the author's perspective

As a mixed-race person of white and nonwhite heritage, the question I have grappled with all my life is simple, but difficult to answer: “Who am I?” I cannot be white, because I have a father with Indigenous Central American heritage; I contain DNA from outside of Europe. But culturally, I was raised primarily by my white mother, lived in a primarily white neighborhood, interacted with mostly white people, and do not “pass” as Mexican-American by most who meet me. But does that mean I cannot be Mexican-American? I’m not a native speaker of Spanish, I didn’t grow up surrounded by Mexican-American culture and heritage, my family is several generations removed from the actual country of Mexico, but at the end of the day, my father’s family came from Mexico, he grew up Chicano. But even my Mexican-ness is convoluted. My family has lived outside of Mexico for several generations and is solidly mestizo – my father’s DNA is 50% Iberian and 50% indigenous, what you might expect from a region so brutally colonized by Europe. But still, there are communities of indigenous people in Mexico who have endured, and as far as I can tell, I didn’t come from one of them. Being so far removed from my Indigenous and Mexican (the country) roots, does that discount me from Latinidad? Am I a white person and a Latine existing in the same body? Or am I a white person who is slightly brown? Or am I a pale Latine? Or am I something else entirely?

As a transmasculine person who is also nonbinary, am I a male person and a nongendered person existing in the same body? Or am I a somewhat male nonbinary person? How can I exist on the binary as a person who uses male pronouns and presents myself as male and at the same time reject it as someone who feels the gender binary does not describe me?

Queerness as the “Solution”

The answer to all of these questions is as simple as the question itself: culture and gender are whatever you make of them, and one need not use labels that do not accurately describe them. I propose that queerness stands in as at once a rejection of the rigid labels around race & gender and as an embrace of the ambiguity that surrounds our lives. One person’s conception of their own race may be very different from someone else’s in that same race, can vary over time and geographic location, and even be different from their own family members' conception. In order to “queer” one’s race one need only reject the concept of race, as far as it being a fixed reality and recognize that each of us are unique and most experiences in life exist on a spectrum, so separating people out into discreet categories is simply impossible for most of us.

Queering gender works the same way. Queerness is both a rejection of labels, even those considered “inclusive,” and embraces the reality that many of us do not experience sexual attraction and gender in a way that fits neatly into the boxes available to us, or that we simply enjoy the all-inclusive nature of the word “queer.” Everyone can be queer, one does not need to know the specifics of how they feel, all they need to know is they experience life in a way that somehow deviates from the heteronormative cisgender dynamic.

By embracing queer and rejecting the normative, one both loves themselves and their community however they are and rejects traditional power dynamics that have sought to force people into boxes in order to better marginalize and control them. Embracing queerness also actively creates space for those of us who have traditionally had no space under traditional regimes.

The inclusive nature of the term queer also allows for widening the umbrella and expanding the collective power of a group seeking access to human rights –there is strength in numbers. Queer allows for inclusivity and intersectionality in the same way that other umbrella terms like “people of color” (POC) do. While the experiences of people under the umbrella may differ from one another, they are all united in the way they are marginalized and excluded from access to rights and participation in traditional systems and institutions.

Umbrella terms like queer and POC allow for marginalized groups to pool their power when confronting the dominant group, while more specific labels help us ensure that as many perspectives are included as possible while we try to shape our future. By this I mean, all POC joining forces together to dismantle systems that uphold white supremacy is a beneficial strategy – however we must be sure the various experiences of different POCs are included when we decide what systems should replace them. All POC may be in agreement that restorative justice is necessary for our country to move forward, however what that justice looks like will be different for different groups. For Black people it may mean restoring the wealth and property that was stolen from Black communities throughout United States history, but this may be in direct conflict with Indigenous peoples’ idea of restorative justice, which may be land back. Therefore we must be sure both groups are included in order to come up with the best solution that honors both groups’ needs and feelings around justice. Therefore, umbrella terms and specific labels both have their place in developing systems that uphold human rights.