Difference, Disagreement and the Thinking of Queerness (Viewpoint Essay‪)‬

Despite the prevalence of the term 'queer' in academic and activist circles, its meaning remains unclear. At one point, it was thought to stand in for the lengthier phrase 'lesbian and gay.' This phrase was later expanded to include both bisexuals and transgenders, resulting in the acronym LGBT. As additional identities become more solidified and recognized, they are added to the end of the growing acronym. Sometimes a 'Q' is tacked on the end to refer to any other identities that the term may have neglected under the umbrella 'queer.' From this perspective, the term queer vaguely refers to any individuals whose identities fall outside the heterosexual norm, broadly construed. If this is the full extent to which queer will refer in the future, then there is no need to theorize queer--its meaning is and will continue to be readily available. It is simply shorthand for a general category of identities that stand apart from the sexual norm. If, however, there is something politically salient to queerness as a concept that deserves theorizing, it must stand apart from this mode of LGBT politics. It must be something more than, and most likely opposed to, the way mainstream gay and lesbian movements have defined non-normative sexualities via their own usage of the term queer. If queer does signify something more substantive, just what its meaning is remains a question that has not been answered with any specificity. This ambiguity has been detrimental to locating what it is that is politically salient about the concept of queerness. The fuzziness associated with the term is a problem--it has left the term susceptible to broad interpretation, including a regression back to queer as a substitute for LGBT. I contend that there is something more to queerness that warrants theorizing, and that more work needs to be done to understand queerness in specific terms. Here I describe a more nuanced understanding of normativity and I offer a more complex and mobile approach to the way that lived experiences are positioned with relation to norms. This analysis will not only delineate queerness from LGBT, but also show why queerness is important to us politically. Queerness both exceeds and challenges the limits of LGBT politics, and more generally, neoliberal identity politics. Thus, I turn to the work of Jacques Ranciere and Gilles Deleuze in order to theorize queerness as difference and disagreement, an articulation that views queerness as distinct from neo-liberal or interest group approaches. This paper does not treat queerness as if it is an already existent concept that needs modification, and it does not take Ranciere or Deleuze to be queer thinkers per se. Rather, I argue that Ranciere and Deleuze provide valuable resources for conceptualizing queerness anew (See O'Rourke, 2005; Nigianni/Storr, 2009). This conceptualization understands queerness as something uniquely political, a mode of politics that is otherwise unavailable. It is also important to admit and preserve the substantial differences between Ranciere and Deleuze's work before attempting to work across these differences. In many cases, they approach different questions from different metaphysical standpoints. There is, however, substantial overlap in several areas that I find productive for thinking about queerness as a political idea. Their differences--however significant--do not preclude using these two thinkers in tandem for this project.