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sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

Abstract

Language is a machine, and words are individual technologies within that machine. Sociocultural theory applied as activism is also a machine. Over the course of the past thirty years, the linguistic technology of “queer” has been recalibrated, moving from naming a cultural machine of radical, anti-capitalist sexual politics to naming a cultural machine of assimilationist, identity-based sexual politics. This has left the machine of radical sexual politics without a name, making it more difficult for people to find it and integrateitinto their technological existences. The machine of radical sexual politics is essential because it focuses on dismantling the societal systems that assign life opportunities to people with normative gender and sexual alignments--in contrast to the machine of assimilationist sexual politics, which only seeks to address surface-level legal inequalities. Analyzing the problems with assimilationist sexual politics and addressing problematic uses and interpretations of the word “queer” creates a compelling argument for recalibrating the term back to a more radical definition.

Publication Date

2018

COinS