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Reviews tagging 'Acephobia/Arophobia'
A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski
2 reviews
bbymac's review
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Biphobia, Homophobia, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia, Sexism, Transphobia, and Colonisation
Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic, Acephobia/Arophobia, Antisemitism, Forced institutionalization, Ableism, Outing, Xenophobia, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Hate crime, Mental illness, Police brutality, and Drug use
These are for topics mentioned in the book. There aren’t many personal narratives experiencing these things since it’s looking at historical events unsung a removed context. The author also does not express these views himself, merely shared stories of overcoming adversity.horationelson's review
informative
medium-paced
2.0
As a queer person and a historian especially interested in social history, I thought this book would be an interesting and enlightening read. While I did learn a few things and did more research about a few people, in general, I was extremely disappointed. This book was written by a cis white gay man, and that's VERY obvious.
The only time Bronski mentions bisexual people is when describing/defining the LGBTQ+ acronym. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember him using the word to describe a person at all. He does mention bisexual people, but doesn't label them in such a way. He also implies at least once that bisexual people have chosen a "side" when they settle down with people of another gender; for example, he goes on about Ralph Waldo Emerson's potential queerness (he had homosexual thoughts about a fellow student when he was in school) and then says that it's surprising Emerson married a woman and had children. Emerson never gave himself a label or addressed his potential queerness, so I'm not asking Bronski to label him either. That said, it's damaging to bisexuals (like myself!) to assume that, if someone is interested in someone of the same gender, they can't be happy or involved with someone of another gender.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the book is focused heavily on white gay men. The next focus is white gay women. As a "queer" history book, I expected much more queer history - shocking, right? LGBTQ+ involves more groups than just the L and the G. I call myself queer because it's easier than explaining how I can be both bisexual and asexual. Reading this book and not seeing the word "asexual" at all is disheartening. We're part of the Q+ too.
Similarly - and perhaps this is because I'm asexual - so much of the book is focused on "erotic"/sexual themes and lines. A person can be LGBTQ+ without having sex with someone of the same gender. We're not just sexual beings.
As a cis person, the trans/nonbinary history presented here often made me uncomfortable. Sometimes, that can be good! I believe in challenging your beliefs and learning new things and new ways to be an ally. This is not that. An example: a preacher named the Public Universal Friend lived in New England. The Friend was assigned female at birth, but openly refused to identify with a gender or with gendered pronouns, two facts that Bronski admits. In the same breath, however, he refers to the Friend as "she." Ignoring the fact that the singular "they" goes back to the 14th century in English, the Friend's colleagues and acquaintances didn't use gendered pronouns for them. Why did Bronski feel the need to? I don't think that Bronski is intentionally transphobic, but it's very uncomfortable. (That said, he does refer to trans people as trans****ites several times, so maybe it is intentional. I'm not sure on the reclaiming status of that word, but as a cis person, I don't feel comfortable using it.)
Bronski also centers most of the book on whiteness. Conflating fetishization of Native American and Black people with liberal attitudes toward culture and sexuality is, uh, Bad. For example, Morton and his Merrymount colonists recruiting Native women into their settlement so that they can intermarry with them almost certainly doesn't show a more tolerant social attitude.
One of the few explicit mentions of non-white people is about b*rdaches, a term that Bronski admits is offensive to Native people. Doing even a small amount of Googling shows that the term two-spirit was first popularized in 1990 - twenty years before Bronski published his book - so his use of the slur (other than as an introductory term, since it was apparently in use in the 19th century) is unnecessary and harmful.
I recognize that evidence of LGBTQ+ people in American history is regrettably sparse, even though we've always been here. That said, this book does little to be intersectional or challenging. There's a lot of dichotomy and little depth.
The only time Bronski mentions bisexual people is when describing/defining the LGBTQ+ acronym. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember him using the word to describe a person at all. He does mention bisexual people, but doesn't label them in such a way. He also implies at least once that bisexual people have chosen a "side" when they settle down with people of another gender; for example, he goes on about Ralph Waldo Emerson's potential queerness (he had homosexual thoughts about a fellow student when he was in school) and then says that it's surprising Emerson married a woman and had children. Emerson never gave himself a label or addressed his potential queerness, so I'm not asking Bronski to label him either. That said, it's damaging to bisexuals (like myself!) to assume that, if someone is interested in someone of the same gender, they can't be happy or involved with someone of another gender.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the book is focused heavily on white gay men. The next focus is white gay women. As a "queer" history book, I expected much more queer history - shocking, right? LGBTQ+ involves more groups than just the L and the G. I call myself queer because it's easier than explaining how I can be both bisexual and asexual. Reading this book and not seeing the word "asexual" at all is disheartening. We're part of the Q+ too.
Similarly - and perhaps this is because I'm asexual - so much of the book is focused on "erotic"/sexual themes and lines. A person can be LGBTQ+ without having sex with someone of the same gender. We're not just sexual beings.
As a cis person, the trans/nonbinary history presented here often made me uncomfortable. Sometimes, that can be good! I believe in challenging your beliefs and learning new things and new ways to be an ally. This is not that. An example: a preacher named the Public Universal Friend lived in New England. The Friend was assigned female at birth, but openly refused to identify with a gender or with gendered pronouns, two facts that Bronski admits. In the same breath, however, he refers to the Friend as "she." Ignoring the fact that the singular "they" goes back to the 14th century in English, the Friend's colleagues and acquaintances didn't use gendered pronouns for them. Why did Bronski feel the need to? I don't think that Bronski is intentionally transphobic, but it's very uncomfortable. (That said, he does refer to trans people as trans****ites several times, so maybe it is intentional. I'm not sure on the reclaiming status of that word, but as a cis person, I don't feel comfortable using it.)
Bronski also centers most of the book on whiteness. Conflating fetishization of Native American and Black people with liberal attitudes toward culture and sexuality is, uh, Bad. For example, Morton and his Merrymount colonists recruiting Native women into their settlement so that they can intermarry with them almost certainly doesn't show a more tolerant social attitude.
One of the few explicit mentions of non-white people is about b*rdaches, a term that Bronski admits is offensive to Native people. Doing even a small amount of Googling shows that the term two-spirit was first popularized in 1990 - twenty years before Bronski published his book - so his use of the slur (other than as an introductory term, since it was apparently in use in the 19th century) is unnecessary and harmful.
I recognize that evidence of LGBTQ+ people in American history is regrettably sparse, even though we've always been here. That said, this book does little to be intersectional or challenging. There's a lot of dichotomy and little depth.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Acephobia/Arophobia, Biphobia, Homophobia, and Transphobia
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