Queer Is a Political Identity, Not a Sexuality

Expanding on Andrew Sullivan's objection.

(Audio version here)

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On the first of June, the mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, posted on X,

Andrew Sullivan objected,

The confusion here appears to be happening in good faith and this particular disconnect occurs quite frequently. Many people who understand that the term ‘queer’ is defined as being inclusive of everybody who does not fit the definition of ‘masculine man attracted to women’ or ‘feminine woman attracted to men’ perceive that this quite obviously includes gay men and lesbians. They are consequently genuinely confused when some gay men and lesbians say it does not include them and consider their perceived omission to be significant and worrying.

This confusion arises when people do not really understand the significance of the concept of ‘queer’ in its current political context. This have failed to appreciate, as Andrew puts it, that “Queer is a left political position, not a sexual orientation.” That is, they have failed to recognise that ‘queer’ refers to a set of political and philosophical beliefs about sex, gender and sexuality which holds that having categories for these is an oppressive social construct which should be disrupted as a form of progressive political activism. This is the central tenet of "Queer Theory” which explicitly understands itself as a subversive, transgressive political theory. Therefore, to refer to somebody as ‘queer’ is to attribute to them a political identity rather than to make a neutral statement of fact about their sexuality.

The majority of people who are same sex attracted do not adhere to the tenets of Queer Theory and have a variety of political and philosophical views. Some strongly object to the concept of ‘queer’ and oppose same-sex attraction being regarded as a transgressive, subversive political identity. They may instead want to live in a society where homosexual is recognised as something that some people are and for this to be largely unremarkable and not assumed to include any particular social status or kind of belief system.

This has been the liberal stance with regard to gay rights as well as women’s rights and the rights of racial minorities. Liberalism, which foregrounds the right of all individuals to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness has focused on removing barriers that prevent some demographics from achieving this and then leaving them alone to decide what they want to believe and do. This was the leading approach to securing rights for women, racial minorities, religious minorities and sexual minorities from the end of the 19th century upto the 1980s. In relation to gay rights, it is best summed up by the slogan, “Some people are gay. Get over it.”

This was very successful because the individual and universal elements of liberalism appealed to intuitions of fairness commonly held by people on both the left and the right. However, beginning in the 60s, a movement of radically deconstructive postmodern thought on the left arose to disrupt it. The central belief of this was that what we consider to be knowledge is, in fact, a construct of oppressive power, perpetuated in discourses (ways of talking about things).Objective truth is unobtainable and the best we can do is theorise about what political forces caused knowledge to be constructed in this way in the first place and try to deconstruct it. This remained almost entirely within the bounds of academia where it troubled the general public very little due to being largely incomprehensible until the end of the 1980s. (I have written about this here). At this time, it was mutated into an accessible and actionable form by scholars developing a cluster of ‘applied postmodern’ theories that were known as postcolonial theory, queer theory, critical race theory and intersectional feminism along with the lesser known dis/ability studies and fat studies. Central to this wave of theories was identity politics.

Identity politics works very differently to liberalism in that, instead of focusing on the rights of the individual to universally granted rights and freedoms and objecting when any group is denied this, it focuses on the group specifically, rejecting both individualism and universalism. The group then becomes a collective defined by specific theorised interests which are political. People from within those groups who hold those political beliefs are presented as the authentic ‘voice of colour’ or ‘queer voice’ while those who hold different views are regarded as inauthentic and not truly a member of the group whose opinions should be considered. In relation to race, it looks like this:

In relation to sexuality, it looks like the exclusion of lesbians, gay men and bisexuals (LGB) who do not ascribe to the tenets of queer theory that sex, gender and sexuality are social constructs whose categories should be disrupted and whose boundaries must be blurred. Many gay men, lebians and bisexuals did dissent from this, because being attracted to people who have the same genitalia as you does not automatically predispose one to have radically deconstructive left-wing political views.

Many of the LGB believed that there is significant evidence that we are, in fact, a dimorphic sexually-reproducing species and/or that ‘gender’ is a nebulous ill-defined concept at best and that being gender nonconforming is fine and does not change ones sex and that homosexuality refers to being attracted to people of the same sex, not the same gender identity. Many did not think that being same-sex attracted was the same kind of thing as having a sense of gender identity different to one’s sex or being asexual, demisexual, polyamorous or inclined to dress up as a squirrel. In short, many objected to being bundled together with anybody who could be considered, under some definition or other, not to fit perfectly within vanilla concepts of heterosexual monogamy. They felt that being same-sex attracted was a clearly defined and easily understood category of its own and deserved to be recognised as such and not forced into political solidarity with anybody else and that they should not be expected to affirm political and philosophical allegiance to any theoretical framework at all.

Ultimately, many of the LGB objected to being defined not by something they are (same-sex attracted), but by something they are not (conventionally masculine or feminine, heterosexual, monogamous, devoid of sexual eccentricities) while having their existence explained by an ideology they did not believe in. They objected to being called ‘queer’ because they recognised this, correctly, as a political identity and not a neutral description of their innate sexual orientation. Adherents to queer theory are also fully aware that it is a set of political and philosophical beliefs, so when they call lesbians, gay men and bisexuals ‘queer’ they are imposing those beliefs upon them. Equally, when they refer to “queer” people, they are quite explicitly excluding lesbians, gay men and bisexuals who do not consider themselves to be queer.

A venn diagram may help to illustrate this because it shows who is included in which definitions and who is excluded. “Lesbians, gay men and bisexuals” refers to anybody who is attracted to others of the same sex including those who consider themselves queer and consequently hold the beliefs of queer theory. It does not include those who consider themselves queer but are not attracted to others of the same sex. “Queer” refers to anybody who considers themselves queer including those who are attracted to others of the same sex. It does not include lesbians, gay men and bisexuals who do not hold the beliefs of queer theory.

When Andrew Sullivan said that by specifying ‘queer and trans’ people, Mr. Mamdani was erasing gay men and lesbians (who do not also consider themselves queer), he is simply correct. Within the current discourse, ‘queer’ does refer to people who hold the beliefs of queer theory and ‘trans’ refers to people who perceive themselves to have a gender identity which does not match their biological sex. Gay men and lesbians who do not believe either of these things are not included here. While Mamdani does refer to Stonewall, Lesbian Herstory and ACT UP!, only those who also consider themselves queer are celebrated. While trans people are also celebrated, the majority of those who also consider themselves to be gay men or lesbians would, by the standard definition of homosexuality, be heterosexual.

It is, of course, possible that Mr. Mamdani misspoke and does not fully appreciate what queer means in the current discourse of political activism. People can use the term as a slur or misunderstand it as a broadly inclusive term as indicated by the people responding to Andrew. It seems unlikely that Mamdani would not understand the political implications, however, because he is a politician who has been active on many related issues. It seems much more likely that he was using the term in its political sense and celebrating those who hold those political views specifically despite this excluding gay men and lesbians who don’t.

When people advocate for LGB rights specifically, it is generally understood that they are exclusively advocating for people who are same-sex attracted and not for anybody else who considers themselves queer. Those who do this will explain why they have this particular focus quite explicitly in an open and principled way. It would be helpful if those who advocate for queer rights were either similarly explicit that this does not include gay men and lesbians who don’t hold the beliefs of queer theory and justify this with an ethical rationale. In this way, people who don’t keep up with political terminology will understand to whom the term does and does not refer. Alternatively, they could use language which does include gay men and lesbians in their advocacy regardless of their political and philosophical beliefs and accept that same-sex attracted people can and do authentically hold a variety of them. That would be ideal.