Rebecca Noel, English + Psychology, Class of ’21
Brief Summary: Queerness tends to focus on the present, as opposed to society’s overall tendency to center futurity. This paper first examines how this queer temporality interacts with the spatial geography of Houston, specifically in relation to physical buildings and locations. Subsequently, Noel uses Bryan Washingston’s Lot to explore a particular instance of queer temporality in Houston.
The forging of queer space in Houston is a process molded by racial and geographical positionalities and significantly marked by the transience of spaces in Houston in general. Queerness disrupts dominant political ideologies surrounding family structure and gender roles, and queer temporality itself is less focused on the future than the present. Creating queer spaces is a particularly defiant act in a city like Houston, characterized by constant change, and can be particularly difficult for low income individuals and people of color. Regardless, certain queer forums and spaces continue to thrive, though the city would benefit from more queer spaces that cater to racial and ethnic minorities.
Queer temporality places an emphasis on the here and now, relative to more normative senses of temporality that prioritize the future, due in large part to the struggles faced by queer communities throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s. This present-centric temporality features heavily in Lot, a novel written in and based in modern-day. “In a Queer Time and Place” by Judith Halberstam highlights this aspect of queer temporality, claiming that it likely originated from the abbreviated lifespan many queer individuals suffered during the AIDS epidemic in the United States. Halberstam notes, “The constantly diminishing future creates a new emphasis on the here, the present, the now, and while the threat of no future hovers overhead like a storm cloud, the urgency of being also expands the potential of the moment,” (Halberstam, 2). Halberstam also contends that queerness itself disrupts normative temporalities traditionally marked by events such as marriage and childbirth. These traditional markers have become more available to same-sex couples within the last decade, but for most of this country’s history, the hegemonic markers of a meaningful lifetime was bounded by and to heteronormativity.
Bryan Washington’s Lot does not celebrate the new normal of queer families with children, but rather features young, low-income, queer people of color having to make the most of the moments they do get to carve out physical space with one another. At the end of “Lockwood,” Nicolás says of an intimate moment he shares with Roberto, “He didn’t tell me he was disappearing. He just felt my chin. Rubbed my palms… I couldn’t see shit, just the outline of his shadow, but we squeezed our palms together and called it amazing anyways,” (Halberstam 5). This scene happens between two boys in secret, knowing their respective families may not approve. This secrecy mirrors the private intimacy Nicolás shares with Miguel in the last chapter of the novel, “Elgin,” as Nicolás is forced to come face to face with his own future. The structure of Lot itself also contributes to its focus on the present, as the narrative jumps from moment to moment and at times, even switches perspective, rather than following a linear timeline.This prohibits the reader from constructing a clear picture of the chronology of events, rather forcing them to digest the story one fraction at a time.
This idea of queer temporality as present-focused becomes exaggerated within the context of an amnesiac city like Houston. The landscape of the city is defined by change, with relatively few historical buildings that have not been demolished by developers and a constant ebb and flow of gentrification throughout the sprawling city’s many neighborhoods. For example, Mary’s, one of the city’s first gay bars, located on Westheimer near Rice University, was the site of many of the discussions which led to the formation of Houston’s most important AIDS service organizations in the ‘80s and was a contributing factor in Montrose becoming the center of queer life in Houston for a time (Binkovitz). Many who lost their lives to HIV even had their ashes scattered on the property or buried behind the building. Today, that building houses Blacksmith, a trendy coffee shop frequented by local yuppies oblivious to its history. In fact, many argue that Montrose is no longer the “gay neighborhood” of Houston.
Before the 1970’s, there were few queer friendly gathering places in Houston, most of which were scattered throughout Montrose, downtown, and the Rice Village. During the following two decades, more queer friendly businesses began opening in Montrose specifically, and the intersection of Westheimer and Montrose came to be a center for social and civic life for many in the queer community. In the past decade, however, Houston’s Gay Pride Parade has been relocated from Montrose to downtown, and fewer gay bars exist in Montrose than in prior years (Binkovitz). Some argue that this is a sign of progress, as Houston no longer needs a “gay” neighborhood since queer individuals are more widely accepted. However, what does it mean for a neighborhood to be “gay?” Certainly Montrose is still home to many gay bars, but could the average LGBTQ person in Houston afford to live in the increasingly expensive Montrose? Lot showcases several stories featuring queer characters, most of whom are people of color, and relatively few of them actually take place in Montrose. Houston is a place in which it can be difficult to form a lasting legacy, as it seems to constantly be striving towards the future without due attention to the past. Despite its diversity, recognizing and creating space for difference, in a lasting way, is more difficult in Houston than in some other cities.
