The LGBTQQIAA Question

[bgt28]

I've been reading across forums on this topic and wanted to put this out there, if anyone is interested, with much love!

 

I identify as gay, and made that pretty explicit in my personal statement, because it is directly related to my research: I identify as a queer African, and want to study the visuo-cultural genealogy of racial and sexual formations in transnational contexts, mostly straddling US/France and Africa. 

 

But besides this, my life as a gay man has directly impacted my comportment in the application process, with all its ups and downs and in-betweens; going through a breakup, a self-avowed "sex-fast," writing papers for publication becoming my personal coitus, searching actively for queer academics who I can connect with on multiple registers. I wanted to know/share/connect with all people who "came out" in personal statements/writing samples to either "even the score" or to situate oneself within one's research interests and history; or all who feel a connection to these categories of personhood and their particular joys/sorrows/foibles. How are you doing? How have you been? Let's talk!

 

xx

[1Q84]

Thank you for starting this thread!

 

I didn't explicitly state my gender or sexual identity in my SOP. I figured talking about my interest in queer studies was enough (particularly the idea of a "family unit" and the trouble with same-sex marriage). Same with "irl" during my program; I just discussed my interest in queer studies a lot with my professors but never really spoke about it in a personal manner. Just before the holiday break, one of my profs said, "Oh, if you want you and your partner can stay at my apartment while my wife and I are gone." So I guess he just assumed.

 

I have been very curious about what kind of impact being explicit or implicit about one's sexuality has on an application, though, so I'm glad you brought that up and that we both took different approaches.

[bgt28]

You're so welcome. I figured other people had to feel the same way. It is always important to acknowledge the inestimable importance of the personal in the academic, particularly as budding humanists. 

[Metaellipses]

Hi fellow queer people!

 

I'm a gay woman and I also mentioned queer theory in my statement of purpose, but didn't explicit refer to my sexual identity. The other gay person in my cohort did, however, and like you mentioned wove it into his research interests (queer performativity in contemporary literature). I didn't actually end up pursuing queer theory, but I am glad that I broadcast that interest up front, as it sparked some dialogue with other queer people who are working in that  field. A lot of school also have queer professional graduate organizations that help queer academics with the particular anxieties and obstacles we have to deal with in grad school and on the job market. I think there has to be more conversation around professionalization for LGBTQQIAA students - we have relocation concerns in particular that a lot of other students don't have and depending on our presentation we also have potential job interview issues that might pop up, depending on the politics and location of the school. For example, I've had both queer graduate students and graduate students of color say that they were asked by interviewers if they could teach a class relating to their perceived identity (i.e. you present as a gay person or are of East-Asian descent so therefore must be able to teach a class on queer theory and/or post colonial literature even if that's not actually how you're marketing yourself). Being able to deal with questions like this is an invaluable skill that should be taught in professionalization workshops.

 

I've also benefited a lot from on-campus mental health resources oriented toward the LGBTQQIAA community. I highly recommend taking advantages of these services if they're available. Grad school is tough as it is.

[bgt28]

I've also benefited a lot from on-campus mental health resources oriented toward the LGBTQQIAA community. I highly recommend taking advantages of these services if they're available. Grad school is tough as it is.

I completely agree and I too have made use of mental health resources...indispensable. It's so interesting/enriching how I go to therapy and all of a sudden have an "Aha!" moment, when it all of a sudden becomes possible for me to redirect some of the emotional ick into a paper, a reading, or even just a really good dinner. Thanks so much for posting! xx

[bgt28]

I figured talking about my interest in queer studies was enough (particularly the idea of a "family unit" and the trouble with same-sex marriage).

Have you read Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship by Kath Weston? It's an absolutely necessary read, and while problematic in some regards, a truly revolutionary text in its own right.

 

Any literature suggestions? You know, other than No Future lol

[1Q84]

Have you read Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship by Kath Weston? It's an absolutely necessary read, and while problematic in some regards, a truly revolutionary text in its own right.

