current and former soldiers, you’d think I’d be the first one in line to try to pass the Military Readiness and Enhancement Act (MREA), which would allow gays and lesbians to serve openly.

But I’m not. In fact, sometimes, I want to heckle all the folks in that line.

No, I’m not about to launch into some diatribe against the military or against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or against war in general. The fact is I support the military. Whether some of the actions taken by the military are just we’ll leave for another time. For now, I want to focus on the MREA, the act that we’ve been hearing so much about from (among others) the Human Rights Campaign and the Service Members Legal Defense Network.

The MREA would repeal the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy and replace it with provisions prohibiting the military from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. Sounds great, right? Yes, it does sound great for all the gays and lesbians who wish to serve openly.

But what about everyone else?

Who else you may ask? This is the precise problem. We in the LGBTQ community only recognize ourselves as being in the LG and sometimes B community. We fight tooth and nail to lift the oppression of gay men and lesbian women, but we often forget about those experiencing oppression for similar reasons.

Transgendered people, transsexuals, and the gender queer may not accept the gender roles and pronouns that society wants to impose on them, but shouldn’t they be able to work every day with the assurance that their employer will not discriminate against them unfairly?

The nondiscrimination policies of the federal government and the US military deserve our special attention because they often set the tone for what will become standard in each state. The MREA makes no provision to protect those with variant gender identification. Sexual orientation is its only priority, which is as tragic as it is ironic because gender is what defines lesbians as lesbians and gay men as gay men.

Oppression on the basis of sexual orientation rotates on the axis of gender. If we could break through that binary, we might actually do something lasting for our community.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

December piece on Gay Marriage as Gateway Institution

2009-12-28T18:37:00.000-06:00

Feminist Thoughts
By Erica Chu

Gay Marriage as Gateway Institution

With all the ground won and lost in the battle for same-sex marriage, many among the LGBTQ community are getting riled up. And why shouldn’t they? Before the passage of Proposition 8 last November, it seemed many in our community were content with the fact that the US government granted heterosexual couples privileges not made available to anyone else. Of course there have been organizations and individuals fighting this problem for decades, but a resurgence of sorts has occurred in the last couple years—in part due to the increased popularity of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. The effectiveness of such tools has caused more young people to come out of the woodwork and utilize their networking and organizational skills like never before.

I support such efforts because I know that if the government recognized my relationship, the chances of my family recognizing it would greatly increase. If, in the eyes of the law, my partner and I had the exact same status as a heterosexual married couple, I suspect people would be less likely to stare at us on the train when we hold hands. I know too that many religious institutions would be forced to rethink their policies and question their ability to stay relevant in a changing world. So culturally, state-recognized gay marriage has the potential to make a major difference.

After same-sex marriage has been accepted, necessary cultural changes may be able to gain more public legitimacy because once you change the definition of “marriage,” you redefine “family” and eventually other terms that our government has long relied on to guide its social policies.

For example, the state should be more interested in matters of economic dependence than sexual relationships. The two seemed to coincide perfectly when it was expected that a man work to earn money and his wife stay home raising their children. This model is not accurate, and we should not be confined to old patterns—especially when they create very dangerous positions for women and children as well as LGBTQ individuals and groups. We should look at the diversity of human experience for structures that will work for all citizens.

When gay marriage arrives, it will provide privileges and benefits to gay couples as it has for straight couples, but what about single people? asexuals? the polyamorous, transgendered, and transsexuals? What about single parents and those representing familial structures many of us have yet to even recognize?

If a woman lives with her grandmother or with a life-long friend (or with both), and together they raise children and run a household, shouldn’t the government grant them the same hospital visitation and inheritance rights it grants married couples? Shouldn’t the state enable health benefits and tax relief to this family in the same way it does for families consisting of two parents and their DNA-sharing dependents? Most importantly, should the rights and privileges available to married couples even be the standard we attempt to work toward in the pursuit of civil rights?

Marriage is not a perfect institution and does not provide equal options to all citizens. It should be one option made available to those who believe in its social or religious power, but for many, marriage is not a viable option. If we believe that America should be a fair society, we must admit that marriage should not be the government’s way of playing favorites with its citizens—even if many of us would benefit from that structure.