Lot demonstrates that race and class also impact the experience of forging queer spaces. The last chapter, entitled “Elgin,” speaks to the gentrification which takes place in much of Houston, often with whites moving into primarily non-white neighborhoods and pushing people of color further out. It says, “With the blancos moving in, the whole block is quieter now.You’ve got these dinnertime voices leaking through the windows. You hear dishes clinking just like in the commercials. It all feels impossible to me, this shit no one I know could afford, but Ma called it cyclical. She said you have things and then you don’t,” (Washington 191). While the spaces people occupy in Houston shift frequently, those who lose out when spaces shift often low-income individuals and often people of color. The popularized idea of a stable, affluent home life, like the one Lot narrator Nicolás notes are shown in television commercials, is one most often experienced by white, upper middle class America, concealing the less predictable everyday realities many experience. Later on in the chapter, Nicolás notes of Houston after Hurricane Harvey, “After the storm, they pushed the rest of us out, too; if you couldn’t afford to rebuild, then you had to go. If you broke the bank rebuilding, then you couldn’t stay. If you couldn’t afford to leave, and you couldn’t afford to fix your life, then what you had to do was watch the neighborhood grow further away from you,” (Washington 202). By this point, his brother has died, and the rest of his family has left the neighborhood, leaving Nicolás to try to decide whether to stay or go and to think about the future for seemingly one of the first times in the book. The present-focused temporality which Halberstam argues characterizes queer existence and which is exaggerated by life in Houston is again mediated by race and class, with disadvantaged populations having to live with a degree of uncertainty that few in upper middle class, white communities have to consider.
Even with the barriers to establishing enduring queer cultural spaces within the context of the city of Houston, a few organizations have managed to amplify queer voices, though far too few cater specifically to queer communities of color. There are several queer media organizations which publish content specifically geared towards queer audiences in Houston such as OutSmart magazine, which has been producing content from book reviews to lifestyle columns by and for the LGBTQ+ community in Houston since 1994, as well as Queer Voices radio, which broadcasts once a week to discuss concerns of Houston’s LGBTQ+ community which go unaddressed by other news outlets. There are also several groups specific to particular professions or interests, such as the Greater Houston LGBT Chamber of Commerce and even Houston’s chapter of the International Gay Bowling Association. Many nonprofits exist to serve homeless queer youth as well as those struggling with substance abuse issues; however, most organizations which focus on specifically low-income members of the LGBTQ community primarily are aid organizations rather than arts or social organizations like the ones which exist for more affluent members of the community. The city seems to lack arts infrastructure for this facet of the queer community as well as organizations which focus specifically on queer individuals of color. While queerness is itself a layer of difference, what it means to be queer often becomes whitewashed and homogeneously represented in mainstream culture. There is more than one way to be queer, and too often, the media only represents what it is like to be white, male, upper middle class and queer.
Bryan Washington uses his book to highlight the idiosyncrasies of what it is like to be a poor, queer person of color within the context of the city of Houston. It is difficult for marginalized communities to carve out places for themselves within any community, let alone one like Houston, which is prone to forgetting itself. The amplification of marginalized voices takes focused intention, and for the queer community as a whole to truly work towards equity, it has to be sure to amplify more than one type of queer narrative.
Works Cited
Binkovitz, Leah. “How Montrose Became Gay.” Houston Chronicle, 10 Mar. 2017, https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/Is-Montrose-still-gay-10992471.php. Accessed 30 Mar. 2020.
My Gay Houston. Houston First Corporation, https://www.mygayhouston.com/community/nonprofits-social-organizations/. Accessed 30 Mar. 2020.
OutSmart. OutSmart Media Company, http://www.outsmartmagazine.com/about-outsmart-2/. Accessed 30 Mar. 2020.
Queer Voices. Pacifica Radio, http://queervoices.org/home/index.php. Accessed 30 Mar. 2020
Washington, Bryan. Lot: Stories. New York, Riverhead, 2019.
