Making room for our queer imagination

What is queer imagination?

In the event we hosted on May 8th this was a question we left deliberately open. We wanted to create a space where we could collectively explore this topic, inviting everyone in the space to contribute. 

In this blog, I’m going to try to answer this question, based on the many beautiful definitions of queerness people shared that night, as well as ideas that we came up with together for the queer spaces we want. In a future blog, Eva Ventura and I will dive a bit deeper into some of the spatial elements that make a space ‘queer’; places where queer imagination can thrive.  

To start, I think it might be helpful to distinguish between at least two (and likely there are more) different lenses we could take to queer imagination: 

The first being queer as an adjective that describes a particular imagination. That is, there are desires for the future that are queer, or that come from queer individuals, collectives and cultures. 

And the second, which is the one I want to focus on, is queerness as an imaginative practice, where there is something inherently imaginative to queerness, queering practices, and queer ways of being.  

At the start of the evening of the 8th, we asked the room to reflect on what queerness means to them. This was a warming and intimate exercise. And my heart was warmed too by realising that many, if not all, of the definitions revealed something about this imaginative quality of queerness. Although most people attending were queer-identifying (LGBTQI+), their definitions of queerness stretched beyond these categorisations of gender and sexuality, suggesting that to them queerness has a greater role in how they orient themselves towards the world. 

Here were some of my favourite definitions: 

Queerness means: everything that is solid is a lie; that I can also also also and and and and; it’s the recognition of our inherent multiplicity

Queerness is a fearlessness to reject the status quo and the heteronormativity imposed by society and to embrace oneself 

Queerness is imagination, possibility, creativity, depth & humor

Queerness is thriving, not just existing, where we can challenge the status quo without shame or guilt

Queerness is being outside or against the norm and stretching it

To be Queer is to be LOOSE (the crowd favourite) 

-

After, we hung our definitions on a wall, and taking a step back, I couldn’t help seeing some hopeful and imaginative threads running through them. 

The first I noticed is that queerness seems to exist in opposition to a norm. It does not exist in a vacuum, but instead emerges in contrast to or in resistance to that which is already there. It’s what Bell Hooks wrote: “queer as being about the self which is at odds with everything around it.” On our wall someone wrote: “being outside a norm or stretching it”. I like this idea of stretching, too, that although queerness might be in opposition to a norm, neither is static, and queerness indeed can stretch our social norms. 

The second thread I noticed, is that people often define queerness as a powerful, internal source of energy. There is a playfulness, creativity and sometimes, spiritual depth to it. It is the energy that gives you the courage to make a change to your life, to create a space for yourself and others where you can thrive, to “insist on a concrete possibility for another world”, as Jose Esteban Munoz writes. In an interview, the writer Ocean Vuong shares: “when I looked at my life, I saw that queerness demanded an alternative innovation from me.” Queerness, for many, is this creative courage to invent an alternative to a desolate reality.  

The third thread was that people describe queerness as being fluid, loose, and multiple. “Queerness means: everything that is solid is a lie; that I can also also also and and and and”. Queerness in this way, is expansive. It breaks binaries. It’s the ability to recognise a thousand versions in yourself , and to see that same complexity in others. This corresponds to the ability to imagine and desire a world that is also multiple (the pluriverse), and the ability to be in solidarity with anyone who  is denied the ability to thrive; through oppressive norms, legislation and state violence. 

And the last thread, without which the fabric would probably fall apart, is that many people also mention queerness is about belonging and community. That although every experience of queerness is highly personal; it’s also necessarily collective. It is when queer people encounter others, find recognition, and then belonging, that that internal source of energy awakens, and that actual other possibilities can be imagined. It’s why queer spaces are so important. The queer spaces we designed that night, were full of mirrors: “you enter, and you are able to see your true self.” The mirrors were symbolic of other people you find within queer spaces, who reflect back at you certain parts of yourself that were previously unseen or unvalued. 

- 

Tracing these threads, I start to feel with my fingertips the imaginative potential of queerness, queer lives, queer becomings and queer communities.

This is what I’m searching to capture. This imaginative quality of queerness, as a verb, as an action, as an imaginative practice, as a “personal and collective process of transformation”, as “a beautiful challenge”.  The ability for individuals and communities to reject norms, to find the courage to change, to embrace multiplicity in themselves and others, and to desire and enact other possibilities, collectively. 

Surely this is what we need more of in the world.

‍

As I continue this search, I hope to be able to capture queer imaginative practices and queer imagined futures in such a way that when people encounter them, they see it as an invitation.

An invitation to search for queerness in themselves. An invitation to break free from a norm, any norm. To break free from the notion that this is it, that this is all there will ever be.

I hope to write a hopeful counter-narrative. Queer people are not strange, mentally ill, perverted, confused, dangerous, broken, sad. Queer communities are essential beacons that can guide us towards caring, colourful, courageous futures.

-

Thank you for all the co-organisers and attendees to make this inspiring evening possible. 💞

‍