Thoughts on "Community" (Do You Belong?)

Since we first began our discussion on “heternormativity”, the topic of a community and its importance has been a reoccurring thought-provoking concept for me. Specifically, how important is it really to belong to a community? Is it possible to simply (as Jedda termed) to exist outside the box? From our readings and just looking around our everyday society, it seems like it’s impossible to not exist within a community and even further to not identify with a community. I’m not only referring to gender, but it also extends to race and class. Why do we find it necessary to preserve the community we self identify with? From our readings such as D’Emilio’s Homosexuality and American Society: An overview, we’re able to see that if one exists outside of the community’s standards, they are automatically deemed the outsider, the “outlaw”. This concept I understood within the realm of heteronormativity and the development of the LGBT community, however, when I read Lillian Faderman’s piece on Butches, Femmes and Kikis, I was thrown for a bit of a loop. Faderman describes the experience of a lesbian woman in the 1960s who happened to be waiting in the “femme” line for the bathroom when she was clearly “butch” …she was redirected to the seemingly appropriate line (p.169). This struck me (and call me naïve if you may) but from the way I understood it, the rise of the lesbian community and respective subcultures were meant to "include" lesbian women, create a place where they were not the outlaws or outsiders. Yet it is almost ironic that the lesbian communities in the 1950s and 60s were perpetuating the exact same ideals of the heteronormative society (even more evident with the labels butch, femme and kikis). Jedda posed the question to what extent do we need stereotypes in order to have a community? From my perspective, it seems as though stereotypes unfortunately play an integral part of community formation and preservation, thereby making them necessary...Especially given that stereotypes are what defines a community.

Welcome!

Being a loyal Chicagoan, when I first read the course title “American Queer”, my next immediate thought was of “Boystown”.

Boystown, located on Chicago’s North Side, was the first officially recognized LGBT community in the United States. A quick glance down Halsted Avenue (one of the main streets of Boystown) reveals just a glimpse of a place brimming with “gay pride”. In addition to the numerous displays of pride flags and even the pride pillars, the streets of Boystown boast numerous bars, clubs, upscale shops and even posters advertising everything from new book clubs, to discussion forums and even to which nightclub is hosting drag night.
However, even though I have lived in Chicago for the majority of my life and even more significantly, in the bordering community of Boystown, I have never actually went out and experienced Boystown. Hence the title of my blog “Walking in Boystown” is somewhat ironic since it relates to the fact that I have no previous knowledge of the history of the community, or even of the current issues within the community. Needless to say, it is definitely one of my goals of the class: to be able to get a good foothold on what’s going on.

So that is about it in terms of Intros… I have never actually created a blog (and have a hard time keeping journals-so I apologize if at times it seems too formal) but please feel free to comment, offer feedback etc!

Welcome again to Walking in Boystown !