WITH the impending legalisation of same-sex marriage, our legal system now has the go-ahead to clear-up some logical ambiguities relating to the status of inter-sexed and trans-gender individuals. Unfortunately the old “gay and lesbian” rubric is like the group areas act of gender ideology. Not only is the supposed duality heuristically incorrect, but it seemingly negates queer culture by enforcing gender stereotypes.
The refusal to acknowledge other forms of identity and personal mythology has been the hallmark of South Africa’s anachronistic gender struggle – the “gay and lesbian” morass of sexual politics from a time before HIV, is not only dated, but has quixotically managed to divorce itself from women’s politics, and even the mens movement. Perhaps this will all change with the acceptance of same-sex marriage and the advances of a post-apartheid Queer Culture that includes freedom of sexual orientation, i.e. the freedom to reformat and reboot ones own gender identity, whatever the case, gay, straight, transexual or bi?
It is no surprise that rumblings can be heard of an expansion in the semiotic maelstroom that includes new age, post-gender politics in all their trans-sexualized, polymorphic nuances.
From the old school “G & L” still stuck in the closet, to the new-school B L T G I Q, which stands for Bisexual, Lesbian, Transgendered, Gay, Intersexed and Queer, that pretty much includes everyone with an IQ, except of course, Heterosexuals in an overt, butch sort of way. So what does one do if, like so many transexuals these days, one is actually, well, macho and straight?
The new Queer Culture includes everybody, not merely the dualistic clones of feminised masculinity or metrosexualised raging queens — biologically diverse examples of the human race, cross-gender indeterminate mutants. The real question – why not identify oneself as simply Queer (straight or square) and avoid the rush to evacuate the group areas act of gender ideology?
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