IS QUEER ENOUGH? THOUGHTS ON QUEER MUSEUMS

Not Your Average Cistory | Amelia Smith

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In his 2008 article Theorizing the Queer Museum, Robert Mills talks about the difficulties that would surround a queer museum. For the purposes of this article, queer is used here to refer to a wide variety of sexual and gender identities, like gay, lesbian, transgender, and more. Mills' main point is that queer theory is inherently antithetical to museums, as museums are normalizing while queer identities are intrinsically non-normative. Mills, quoting Kosofksy Sedgwick, says that history reflects the heteronormative ideals of “inheritance, marriage, dynasty, domesticity, and population” and that queer exhibitions challenge these tenants. These qualities help to erase queer identities, it is claimed, so presenting anything remotely queer can be seen as radical.

Democratic Candidate Pete Buttigieg, seen here being intrinsically non-normative. Source.

I disagree with this though. I do not believe that there is anything intrinsically non-normative about queer identities; it instead comes out of how one expresses their queerness. Referring back to the quote above, I find it laughable that queerness cannot fit into those descriptors that the author calls “history”. Marriage is the one that should stand out to anyone with even the briefest familiarity with queer history from the last 30 years. Marriage has been at the heart of the queer movement for decades now. Meanwhile, the idea of the “traditional family” (upon which marriage is the central pillar) has been used as a bludgeon by right wing ideologues to attack and demonize queer relationships. In an effort to get gay marriage recognized, queer activists had to shape queer love into something it was not; straight-passing. It had to abandon the BDSM, the kinks, the casual sex, the polyamory; to be accepted, queer love had to become palatable to straight observers, all over forms of love be damned. There is a term for this, where the heterosexual features of queer relationships are highlighted above all else; it is called homonormativity. This is why I do not agree with Mills’ claims on the antagonistic nature between queer and museums; queer can be just as normative.

A humourous representation of homonormativity in media. Source.

While I disagree with how Mills gets to his conclusion, I would agree with that queer museums cannot succeed, or at the very least are very difficult to create. We have this idea that LGBT+ history was a coming together of outcasts that finally fought for their rights. This really is not the whole story, and the phrase “a trans woman of colour threw the first brick at Stonewall” does not help this. Queer history is one of strange bedfellows, groups that could barely stand each other, trying to get along to advance their goals. Showing the intricacies of these groups that very rarely actually got along would prove to be a great challenge to any museum, especially when the dominant voices will disregard any wrongdoing. One of my favourite examples to highlight this is with Lesbian Organization of Toronto, or LOOT for short. From 1976 to 1980, LOOT claimed that every lesbian in Toronto was automatically a member. Because of this, they very rarely agreed on anything. One of the few times they were in agreement, however, was to not allow a transgender woman to attend their meetings. Theoretical differences in identity such as these make it incredibly difficult for a queer museum to just exist. Existential questions must be asked because queer is not enough. A queer museum must also be a trans museum. It must be an intersex museum. It must be asexual. It must represent every letter under the LGBT umbrella. Without those other identities, only the dominant voices get to have a say in how to present history.