At the Borders of Queer Nation
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Mutts and links
In rejecting
oppositional categories and existing
outside or
inbetween, a
bisexual may take a
strategic position in relation to identity. They may be key members of "coalitional identities," which the identity queer has the potential to be, which are
based not on stable identities, but on the recognition that some social signifiers presently embody and transmit relations of oppression. One's relationship to those signifiers need not be settled once and for all for them to be important constituents of one's life and politics. (Phelan 1994:151)
A
coalitional identity as a unit organized for
social change is based on the
salience of the issue at hand to a person's life. However, without massive educating, bisexuals will still face the same characterizations of themselves: much of the
epistemological advantage remains within the individual - they may become a person in "critical,
deconstructive rationality" (Walker 1993:870) but only be able to explain that
rationality to a sympathetic person through their stories. A similar person is the "
mestiza identity": a
borderline,
impure label claimed and negotiated between
disparite parts of her being:
The mestizaje lived by Anzaldua is an experience of conflict precisely beause one of her "elements" is privileged over another, and consequently her positioning among those elements has direct consequences for her life ....In heterosexist society, as in racist society, one must be one or the other - there is no room for social mutthood. (phelan 1994:71)
As a never-quite
belonging, never-quite not
belonging character whose very existence
blurs
borders that the dominant culture would like to see clean, a mestiza is a kind of ambassador from her own
perspective to the world, or between her worlds. In a similar way, women talk about "using my
bisexual wits" to help "overcome the barriers we were born into," and using
heterosexual privilege in order to subvert the heterosexist system, as in teaching (Queen 1991:20; Yoshizaki 1991:25-26). These are ways of using identity in a less
essentializing, but political way.
Another idea suggested which is related to mestiza identities is a 'continuum identity,' where rather than two entities, there is a continuum, with bisexuals (or another mixed, middle term) making the bridge. Newitz and Sandell suggest that "If we were to make race and ethnicity into 'continuum' identities, this would more accurately reflect the reality of contemporary life (as well as being far more inclusive)"(1994).
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