Have you ever been in the situation where your identity makes you the automatic authority on all things related to that facet of yourself? It’s something I experience fairly often at school, as the resident openly queer queer. I’m certainly not the only one there, but the on-campus presence is small enough that I am often the most vocally (and arguably radically in certain aspects) queer-identified individual present. Between that and a belief in enacting the change I want to see in the world, this means that I can’t let myself bitch about the lack of infrastructure for support of queer people and let it go at that. I’ve got to do something about it.
And it’s not because my school is not accepting and welcoming; that is far from the case. There are more non-gendered single occupancy bathrooms on campus than you can shake a stick at — and if you think this is unrelated, just consider what it’s like to go into a public bathroom as a transgendered person in fear of assault from people policing your gender when all you want to do is pee in peace. The university, while being Catholic, is also progressive, rooted in social justice, dialogue and active acceptance of a diversity of perspectives.
The problem is that none of this is explicitly stated where queer people are concerned. There exists support for students with disabilities, veterans, returning students, older students — there is a food pantry, a prior learning program, ESL integration, and the list goes on — but nothing for queer students. Nothing.
Now, this is not unusual for a university of this size, especially considering that it is a non-residential private university with religious roots whose primary student population is over the age of thirty and often resides at distance. In fact, one of the ways in which the school I go to is unique is that it does not bar or place restrictions on an LGBTQ Alliance. There is, in fact, an officially recognized – but presently inactive – LGBTQ Alliance in existence at the school. So the difficulty lies more in the fact that not enough students have consistently voiced a need for actively queer-accepting support and resources or that perhaps no one has assembled a tool kit of existing community resources and made them available to the student population at large.
In early October, I showed up to the first student governance meeting. While I’m sure that there were other queer-identified people there, I was the most vocal about making sure queer perspectives were included. By virtue of that fact, I became the Resident Queer Activist almost by default. I’ve spent the intervening time between now and then looking at the areas that the university could offer support and considering what that would look like. There is definitely room for positive change – and the good thing is that it seems that the student population is interested in helping make it happen.
Today, I spent the afternoon being a professional homo (in the I’m volunteering my time sense) at a Club Rush event for my school. It was pretty epic, as we were without power for the first half of the event, and only got lights back as it was too dark to see and we were ready to pack it up. I saw two students who were unaffiliated with any clubs during the entire time, but both of them were interested in the as yet non-existent LGBTQ Alliance Club.
Even with such a light turnout, I am actually cautiously optimistic about the club – or at least creating *some* sort of infrastructure that is explicitly welcoming and supportive of queer students. There were some fabulous activist-minded folks affiliated with other groups and the Student Leadership Council, and there is definitely room to build something that will be self-sustaining as a resource for queer students – and, possibly just as importantly, the communities and families from which they come.
Every person who came by my table had a story to tell: a relative who was transitioning despite a desperately conservative and deeply religious family; a gay daughter expecting her first child; friends, cousins and siblings who were queer. Every person who came by the table today identified as an ally, and every person evidenced a desire for the presence of a club or something queer-focused so that they would have a safe space to learn and help create positive social change. And while the queers were not out in force today, they have responded via an interests survey. It is clear to me that there is a need for something to serve not just the queer population at my school but also our allies – something which is inclusive, and provides a space for education, dialogue, and support.
In fact, it may be our allies who need this resource the most: people whose children have just come out, or whose co-worker is in transition. While not queer themselves, these are people who still experience an identity shift; they have to change the way they think about a person, and it may bring up issues around religion, politics and morality. There’s a lot of change that happens when a person that comes out of the closet, and a lot of it happens in the community in which the person lives. Their friends, acquaintances and loved ones have to learn new ways to think about the world.
Where, though, exists the safe space for people to learn about what a queer or transgendered identity means? The university is a natural choice; it is a place of learning which welcomes a diversity of experience and works to foster positive social change through dialogue and mutual respect. The university has the potential to provide space to learn in a safe way that doesn’t involve finding the nearest gay friend and asking them potentially inappropriate or disrespectful questions. Given the unique considerations of my school, queer visibility and support is crucial not just for the LGBTQ populations but for their allies as well.
