| Description |
"The Death of Hetero/Homo" is a theoretical examination of the ways in which sexuality, love, and desire are not merely abstract, innate concepts but have very real consequences as weapons in the process of abjection, particularly of trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming individuals. As gender is illegible and fluidly defined, it becomes impossible to dictate that one's attraction is oriented toward men, women, masculinity, femininity, and/or androgyneity. Ultimately, individuals are attracted or not attracted to particular body parts, personality traits, values, and life goals. None of these can be attached to a particular (a)gender as anyone of any (a)gender can have any number of these qualities. What then does it mean to have a discourse, as well as a movement, around conceptions of heterosexual and homosexual identities that deny such a reality? The answer to this question-the erasure and eradication of particular bodies-calls for the death of hetero and homo, allowing the rethinking of these terms and ideas. This shifts from a place where certain genders are abjected and silenced to a place where all genders are equally affirmed, no one identity superimposed over another. This is not an argument for attraction to all bodies and all beings. However, it is an examination of a discourse of sexuality that is posited on fixed and concrete notions of gender and the ways in which this discourse is used to abject trans, nonbinary, and gendernonconforming bodies. |
