Outlaws & Identity Formation

Have you ever had the experience of walking into a room and feeling strangely uncomfortable after a glance around? The realization that no one looks like you, that no one is dressed like you-it’s just you and the masses. I imagine that’s how it feels like to be a lesbian, gay man or transsexual in today’s society. If you say something in the room of immense discomfort, all eyes fall upon you-observing, critiquing, undoubtedly judging all actions…say something radical and wowee, you’re in for it. I’ve had some experience in this on numerous occasions, and let me tell you, it doesn’t get any easier. Sometimes I even find myself trying blend in…maybe if I dressed like them, they wouldn’t notice me…maybe (by the way, it usually fails). Throughout the course of this term, it has become obvious that this is analogous to how heteronormative society sees members of the LGBT community. The concept of the pariah and parvenu is a recurring theme within the study of the LGBT community: it was present in the early 90s evident with the rise of the AIDS epidemic, in the notions surrounding masculinity and femininity in the black and Chicano communities respectively and it was surely present within the context of butch/fem subculture of the 1980s. It is worth noting that heternormative society does not take kindly to outlaws, even in this day and age when “individuality” is emphasized…really, we’re not being taught to stand out, but rather to stand out while looking like everyone else. In this reflection, I’ve synthesized some of my previous blog entries to illustrate the effects of being regarded as an outlaw and subsequently, what this implied for identity formation.

When the AIDS epidemic first began to make headlines in the early 90s, gay men were regarded as the outlaws of society. This is evident in the way that AIDS was presented to the public at large: it was seen as a “gay disease”, a problem not relevant to the rest of society. It was “their” problem. An implicit example of how the notion of the gay man as an outlaw was portrayed to society is evident through the methods (or lack thereof) used by society to promote awareness of the AIDS virus. For example, in Crimp’s analysis of the media and the AIDS epidemic, he states (as quoted from a panelist at the Science Institute for Public Information): “it would be dishonest not to say we couldn’t sell the AIDS story early on because it was about gays” (Crimp, 16). This quote implies that gay men were regarded as a minority that society chose to make invisible. With regards to gay men being considered the outlaws during the rise of the AIDS epidemic, identity formation was also affected. According to Altman, AIDS was considered to not be leading people to necessarily avoid a gay identity, but it was certainly affecting the way they perceived what this identity meant especially owing to the politicization of AIDS (Altman, 170).

The notion of the outlaw is further perpetuated within racial contexts, as is evident through the position of the gay man and lesbian woman within the black and Chicano communities respectively. In the black community, gay men are considered the ultimate pariahs because of widely accepted notions of masculinity. According to Riggs, the gay black man is emasculated and his sexuality is a statement of his weakness, passivity, absence of real guts (BRM, 254). He is considered a triple negation as compared to his straight counterpart who is strong and powerful: a real representation of what a man is supposed to be. Similarly, in the Chicano community, certain prescribed notions of femininity regard the Chicana lesbian as the pariah of her community. Femininity within the Chicana community is emphasized through motherhood: i.e. a real Latina woman is a mother. These aspects taken together reflect the intersection of race and sexuality and undoubtedly have an effect on identity formation. One example that sticks out in my mind was during our discussion on this very issue in class, when Juni commented that women are the ones that often times reinforce this notion of lesbians being regarded as outlaws. It seems as though violence, fear is used as a means to perpetuate what is regarded as acceptable, and this implies especially within the context of these communities, that an LGBT identity is hindered because of the enforcement of accepted ideals. My assumption is therefore that gay men or lesbians would tend to “stay in the closet” for fear of the repercussions of expressing their sexuality.

The idea of the outlaw as related to butch/fem subculture in the 1980s takes on an interesting aspect when considering how notions of the pariah were perpetuated. In the context of butch/fem culture, the mode of dress was instrumental in regarding lesbians as either for or against the lesbian movement. For example, Nestle narrates one of her experiences as being regarded as an outlaw by the feminist movement based on her mode of dressing. She comments, “if I wore the acceptable movement clothes of sturdy shoes, dungarees, work shirt and back pack, I was to be trusted…” This implies that lesbians identifying as “fem” were essentially regarded as traitors in that they dressed like the heteronormative standard of what was considered feminine. Considering the function that a lesbian’s mode of dress played with regards to expressing her solidarity with the feminist movement, it is easy to gauge the complexities associated with identity formation as well as expression. As Nestle exemplifies, the choice was between expressing her solidarity with the lesbian movement, or with simply being comfortable in her own style. This affects identity formation in the sense that one has to choose which identity she holds in higher regard: her gender or her sexuality.

It is interesting to note that in the case of butch/fem culture and both the black and Chicano community, the pressure of being regarded as an outlaw came from within their community-while in the case of gay men during the AIDS epidemic, the effect of being an outlaw was particularly felt in the politicization of the disease. As noted, these factors taken together affected the formation of an LGBT identity.