 

Any literature suggestions? You know, other than No Future lol

 

I haven't. Definitely putting it on the list. I've been reading more works with a political bent (Michael Warner's The Trouble with Normal in particular). Not sure if Weston's one is political at all.

 

Literature suggestions as in novels? I haven't actually read any lately... Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai is a great queer POC book, though!

[sillyrabbit]

I tried to refrain from talking about sexuality explicitly my research-focused statement, but expected that readers could potentially infer based in my interest in queer theory, etc.

If a school asked for a more personal/diversity-focused statement, I made sure to mention it. I'd be curious to see if this additional statement helps my apps or not.

[drownsoda]

 

I've also benefited a lot from on-campus mental health resources oriented toward the LGBTQQIAA community. I highly recommend taking advantages of these services if they're available. Grad school is tough as it is.

It's awesome to hear this. We have a great center for the community at my undergrad university, but I've never used it because I guess I didn't feel I needed to. It's great that it's there though and I'm happy that people take advantage of this. I'm a gay male also. I didn't address it in my SOP though because it literally has nothing to do with my main academic interests/endeavors, but kudos to those who did. I never got far in queer studies; I took one class on Willa Cather and I have to admit it was amazing being able to analyze her writing from a queer studies perspective. I was very new to the whole realm of queer theory though. I remember reading Eve Sedgwick for the first time and being flabbergasted and fascinated and feeling like my head is was spinning (in a good way). It was a really fun experience though because the bulk of the people in that class with me also identified as LGBTQ, so I made some really cool friends.

[hreaðemus]

I am, as I like to say, gay as a picnic basket, which I feel reflects both my sexuality and my personality as a queer woman - but I didn't talk about this aspect of my identity in my graduate applications. I'm not explicitly interested in applying a queer theoretical lens to my specialization in Old English and Anglo-Latin lit. Sometimes it becomes relevant, as when I recently discussed the function of female cross-dressing in medieval Icelandic literature, but in general I'm more interested in digital humanities, philology, manuscript studies, corpus linguistics, etc. I also haven't struggled with my sexuality in my personal life (supportive family, never dated boys, etc), so I talked about other difficulties, mainly financial, in my diversity statements.

 

I'm sure I'll be out wherever I end up (I tend to be mistaken for a straight woman because of my preference for lace and dresses, so I have to come out verbally to be visible as a queer person), but I didn't feel like that was relevant to my academic trajectory, at least not at the moment.

[zanmato4794]

This is a difficult question for me.

 

I grew up in a politically moderate, perhaps even slightly forward-looking suburb--more forward-looking with regard to sexuality than race, at any rate and unfortunately. (I am white, so that's not part of the difficulty here--I'm just trying to give you guys an idea of the place.)

 

My problems having grown up gay never really involved direct persecution for sexuality. My mother could have handled it better, but now she makes blowjob jokes all the time so I guess she's okay with it. My friends said, "good, now no one can accuse our friends group of anything"--strange response, but not bad for me personally.

 

However, there were indirect stress factors from it. I was never persecuted, as I said, for being gay, but I did certainly miss out socially on not being "one of the guys." I was clearly different, and being different meant being marginalized to some extent, especially in my early teens and then again when I went to a Jesuit university. (It is odd, by the way, to be able to identify easily the biggest mistake of your life.) Everyone has social difficulties growing up, but mine were kind of part of a larger system of things that sucked: clear but difficult to diagnose mental illness, very rough family situation, extreme social anxiety. Together those things really alienated me for much of my life and so a lot of the time I do not have very good emotional supports, and the whole sexuality thing just seems like another level of being different, another way of not fitting in, and when I finally did embrace my sexuality, I found no one to embrace it with--I was in a gay vacuum throughout high school and undergrad. It is extremely frustrating to watch all of your straight friends go from relationship to relationship while you think of other gays as either evil nemeses or fantastic unattainable unicorns, and even though you might tell yourself that you shouldn't blame yourself for essentially being a victim of statistics (if there are no gays there are no gays to date), you somehow do end up blaming yourself sometimes anyway.

