Queering Expertise: Counterpublics, Social Change, and the Corporeal Dilemmas of LGBTQ Equality

Abstract

This essay considers how rhetorics of expertise constitute social identity in the lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer/questioning (LGBTQ) rights movement. While members of the mainstream gay rights movement typically emphasize conventional political channels, participants in the “radical” gay rights movement prefer transgressive enactments of non-normative sexualities. Because the resulting arguments over strategy are simultaneously debates about what it means to be a queer citizen, I conclude that discourses of expertise also function as nodal points for group identity within queer counterpublics. Furthermore, I argue that a more conservative queer rhetoric of expertise places constraints on queer subjectivity that are deeply problematic for those navigating the already murky waters of sexual identity in America.