Midterm Definitions Flashcards
Lavender Scare
Beginning in the late 1940s (during the Cold War and alongside the Red Scare), a period of moral panic in which the federal government in the USA fired countless gay and lesbian employees because of their sexuality, using the excuse that they were “‘security risks’ whom communist operatives might easily blackmail.” Vice squads in Washington, D.C. also policed gay, lesbian, and gender expansive people at extremely high rates, “often [stopping], [questioning], and [recording] the identity of any man in a known gay cruising area.”
Harm Reduction
“Harm reduction is a broad approach that seeks to minimize the harms of high-risk practices by rejecting disapprobation and coercion.” In the context of drug use during the AIDS crisis, “Its definition is far from uniform, and includes the use of PrEP, supervised injection sites, methadone maintenance, or even counseling.” As the article states, harm reduction “has also sometimes involved the integration of service provision in social movement building or casting ‘self-care’ as a top priority.”
ACT UP
The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. Counted by many as one of the most important queer activist groups in the USA during the 1980s and ‘90s, specifically for their expansive, militant, and creative approach to fighting stigma of HIV/AIDS and their countless actions, subcommittees and chapters, offshoots, cultural productions, short- and long-term collaborations (notably with harm reduction and NEP efforts), and conflicts and successes. They were not identified as an LBGT organization.
Vanguard
An organization founded in 1965 and led collectively by queer and trans youth in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. Vanguard was special in that it aimed to both provide services and support for the queer youth in the Tenderloin and organize the community to political action. Worley’s article focuses especially on Vanguard’s “Street Sweep” demonstration, protests around Compton’s Cafeteria, eponymous magazine (with everything from poetry pages, to a rather raunchy advice column, to informative campaigns), and community events for queer and trans youth.
Gender as Performance
This refers to the idea that our gender is realized and made real by our continued “performance” of that gender. Butler especially digs into the idea of gender norms and enacting our lives as a certain gender, and explains that reality can be changed through the act of merely appearing, speaking, and behaving in certain/different ways.
TGIJP
The Transgender, Gender Variant, and Intersex Justice Project.Founded by Miss Major Griffin-Gracey, Bobbie-Jean Baker, and Melenie Eleneke, with the intention of putting Black trans women at the forefront of the movement for abolishing prisons in response to Black trans and queer people being “targeted by the system in ridiculously high numbers.” Run with the theory of “If we don’t save all of us, none of us are saved,” and the goal of helping Black trans gurls in prisons, as well as the community coming out of prison.
Abolition
“Abolition is not just about closing the doors to violent institutions, but also about building up and recovering institutions and practices and relationships that nurture wholeness, self-determination, and transformation. Abolition is not some distant future but something we create in every moment when we say no to the traps of empire and yes to the nourishing possibilities dreamed of and practiced by our ancestors and friends.…Abolition is about breaking down things that oppress and building up things that nourish”
Mahu
Trans/gender queer. A specifically native Hawaiian identity which colonizers attempted to erase from the culture. Partially based in a story of three healers who had the physical attributes of both a man and a woman, and who transferred their healing powers into three large rocks. The in-betweenness of the identity once came with great spiritual power and community respect. This term was actually primarily defined by an in-class viewing and lecture.
Visibility vs. Opacity
This “debate” represents a conversation regarding what is best for the safety and survival of trans people, to be represented well and frequently in the media or to reject and evade visibility entirely. The question at the heart of the debate, specifically in relation to the argument for opacity, is “How can we be seen without being known and how can we be known without being hunted?”
Critical Trans Politics
Critical Trans Politics, as explored especially in the work of Dean Spade, illuminates how hate crime legislation has historically failed to effectively deter transphobic harm. From the source article, we also learn that trans politics have recently been institutionalized to converge with rather than against state power, especially in the context of public memorials for trans women of color.
Lewd Vagrancy
“The definition of vagrancy is deliberately broad. It can refer to some act of unwanted loitering/wandering OR it can effectively criminalize a type of person or group of people, including: ‘rogues,’ ‘vagabonds,’ ‘prostitutes,’ being ‘dissolute,’ or being ‘unemployed.’” Lewd vagrancy laws have frequently been used to criminalize the queer and homeless communities. In fact, of 90 patrons arrested during the Hazel Inn Raid, most were charged with “lewd vagrancy.”
Undetectability
This was a term originally used in the context of HIV to describe a viral load below the threshold of noticeability. Lee also uses this term to describe “a space for navigating the violence of surveillance and exposure in a ‘discourse of concealment’ germane to trans life,” and they explore how undetectability “might overdetermine questions of individual responsibility and health at the cost of forgoing discussion of the structures barring access to widespread testing and treatment.”
Carceral Scapegoating / Fear Mongering
In terms of queer history, scapegoating especially referred to the blaming and criminalizing of poor and working class queer individuals for the poverty and inequity they face, labeling these groups as drug dealers, welfare queens, and hoodlums in order to justify the creation of policies that expand violence and harm against them. Fear mongering often refers to the use (especially governmental and corporate use) of “racist, xenophobic, and misogynist” messaging with the goal of distracting the general public “from increasing economic disparity and a growing underclass in the United States and abroad.” Fear mongering frequently leads to or goes hand in hand with scapegoating.
Queer/Trans Metaphor
Queer/Trans Metaphor is often used to help explore and “explain” the experience of being queer or trans, sometimes to someone who does not identify as either, since that experience is not one that can be properly defined with words. As an example, Jane Schoenbrun used their film “I Saw the TV Glow” to explore the complicated relationship many trans people have with childhood and the passage of time, and invokes the metaphors of the “egg crack moment” and the feeling of being buried alive throughout the film.
Hate Crimes Laws
As explained in the source essay, hate crimes laws “encourage us to understand oppression as something that happens when individuals use bias to deny someone a job because of sex or some other characteristic, or beat up or kill someone because of such a characteristic,” viewing “racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism in terms of individual behaviors and bad intentions rather than wide-scale structural oppression that often operates without some obvious individual actor aimed at denying an individual person autonomy.” Examples of Hate Crimes Laws include Megan’s Laws and the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act.
Transgender Rage / Trans Monstrosity
Trans monstrosity refers to the idea that the existence of transgender (or, in the context of the reading, transsexual) people threatens and destabilizes the concept of fixed genders that so many people have gotten used to. Because of this, even the most “liberal” or “accepting” communities often disclude and attack (verbally or physically) trans communities. Transgender rage comes out of this societal exclusion and mortal danger, and it describes the extreme anger that often accompanies and fuels activism against systems that allow transphobia’s continued existence. Stryker also describes trans rage as something that can feel both overwhelming and extremely empowering, fueling a person’s embodiment of the gender with which they identify.
Needle Exchange Programs (NEPs)
Efforts to distribute free (new and clean) syringes which have been shown to reduce HIV transmission among injection drug users. These programs have historically been highly contested, especially during the 1980s and ‘90s, and the queer activist group ACT UP was especially known for leading NEPs.
STAR House
An organization founded by Sylvia Lee Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson to provide “a place where trans youth of color could find a free and safe place to eat and sleep.” The residences “were upkept by the hustling and prostitution of ‘mothers’ and the stealing done by the ‘kids.’” The ‘kids’ in this case were often not actually underage, but simply other underserved trans women of color. The residences were simply a couple of apartments that could be rented with the money earned through theft and prostitution.