 

So: my main "diversity" focus is mental illness because that is what really bothers me, what really has put me through some difficult times, but it certainly has been inflected by my sexuality. I do not reveal or even hint that I'm gay in any of my applications except for the one for UC Santa Barbara because they basically straight up ask you what categories you fit into, yet I have the distinct feeling that someone reading my writing would guess that I was gay anyway.

 

I am interested in queer theory and gay literature, but all of my forays into each have fallen rather flat. There aren't many gay novels I enjoy, and while I've read some theory, it's mostly the extremely common, at this point basically canonical stuff.

 

I will, however, recommend Yukio Mishima's Confessions of a Mask. I read it earlier this summer and really went crazy over it. It's very dark though, and not very romantic. I also recommend reading about Mishima's life (his Wikipedia entry suffices) along side it--very strange, very tortured, very talented man.

[bgt28]

I haven't. Definitely putting it on the list. I've been reading more works with a political bent (Michael Warner's The Trouble with Normal in particular). Not sure if Weston's one is political at all.

 

Literature suggestions as in novels? I haven't actually read any lately... Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai is a great queer POC book, though!

I love Warner...I devoured Publics and Counterpublics/ Sex in Public last night. I'm definitely a fan!

I love Muñoz for POC/QOC critique, and David Román too.

[fopdandyhomo]

I'm a historian but I wanted to chime in, nonetheless. Though I resisted it for a long time, being queer has definitively shaped the type of questions I ask and methodologies I pursue. I've dabbled explicitly (in both meanings of the word) in queer topics in the past, but my current research interests are less directly gay. I mentioned in my SOP how queer theory shapes my analysis and my diversity statements outed me. For me, being queer and being theoretically oriented go hand-in-hand so going through this process in the closet would have been impossible. (I really should be a critical theorist or an English student.)

 

I'm obsessed with Warner. I highly recommend reading "Memoirs of a Pentecostal Boyhood" (I think this is what it's called). He also edited a great volume back in the '90s called Fear of a Queer Planet. I'm currently reading his The Trouble with Normal. I'm only 30 pages in but it's scary how trenchant his critique of the assimilationist gay agenda is now that gay marriage is legal for most Americans while queer kids are thrown out on the street and there is an epidemic of violence against transwomen of color.

 

Any other queer theory suggestions/favorites?

[bgt28]

I'm currently reading his The Trouble with Normal. I'm only 30 pages in but it's scary how trenchant his critique of the assimilationist gay agenda is now that gay marriage is legal for most Americans while queer kids are thrown out on the street and there is an epidemic of violence against transwomen of color.

So so so true and important. People forget a lot of things about how hard life can be in the community, and seem to be very good at making myths out of the past.

 

 

Any other queer theory suggestions/favorites?

 

 

Homographesis (Edelman), No Future (Edelman, although OMG he needs to tone it the fuck down), Homonationalism (Puar), Queer Art of Failure (Halberstam), Cruising Utopia/Disidentifications (Muñoz)

 

Everything by Sedgwick (I still don't know how to feel about 'How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay")

[fopdandyhomo]

Thank you! The best part of this interminable wait is the chance to read things slowly.

 

Off to the library (again)!

[1Q84]

This is a difficult question for me.

 

I grew up in a politically moderate, perhaps even slightly forward-looking suburb--more forward-looking with regard to sexuality than race, at any rate and unfortunately. (I am white, so that's not part of the difficulty here--I'm just trying to give you guys an idea of the place.)

 

My problems having grown up gay never really involved direct persecution for sexuality. My mother could have handled it better, but now she makes blowjob jokes all the time so I guess she's okay with it. My friends said, "good, now no one can accuse our friends group of anything"--strange response, but not bad for me personally.

