Queer radical!? What's that??
The term QUEER made its appearance in American intellectual circles at the end of the eighties, introduced by theorists like Judith Butler, Eve Segwick, and David Halperin, who rejected heterosexuality and heterosexist culture without adopting a gay, lesbian, or bisexual identity in its place.
Revolting against all confused categories, and in particular binary divisions woman/man and homo/hetero, queers considered that the pseudo sexual liberation of the 20th century engendered new mechanisms of social control, much more subtle than before, for example sexual and gender identities, that alienate individuals and impede them from becoming authentic and free.
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The term RADICAL, often wrongly associated with fundamentalism or fanaticism, comes from the Latin word meaning “root”. Facing a problem with a radical approach therefore implies seeking its causes at the roots themselves and not at the surface. It is in going back to the roots of homophobia and heterosexism that we discover the interdependence of these and other problems in our society, for example sexism and racism.
A radical strategy against heterosexism must therefore seek to abolish savage capitalism, patriarchy, and other systems of alienation, in order to create spaces for self-determination, better intercultural relations, more non-commercial art, and in short, all the best parts of ourselves.
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Here's some e-mail addresses from differents
radical queer groups around Canada:
MONTRÉAL
VANCOUVER
Queer United Against Kapitalism (QUAK)
Contact: quak@resist.ca
TORONTO
Limp Fist
Contact: limpfist@tao.ca
OTTAWA
Queer Faction
Contact: queer.faction@gmail.com
HALIFAX
Radical Queers
No contact
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