I have added a couple more points from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to the post below, right under the cut tage; the current post is tangentially about a discussion of the book, but contains NO spoilers.
I've been participating in a discussion of HBP on one of my online discussion lists. In the course of the discussion, one participant mentioned that she has perceived Lupin as "genderqueer" (her word; I'm still not sure of all of it's implications), and his forced resignation as an analogy for what happens to teachers who are gay. Those weren't all of her words - I'm omitting the mention of something that happens in HBP - but her comments were no more explicit than that. Another took violent and huffy exception to the idea of seeing such things in a children's story, and demanded that any further discussion of such things be so labeled in the subject line. In the initial post she stated that the books couldn't possibly imply "those sorts of things"; I perceived her later posts to be saying that discussion of characters' possible gay identification was filth that she should be alerted of in advance, to avoid soiling her eyes. (In all fairness, I have just looked back over her posts and they are not quite as incendiary as I remember, except for the demand that the subject line warn of any mention of homosexuality, so she could avoid it.)
I am offended. I am very upset at the idea that homosexuality (again, as an identification: there was no mention or implication of actual sex at all) is such a horrible thing that right-minded people must be warned lest they see something against their morals. Incidentally, I'm not sure it's relevant (given that again, no actual sex was mentioned or implied) but this list consists only of adults.
That's not the interesting part, though. Someone said something discriminatory, yeah yeah, I'm offended, yeah, yeah, nothing new there. The thing that interests me is that I actually feel freer to be offended here simply because I'm not in the group that was slurred. I'm not sure why.
I happen to know that there are people on that list there people on the who identify as queer or bi, but I'm not one of them. I've only ever dated men, or wanted to, really; I can imagine being attracted by a woman but it's a bit of a stretch for me. I identify as straight. I would be upset anyhow on my gay friends' behalf but I find in this case I'm offended on my own. She's saying I can't talk about something I don't think is wrong, and telling me I couldn't choose a certain identity if I did want to. She's telling me her view of what if offensive should take priority over my own. I don't want to have to put it in the subject line every time I'm talking about something someone else has decided for me is offensive.
On the other hand, if she had been speaking of something that was part of my identity, say Judaism, I'd be more hesitant. I would certainly speak out loud
and clear and unashamed if I thought someone was calling my religion dirty. On the other hand, if I were writing about Jewish theology to a list involving a lot of conservative Christians (and I have done so, though thankfully no one in that group disparaged my religion, or I wouldn't have stayed in that group) I would put something in the subject or introductory matter to say that this is what I was writing about,
this is what I believe personally (or don't, I'm not that religious) this is what the Rabbis say and others may disagree. A warning, of sorts. If someone talks about the suffering of the Palestinians at the hand of the Israelis, I don't step up and argue every time, unless it seems to be an especially unbalanced argument. The Israelis have suffered too, at the hands of terror attacks, and as long as that is understood, I can agree that some of their retaliatory actions were unjustifiably brutal. I make allowances, and try to understand what the person really means to say.
In contrast, in this case, my own identity is not involved at all, and yet I'm finding I have a much lower tolerance for this offense. Odd, huh?
Posted by dichroic at July 19, 2005 02:37 PMWhat's so odd? I was interested in "I actually feel freer to be offended here simply because I'm not in the group that was slurred," because it reminded me of a woman I worked with, who was far more offended by what she perceived as slurs against blacks than were the black people who also worked with us. We used to say she had converted to Judaism because she couldn't turn black. Anyhow, it's always a matter of pick and choose; sometimes you're preaching to the choir, and sometimes you're talking to the wall.
Posted by: l-empress at July 19, 2005 02:54 PMActually, I said Tonks was genderqueer.
She can change her gender, since she's a shapeshifter. As to whether or not she would want to, who knows? But I know that if I had the magical ability to have a functioning penis, I'd at least want to try it out. At any rate, being able to change gender at will is pretty queer. She may be completely heterosexual in her desires, but that's not what makes her queer. Her potential fluidity between the binary genders is what makes her queer. Here's a rudimentary Wikipedia article about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genderqueer
I am not sure why this person got so upset at my use of the word queer; she later characterized it as a description of a "lewd sexual act", which it is not. It's a description of an identity.
Posted by: Natalie at July 19, 2005 05:24 PM