Emily McCullagh
Highly Recommended
The Patricia Coughlan Award
Class affects queer identity, as class can dictate the extent of discrimination an individual will face after coming out. It can also affect how an individual interacts with queer spaces, due to class playing a significant role in where an individual can afford to live. For example, if a queer bar is located in an affluent area this poses as a potential barrier for a working-class individual, as not only could they potentially face class-based discrimination while trying to enter the venue, but also in terms of having to face the other potential barriers such as the cost of travel and an entry fee. Under capitalism the queer identity becomes exploited, fetishised, and unequal (Valocchi 316). This exploitation manifests itself through the pink economy which “flatters the gay community with a "positive" notion of its "difference” (Morton 473), while perpetuating a society founded on inequality. The pink economy puts forward the notion that the queer community is united through “a common sexual orientation which unites across differences of class” (Morton 473). However sexual orientation cannot transcend the class divide in order to unite the masses. The Queer community is not immune to the class divide and class can play an exclusionary role. Capitalism generates an unequal society which leads to inequality within the classes (Valocchi 316). Without class solidarity there is no queer solidarity. This essay will focus on how class is depicted in relation to queer identity within Detransition, Baby and Stone Butch Blues, and how it affects the characters within these novels.
Within Stone Butch Blues and Detransition, Baby there are subtle class hierarchies within the queer community. Detransition, Baby depicts class in a far more satirical way then Stone Butch Blues, while still providing a genuine social commentary. The main protagonist of Detransition, Baby, Reese, has a theory of what is the universal problem for women in their thirties. She refers to it as, “the Sex and the City problem” (Peters 9), this manifests itself as when a woman becomes aware of her ageing process and “the prospect of making some meaning out of her life grows more and more urgent” (9). According to Reese this problem was purely an aspirational one for the previous generations of trans women, as they were excluded from the four options of employment, motherhood, finding a lover and a creative outlet which can be monetized (9). Employment, motherhood, and to a certain extent a creative outlet which can be monetized are classed based exclusions for most trans women. In terms of employment Reese has a similar anecdote, she suggests there are “three transsexual jobs: [...] Computer programmer, aesthetician or prostitute” (54). This comment, while somewhat satirical, Reese describes this anecdote as “a funny-’cause-it’s-true joke that she liked to ask whenever she met a new trans girl” (54), highlights a certain class inequality which trans women face in society. Research has found that “trans individuals are less likely to be employed, have lower household earnings and higher poverty rates than cisgender individuals” (Suárez et al. 717). It has also been found that post transition trans women are at a distinct disadvantage in the workplace compared to trans men, as they are more likely to face discrimination (Suárez et al. 718). This places most trans women in a position of inherent disadvantage.
Within Detransition, Baby, Reese, Amy, and Laura Jane Grace represent the differing sides of the class hierarchy. Reese represents the working class; she has not received higher education and works as a waitress. Due to her unstable financial position, derived from her low socioeconomic status, she enters a toxic relationship founded on financial subjugation, in part because it turns her “stomach liquid with desire” (Peters 53), but also due to her only “having four hundred dollars in her bank account” (Peters 53). Despite Reese’s protests that while “Subjugation is fun in bed” (Peters 54) “Women don’t want those anywhere else, especially not poor trans girls” (Peters 54), ultimately, she becomes reliant on Stanley. Firstly, this manifests itself as Stanley sending expensive gifts, followed by Stanley paying her rent “since their third week together” (Peters 56), leading to Reese moving “into his apartment with him” (Peters 56). Once Reese has moved into Stanley’s apartment, she realises that “she had lost not just the upper hand in this battle of a relationship, but all her other limbs as well” (Peters 57). This pattern seems to reoccur for Reese, as not long after meeting Amy, who becomes Reese’s girlfriend, Reese agrees to move into Amy’s apartment. While this relationship is not a toxic one, like Reese’s relationship with Stanley, an inequality still exists between Amy and Reese, as they belong to different parts of the class hierarchy. Amy, also known as Ames post detransition, represents the emerging trans middle class, “Reese didn’t bother to ask what Amy did. She already knew the equation: white young trans woman plus apartment right beside the park equaled job in tech” (74). In contrast to the previous two characters, Laura Jane Grace is not a protagonist, nor even a side character, she is merely mentioned in passing. She stands for the upper classes who are out of touch with their community. Laura Jane Grace is “the transgender lead singer of the punk band Against Me!” (Peters 220), Laura Jane Grace is not a fictional character created to illustrate a point within Detransition, Baby, but rather an actual person who did indeed release a memoir in 2016 entitled Tranny (Farber). Laura Jane Grace asserts that the name of the novel was inspired by her own feelings of “internalised transphobia” (Farber), yet Peters seems to view this more cynically suggesting that the motivation may in fact lie in the hope that one day “they can write tranny on the street themselves and, congratulate themselves on being so punk” (220). Laura Jane Grace experience's queer identity in a more detached fashion compared to the likes of Reese and Amy, this can be seen in how she names her memoir after a slur, despite her having “hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars” to protect her “from hearing someone say “tranny” to them on the street” (220).
