Who am I? We’ve all heard the question. But is it something we are all constantly questioning and redefining? For me, proclaiming who I am became a process of understanding my space and place in a social context, and finally giving myself the agency to choose how I identify as a white, lesbian woman. This long and constant process of defining myself, has been riddled with fear, anxiety, courage and honesty that resulted in a profound understanding of how I fit into society and how society wants to define my reality.
This understanding of the self, either in how one defines it or defines it for others, is precisely what GU Pride is robustly challenging this semester with a new campaign that questions identity. We hope to change the way this campus understands and acknowledges diversity by fostering an environment of dialogue that challenges our preconceived notions of identity construction. We are asking students to reflect on their understanding of identity, especially with respect to privilege, and how one’s understanding affects his or her interactions and judgments of others.
Many of us are forced to come to terms with our own realities on a far more regular basis than others. As a member of the LGBTQ community, I must “come out” to every new person I meet, and I feel the need to constantly assert my sexuality to my friends, family and others. Ask yourself: do you feel the need to repeatedly and publicly define yourself to others?
Identity is the lens through which we perceive life, and it is essential that we understand how our identity effects our interactions with those around us. But how far must one go in questioning one’s self? Will a single word suffice? A person may be queer, as well as an athlete, woman, professor, person of color or a member of a family, but is that the way one views a queer person? Do we define people by a single characteristic or identity, and, if so, how does that shape, change and filter our view of the whole person?
Society’s dominant ideologies of identity consistently place people in a single, narrowly defined category to control the function of that identity. When we can proclaim and define our identities, which are often made unseen and silenced, we remove some of the power that societal ideologies place over us. By looking at identity as a social construction, we not only see beyond our titles but also realize how gender, sexuality, race and class have been historically created to gain and hold onto power. It is with this realization that GU Pride asks the Georgetown community to ask both who we are and examine how the social construction of identity is played, preformed and utilized on this campus.
What is social construction? Strong societal forces such as the media, our parents, the structure of our families, our social class and our peers shape us into adults, often with narrow ideas of what a certain identity “should be.” External forces perpetuate stereotypes and force us into positions where we subconsciously alter the way we interact with others based upon our conditioning by society. For example, LGBTQ students live in a culture of heteronormativity and heterosexism that constantly bombards us with ideas of how we “should” live. Through the social construction of sexuality the LGBTQ individual becomes the sexual “other,” stereotyped as deviant and abnormal, creating the norm and rightness of heterosexuality.
We, the authors of this article, ask you to consider us. Are we merely a dyke or a fag, or are we more? Are we not also a woman or a man; are we not an agnostic or a Jew? Yes, we are queer. But, that is just one important aspect of our identity, and we will not allow ourselves to be simply labeled as queer and nothing more. We wonder, as queer individuals: How do you judge everything we do based upon our sexual orientations?
This oppression often forces us to boldly demonstrate our commonly deplored characteristics. We find strength in words like “faggot” and “dyke” by removing the power that these statements have in the hands of others, and reclaiming them as our own. It might seem odd that these words have become our armor, strength and even source of pride. What has identity become today? Do we deny ourselves freedom just because it is easier for us to place other people in categories? By examining these questions, we can better understand how ideas of “identity” monitor, police and control us, defining who we are and leaving us with no room to be anything else, or who we want to be.
GU Pride asks you to take a moment to consider who you are. Question your identity on many levels, from gender and sexuality to race, family and class. Question how your identities intersect with each other. Remember that people can be oppressed by their sexuality but be privileged because of race, gender and class. All should have the right to define and create themselves. We all must fundamentally examine how our own identities are shaped by privilege, oppression, or the combination of the two.
In the end, GU Pride asks why simply proclaiming “i am” is not a sufficient description of the self. We understand the paradox in asking this question, we know it cannot be answered easily. But that does not mean we should not strive to better understand and constantly question how we define both ourselves and others. This Friday, Oct 15, 2004, our campus must question. Look around, and you will see students wearing red “i am” t-shirts. Do not define them based on their t-shirts or your perceptions, because they are already defining themselves.
