What do these authors have in common? Oscar Wilde * Tennessee Williams * Willa Cather * James Baldwin * Adrienne Rich * Walt Whitman * Virginia Woolf * Elizabeth Bishop * Langston Hughes * Edward Albee * Gertrude Stein * Allen Ginsberg * W.H. Auden * William Shakespeare * Carson McCullers * Somerset Maugham * T.S. Eliot * Sarah Orne Jewett * Hart Crane * William S. Burroughs * Amy Lowell They’re all gay, lesbian or bisexual.

All acronyms will be explained

Some initial questions: What was your internal reaction when you learned that? Why might some students be reluctant to learn about LGBT theory? Why might knowing an author’s sexual orientation assist us in understanding their work? Aren’t details of authors’ heterosexual lives often included in biographical notes? Why are some teachers and professors reluctant to give LGBT background info (in general and about specific authors) to their students?

Understanding homophobia Homophobia is the fear and loathing of homosexuality Until 1974, it was acceptable to use electro-shock therapy to “treat” homosexuality. That was the year it was removed from the APA’s list of psychological disorders The 1952 immigration policy restricting homosexual immigration into the US wasn’t lifted until Connection to negative myths: homosexuals are inherent sexual predators, they molest children, they recruit other homosexuals, children raised by LGBT people will become LGBT, unchecked homosexuality will wipe out the human race, gay people are responsible for the decline in US power.

Let’s define some terms. L Lesbian G Gay B Bisexual TTransexual; transgender Q Questioning IIntersex AAsexual or Ally P Pansexual

Lesbian criticism “…while feminism addresses issues related to sexism and the difficulties involved in carving out a space for personal identity and political action beyond the influence of sexist ideologies, lesbian critics address issues related to both sexism and heterosexism. In other words, lesbian critics must deal with the psychological, social, economic, and political oppression fostered not only by patriarchal male privilege, buy by heterosexual privilege as well” (Tyson 323). What is a lesbian? A woman whose sexual desire is directed toward women. “… a strict focus on what we would define today as sexual activity or sexual desire runs the risk of erasing an important dimension of women’s lives that very well might be understood fully only through a lesbian lens.

“… a strict focus on what we would define today as sexual activity or sexual desire runs the risk of erasing an important dimension of women’s lives that very well might be understood fully only through a lesbian lens. In order to avoid this kind of erasure, and to promote solidarity among all women, some lesbian theorists have suggested that lesbian identity is not restricted to the sexual domain but consists of directing the bulk of one’s attention and emotional energy to other women and having other women as one’s primary source of emotional sustenance and psychological support. That is, a lesbian is a woman-identified woman” (Tyson 324). Some lesbian theorists see patriarchy and heterosexuality as inseparable.

The difficulties with definition How a critic defines “lesbian” will determine their definition of both lesbian writers and lesbian texts. Some thoughts… “…a lesbian critic might argue that a writer known to have been a sexually active lesbian, such as Willa Cather, coded lesbian meaning in an apparently heterosexual narrative because she knew that she couldn’t write about lesbian desire openly, at least not if she hoped to have her work published and to avoid public censure if not criminal prosecution” (Tyson 326). Paula Bennett notes that Emily Dickinson has homoerotic dimensions to her poetry and appears to gain great comfort from her relationships with women throughout her life. Significantly, after Em’s death, her family suppressed publication of many of her letters, because they were evidence of her passionate love for her friend Susan Gilbert. Sometimes critiques have nothing to do with sexuality. Barbara Smith did a lesbian critique of Toni Morrison’s Sula in which she analyzes the bond between two young, black girls. Their relationships with men are unsatisfactory, and one refuses to marry. She has sexual relationships with men, but only to discover the power/internal experience for herself.

