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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 19, 2004)
novamber 19, 2QQ4 z P P flp i p eatingout eatingout eatingout The queer gaze ‘ ust Out recently caught up with Enter- variant relationships or means of bonding, the active Language Festival presenter Patrick search tor sex and love, and response to perse Califia to talk about queer language and cution. T he tongues of queer people need to trans identities. T he bisexual trans man be studied in this context, or their full power has written multiple essays, fiction and poetry, and flavor is lost. including the kx>ks Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism and Public Sex. M D: W hat does the queer community contribute to language and communication in Meg Daly: W hat will your presentation at general? the EL-fest be about? PC: As queer people become more visible, Patrick Califia: I want it to he a surprise. the larger culture itself becomes more queer. 1 had originally thought 1 would do something The easiest way to track this is to see how the that paired medicalized texts that stigmatize forms of queer relationships have become more queer people with images that belie those pas prevalent in heterosexual couplings. sages. But I am moving in the direction now of As straight people struggle with the queer doing something more personal. ing of their world— and often reject it— queer people struggle to stretch the meaning ot “legitimate” institutions to include them MD: As a trans man, could you comment on gender being a form of communication? selves.... W hile half of all straight marriages end in divorce, and more and more oppo site-sex couples elect to merely live togeth er, same-sex couples agitate to be able to legally marry. J MD: Is there such a thing as queer language? PC: O f course there’s a queer language! All minority communities play with the dominant language in order to express their unique expe riences, identify one another and reinforce their specialness and separation from the overculture. [Since] the late 1970s, when Bruce RixJgers published The Queen's Vernacular— which was later reprinted as Gay Talk and is sadly now out of print— we’ve had d(Kumented evidence of a “gay slang” in America. But I think it would be a mistake to see queer language as only individual words that can be taken out of context. In a subculture, language is part of a rich gestalt that interacts with clothing, style, MD: W hat do we need or lack in terms of language in queer communities? PC : In a society that only recognizes man and woman as “the two sexes,” how are people who don’t fit those para digms to understand themselves, and how are they going to make a display of that the divorced fath er of a understanding that will he received and comprehended by others? For example, how dcx;s a hoy-identified per son who was horn female, who still has visible breasts and does not take testosterone, commu nicate that he wants others to treat him as a boy and use male pronouns? W hat dtxjs he call himself? And if he names himself, how will people outside of the community understand that name? Is it dangerous to give himself that name, and to make it heard? W hat is a trans woman who has had no genital surgery going to call the organs that give her pleasure? W hat is her partner to call them? Is there truly going to be a communal or joint sharing of meaning here? And how are the people who love or desire transgendered people going to name themselves? This is a case in which human behavior, thought and self-expression has outstripped the English language. We have to pick up the words we are given as if they were glass plates, and break them, then sort out all of the pieces and put them together in a mosaic of colors that no one has ever seen before. eatingout ■ *...... ♦ • ...... LUNCH 11:30-2:00 Tues. - Sat. & DINNER 5:00-9:00 Tues. - Sat. by M eg D aly PC : G ender identity is communicated in so many different ways, it’s difficult to list them all. T he pace of our speech is gendered, and its pitch and tone. T he food we eat, the clothes we wear, the order in which we enter a rcx>m, handwriting, careers, it’s all gendered. We live in a society th at seems obsessed with gender. Despite all the public relations bullshit about gender being “the law of nature” or “genetic” and “biological and immutable,” there seems to he quite a lot of anxiety about the ability of the bipolar gender paradigm to stand on its own two feet. It’s as if it requires constant policing and reinforcement in every single area of human life. You can’t blink your eyes without running into the regulation of gender expression. \ ' NA < P a t r i c k C a lifia e x p lo d e s t h e g e n d e r b i n a r y P atrick C a lifia is a m arriag e and fam ily therapist, 4-year-o ld autistic boy and a pagan m inister ' lust out 39 •* HAIRNETS: UNDERWEAR: CLOSED Sun. & Mon. Cafe FULL BAR KtltTOM PITTA « •> fteax ■» ¿MÍs&ntf -> eñehi ¿foladi <* Experience T h e Flavors of N ew M exico 1634 S.E. Bybee Blvd. • (503) 235-9114 M-tfcc m -4 4 4 4 IMOpw Sun 2»TH « N£ CUSAN O UMITfcO M U DELIVERY P L Se join us soon to share oar passion caa for cfood fo o d a n d l friendship in 161 leans the i Jew Cdr lei manner. AN e w O •pleins N l o n d a q S a t u r d a y 5-lOpm 5 0 3 -2 4 9 -5 0 0 \ / / e d n e s d a y [ _ u n c ^ 11:30-2:30 1303 NE E r e m o n t Çt www.creolapdx.com LaurelThirst Public House' Everyone welcome since 198 8 -y Homemade Specials all week vl\., ■■> (d * Breakfast 9 -3 everyday f 1 'v y r - % I ' v' 1 n ft ’ '-4 Ì I, n r « K IT « l» » y KÉÜI I free 6-8 pm | music everyday I Free or Low- •: 1 cover music | everynight. I Open Mic Tuesdays 9pm BREAKFAST AND LUNCH in P atrick C alifia joins queer spoken word artists damali ayo and John G. Boehme for “Language of Identity" 8 p.m. Nov. 19 at Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, 5340 N. Interstate Ave. Tickets are $7 in advance from In Other Words. For more informatum visit uww.2gyrlz.org. Califia also will present a free informal reading and Q & A session 3 p.m. Nov. 20 at In Other Words, 3734 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd. 1801 NE BROADWAY Mon-Fri 6am to 2:30pm Breakfast A ll Day Everyday Sat-Sun 7am to 3pm (503) 287-4750 E xpanded L u n c h M en u
