S ome will read “queer” as syn-

onymous with “gay and lesbian”

or “LGBT”. This reading falls short.
While those who would fit within the
constructions of “L”, “G”, “B” or “T”
could fall within the discursive limits
of queer, queer is not a stable area to
inhabit. Queer is not merely another
identity that can be tacked onto a list
of neat social categories, nor the quan-
titative sum of our identities. Rather,
it is the qualitative position of opposi-
tion to presentations of stability—an
identity that problematizes the man-
ageable limits of identity. Queer is a
territory of tension, defined against the
dominant narrative of whitehetero-
1
monogamous—patriarchy, but also By “queer”, we mean “social war”. And
by an affinity with all who are mar- when we speak of queer as a conflict
ginalized, otherized and oppressed. with all domination, we mean it.
Queer is the abnormal, the strange, the
dangerous. Queer involves our sexual- [...]

T
ity and our gender, but so much more.
he perspective of queers within the
It is our desire and fantasies and more
heteronormative world is a lens
still. Queer is the cohesion of every-
through which we can critique and at-
thing in conflict with the heterosexual
tack the apparatus of capitalsm. We can
capitalist world. Queer is a total rejec-
analyze the ways in which Medicine,
tion of the regime of the Normal.
the Prison System, the Church, the
[...] State, Marriage, the Media, Borders,
the Military and Police are used to con-

I n the discourse of queer, we are

talking about a space of struggle
against this totality—against normalcy.
trol and destroy us. More importantly,
we can use these cases to articulate a
cohesive criticism of every way that we
2 3
are alienated and dominated. liberation for queer people is intrinsi-
Queer is a position from which to cally tied to the annihilation of capital-
attack the normative—more, a posi- ism and the state. It is no wonder, then,
tion from which to understand and that the first people to publicly speak of
attack the ways in which normal is re- sexual liberation in this country were
produced and reiterated. In destabiliz- anarchists, or that those in the last cen-
ing and problematizing normalcy, we tury who struggled for queer liberation
can destabilize and become a problem also simultaneously struggled gainst
for the Totality. capitalism, racism and patriarchy and
The history of organized queers empire. This is our history.
was borne out of this position. The
most marginalized—transfolk, people [...]

W
of color, sex workers—have always
e need to rediscover our riotous
been the catalysts for riotous explosions
inheritance as queer anarchists.
of queer resistance. These explosions
We need to destroy constructions of
have been coupled with a radical analy-
normalcy, and create instead a position
sis wholeheartedly asserting that the
4 5
based in our alienation from this nor- and desire in ways most devastating.
malcy, and one capable of dismantling We must come to under—stand the
it. We must use these positions to insti- feeling of social war. We can learn to
gate breaks, not just from the assimila- be a threat, we can become the queer-
tionist main—stream, but from capital- est of insurrections.
ism itself. These positions can be—come “Towards the
tools of a social force ready to create a Queerest Insurrection”
complete rupture with this world. Our
bodies have been born into conflict with ****
this social order. We need to deepen that
conflict and make it spread.
[...]
“W e need to craft a queer agenda
that works with the many oth-
er heads of the monstrous entity that
opposes global capitalism... If we want
If we desire a world without restraint,
we must tear this one to the ground.
We must live beyond measure and love
to make the anti-social turn in queer
theory, we must be willing to turn
away from the comfort zone of polite
6 7
exchange in order to embrace a truly my worth as a monster in spite of the
political negativity, one that promises, conditions my monstrosity requires me
this time, to fail, to make a mess, to to face, and redefine a life worth living.
fuck shit up, to be loud, unruly, impo- I have asked the Miltonic questions
lite, to breed resentment, to bash back, Shelley poses in the epigraph of her
to speak up and out, to disrupt, assas- novel: “Did I request thee, Maker, from
sinate, shock and annihilate, and, to my clay to mould me man? Did I solicit
make everyone a little less happy!” thee from darkness to promote me?”
—J. Halberstam With one voice, her monster and I an-
swer “no” without debasing ourselves,
**** for we have done the hard work of con-
stituting ourselves on our own terms,

