Queer Influence On Identity

An unfortunate reality to religious and LGBTQIA+ identifying individuals everywhere is that thought processes everywhere are dictated by institutions. Institutions categorize every identity into definable, recognizable traits that anyone can distinguish. While members and students of religious affiliations can and will create their own sub-standards and subcategories throughout their religion, and likewise actions are taken by the queer community, members of the "other", that do not identity with either religion or non-heteronormative denominations will not. Those who aren't "in" will only see umbrella terms as singular. "Queer" means homosexual or bisexual, and rarely more. "Buddhist" means Zen Buddhism, and no other sects. "Pagan" means

Gloria Anzaldúa firmly writes about her negative encounters with this dichotomy in her piece To(o) Queer the Writer. Her encounters with the movement to self identify highlight the steamroller-like qualities of societal peer-pressure. The expectation to have contemplated one's own sexuality and be willing to share with any person who inquires has become overwhelming. It has become normal to disregard personal privacy and comfort levels to be able to ask anyone what their sexual or gender orientation is, and blanket terms are no longer accepted. As an answer, "queer" is met with a look of expectation for whoever is being interrogated to keep explaining until he provides acceptable mainstream terminology that the interviewee has heard of before. Anzaldúa expresses her distress, and "struggles with naming without fragmenting, without excluding" (Anzaldúa 166). Each label is a box, with strict confinements included. However, everyone who does not identify with the societal norm to be a white Protestant heteronormative individual is expected to choose a label. These loaded self-definitions aren't in place to help explain how someone identifies. Instead, they help decide how society should judge him instead. Instead, the labels are manifestations of what the assumptions and reputations are, behind the boxes. To come to terms with the ominous intersection between religion and queer, each individual

When I lived in Israel, the high school teacher who made the biggest impact on me led a discussion in the middle of our Jewish history class one day. The topic had to do with making the personal choice between how each of us identified. Since most of our class had moved from the United States, we had to contemplate whether we considered ourselves "American Jews", or "Jewish Americans". The emphasis on adjective versus noun was absolute. We considered which heritage we identified with more. Was growing up in America our most identifying aspect? Was it the religious and cultural aspects of a worldwide denomination? For me, the reality is that I identify much more deeply with my religion, which was one aspect of my choice to move to Israel in the first place. It wasn't as simple for the rest of the class. For this discussion, we had to choose what defined us, and every corresponding box confinement that those labels entailed. However, we all had to define