Born in Spokane, Washington in 1931, David Eddings was an author most noted for his work in the fantasy genre. The work he is perhaps most known for is an epic fantasy twelve books in length. This epic is comprised of two five-book series, the Belgariad and Malloreon, and two prequels, Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress. The two series detail a rather formulaic high fantasy arc wherein the primary protagonist and his unlikely companions undertake a quest to save the world from a fate worse than death. There are princesses, nations at war, magic, peril, prophecies and intrigue. In the end, the hero, against unspeakable odds, saves the world from the brink of destruction.
So what makes this any different from any other post-Tolkien fantasy tale? When Eddings first pitched the idea of the series to Ballantine Books in the early eighties, strong female characters in fantasy were almost non-existent. They existed as accessories to the hero; pristine ivory tower beings who were decorations and trophies to be won. The other most common manifestation of females was that of the female Conan; a mightily muscled, bronze-bikini clad Amazonian terror as monosyllabic as her male counterpart and completely sexless. As Eddings notes in a 1994 interview by Stan Nicholls for Interzone Magazine, “part of Tolkien’s heritage is a certain prudishness. With one or two possible exceptions there aren’t any female hobbits, and his heroines end at the neck; you have the beautiful hair and eyes but that’s about it.”
Eddings sought to change that. His work is notable for a certain grittiness that is lacking in many earlier fantasy novels; characters have a need to eat, they get saddle sore and stink after a week on the road. Likewise, Eddings worked to create memorable female characters who were integral to the plot. In the interview with Stan Nicholls, he goes on:
I’m having a great deal of fun pushing against those boundaries of prissiness and inserting an erotic element into my work.
This ties in with recognizing the fact, and disliking the fact, that people in America are absolutely convinced the melody for Greensleeves is a Christmas hymn. It was composed in praise of a prostitute, of course. Come on, I’ve read Chaucer, I know there were prostitutes in the Middle Ages. And if I’m dealing realistically with the Middle Ages I’m going to have to have pickpockets, I’m going to have to have thieves, and I’m going to have to have prostitutes. I think the third character who appears in the Elenium is a prostitute, a little streetwalker being rained on. I introduced her to establish that it’s a real world, and to establish that, despite its preconceptions theologically, medieval society had probably at least as many prostitutes as it had knights whose strength was as the strength of ten because their hearts were pure.
While the Elenium is placed in a universe different from that of the Belgariad and Malloreon, Eddings’ desire to accent the reality of his fantasy settings holds true. In the universe of the Belgariad, a number of strong female characters hold key positions in the development of the plot. Notable among these are the protagonist’s Aunt Polgara, a sorceress who lives for thousands of years and who has a direct hand in his raising. The protagonist’s wife figures no less prominently, maturing from a spoiled imperial princess into a fiery leader who successfully raises a vast army to battle the forces of evil.
However, while these female characters provide a strong female presence within the epic fantasy genre, the do it from purely within the bailiwick of feminine identity. Polgara’s highest goal is to get married and have children, and likewise for Ce’Nedra, the protagonist’s wife. Never, in the scope of twelve books, are Ce’Nedra or Polgara to be found in men’s clothing. The only exception to this rule is when Polgara adopts the national female dress of the enemy when engaging in an act of subterfuge: close-fitting black leather pants, boots and vest, the garb of which is described as anything but mannish. In adopting the national dress of the Nadraks, Polgara still conforms to the cultural norms of femininity by acting in a way which is in keeping with the dominant social expectations of how a woman should act and dress.