 

I would say I'm similar in this respect except that I'm Asian, so that complicates matters. Not that my mom makes blowjob jokes or anything... she actually was very upset about it and still doesn't talk about it. But I was not "out" in high school or even undergrad, so I never faced any persecution for my sexuality. Even when I came out, all my friends were fine with it.

 

That's not to say I haven't faced discrimination or hatred from the general public, however....

 

I love Warner...I devoured Publics and Counterpublics/ Sex in Public last night. I'm definitely a fan!

I love Muñoz for POC/QOC critique, and David Román too.

 

I think Sex in Public is crucial and necessary reading. If anyone is looking to get into queer theory, this is a great place to start. I do think that Warner has more than a few blindspots when it comes to race and class, though, but I think other POC have offered correctives on that. 

 

 

I'm currently putting together a reading list for my MA capstone and am soliciting suggestions for queer readings related to family and marriage. Thank you to bgt for the Weston suggestion--just picked it up at the library today!

[Katla]

I'm currently putting together a reading list for my MA capstone and am soliciting suggestions for queer readings related to family and marriage. Thank you to bgt for the Weston suggestion--just picked it up at the library today!

 

Have you read David Eng's The Feeling of Kinship, as I recall that also makes some rather interesting points

[bgt28]

Anytime/always! Dedicated servant to knowledge/building kinship/friendship!

 

I'm very glad that this thread exists, so so glad to meet more of the tribe

 

Warner does have blind spots, to be sure, but I feel like non-whiteness is a specter they all avoid. It's strange, and devastating, since narrative is crucial to the development of national security, identity, and filial affection among countrymen and countrywomen. Especially cross-racial narrative. So crucial. I suspect there exists the notion that to elide questions of race makes for a more "complex" and "focused" analysis on sexuality and its attendant politics; however, this is to fall into the trap, which Baldwin so beautifully lays out for us, of white innocence. It is never really advertent; and none of this is of course accusatory. But it is meant as a call to arms, a call to love and listening.

 

I really suggest reading The Fire Next Time by Baldwin, if you haven't already, 1Q84. It's not "queer" per se, but it is by Baldwin, who I consider a black queer prophet (not the most original thing to say, but that doesn't make it any less true). xx

 

Katla, I'm on it. I'm so excited. Thank you so much! I'm extremely interested in the racialization of intimacy. xx

[bgt28]

PS: OMG David Eng is at Penn. WHAT IF I GET IN???? Argh lol xoxoxo

[sillyrabbit]

PS: OMG David Eng is at Penn. WHAT IF I GET IN???? Argh lol xoxoxo

 

I would LOVE to work with him...or...even just be in his presence.

[bgt28]

I would LOVE to work with him...or...even just be in his presence.

LOL same!!!

[Katla]

I would LOVE to work with him...or...even just be in his presence.

He was a visiting professor at my undergrad uni in my final year and  he was bloody amazing!!!

Edited January 15, 2015 by Katla

[unræd]

Is anyone else sort of shocked at how very, very queer this year's GC cohort is?

[unræd]

I will, however, recommend Yukio Mishima's Confessions of a Mask. I read it earlier this summer and really went crazy over it. It's very dark though, and not very romantic. I also recommend reading about Mishima's life (his Wikipedia entry suffices) along side it--very strange, very tortured, very talented man.

 

Yes! Such a good book!

[1Q84]

Have you read David Eng's The Feeling of Kinship, as I recall that also makes some rather interesting points

 

No! Will look into. Thanks.

 

 

I really suggest reading The Fire Next Time by Baldwin, if you haven't already, 1Q84. It's not "queer" per se, but it is by Baldwin, who I consider a black queer prophet (not the most original thing to say, but that doesn't make it any less true). xx

 

 

 

Actually have been wanting to include Baldwin in the list so thanks for the reminder!

 

Is anyone else sort of shocked at how very, very queer this year's GC cohort is?

 

I am. I thought I was the only fruit in the bunch. Now I'm thinking this cohort in one room would look like this: