“Interpreting and Experience Anti-Queer Violence”

“Interpreting and Experiencing Anti-Queer Violence” by Doug Meyer is a summary and analysis of a research project done by the author in which he interviewed 44 individuals who all but four (two of which identified as being bisexuals, the other two as heterosexuals) identified themselves as homosexuals who have been victimized by a hate crime. The interviewees ranged from Black, White, Asian, Latino, young, old, some had finished high school and some had finished college. The result of this research project would be to provide an analysis of how intersectionality effects how victims of hate crimes perceive the motives of their attackers.  Meyer’s believes that intersectionality is “a theoretical framework that has been highly influential in other bodies of literature, has remained absent from studies of hate crime victims.” For Meyer’s, intersectionality lends a way to comprehend hate crimes by way of determining whether the discrimination the attacker felt was exclusive to homophobia or whether it was also propelled by racism and sexism.

Meyer’s refers to the studies of hate crime scholar Barbara Perry and her theory that hate crime is an “outgrowth of systems of oppression; it is one of the ways in which perpetrators maintain social hierarchies” the way that violence motivated by race difference enforces the idea of “white superiority” and anti-Queer violence enforces social heteronormativity. In terms of determining precisely where the hatred of the perpetrator originates across the spectrum of race, class and gender Meyer’s investigates how the interviewed hate crime victims identified an act of violence as being homophobic-driven if the perpetrator used anti-Queer slurs while attacking the victim. In Meyer’s words, hate-crime victims sometimes rely on the hateful remarks to “determine that the violence is based on their sexuality.” White gay men more easily determined that they were attacked based on their sexuality where lesbians and gay men of color were more conflictive about which attribute they possess was the target for violence. Lesbians felt that they were not bombarded with homophobic slurs but with misogynistic language, which alludes to the idea that they were assaulted due to their gender as well as their sexual preference. In fact, Meyer’s inserts how “Lesbian women found it difficult to distinguish between misogynistic and homophobic forms of violence.” Meyer’s point is that although homophobia may have been the initial cause of rage, sexism may have acted as a visible propulsion to carry out the violence.

For Black gay men, homophobia was also not enough to define the driving forces behind the hate crime they experienced. In analyzing the experiences of those who were inflicted by interracial violence, Meyer’s found that Queer people of color were attacked with homophobic slurs but the hatred may not have stemmed specifically from homophobia. One interviewee illustrated this point by stating what Meyer’s translated to be an “argument that suggests that Black queer people frequently encounter violence in which their perpetrators focus on gender nonconformity rather than homosexuality. As a result, Black queer people may often confront violence in which their perpetrators do not explicitly address homosexuality.”

Meyer’s fit the social construction of class into how the victims perceived the violence that was inflicted upon them. Those who identified as being of working or low-income class both clearly declared and/or insinuated that they had more problems to worry about outside of the scope of discrimination and hatred which inspired the hate crime they were a victim of. According to an interviewee who identified herself as working class, she suggests that “working-class and low-income queer people may have more pressing concerns than determining whether violence is rooted in bias.” By saying “..How was I supposed to sit around and spend time thinking about whether I had been bashed?” An extension and result of the how social class effects the victims of hate crimes is illustrated by Meyer’s as “If queer people of color find it more difficult than White gay men to determine whether violence is based on their sexuality, then hate crime statues may primarily serve to protect the interests of White gay men. Hate crime statutes…benefits victims who are willing to define violence as bias-motivated.”

Meyer’s also introduces how many who inflict these acts of violence propelled by homophobia, racism and sexism may also be fueled by the resentment towards these individuals who, for them, represent general nonconformity. For these perpetrators, homosexuality represents nonconformity by being the minority and heterosexuality represents conformity, tradition and the continuity of humanity. Inflicting violence on nonconformist perhaps instills in them a justification for otherwise inhumane acts by way of seeing themselves as “whipping” the victims “into shape” or into “the mold” that they (and society) expects of them. 

Is anti-queer violence simply a “punishment” for living a “deviant” lifestyle brought down by bigots and homophobes? or does it have wider social implications concerning how these bigots (perhaps subconsciously) measure conformity, race, gender and class within the scope of sexuality?