issue ii: themes in queer american literature

The main themes within Queer American Literature are also reflected within America’s Queer culture. Silence and Breaking the Silence are the predominant themes. The act of writing about queer life, especially by a queer author, is stepping out of the subordinate class that the GLBTQ population is subjected to. It goes without saying that the art of a queer author parallels their experiences. Because queer experiences are expressed through our art, the autobiographical nature of queer literature is thus exposed. Adrienne Rich says that “invisibility is not just a matter of being told to keep your private life private; it’s the attempt to fragment you, to prevent you from integrating love and work and feelings and ideas, with the empowerment that that can bring” (Rich199-200). Berth Harris has a similar assessment: “Cultural (and therefore ‘literary’) silence is first brought about through suppression of the group’s sense of ‘realness’ – especially through invalidation of experience” (Harris 257). According to Harris and Rich, if we do not see our literature in the canon and the classroom is our identity valid? No. We are invisible.
The use of authors’ language is crucial to many readers and reviewers seeing our writing as reflecting the mentality and sentiment of all queers. Use of obscure language and codes was necessary for some authors such as Gertrude Stein to include nonheteronormativity. Two examples: 1.) Stein’s Tender Buttons literally translates to ‘tend her buttons’ as in sexual pleasure, 2.) Stein’s famous line about women “having a cow” is code for orgasm. Willa Cather is another author who encoded, because she “may have adopted her characteristic male persona in order to express safely her emotional and erotic feelings for other women” (Zimmerman). The use of explicitness is also common due to the lack of queer identity in other forms of media. The references may be shocking to some and also illustrate the human nature of sexuality.
Often in Queer Literature, one can see the dual oppression (such as the oppression of women and homophobia) and multiple oppressions (such as the oppression of women, homophobia, racism, etc.). On women of color and lesbians, Adrienne Rich articulates that they are “even more profoundly erased in academic feminist scholarship by the double bias of racism and homophobia” (25). Randy Burns, co-founder of Gay American Indians explains that “[a]t the same time, gay American Indians face double oppression – both racism and homophobia.... Even now, leadership roles in the gay community continue to be filled by white males, and minority tokenism is the rule. Organizations are always coming to GAI [Gay American Indians], eager for Indian representation – but they fail to address the economic and social obstacles to equal and full participation and they ignore our input when we do participate.” (2-3). Rich and Burns expose the intersections of race, class, and homophobia. Dominant society attempts to silence us all. Break the silence.