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Cathy Cohen’s Assignment: Queer Politics

Weiyi Li, Jing Jiang

According to “A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies by Cathy J Cohen, she talks about the radical potential of queer activism in social and cultural criticism. People can transform the own perspectives and identity of the sexuality. Developing of the industry and economics, the sexuality of people became property of the society. Cohen focused on the history of lesbian, gay bisexual and other activists. The discrimination is one of the main reason causes of the queer activism. The oppression of the sexuality is not only in individuals, but also around queer community. The African American has a lower society status compare to the white American. It’s refresh people’s identity and how the prejudice of the homosexuality in people’s mind. Gay and Lesbian couples usually received lower pay rate or unable to survive independently. They are being discrimination by others and earned less money than a heterosexual couple. The growth of economics environment gives an unfair position among gender, sexuality and race. The queer politics is focused on personal identity in different class, race and gender. It’s limited their behavior and normative characteristics, and they struggle with others point of views. The reconstruction of political and others perspectives is the power to change idea of the heterosexuals.

In Cohen’s article, she was looking at the failed features of queer political activism. She argues that in order to make the new political activism for queer, a politics where the nonnormative and marginal position of punks, bulldaggers, and welfare queens. Cohen also discussed that intersectionality is the key for building the queer activism. She states that the transformation should not focus on the heteronormative oppression, also the systemic domination as race, gender, and economic class that overlaps sexuality. The queer politics has often been built around the edge between those queer and that heterosexuality society.