Author: Teodora Buzea

Being in love should never be interconnected with death; however, when it comes to LGBTQ+ teens, this is frighteningly the case. Whether you read Sedgwick’s “Queer and Now” or “How to Bring Your Kids up Gay”, you find that she stresses “that queer teenagers are two to three times likelier to attempt suicide, and to accomplish it, than others” (“Queer and Now”). Mentioning these chilling truths at the forefront of both texts, emphasizes for the reader that they need to be aware of who they are fighting for and the severity of the situation. But how? How do we go about bringing such change when educators (like a handful of this class are striving to be) can be fired for showing any recognition of understanding their queer students or being queer themselves?

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (Federal Government) continues to update their laws, including those involving the employment of queer teachers. Their website has a page dedicated to these laws; however orientation and transgender identification is not present on their main page or links to discrimination in the workplace laws (https://www.eeoc.gov/discrimination-type). Despite having twelve categories to many other important topics, LGBTQ+ rights are missing which is something that I believe should be included on that list. At the state and local level, fair employment law activists have been pushing for more laws not only prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination, but also discrimination for teachers who identify as transgender.  Some examples include NY State’s Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (first added in 2002 as part of their Human Rights Law) and more recently in 2019, the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act which included transgender identities and others in the spectrum.

I would also like to bring up the article, “Dancing Queer Children”, specifically highlighting the heteronormative speculation JJ receives on a show that embraces the openly queer. Despite being queer himself, JJ is told by the mothers of the show that the girls and even other mothers will fall head over heels for him. Also, despite being clearly underage, the mothers push the envelope by even creating the sexual innuendo of girls coming back stage to get “some ice cream” and finish it off by aging him up and saying that he is “the man of the group”.

Ew.

When reading the section, I was reminded of the numerous times I myself along with others have had to deal with heteronormative claims, like the all-too-popular gender reveal parties and the comments under same-sex wedding pictures exclaiming “Double wedding! #FriendGoals”. It feels like the heterosexual population is trying to stick LGBTQ+ daily existence under a veil while still waving a token card stating that people should not worry because they have a gay friend. It’s strange to me that on a show like ‘Dancing Queen’, mothers would fall into this skewed normative behavior in order for what, I am sure, they thought was “funny” banter before a show. Even more disturbing are their repeated comments falling into pedophilic red-flag territory, all for the purpose of portraying the sole male child of the group as being the epitome of masculinity and “manly-man-ness”.

As Sedgewick has explained multiple times in both of her texts, there appears to be a heterosexual culture of purposefully masculinizing seemingly-effeminate boys by coercion of traits and understandings via a male mentor or speech like what was said on the show. According the analysts she mentions is “How to Bring Your Kids up Gay”, a homosexual can only be healthy if they are grown up and act masculine. That sounds extremely contradictory and damaging for LGBTQ+ youths or people who do not actively conform to gender norms. The “Gender Identity Disorder of Childhood” diagnosis the Sedgewick mentioned brought up some interesting things that I will include in a question about how boys who suggest femininity are treated much more harshly than girls who directly deny their femininity in what is classified as part of effeminophobia. I believe this may be a consequence of the notion of kinship and independence. Girls are encouraged to hug each other and go to sleepovers, while optionally taking on the role of being a “strong, independent women”, while boys only have the choice of being independent and claiming “no homo” when showing any sign of affection or companionship with other boys.

These texts brought many things to attention and are meant to leave the reader pondering. That being said, my questions for you all are:

1. In Sedgewick’s “Queer and Now”, she mentions to her seminar of students (mostly comprising of heterosexual students) that she built the class for a primarily queer audience. As a result, the students were outraged by this due to their straight-entitlement. This happened back in the 1980s. This makes me think if the same view would be still observed in 2020. Have you seen such behavior happening in today’s queer-focused classes? Has there been a shift in the audience demographic?
2. At the time of writing “How to Bring Your Kids up Gay”, Sedgewick wrote about how studies on homosexual relationships seemed to be “exclusively about boys”. Why may this be? Why is femininity not shoved down young girl’s throats (to the point where being a tom-boy is acceptable), but masculinity is?
3. Thinking about “Dancing Queer Children”, what can we do to make elementary and middle schools inclusive for queer/questioning children?

Works Cited

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, “How to Bring Your Kids up Gay”. Social Text, Duke University Press, 1991.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, “Queer and Now.” Tendencies, Routledge, 1994.

Zaborskis, Mary. “Dancing Queer Children.” Public Books, 17 June 2020, www.publicbooks.org/dancing-queer-children/.

Hello hello! I’m Teodora Buzea and I am from Cortland. It takes me 20-40 minutes to walk to school from my house and 30 seconds to roll out of bed to my computer, so this is quite the time-saver. This is my last semester as an undergraduate (English Major/Anthropology Minor) and my first time participating in a class taught by Dr. Savonick, so color me excited! Most of my interests fall into East Asian Pop Culture and Literature which influences my day-to-day life. After graduating, I am planning on coming back to SUNY Cortland for my M.A. and continue focusing on this growing subject.

This summer, I made it so that not a single day would be boring. If there is one thing that I despise, it’s not being able to do anything. One of the biggest things I did was partake in a drawing challenge called “100 Days of Sketching” over on Instagram. As the title says, the goal was to post any drawing that you made on that day onto the platform in order to gain drawing habits and accept unfinished/messy works as valid attempts. I typically draw anime fanart and, overall, art is just something that I am extremely passionate about. It is a goal of mine to one day write and draw a graphic novel series.

Speaking of graphic novels, I also spent some time working on my thesis project covering the subject of shoujo manga (Japanese graphic novels with a young female demographic in mind). As such, most of my summer reading list consisted of manga and light novels, as well as several books on the art of the literary medium. My favorite manga that I started to read this summer was Spy x Family by Tatsuya Endo, which tells the story of a spy that forms an undercover family with an assassin clerk and a telepathic orphan girl and, along the way, forms inseparable bonds that make them a true family. It’s very much like the film Mr. & Mrs. Smith. I also read this wonderful book called Manga Cultures and the Female Gaze by Kathryn Hemmann which talks about how female manga artists challenge the perceived norm of female presentation with manga.

Some other things about me: I love animated films, collecting unique stuffed animals, and traveling (but not now, of course). Tea makes up 90% of my liquid intake. I am currently in the process of editing my second book in the fantasy/adventure genre (which I hope will be published by the end of the year). I unfortunately am slightly allergic to cats, but I love seeing pictures of all y’all’s feline friends. The closet thing I have to a pet is a bat living between the screens in my back porch. His name is Mammon and he is adorable.

Two topics/questions that I am interested in learning more about this semester are:

-During the summer, the #BlackLivesMatter movement was louder than it has been for a long time. In the month of June, I observed many active “Support Black Artist/Creators/Business Owners” tags. Recently, I read a Tweet in which a Black artist blamed themselves for not jumping on the “trend” and gaining support in June because they were still trying to take in what was happening during that time. As a Caucasian, how can I and others who are privileged be best able to continuously support Black creators and other races in getting the reach they deserve in order for it not to be considered a “trend”, but a necessary and long-standing change? What is standing in the way and how do we remove this blockade on creation recognition?

-In many popular animated series like Adventure Time, Steven Universe, She-Ra and the Princess of Power, and The Legend of Korra, there has been an increase of LGBTQ+ representation presented; however, primarily between females. How can forms of North American pop culture with typically a younger demographic in mind face this lack of representation when it comes to other relationships in the LGBTQ+ community?

Thank you very much for reading through this post and I am looking forward to see what this class will offer!