Gay criticism Doesn’t tend to focus on efforts to define homosexuality, but the definition and connotations have changed throughout time and cultures. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that the notion of homosexual identity and even the word homosexual were adopted in Anglo- European and American culture. Before then, certain sexual acts (generally all non-procreative sex) were forbidden by church or state, but they weren’t viewed as evidence of a specific sexual identity. Critics often use the term gay sensibility, meaning How does being gay influence the way one sees the world, sees oneself and others, creates and responds to art and music, creates and interprets literature, or experiences and expresses emotion?

Queer criticism Why do LGBT men and women use the homophobic word queer to designate an approach within their own discipline? A. Ownership/reappropriation B. It’s an inclusive term referring to a common political or cultural ground shared by gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and all people who consider themselves nonstraight “…the word queer is used to indicate a specific theoretical perspective. From a theoretical point of view, the words gay and lesbian imply a definable category – homosexuality – that is clearly opposite to another definable category: heterosexuality. However, for queer theory, categories of sexuality cannot be defined by such simple oppositions as homosexual/heterosexual” (Tyson 335). For queer theory, our sexuality is socially constructed (rather than inborn) to the extent that it is based on the way in which sexuality is defined by the culture in which we live. We use the culture around us and its terms to express and define our sexuality.

A Queer Reading of “A Rose for Emily.” “A queer reading of William Faulkner’s ‘A Rose for Emily’ (1931) might examine how traditional definitions of gender (masculine versus feminine) and sexuality (homosexual versus heterosexual) fail to explain or contain the character of Emily Greirson. Her gender categorization is not fixed but crosses back and forth between the masculine and the feminine. She’s both the slender virgin in white dominated by her father and the defiant individualist who violates class norms and moral law to take what she wants from Homer Barron, including his life. She’s both the childlike recluse who teaches the feminine art of china painting and the dominant presence with iron-gray hair, like that of a vigorous man, who imposes her will on the male power structure, including the post office, the tax collectors, the church, and, in the person of the pharmacist, the medical profession. More tellingly, the characterization of Emily exceeds the opposition between homosexual and heterosexual. In terms of their biological sex, Homer and Emily are a heterosexual couple: he’s a man, she’s a woman. However, as we’ve just seen, the text constructs Emily’s gender as a vacillation between the feminine and the masculine. Indeed, much of the powerfully defiant behavior traditionally associated with men is ascribed to Emily during her relationship with Homer. In terms of gender behavior, then, one might argue that Homer and Emily, symbolically at least, are a nonstraight couple: they are both gendered as men. Thus, ‘A Rose for Emily,’ ostensibly a text about heterosexual passion and transgression, is also (or more so) a queer text that reveals the limits of traditional definitions of gender and sexuality” (Tyson ).

Some questions lesbian, gay, and queer critics ask about literary texts 1. What are the politics (ideological agendas) of specific gay, lesbian, or queer works, and how are those politics revealed in, for example, the work’s thematic content or portrayals of its characters? 2. What are the poetics (literary devices and strategies) of a specific lesbian, gay, or queer work? What does the work contribute to the ongoing attempt to define a uniquely lesbian, gay, or queer poetics, literary tradition, or canon? 3. What does the work contribute to our knowledge of queer, gay, or lesbian experience and history, including literary history? 4. How is queer, gay, or lesbian experience coded in texts that are apparently heterosexual? (This analysis is usually done for words by writers who lived at a time when openly queer, gay, or lesbian texts would have been considered unacceptable, or it is done in order to help reformulate the sexual orientation of a writer formerly presumed heterosexual.) 5. How might the works of heterosexual writers be reread to reveal an unspoken or unconscious lesbian, gay, or queer presence? That is, does the work have an unconscious lesbian, gay, or queer desire or conflict that it submerges (or that heterosexual readers have submerged?) 6. What does the work reveal about the operations (socially, politically, psychologically) of heterosexism? Is the work (consciously or unconsciously) homophobic? Does the work critique, celebrate, or blindly accept heterosexist values? 7. How does the literary text illustrate the problematics of sexuality and sexual “identity,” that is, the ways in which human sexuality does not fall neatly into the separate categories defined by the words homosexual and heterosexual?