LGBTQ+: Strange Bedfellows part 2
Those that don't fit the categories: Bisexualism, Transgenderism, and Queer
In part one of this discussion, we looked at the history of the male homosexual, or “gay,” movement and the lesbian movement in the 20th century and how they started out in opposition to each other and were pushed into a political alliance on the basic theory that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Now we will look at those groups in the LGBTQ+ movement that do not fit into one of those categories and are in some ways even stranger members of the political alliance.
Bisexuals
When the term “Bisexual” was first coined in 1893, it was used to refer to a hermaphrodite, or what is now termed “intersexed” person, because the individual had the exceedingly rare condition of being born with both male and female genitalia. However, by the early 20th century, the term had come to be associated with someone who was attracted to both sexes. In the 21st century the term has been further adjusted to mean someone who is attracted to all genders.[1]
Bisexuals have not easily fit into either male homosexual or lesbian camps for several reasons. First, there are both male and female bisexuals, so some would associate with male homosexuals and others with lesbians. While those who had bisexual attraction would periodically join either the male homosexual or lesbian cultures, they generally did not fit in because they also were attracted to those of the opposite sex. In fact, in the 1970s during the rise of the Gay rights movement, they actively kicked bisexuals out of their movement labelling them has heterosexuals.[2] In much the same way, since lesbianism is based on the rejection of sexual penetration, a female bisexual is suspect since she does welcome penetration from men as well as sexual encounters with women.
The first person to treat bisexuality as a separate condition was Sigmund Freud. He argued in his work Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (1905) that all children started out as bisexuals, not understanding there are any sexual differences between the parents. For Freud, it was socialization that usually moved a child out of this into understanding the two sexes during the phallic stage of development.
The one who truly thrust bisexuality into the public eye was Alfred Kinsey. Kinsey, who was a bisexual and involved with all sorts of perversions, rated people on a 0-6 scale, called the Kinsey scale, which ranked people from having only heterosexual attraction on one end and only homosexual attraction on the other with various levels of bisexual attraction in the middle. Kinsey went as far as to argue that “a quarter to half” of the population were at least somewhat bisexual in their attraction.[3] It must be remembered, however, that Kinsey’s research has been totally discredited and the “well known” facts from it are not accurate. However, this has not prevented his work from gaining widespread purchase.
As noted above, bisexuals were often mistrusted by the homosexual communities. Also, it was hard to distinguish a true bisexual from someone who wanted to be only a male or female homosexual but had to also have a heterosexual marriage to keep up appearances. Then in the 1980s and 90s, bisexuality became more publicly recognized. As the gay and lesbian movements started to meld because they saw each other as being oppressed by the heterosexual majority, the bisexual movement started and was welcomed into the political alliance.
Transgenderism
There have always been people who have wished they were the opposite sex. However, as this has always been an extremely rare condition, those who had it were viewed more as freaks than anything else. Then in 2015, Bruce Jenner came out as transsexual and later transitioned to Caitlyn Jenner. (For more on the rise of transgenderism see here.) This was powerful because a national hero and former Olympic champion could not easily be dismissed as a freak. That same year, the Supreme Court came down with its monumental Obergfell v. Hodges decision which mandated homosexual marriage. When this happened, the Social Justice movement both won a huge victory, but then also needed to find a new group of “oppressed” to champion, as it was harder to claim homosexuals were still victims in society. This seems to have drawn this movement to champion what had been rechristened as transgenderism.
What makes transgenderism such a strange ally to gays and lesbians is that homosexuality is based on the premise that there are two sexes. By definition, a male homosexual is attracted to and wants to have sexual encounters with man with male genitalia. Likewise, a lesbian is attracted to and wants to have sexual encounters with a woman and directly rejects male sexuality. While it is not often talked about, there are many male and female homosexuals who are deeply offended by transgenderism.
Consider, for example, a male homosexual who is seeking a partner. For him to encounter a “man” who is actually a trans-man with female genitalia is actually to push him into heterosexuality rather than homosexuality. It has gone so far that there are those out there who argue that in order to avoid “transphobia,” everyone needs to be effectively bisexual.
As a result, the whole transgender movement has put the male and female homosexuals into a quandary. On the one side, they support the idea of one being able to declare their sexual orientation, and they are bound together with the philosophy of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” On the other side, transgenderism, at its root, rejects the fact that there are true, objective sexes, which undermines the very notion of homosexuality.
Queer
Queer, which originally meant something that was odd or unusual, has now been attached to sexual identity. However, it is a negative definition, meaning that it is not about what it is, but what it is against. Judith Butler argues “queer” is anything that falls outside the socially expected gender performances. For Butler and those following her, “to queer” is to destabilized categories and disrupt norms and thereby liberate those oppressed by these categories.[4] As David Halperin explains, queer is “whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant. There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers. It is an identity without an essence.”[5]
Queer theory, therefore, is an academic exercise in trying to tear down all that is normal or socially accepted. This is about pushing the limits whenever a line is detected. Queer theorists have developed the technical term “genderfucking” to mean, roughly, “to fuck about with the meaning of ‘gender’ so as to queer it.” The goal is to destabilize everything. The result is an incoherent confusion. Pluckrose and Lindsay note “The incoherence of queer Theory is an intentional feature, not a bug.”[6]
As a result, while queer has come to be an umbrella term for all forms of sexuality except for heterosexuality, in some ways it undermines even standard understandings of the “alternate” sexualities. The true goal of “queering” is to tear down identities and definitions, including gay, lesbian, and transgender which all assume the existence of objective genders in some form or another.
This look at the diversity of genders is continued here.
[1] “The Evolution of the Word ‘bisexual’ — and Why It’s Still Misunderstood,” NBC News, 23 September 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/evolution-word-bisexual-why-it-s-still-misunderstood-n1240832.
[2] “What People Get Wrong About the History of Bisexuality,” TIME, 23 June 2022, https://time.com/6189773/bisexuality-history-researchers/.
[3] “What People Get Wrong About the History of Bisexuality.”
[4] Helen Pluckrose and James A. Lindsay, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity - and Why This Harms Everybody, First Edition. (Durham, NC: Pitschstone, 2020), chap. 2.
[5] David M. Halperin, Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 62. Emphasis original.
[6] Pluckrose and Lindsay, Cynical Theories, chap. 4.