As we continue on in the battle for civil rights for LGBTQ people, let us remember that same-sex marriage can make a huge cultural impact, but it will not ensure equality for all. There are far too many unsafe spaces for LGBTQ people (especially trans and genderqueer folks) for us to expect that the option of marriage will have brought about some kind of liberation. In addition, providing equal access to healthcare would do more for the physical needs of the LGBTQ population than gay marriage ever can.

I like to think of gay marriage as a gateway institution that will provide real help for some people, but its main function is to take the American population to another level in terms of the structures and models it can consider. As gay marriage establishes itself as a more and more acceptable institution, let’s try to keep in mind that the availability of gay marriage is a milestone in the road to real equality—not the final destination.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com and can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Link to this page: http://bit.ly/6Rprrd

Latest Column in Gay Chicago Magazine

2009-11-07T17:46:00.000-06:00

Feminist Thoughts
By Erica Chu

Queers, Hate, and Videotape

A couple months ago, one of my Facebook friends commented on a video, and after noticing how many people had commented on it, I decided to see what it was all about. The video was three and a half minutes of a woman and a man exchanging insults and occasional kicks and punches. The two were having this altercation on North Halsted and weaved in and out of a crowd of about twenty bystanders who all appeared to be watching the scene with a certain amount of joy.

What is it about people fighting that is entertaining? Recently, the entire country has been in shock over a local school fight caught on camera, a fight which ultimately ended in the death of a high school student. That fight, which is gut-wrenching to watch, ended in personal tragedy for those involved, and it also represents a need for systemic change.

What is wrong with our communities, school systems, criminal justice systems, kinship groups, and sense of morality and honor, when these kinds of fights happen? And why is such a painful result necessary before such a problem is recognized as serious?

In the case of the fight I watched on Facebook, no one was injured, but the signs of a serious systemic problem are all too evident. Hate speech was invoked in reference to ethnic and racial identities as well as economic status, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

One of the most striking aspects of the video is that each of the people exhibiting hate speech has likely been subjected to ridicule for their own identities. For instance, the woman who calls the man a “nigger” and some of the bystanders “white trash” and “faggots” is herself transgendered and has presumably endured ridicule from others for her identity. The man is the only person of color in the video and speaks with an accent. I would assume he has faced some amount of discrimination. Still, he exhibits misogyny when he calls the woman “fat” and “sissy,” and implies she is only after sex.

If this weren’t bad enough, the onlookers (themselves likely queer) seem to be entertained by the fight. Two people are recording it on video, many more are laughing and watching in amusement, and a few men in the crowd (who appear to be both gay and deaf) mock the entire event. If those who experience oppression because of their identity cannot restrain themselves from inflicting hate speech on others because of their identities, then we too require systemic change.

I sat on my couch watching this video and critiquing the bystanders who did nothing to stop the fight or neutralize the speech being used, but I also sat on my couch shaking my head at the derogatory language used in the video title and comments. I couldn’t do anything about the fight or speech being used on North Halsted that night, but I could have done something about the hate speech being used on Facebook. I knew I should have too, but because I didn’t want to rock the boat or upset people, I said nothing.

This is a shame. We shouldn’t wait until tragedy occurs before we’re willing to stand up and speak out for what is right. It’s only by rocking the boat in our communities, our workplaces, and our kinship groups that we will change the attitudes that will ensure safe spaces for all kinds of identities. I hope we value our own safety enough to protect the identities of others.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She is also a member of the Gay Liberation Network and manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com. She can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Text of September piece on Homo Phobias

2009-09-16T10:26:00.000-05:00

Since I can't figure out how to post a PDF file, here's an image of my article.

Feminist Thoughts
By Erica Chu

Homo Phobias

The phobias of the “homo” population are many, and I’m not talking spiders, roaches, and mice (oh my). I’m talking about the fears that really shape us, define us, and even grant us a sense of community.

Since the last time I wrote for GCM, I came out to my mother. My reasons for telling her now are complex and very specific to my cultural and religious background, my family circumstances, and my personal situation, but there is undoubtedly something general about my experience. I fear(ed) pain, rejection, change, and suffering, and this kind of fear is common to many of our coming out stories.

Even those who were never in the closet cannot deny that much of queer history has been defined by fear. Fear of death, violence, economic hardship, humiliation, rejection from religious and social institutions: fear of discrimination and suffering. These fears have shaped our history and bound us together, forcing us to provide what was denied us, causing us to boldly assert our identities, and driving us to unapologetically demand our rights.

Even today, these fears motivate our politics, sustain our activism, and we assure ourselves that the things we fear will not happen if we work hard enough to prevent them. And we’re right. . . . Fear is such a powerful motivational tool.

Unfortunately, fear can also inspire the wrong kinds of action. Homophobia motivates much of the fight against progressive policies that would protect queer citizens. I once heard a counter protester at a gay rights rally refuse to accept that he was homophobic, and that is precisely the problem.

We, on the other hand, can admit to our fears of suffering and discrimination and therefore justify our politics. The homophobic can’t. Once they identify their homophobia and fail to justify it, we’ve gained an ally. So if we want progress, we have to “help” the phobic know their phobias and force them to try to justify them. It’s an uncomfortable and labor-intensive project, but as we well know, the stakes make it well worth the effort.

In this light, are we phobic too? If homophobia is among the phobias straight America has to grapple with, what phobias must we in the gay community confront?

Transphobia exists in straight and gay communities (and just as going to a gay hairdresser does not make one exempt from homophobia, attending drag shows does not make one immune to transphobia). So what of transsexuals, the transgendered, cross dressers, and the genderqueer? And what of those of other races, ethnicities, nationalities, religions, abilities, body types, and economic statuses?

So often the word “gay” invokes an image of a white, Western-European American, able-bodied, middle-class male with no religious ties. That may be a fairly large subset, but our community is so much more diverse. The gay community has always been very liberal and open-minded, but we cannot be satisfied with the proliferation of unjustifiable phobias within our community (phobias such as racism, classism, sexism, able-bodiedism, ethnocentrism, religious intolerance, and transphobia among others).

Our fears shape and define us whether we like it our not, so we must be sure we know which fears are justifiable and which aren’t. Most importantly, we must be diligent in actively fighting against unjustifiable phobias both inside and outside our community. The stakes certainly make it worth the effort.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She is also a member of the Gay Liberation Network and manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com. She can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Link to this post: http://bit.ly/XAF4P

“Oh My God, Gross!”

2009-08-18T17:17:00.000-05:00

This piece came out today in the August 20 issue of Gay Chicago Magazine. Here's a link to the PDF. I should clarify that the text I provide on this blog is my version and not the sometimes altered version printed in GCM. This week I got a color picture, which I'm pretty happy about. Enjoy!

Feminist Thoughts
By Erica Chu

“Oh My God, Gross!”

Over dinner, I recently heard a gay man in his late twenties seriously freak out when someone made a passing reference to a vagina. “Oh my God, gross,” “That’s disgusting,” “Ewww, nasty”: I think we’ve all heard similar reactions whether in reference to vaginas, clitorises, labia, or even feminine hygiene products. But seriously, is “Oh my God” necessary?

Vaginas are part of life for a lot of folks—many who own and love their vaginas and others who just love vaginas. Because gay men may not be in intimate community with women, it’s easy for them to fall into the trap of fearing female anatomy. Lesbians can be similarly negative about male anatomy, but our wider American culture seems much more accepting and even entertained by jokes about penises, testicles, and condoms. Just think of how many erections are represented in film or how many characters talk jokingly about their testicles.

On one level, it’s just unfair that the mention of some people’s nether regions cause disgust and terror while dicks, cocks, balls, and nut sacks are referenced constantly to no one’s shock or horror. If we freaked out every time we heard mention of any of these, there’d be a lot more people suffering from hypertension—especially in our community.

On another level, it’s sad to see queer folks of any kind falling into the same social traps that contribute to their oppression. For a long time (and it continues), being queer was thought of as shocking and gross, and queers felt ashamed, forced to hide from the world. Thankfully, we see things differently. Queer people are an oppressed minority, so we work hard to rid our culture of the attitude that gender determines who we love.

Because those with female anatomy are not a minority, it’s much easier to continue the cultural attitudes that seem to have been around forever, but we who have overcome shame in order to come out as queer should know better. In addition, there are sexual minorities among us.

Most gays, bisexuals, and lesbians seem completely oblivious to the fact that intersex people can be seen as part of the queer community and that having ambiguous sexual attributes need not cause shame. Aren’t we about rejecting society’s classifications for our bodies and our lives? We who have fought cultural expectations for what our anatomy is supposedly for should be fighting the hardest to get rid of these oppressive cultural attitudes.

No one should feel ashamed of their anatomy regardless of how foreign, shocking, or strange it may seem to others. That means we all need to recognize that if we can lightheartedly laugh about penises, we can be as accepting of vaginas and any other sexual anatomy. If we are turned on by a certain kind of anatomy, we can recognize that something smaller, bigger, or completely different is no cause for shock or judgment. You’re “Oh my God,” may very well be someone else’s “Oh, thank God.”

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She is also a member of the Gay Liberation Network and manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com. She can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

URL to this entry: http://bit.ly/lnbMe

Text of July Piece on Duct Tape

2009-08-11T16:42:00.000-05:00

Here's the text from my piece in Gay Chicago Magazine's July 16 issue:

Feminist Thoughts
By Erica Chu

How I Learned to Love Duct Tape

It’s common knowledge that duct tape is good for just about anything, and at this past month’s Pride festivities, I witnessed it being effectively used in very diverse ways. Duct tape was holding signs in place, keeping parade floats together, attaching rainbow flags to broom sticks, and of course…covering nipples. As you may know, females who expose their nipples in public are subject to fines whereas males are free to bare their chests to the world no matter how voluptuous their breasts. Consequently, many a conservative radical has used duct tape, band-aids, or stickers to bare what they dare without risking hefty fines.

A couple weeks ago I marched with over a thousand other folks in the 2009 Chicago Dyke March, and I was proud to march alongside quite a few softly bouncing pieces of duct tape. The streets of Pilsen seemed to be lined with people pointing, and there were also several folks looking shocked as they observed the parade of queers from the curb. It was my first time participating in the event, and as much as I enjoyed the spirit of it all, not so long ago, I would have been one of the appalled onlookers.

It used to be that when I saw the duct tape-clad and dancers in their underpants, I shuddered. I thought, “These crazies are giving gay people a bad name. Just because sexual orientation is what distinguishes the straight from the gay does not mean sex should be the thing we advertise.” I, like so many others, had somehow gotten it into my head that I was normal, that I was pretty radical, and anything more radical or more risqué than me was just indecent, decadent, or unnecessary.

It’s been a long road full of questioning the things I’ve taken for granted. Sex may sometimes be advertized, but many people are just making public their personal mode of self-expression. And if that were always safely kept behind closed doors, we’d all still be in the closet, wearing collars up to our chins and gloves on all occasions.

During my few years on this road of questioning, I’ve had to constantly face the often desperate realization that I do not know as much as I think I do. It sounds simple, but living it everyday should be a goal for us all. I’m lucky to get through fifteen minutes.

Members of the queer community have had to question social rules early on, but I think we may have taken for granted how radical we are. We recognize that gender is not the determination of how and who we should love, yet we judge others who don’t live up to the gender norms we’ve accepted. We snicker when we see people dressed in ways that don’t match what we think are acceptable. We belittle others when they do things we don’t understand or say nothing when someone else does.

As a community, we’re off the mark, but as individuals who have been forced to question so much in the pursuit of honestly expressing ourselves, we have incredible potential to make our community more inclusive and just.