Stone Butch Blues highlights the schism which occurred within the queer community between “an older generation of Stonewall-era activists/scholars working without much material or institutional support and the more privileged generation of [post Stonewall] lesbian and gay academics” (Morton 472). In Stone Butch Blues, Jess – the protagonist – and her butch and femme contemporaries represent the pre-Stonewall cohort, with the post Stonewall generation represented by usually nameless characters such as the woman who Jess goes for coffee with (Feinberg 1). Morton has argued that this divide is merely derived from a “generational difference” (472). Within Stone Butch Blues it can be found that this is a factor: “Grant sighed bitterly 'But some of these young kids you can’t even tell what they are—goddamn green hair and safety pins in their faces.'” (Feinberg 308). This complaint seems somewhat ironic, as it almost echoes the way in which butches like Grant were subjected to discrimination. Grant serves as an example of the imperfection of the earlier bar culture, through her racism and transphobia (Brown-Saracino 1019). Grant’s racism manifests itself through her actions which include “some terrible things about King being killed, about the riots” (Feinberg 134) and also getting into physical fights with characters of colour, such as Ed. However, it is important to note that a generational difference is not the root of the problem, Morton asserts that the problem is in fact a result of an economy in turmoil which has disrupted queer “solidarity along class lines” (472). In terms of queer identity class hierarchies can disrupt a sense of kinship and belonging. Much of the plot of Stone Butch Blues revolves around this, the older working class queer generation becoming excluded by the newer “university” (Feinberg 232) generation. Edna, an older femme woman, describes feeling othered from “the bar scene” (Feinberg 232), a previous safe space, if one ignores the regular police raids, as it had “changed” (232). This led her to attend “a dance on campus” (232), where “One of the women at the dance made fun of the butch” (232) she was with. This is a class issue, as it is widely known that people from a lower socio-economic background “gain access to higher education at far lower rates” (Stephens et al. 67). It has been suggested that the class divide within the queer community stemmed from “the imperatives of reform capitalism combined with gender anxieties in middle communities to privilege middle class gay people and middle-class understandings of same-sex desire” (Valocchi 207). Due to their working-class status and their gender identity which does not conform to the approved middle-class norm “the old butches and femmes” (Feinberg 308) have been pushed “underground” (308) as they await “a time when it’s safer to come out” (308). This aligns with the view that the queer community does not experience oppression in an equal way (Morton 473). While middle class and upper-class members of the queer community still face discrimination, they experience it in a separate way to the working-class members. It has been documented that those who are both working class and queer are faced with a more difficult path to expressing their queer identity, as they are “less likely to be out, less able to find safety off the streets and more likely to be criminalised or sacked” (Morton 473) due to their queer identity.
It could be argued that the exclusion of the older queer generation in Stone Butch Blues from their previous safe spaces – the queer bars – is a form of gentrification. Gentrification can be defined as the procedure through which areas that previously had a low socioeconomic status are transformed into upmarket areas, thus displacing its previous working-class residents in the process (Burchiellaro 26). The older generation becomes excluded as there is no longer a place for them within society, as most of the butches worked in blue collar jobs, when the “plants” (274) closed they were pushed even further into poverty, as most were already living paycheck to paycheck. This along with the gentrification of their “blue-collar town” (274) by the “people from the suburbs” (274) buying their houses “dirt-cheap” (274) leaves the previous queer generation in a state of disrepair. As a result, the older generation are faced with the negative effects of gentrification “displacement, community conflict, loss of affordable housing, increased homelessness, industrial and commercial displacement, loss of social diversity, and cultural displacement” (Finio 253). Queer identity becomes an issue of class when queer spaces cease to be accessible to all members of the community. As illustrated in Stone Butch Blues when the older generation of butches become excluded from the queer bars, they in turn become more withdrawn from the queer community. This in turn leads to increased feelings of depression and agoraphobia: “It’s getting too scary out there, Theresa. It feels like it’s getting worse. I hate to even go outside anymore” (Feinberg 151). This is a result of exclusion from Queer society and also society at large. The older generation have always been subject to discrimination due to their sexual orientation, but as the economic situation worsens, they face an increase in hate crimes. This can be seen in an interaction between the protagonist Jess and a man outside an employment office, “the dark-haired man hurled an empty pint bottle of rum at my feet. I fell backward, against the brick wall, startled. "You fucking he-shes. You stole our jobs,” he shouted as I hurried away. I wondered who I could blame” (152). It has been found that during times of recession and economic uncertainty discrimination towards the queer community can increase (Mattei et al. 400). Queer spaces are vital to queer identity, it has been suggested that in the 20th century lesbian bars functioned as a space for “otherwise scattered, invisible” (Brown-Saracino 1025) individuals to gather and socialise. As seen in the previous example, without this vital space to congregate and feel accepted, individuals can become withdrawn. The idea has been put forward that the more integrated an individual is within a dense social collective “the more meaning and purpose” (Mueller et al. 2) the individual will feel towards their life. Without the protective factor of integration, the individual is at risk of suicide “resulting from isolation and a lack of collective belonging” (Mueller et al. 2), which is shown in Stone Butch Blues through the character of Ed who “shot herself—weeks ago” (Feinberg 191).
