True to my lazy form of late, today's entry is what I wrote last night in the QU journal:
"I'm feeling further and further removed from this context."
'Archana Jude' wrote the above just about a year ago, and now I echo his sentiments. Thanks to my semester of Queer Studies in Amsterdam and a healthy dose of postmodernist thought, I've been having a lot of trouble placing myself within the 'queer community' at Mac lately. Deconstruction of gender, sexuality, and, indeed, the self, makes identity politics (on which so much of what we do here is based) philosophically and ethically difficult. How can I write a proposal for a GLBT services staff position, how can I be the token homo guest speaker in a human sexuality class, if I recognize gender and sexual orientation as constructs, discourses, cultural currency, anything but hard fact?
I'm starting to get the sensation that there is a theoretical gulch between me and the vast majority of the other people. Case in point: Kate Bornstein's "The Truly Amazing Gender Aptitude Quiz." Granted, it's not exactly a tried and true scale, but nonetheless, my score falls in the "gender freak" range. As the description says, "Whoa! This stuff must seem like kid's play for you." Why, yes. And I'm having a hard time finding anyone else with whom to talk about it. I miss my queer theory buddies from last semester, I guess. I didn't appreciate what I had while I had it. Maybe I should go read some Judith Butler. Fuck.