Disidentification (as a Survival Strategy for Religious Trauma)

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Epistemic injustice—and, with it, religious trauma—has become a major topic in analytic philosophy, religious studies, and the clinical mental health industry. I extend epistemic injustice to the LGBTQIA+ community because we are most likely to experience epistemic harm in the forms of religious trauma and spiritual violence by the rhetoric of religion. Negative messaging and problematic doctrine, also known as “clobber passages” or “texts of terror,” can lead to internalized homophobia and self-hatred. Further, public shaming can, and often does, cause a loss of community and much needed support. Further, when one considers the silencing of minorities when they try to speak about their experiences within fundamentalist religious communities, the potential for queer identity construction can be further deferred. José Esteban Muñoz offers disidentification as a survival strategy for minorities in a majority setting. Disidentification allows minorities to use the cultural norms that they know for their own purposes, investing old expectations with new life. I argue that Muñoz’s concept of disidentification can serve as a survival strategy for queer people, especially queer of color people, who have experienced religious trauma, including testimonial silencing when they are not believed and hermeneutical marginalization when they don’t know what or whom to believe. Disidentification is an important intervention in the queer rhetoric conversation because it offers minorities a survival strategy during a critical phase in their lives—their coming out.