In Stone Butch Blues the class-based exclusion can at times appear rather ironic, this is exemplified in the interaction between Jess and the woman in the coffee shop. Taking this particular character as an example we see the class-based exclusion at play within the queer community, despite talking about “Democratic politics” (Feinberg 1) and “problems with her co-op" (1), she is “opposed to rent control” (1) – “Small wonder—Daddy is a real estate developer” (1). Detransition, Baby also explores gentrification, but through a different lens, the lens of the gentrification of the queer identity. This is also at times depicted in a rather ironic manner – the first meeting of Katrina and Reese at the GLAAD awards. It could be argued that the decision to have these two characters first meeting “in the back of a Midtown hotel surrounded by bland carpeting and various attempts at gay branding” (Peters 164) is foreshadowing for the accusations of gentrifying the queer identity which Reese will direct at Katrina later in the novel. The GLAAD awards are depicted as a soulless façade, despite much of the speeches revolving around “how much everyone wants to see trans women allowed into public bathrooms” (168), “the money was not for trans people, it was to facilitate proper discussion about such topics as trans people” (168). The topic of the gentrification of the queer identity is also explored through the character of Katrina and her journey through a potential queer reimagining of the nuclear family. Reese questions Katrina’s intentions throughout and questions if Katrina is genuine in her newfound interest in the queer community, or if it is a post-divorce crisis. When Katrina comes out at the “doTERRA party” (Peters 291), Reese reads this interaction as Katrina thinking her newfound “queerness makes her interesting” (293). It could be argued that Reese’s opinion on Katrina’s queerness is somewhat cynical, but it also could be argued that Katrina is fetishizing queer identity. Her excitement “to not do the heteronormative thing” (293), and her “affinity for queerness, although because it wasn’t cut-and-dry gayness, she had never known what to call it” (294) can at times border on fixation. Reese’s intuition perhaps comes true when Katrina has “the most basic freak-out" (304) over the possibility that Reese might expose her and the baby to HIV. It could be suggested that Katrina has been influenced by “the gay lifestyle” (Morton 473) which is in fact not representative of the queer community as a whole, but rather exclusively the middle class (473). Thus, when she is faced with that which has “been gentrified” (Peters 307), it breaks her fantasy of queerness.
In conclusion class is a necessary lens with which to examine the intricacies of the queer identity. Without examining class, one cannot truly understand the differences between the experiences of queer individuals in the differing classes. Queer identity is expressed and explored differently within the class hierarchy, this is particularly explored in Detransition, Baby as the reader is exposed to various examples of characters within differing class structures, whereas Stone Butch Blues mainly focuses on the working-class queer experience. In terms of the differing societal contexts in which both texts were written, it can be seen that while there have been significant improvements in the quality of life of queer individuals, class-based exclusion is still a pervasive issue. While the characters of Detransition, Baby live significantly safer and more secure lives than the characters of Stone Butch Blues, danger still remains. Ames is subject to a hate crime, despite his protective factor of his middle-class status. Reese ricochets from one unequal relationship to the next due to her low socio-economic status which places her in an unstable financial position. Ames faces exclusion from the queer community due to his decision to detransition, this exclusion echoes the exclusion of Jess in Stone Butch Blues for her decision to begin taking testosterone. Exclusion within the queer community is rooted in classism and gentrification, this in turn creates division which disrupts queer solidarity. Both Stone Butch Blues and Detransition, Baby put forward social critiques of the queer community, with Stone Butch Blues representing the Stonewall era and beyond, while Detransition Baby gives us a contemporary view. Both highlight the necessity for intersection in order to achieve solidarity, as both point out the discriminatory nature of gender based, class based and race-based exclusion.
Works Cited
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