B y speaking as a monster in my per- against the natural order. Though we

sonal voice, … I employ the same forego the privilege of naturalness, we
literary techniques Mary Shelley used are not deterred, for we ally ourselves
to elicit sympathy for her scientist’s instead with the chaos and blackness
creation. Like that creature, I assert from which Nature itself spills forth.
8 9
 If this is your path, as it is mine, let defend her life and safety, and endless
me offer whatever solace you may find disgust towards the state which has
in this monstrous benediction: May twisted her hardship of being assaulted
you discover the enlivening power of against her with pointless and arbi-
darkness within yourself. May it nour- trary punitive action, further risking
ish your rage. May your rage inform her safety.
your actions, and your actions trans-
form you as you struggle to transform [...]
your world.
—Susan Stryker
A s a small gesture of solidarity with
CeCe, and all others who suffer
under the hand of the racist, trans-
**** misogynist capitalist state, a Molotov
F orever in the footsteps of beautiful
queers like CeCe McDonald, we
frustrated queers and dissidents refuse
cocktail has been tossed through
a large window of a Wells Fargo in
Portland, Oregon late last night. The
to take people’s shit. Endless solidar- flaming bottle flew easily through the
ity to CeCe and the action she took to
10 11
window spewing fire and glass into the their proper roles, in is in the course of
building, a delightful and brief escape fighting back against this society that
from the monotony of the endless we will find each other, and truly never
spectacle. be alone. It won’t get better; there is
no future for us in this society. Even
[...]
better of a reason to tear it apart and
QUEERS MAKE TOTAL DESTROY!! take what we need. Every time one of
... AND THEY WERE RIGHT— us beats the shit out of a basher, steals
(A)TTACKING IS SO EASY! money to buy all of our friends the
—QUEER ATTACK SQUADRON hormones they need, or glues the locks
of racist or transphobic business that
fired us, we have showed each other
****

I
that the destruction of the world that
f our victimhood and our isolation
makes us miserable is possible, we
is all we share, then we have lost
have built a connection and shown
already. But for those of us who share a
each other that we are not alone. There
desire to refuse to play their games and
is no separation between taking back
12 13
our ability to survive and destroying even. And it is in this struggle we can
the world that has stopped us from find the joy of living a life on our own
living in the first place. It’s entirely terms. I cannot wait to see the ways in
possible that we won’t succeed, but I which you will rebel, my friend, but no
want us to build this struggle together. matter what, know that in this rebel-
I want us to find the friends that we lion you will never be alone.
can choose to act with now to better “Letter to a Gender Rebel”
our lives. Most of all I want us to see
the smiles on each other’s faces when ****
we see that someone has gotten away
with striking a blow or getting what
they need. It is these kinds of happi-
ness that threatens this world when
A s thousands of people in cities
all across the world gathered on
November 20th to memorialize the
they are shared and spread because 23 transgender women who were
they build our own power and reveal murdered in the past year, some of us
the possibilities of our loves. It may decided to skip the opportunity of si-
not get better, but we can certainly get lently listening to the politicians of the
14 15
“trans community” recite the names to defend those in positions of power
of our dead over candlelight, romantic and because we are, at heart, hate filled
as it sounded. Instead we ventured criminal enemies of civilized society.
into the mist and fog of a northwest “From Tealights to Torches:
autumn night and put up some graf- delinquent alternatives to the
fiti as small gestures of antagonism transgender day of remembrance”
towards the state, the bashers, and
the leftists who use the blood of trans ****
women to build campaigns of hate
crime legislation and reform. We are
against hate crime legislation because
W e are tracing the lineage of our
queer criminality and charting
the demise of the social order. And
we are against prisons, against the in- oh the nectar from which we drink:
furiating portrayal of police as protec- lesbian pirates raging the seas, queer
tors, against rising for their judges in rioters setting cop cars ablaze, sex par-
their detestable courtrooms, against ties amidst the de cay of industrialism,
(though not surprised in the least by) bank robbers wearing pink triangles,
the way that such legislation is used mutual aid networks among sex work-
16 17
ers and thieves, gangs of trannyfags our partners in crime, we’ve come to
bashing-the-fuck-back. We’ve been know each other more intimately than
assured that each day could be our legality could ever allow. In desire, we
last. As such we’ve chosen to live as if produce conflict. And in conflict with
every day is. In turn, we promise that capital, we may have found an escape
the existent’s days are numbered. route from the deadening of our lives.
Our gang’s discourse is conflict.
[…] “Criminal Intimacy”

W e queers and other insurgents

have developed what good folks
****

might call a criminal intimacy. We are

exploring the material and affective
solidarity fostered between outlaws
M any believe Bash Back! went
too far in alienating progressive
allies in the struggle for liberation.
and rebels. In our obstruction of law, In reality Bash Back! did not go far
we’ve illegally discovered the beauty in enough. The ‘better world’ liberals and
one another. In revealing our desire to radical academics speak of is impos-
18 19
sible for queer and trans people. The annihilating trans and queer criminal
progressive, liberal, and academic counter-cultures. As long as academia,
establishments are religious capitalists. the Church, the State, capitalism, and
They profit off our oppression and our civilization exist there can be no truly
resistance to oppression. Progressives better world. To that end, everything
and reformists closed the bathhouses, must be destroyed.
gentrified our neighborhoods and —Fray Baroque,
welcomed straights into our strong- Queer Ultraviolence
holds. Radical academics make tens of
thousands of dollars a year yet claim
to speak for the queer proletariat while
simultaneously labeling the queer pro-
letariat as oppressive. It becomes clear
when viewing civilization and society
through this lens that everything ‘bet-
ter’ is actually in one way or another
a heterosocial construct aimed at
20 21
22