While the series’ primary female characters reflect normative cultural values, some of the supporting characters reveal insight into a world which is more complex than the monogamous beliefs prorogated by the main storyline. One such character is Bethra, a beautiful and accomplished courtesan. She appears three times in the series for less than a dozen pages total. In sheer numerical significance, such a character is hardly worth mentioning when the series itself spans over three thousand pages. However, the very inclusion of a sex worker who operates openly at the highest levels of society – and includes among her clients the Imperial Emperor of Tolnedra, the country in which she resides – suggests a culture in which casual sexual relations may be more acceptable than the primary female characters of Polgara and Ce’Nedra may first indicate. Bethra’s secondary profession as a broker of information and sometime spy further reinforces this; while she is, by her own admittance in Guardians of the West, “[m]ost definitely not a lady,” (187) she is nevertheless a woman of great complexity who operates with grace outside the boundaries of normative feminine roles.
Another such character is that of Liselle, a young lady whose primary occupation is espionage. She makes her appearance in the second series, the Malloreon, and becomes a member of the protagonist’s party on his quest to save the world. Her previous sexual exploits are never explicitly mentioned, but it can be inferred that she has engaged in premarital sex as she successfully seduces another member of the party – an inveterate bachelor – and ultimately weds him. Liselle, as one of the questers out to avert evil, shows perhaps the greatest breadth of non-normative behavior without ever having her femininity called into question or become irrelevant. Through the course of the Malloreon, Liselle is crucified, traverses sewers, kills several men and works as her country’s most secret covert operative, never sacrificing the ability to look stunning in a dress of lavender satin.
It is worth noting that the one documented occasion when she puts on pants is in the direst of circumstances. On the morning of the confrontation between good and evil, Liselle is described in The Seeress of Kell: she “had shocked them all when she entered the cabin a half hour earlier. She wore tight-fitting leather clothing…. it was peculiarly masculine garb and bleakly businesslike” (246). It is noted in the text that her dress is similar to female Nadrak costume. However, when Nadrak women or costume is mentioned, it is always with a qualifier that such clothing serves to emphasize a woman’s physical attributes. In this case, Liselle’s clothing is specifically noted to be both masculine and businesslike, implying function over form. It is only in preparation for the final battle that Liselle’s identity as a woman is superseded by her avocation as assassin. The only time where Liselle’s femininity ceases to be a factor is on the day the world might end, in which case such identifiers become largely superfluous.
When considered in the context of the fantasy genre as it was in the early eighties, Eddings’ work in the world of the Belgariad did a great deal to lay the framework for a wider breadth of female characters. However, when considered against contemporaries such as Marion Zimmer Bradley and Guy Gavriel Kay, Eddings could have gone a great deal further without sacrificing the story. Where Marion Zimmer Bradley was exploring the politics of feminist identity and same-sex love in a patriarchal feudal fantasy setting, David Eddings never once acknowledged the possibility of anything other than heterosexual love, however tacitly. Guy Gavriel Kay’s books brim with complex characters, including feminine-expressing men who are portrayed as intelligent and powerful. In the world of the Belgariad, feminine-expressing men only manifest as eunuchs, and are considered to be grotesque, scheming, and petty. In Eddings’ work, any man who gives up his masculine privilege is quite literally emasculated. Thus emasculated, such a person becomes a parody of femininity, no longer worthy of trust and only earning our pity and scorn.
While Eddings did, to some degree, move away from Tolkien’s legacy of prudishness, he did not escape it altogether, nor as thoroughly as he may have hoped. The world of the Belgariad is one with very strong ideas about gender appropriate ideas and expressions. Women always act in accordance with the social expectations of their gender to a greater or lesser degree. Similarly, men perform likewise, and those who do not become creatures of derision to the world at large. Ultimately, the world of the Belgariad is a binary one which falls short of Eddings’ goal. His female characters may not end “at the neck” but they do not, for the most part go more than skin deep.
Bibliography
Eddings, David. Guardians of the West. New York: Random House, 1987. Print.
—. The Seeress of Kell. New York: Random House, 1991. Print.
Nicholls, Stan. “Prime U.S. Beef: An Interview with David Eddings.” Interzone. Interzone Magazine, July 1994. Web. 06 August 2011.
