Pushing the Limits of Liberalism: Queerness, Children, and the Future

Abstract

In this essay, Cris Mayo describes a tension between recognizing gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (lgbt) people by law and giving (or denying) them certain legal rights on the basis of identity, on the one hand, and enabling queer people, not always fully recognizable as inhabiting particular identity categories, to live their potentials, on the other. Laws and rights regulate particular kinds of people, and while lgbt people have pursued civil rights energetically for the last sixty years or so, their queerness continues to complicate their attempts to gain legitimacy. Beyond civil rights claims, queer liberationist claims push the limits of the understanding of identity, sexual practices, and political life, because they prompt us to consider not just abstract possibilities and freedoms but the freedoms and possibilities of people barely recognizable. Mayo shows how these queer claims are often hard to frame in terms of liberal theory and actual law.

In the Name of Safety: Discursive Positionings of Queer Youth

“…The policies are not necessarily enforced and the spaces and policies do not usually challenge the climate of the school, which is typically entrenched in heterosexism and may even support homophobia. Mayo (2006) reminds us that while queer adults have gained more access to queer possibilities and futures, this right is not just important for queer adults. It is crucial that queer youth also have access to queer possibilities and futures so that they may flourish both in their current situations as well as in their future participation in their communities and as citizens.…”

“…Some of these rights-focused debates take up issues like marriage, sodomy laws, and military involvement which are assumed to be issues that concern adults, but also have a negative impact on the ability of queer youth to imagine their futures in a myriad of valued ways (Mayo 2006). Other rights-focused debates center on the intersections between queer youth and schools and take up issues like the existence of GSAs, the ability of same-sex couples to attend prom together, or what should and should not be included in sex education classes (if they exist at all).…”

The ‘Futures’ of Queer Children and the Common School Ideal

“…A good example of the willingness on the part of queer theorists to engage critically with liberal arguments can be found in recent articles by Cris Mayo (2006aMayo ( , 2006b, and for that reason her work provides the primary reference point in queer theory for my arguments in this paper. Perhaps Mayo's deepest concern is that liberalism, and the educational institutions it sponsors, have thus far failed to address, and perhaps cannot address, the fact that 'queer children are denied a sense of futurity' in liberal societies and in public schools (Mayo, 2006a, p. 473).…”

“…In the US, schools such as the Harvey Milk School in New York City have been established specifically for gay, lesbian and transgendered kids. These schools are partially funded by public money; and the use of public funds is justified in part because these schools are a response to the widespread violence and emotional harm that queer children experience in public schools, in their families and in the wider society (Dennis and Harlow, 1986; see also Mayo, 2006a). 5 As D.L.…”

Queering Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services: The Subversion of Heteronormativity in Practice

“…Issues of social exclusion, stigma, bullying, victimisation and lack of social support contribute to ‘mental health problems’ in queer people (Concannon, 2008; Daley and others, 2007; Hansen, 2007; Warwick and others, 2000). Moreover, there is a disproportionately higher rate of distress (Daley and others, 2007) and suicide (Consolacion and others, 2004; Hansen, 2007; Mayo, 2006; Scourfield and others, 2008) amongst queer young people than heterosexual young people. Heterosexual young people may also be victimised by heteronormative practices, particularly if they are mistakenly assumed to be queer (Van der Veen and others, 1998) or are labelled such in an attempt to oppress.…”