novamber 19, 2QQ4 z
P P flp i p
eatingout
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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
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LUNCH
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Tues. - Sat.
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DINNER
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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
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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