I’ve undergone a kind of case study since coming here last August. When I arrived, I had pink hair so bright that the Class of 2027 photo resembles a Where’s Wally game. But I was hit with a disastrous gene: male pattern baldness. Gone went the pink, out of fear that I was damaging the precious hairline that was beginning to recede. Gone, too, it seemed, was the respect for the fact that I might not conform to all male stereotypes.
There was a marked difference in the way that people treated me — especially from those in or allied with the queer community. I felt as if I were no longer a member of an in-group, as if I’d now been flung back out into the “normal” public.
A part of this change was refreshing — and not just because CVS had been extorting me for pink hair dye. I was faced with fewer stereotypes. Fewer weird looks from people walking through campus. Fewer assumptions about who I was, how I would act, and what political opinions I might hold. No longer was I the worst nightmare of a Fox News anchor.
But there has been a more frustrating element. Since donning the forbidden natural hair, people have felt no shame in applying more male stereotypes to me — in assuming that I approach friendship and relationships like most men or that my brain functions in some essentially male way.
What frustrated me most, though, was who made these assumptions. It wasn’t the traditional, masculine men wanting to welcome me back into the fold, so to speak; it was the progressives who were supposedly on my side. And increasingly, it was the queer community.
The creation of a strong community has been essential to combating discrimination. It allows queer people not only to form a kind of alliance with others but to learn the appropriate tools to fight prejudice. For some, this may involve scolding the offender as their mother would; you sit them down and tell them that what they said was wrong and ignorant and offensive. Objectively, this seems like the most reasonable response. After all, the offenders should learn why they erred.
But such a response can be exhausting. It shouldn’t always be the job of the one facing discrimination to explain why that discrimination is wrong, to soft-parent people into acceptance. And more importantly, it might not even work. In the face of irrational belittlement, a rational explanation is rarely effective.
The alternative is not to parent the offender; it is to reclaim what they used against you. If pink hair is socially ridiculous, for example, then maybe I’ll just dye my hair the brightest of the bright pinks available. An act like this weakens the arsenal of prejudice. Beforehand it was something that caused shame; once reclaimed, the tools of discrimination become an element of culture that strengthens your identity. These acts of reclamation are, generally speaking, the foundation of queer norms and trends. In other words, dying your hair pink or following any other trends in the queer community are born not from some common genetic trait, but from reclamation.
Often we talk about reclamation only in regards to slurs or offensive terms. But it can apply to any kind of stereotyped behaviors, fashion, or modes of speech. Consider the surge in popularity of the septum piercing. Having one wasn’t imposed on the queer community in the way that slurs were; homophobes weren’t strolling the streets armed with a piercing gun. But when the septum piercing became a target of ridicule, the community responded by embracing it, by owning it. A mere piercing became a marker of one’s identity, a symbol of one’s pride against the discrimination they faced. And this is the sense in which I use “reclamation” — an act that tries to take ownership of something that once invited ridicule so that it becomes central to the queer identity.
This, I argue, is the darker side of reclamation. If our main tool against stereotypes is to reclaim them, we risk developing a sense of identity that is just as shallow as the one ascribed to us by others, of repeating the very prejudices we try to fight.
My hair conformed well to the norms of the community because it was slightly outrageous and, more importantly, because it was feminine. That’s what signaled to others that I was a member of this in-group. That’s what enabled the mutual recognition with other members that we were alike. But ever since my hair returned to its natural state, it has been expected that I’ll return to mine: namely, my biological sex. And here is where the community has inadvertently committed a kind of biological essentialism.
The original script of gender said that you must dress, speak, and act in accordance with your assigned sex. If you were born male, you must be manly; if you were born female, you must be womanly. And so, when people had gender identities that erred from the norm, they inevitably dressed and spoke and acted in ways that subverted the original script — namely, those assigned male would present more feminine and those assigned female more masculine. With reclamation, then, this subversion became the norm among trans and nonbinary people. And although this has enabled more fluidity in expression, it has also reduced, in some ways, one’s gender identity to these superficial signals. Adherence to these norms has been conflated with one’s internal experience. To gain respect for your gender identity, you must still act in accordance with your sex but in an unorthodox way; you’re flipping the script while repeating its mistakes.
The natural extension of these norms is that you must conceal your biology — which is a part of the reason why, for a long time, I shaved every shadow of hair left on my body, shaved my face so obsessively that specks of blood would litter my chin. Of course, the other part was gender dysphoria, which isn’t so easily shaped by the norms of a community. My claim here is not that people should stop trying to conceal their sex regardless of dysphoria; it is that our respect for their identity shouldn’t depend on their adherence to these norms. That respect often hinges on our adherence to norms, moreover, can exacerbate those feelings of gender dysphoria. Not only must you grapple with the discomfort of exposing your assigned sex; you must navigate the assumptions that you’re now following the original script of gender.
Consider why we’ve tried to move away from the original script — consider, for example, the gender politics of the 1950s. Women were expected to assume domestic duties, to be a symbol of an infantilising femininity, to serve the men in their lives. Their agency was restricted by their gender, their individuality suffocated by their assigned sex. Albeit less harmfully, the queer community has repeated the prejudiced thinking behind this discrimination. The expectation to subvert the traditional norms attached to your sex is just another form of obedience. Put differently, the principle of your assigned sex consuming your personal identity has persisted.
We must soften our reliance on reclamation. Yes, it can be powerful. And yes, it can enable a sense of confidence that was once fragile. But it carries the risk of repeating the prejudice of the stereotypes we reclaim, of committing biological essentialism in a slightly prettier font.
One’s individuality must be respected more than it is now. This requires a shift in how everyone, not just the queer community, is treated. One’s presentation doesn’t necessarily reflect their inner thoughts; we cannot dive into their mind and figure out exactly what they mean by their pleated skirt or their winged eyeliner. And if we did believe that the external always reflects the internal, the norms of the queer community would only become more restrictive and oppressive. To respect individuality, we must give everyone the license to have internal experiences that may misalign with their presentation, to be a person before they are a man or woman or non-binary.
The liberation movement has been misguided. So focused has it been on reclamation that it seems to have forgotten what the real aim should be: to liberate queer people. Of course, liberation will never be achieved if societal discrimination persists, but we must develop other ways to respond to discrimination than reclamation alone. We must at least try to bolster a respect for individuality — a respect to which everyone is entitled.
Instead of flipping the script, let’s just chuck it out.
