Troubling Binaries, Boxes, and Spectrums: A Galactic Approach to Queerness and Crip-ness

This article explores the challenges inherent with identity systems that rely on binaries, boxes, and spectrums (which are further grounded in binaries) to understand queerness and crip-ness. The idea that someone simply either is queer or they are not, or that they are disabled or not, only further serves to marginalize and harm community members whose experience as queer or crip may not fit neatly into a predetermined and socially constructed norm about what it means to be one of these identities. Rather, I propose the idea of an identity galaxy, in which individuals can bring all of their identities, and contextualize themselves, rather than having socially decided constructs and ideals placed upon them.

The Problem with Binaries

We all have multiple identities that are positioned in different ways in our society, some of which hold privilege and some of which experience oppression or marginalization. However, the binary of marginalized/privilege is rarely as simple as that, and we must ask what this means for queerness, an overarching category that covers everything from whom one is attracted to (sexually and/or romantically), how one identifies and/or presents their gender, and sometimes even how one participates in relationships (there is often much contention around whether kink/BDSM related and nonmonogamous/polyamorous identities should be considered as "queer" identities). Although there is not one perfect word to describe the diversity that makes up the disabled community of disabilities, impairments, chronic illness, those with mental health diagnoses (who sometimes use the word "mad" to identify their communities), chronic pain, people who are neurodiverse, etc., I will be using the term "crip-ness" for this piece. As with queerness, membership in or outside of this category of crip-ness is complex and murky. It is with this lens that I suggest troubling the binaries, working towards a more expansive understanding of queerness and crip-ness, beyond a spectrum into the multidimensional galaxy of identity that allows individuals to place themselves in different types, intensities, degrees, locations, and liminalities of each of these identities, rather than feel constrained or as if they are not queer or crip enough.

Binary Creation and Othering

In looking back to better understand the original creation of boundaries, I am guided by Allison C. Carey, whose piece, "The Sociopolitical Contexts of Passing and Intellectual Disability," explores the origins of the feebleminded/fit binary that was used by eugenicists in pursuit of creating a culture that actively worked to erase the existence of disabled individuals. Carney goes on to detail that "they drew thick boundaries around the categories of feebleminded and fit citizens, depicting the feebleminded to be fundamentally different from other citizens. Sharply bounded categorical constructions portray the people within identity categories as totally different kinds of people."¹ In the case of disability, the binary of being disabled or not was created to distance abled people from those people whose experiences of moving through the world differed from theirs, to create divisions and to separate groups of "us" and "them." This is similar to queerness, with a history through the last century of members of this community either being asked to assimilate (such as butch lesbian women being asked to prove that they were wearing at least three pieces of women's clothing²) or to fit into rigid roles that appropriately identified one as gay; butch or femme for lesbians, and over-the-top effeminate for gay men. The language originally used to create this binary was that of "homosexual"/"heterosexual," whereas "gay" (a word originally meaning bright or showy) was then frequently used for self-identification by the men in this community. An additional box of "bisexual" was added to this binary, and eventually there was a conversation about a spectrum between "heterosexual" and "gay" (originally posited by Alfred C. Kinsey³), but this spectrum is still limiting. Those who are pansexual, omnisexual, asexual, etc., often have trouble placing themselves on this spectrum, as do many who use the term "queer" as a reclaimed word to identify a more complex notion of sexuality. [End Page...