Dangerous liaisons: Queer subjectivity, liberalism and race

The emergence of queer theory has posed an incipient and significant challe nge to the essentialism which has typically characterized theories of sexua lity. In an attempt to eschew the totalizing effects of the categories 'gay ' and 'lesbian', queer theorists advocate a subjectivity which celebrates s exual difference without concern for achieved or ascribed characteristics. It is this remarkable capacity for inclusivity, attributed most immediately to the gender and race neutrality of 'queer', which is of particular inter est here. More specifically, this article examines queer subjectivity's rel ation to a liberal. humanist discourse whose purported universality require s the production of abstract, sovereign subjects without concern for their social location. The article in turn examines how the liberal premises whic h underlie queer subjectivity actually facilitate the reappropriation of 'q ueer' while undermining similar attempts to resignify racial epithets. Far from being a neutral subject position which ensures the liberty and autonom y of its inhabitants, the racial epithet here reinscribes the difference wh ich the 'queer' subject and its liberal humanist prototype are perpetually trying to mask. I contend that it is this discrepancy in the capacity to ma sk difference - via a proximity to or distance from the liberal subject - w hich permits the reappropriation of 'queer' while racial epithets continue to remain taboo in the cultural mainstream.