You will not be seeing me in duct tape any time soon, but I cheer on those who proudly wear it. They are representing themselves, pushing social boundaries, and refusing to allow an idea of someone else to represent them. I hope that in our own ways we each try to do the same—with or without the aid of duct tape.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She is also a member of the Gay Liberation Network and manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com. She can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

Text of June Piece on Lables

2009-08-11T16:31:00.000-05:00

Because Gay Chicago Magazine hasn't made a non-PDF version of my pieces available online, I've decided to start making them available here (for all my nonexistent readers!).

Here's my piece from the June 11th issue:

Feminist Thoughts
By Erica Chu

Do the Labels Matter?

In this age of transgressing boundaries and an ever-growing list of distinct identities, it’s not surprising that our community finds it difficult to name itself. The gay community? Gay and Lesbian? GLBT? LGBT? LGBTQ? Queer? The problem of course is that our community is really a collection of communities. LGBT is one of the most popular because it represents those who experience same-gender desire and those who are transgendered. Placing the L before the G also recognizes the traditional devaluing of women in the movement and gestures toward correcting that problem.

Personally, I prefer queer because it is a term that can be used to reference those who express sexual orientations and gender identities that are not traditional, but the term is loose. If I say I’m queer, the person I’m speaking to may wonder if I’m a lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered (among many other possibilities) but identifying as queer allows me to express a political identity without having to offer personal information.

While it’s true that asserting specific identities is one of the first steps toward political and social equality, there is something very freeing about not being bogged down by specific labels like lesbian, transsexual, etc. Because really, whose business is it anyway? It’s mine and my potential partner’s.

For me, the same goes for race and ethnicity. All my life I’ve been constantly faced with the question, “What’s your background?” To which I try with no small amount of effort to treat with politeness. What I really want to say is, “What possible reason do you have for needing to know?” And what possible reason does anyone have for needing to know anyone else’s sexual and gender identities?

So they can appease their curiosity and stick us in a category in their minds? Probably. I do the same thing, and I’m sure you’ve had your moments as well. But what I want to suggest is this: if the only reason we name our identities is to appease someone else’s curiosity, than we should stop. And if by broadening the word we use to identify ourselves strengthens our community, then maybe we should consider switching to “queer.”

I’m not saying we all have to identify as queer, but if we really tried to see ourselves as part of a coalition of many identities, we’d be much more willing to stand up and speak out on behalf of those we never before thought of as part of “us.” And heaven knows “we” need as much help as “we” can get.

Erica Chu is a student at Loyola University Chicago and is seeking a PhD in English with a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. She is also a member of the Gay Liberation Network and manages the blog keepingitqueer.blogspot.com. She can be reached at ericachu@msn.com.

How I Learned to Love Duct Tape

2009-07-14T22:36:00.000-05:00

Here's the link to the PDF of my new piece in the Gay Chicago Magazine (see page 12). It's mistitled "How I Learned to Use Duct Tape" though unfortunately the only way I use it is for conventional purposes.

It talks about my experience as a conservative learning to embrace what I didn't understand.

Do the Labels Matter?

2009-06-10T00:44:00.000-05:00

My short piece "Do the Labels Matter?" is in the Gay Chicago Magazine this week (June 11, 2009). Because I'm being considered for a monthly column (called "Feminist Thoughts"), they haven't given me a section for the online version; therefore, I can't link to it. But since it would only be there for this week, you might as well look at the PDF. I'm on page 11.

Things I would add? "Queer" does have a history of being an epithet, but it also means different. What's wrong with being different?

Who I Am

2009-05-26T11:19:00.000-05:00

My name is Erica Chu, and I am a graduate student at Loyola University Chicago seeking a PhD in English and a concentration in Women Studies and Gender Studies. My subject areas are contemporary literature of the Americas, postcolonial literature, and feminist and gender theory, and I have taught College Writing and Women in Literature at Loyola. I received my MA from Loyola in 2007 and my BA in English (with a minor in International Studies) from the University of Nebraska at Kearney in 2006. I also received an Associates Degree in Missions from Ozark Christian College in Joplin, Missouri in 2002.

I am a former military brat and have lived all over. I write poetry from time to time, love to watch movies, and dabble at guitar and djembe. I am also dying to learn violin.

I attend Broadway United Methodist Church, am a big fan of welcoming churches, and love Jesus like mad.