No abstract

Critiquing queer theory's omissions in race and class, E. Patrick Johnson (2001) suggests "quare" studies, a turn similar to that being made from feminism to womanism. I fully embrace Johnson's theorizing. But to make relevant the worlds lying beyond the pale of North America, Europe, and the English language to the study of sexualities and other dimensions of systematic discrimination, I use kuaer theory to make another turn. One that is at once race-conscious, womanist and transnational. I travel through three awakenings, and look into nu nu (female-female) words in Taiwanese and Chinese lesbian existence in different historical periods. I also ofter a rhetorical analysis of the title of Ai Bao, the first officially registered Taiwanese lesbian magazine, exploring its persuasiveness via wordplay and multiple entendre. In addition, from jin lan hui to nu tongzhi, from T/puo and lazi to kuer, I provide sketches of heterogeneous and complex Taiwanese and Chinese nu nu worlds. As I get deeper into my autocritography, these women become my women and I learn to utter my own words in a language that is little pre-packaged. My crossing marks a daring but humble beginning. If nothing else, there is at least more space for bringing up race and transnational complicity queerly.

This article performs critical intellectual labor for social and political change against neoliberalism in three ways. First, it explores and connects neoliberal governmentality and neoliberal melancholy, two anchor experiences in our twenty-first century political quotidian. Second, it engages in the sense making of Proposition 8 (a California voter initiative to ban same-sex marriage, which was narrowly passed in 2008) as a case study of religious organizations (the Mormon Church and their religious allies) and their complicity with neoliberal states to foster subjection and subjectivation through critical intersectionality that goes beyond the identity trinity of race, class, and gender. Finally, the article suggests two technologies as a new hand to outplay the excess of neoliberalism for the triumph of our common humanity: 1) mourning over the devastation brought about by neoliberalism and 2) loving our love for those with whom we usually do not form affinity connections, such as the other Mormons, those who are othered because of their departure from church orthodoxy.