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The Post‐Raciality and Post‐Spatiality of Calls for LGBTQ and Disability Visibility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2014

Carly Thomsen
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Abstract

In this article, I consider the ideologies that emerge when disability and LGBTQ rights advocates' ubiquitous calls for visibility collide. I argue that contemporary visibility politics encourage the production of post‐racial and post‐spatial ideologies. In demanding visibility, disability and LGBTQ rights advocates ignore, ironically, visible markers of (racial) difference and assume that being “out, loud, and proud” is desirable trans‐geographically. I bring together disability studies and queer rural studies—fields that have engaged in remarkably little dialogue—to analyze activist calls for LGBTQ and disability visibility. The discourses evident in such calls transcend movements and virtual spaces and emerge as some of the LGBTQ women in the rural Midwest whom I interviewed discuss their relations to (their own and others') LGBTQ sexuality and disability. I analyze several cases to illustrate how visibility discourses compel the erasure of material bodies, and in the process, render certain (spatialized and racialized) experiences obsolete. I close by considering how my critique of visibility discourses might influence critical discussions of identity politics more broadly.

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 30 , Issue 1: Special Issue: New Conversations in Feminist Disability Studies , Winter 2015 , pp. 149 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 by Hypatia, Inc.

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Footnotes

Thank you to Kim Hall and to the Hypatia reviewers for critical feedback that significantly improved the article. I benefited from workshopping previous iterations of this article with Alison Kafer, Matt Richardson, and Siobhan Somerville. Robert McRuer's insights were particularly generative. Conversations with and feedback from the following people greatly enriched the text: Ayisha Ashley Al‐Sayyad, Heather Berg, Leigh Dodson, Eileen Boris, Avery Gordon, Maryam Griffin, Aly Patsavas, and Leila Rupp. Many thanks to all.

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