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This paper was originally written for Intro to Queer Studies, taught by Mike Randolph at Marylhurst University, Fall Term 2011.
Today, self care looks like taking an hour out of a day which is already very long to make space for myself. Job one is done for the day, and school finished, and now I’m fixing a good hot meal so I have something more than almonds, caffeine and adrenaline running through myself. The other part of that is to take a moment and reflect on what passing means right now, what it meant five minutes ago, and five minutes before that.
In one of my classes, I pass as a guy – queer, certainly, but cisgendered, no questions asked. I apparently also pass as christian, which made for an interesting conversation when a classmate mentioned an organization they worked with was looking for someone to run a Christ-focused men’s support group. My faith practice, as it is, is loosely spiritual, and not Christ-centric – nor deific in any sense. The dialogue between spirituality and religion and faith is an ongoing one, especially at a Catholic university.
The day progressed, as it is wont to do, and I traded this informal setting for a large formal one: a student governance meeting where I acted in the role of online student advocate for the day. Whether it was the fact that I wore more form-fitting clothing than I usually do – a cute argyle sweater which I think screams gay (male) geek – or the fact that I was in a supporting (albeit vocal) administrative position, I corrected people on pronouns more there than I have in quite some while. It wasn’t an issue, as I would say “I’m not a girl” and generally get an apology, but I still find myself reflecting on the ways in which I “failed” at passing, and what I could do to fix that. It was, however, interesting to note the percentage of people I perceived to be non-normative who showed up to the student governance meeting in contrast to what I would observe to be the overall percentage of the student population; it was certainly higher.
Following the student governance meeting, I transitioned (pun intended) directly to my queer studies class, two doors over. My university is Catholic, but it is also progressive and liberal, so there is a queer studies class – although the university is small enough that there is only one queer class offered per academic year, and that at an undergrad level. From the first day, I was out as trans, having been referred to by feminine pronouns by the one other queer student in the class right off the bat. While my gender identity – nor my “coming out story” – was not something I’d planned on bringing up right away, that incident informed my approach, even though I generally pass as male in all my other classes.
Conversation in class today was around gender and what it looks like – the performativity of gender (ah, Butler) and whether there is an essential “self” (Nessbaum and so on). Our professor asked us to list some ways in which we performed gender, and breathing came in at the top of my list. It’s either this – performing a gender with each breath, with many thoughts, with a great deal of intention – or not being here. But what it looks like from moment to moment, the way I inhabit my gender or my body or my self can change radically depending on the context.
Bravery in personal identity has been a recurring theme lately, as people tell me how courageous a person was for being open about their identity or really communicating about their individual needs. People have even told me that I’m brave for being open about being trans and queer – though I wonder if they’d say the same thing if I told them I was also kinky, poly, woo-woo spiritual, and somewhere between liberal and radical with my politics. It’s politically correct to congratulate people for being true to themselves, and yet in a culture where it supposedly gets better (so why are we still dying?), it’s still seen as a brave thing to be out.
But is this really bravery? For me, being out isn’t about an act of courage; for me, it’s an act of sanity. If I’m not out, I may as well be dead – and I probably would be by now. I can’t live shoved in a closet for fear of consequences, even though the consequences may possibly be dire. October 11th, which is my birthday, is also National Coming Out Day. It is bracketed on either side by the beating of Matthew Shepard (Oct 6, 1998) and his death on Oct 12. This year, the month of October has been punctuated by queers suiciding all over the place, teens and adults alike – and often in response to bullying. November 20-21 is the Trans Day of Remembrance, and as of the writing of this post, the TDOR site notes that seventeen trans people have been killed this year – that they are aware of.
So yeah, I get where people could perceive the decision to be out as an act of bravery, but for me it’s not – not really. It’s what I had to do to survive. So that I wasn’t another statistic, I had to come out as queer and transgendered and all that other stuff, and I have to continue to have that discussion in and out of community. This isn’t bravery. This is as necessary as breathing.
