Lesbian, Gay & Queer Criticism: The Conversion by J.

Neil Garcia
Agbay, Noralyn G. December 2017

Overview

In Lois Tyson’s book, Homophobic reading refers to a reading informed by the fear and loathing
of homosexuality. Thus, it is part of a larger cultural context in which homophobia has long played a
major role and is evident in many form of discrimination against gay men and lesbians that are still in
practice today despite of the enormous social and political gains achieved by gay and lesbian activist
group since Gay Liberation Movement.

Defining terms in using Gay & Lesbian Criticism according to Tyson are the following:
Homophobia, generally used to refer to institutionalized discrimination that is built into a
culture’s laws and customs against gay people;
Internalized homophobia refers to the self-hatred some gay people experience because in their
growth through adolescence to adulthood, they have internalized the homophobia pressed on them by
heterosexual society.
Heterosexism is the word more commonly used to refer to institutionalized discrimination
against homosexuality, and the privileging of heterosexuality that accompanies it.
Heterocentrism, a subtler form of prejudice against gay men and lesbians, is the assumption,
often unconscious, that heterosexuality is the universal norm by everyone’s experience can be understood.
It renders lesbian and gay experience invisible, making it possible in decades past.
Biological Essentialism is the idea that a fixed segment of the population is naturally gay, just as
the rest of the population is naturally heterosexual. This is another concept that emphasizes the minority
status of lesbians and gay men.
Social Constructionism, is the view that homosexuality and homosexuality are products of
social, not biological forces.
Minoritizing Views is a way of understanding gay and lesbian experience that focus on their
minority status.
Universalizing Views is a way of understanding gay and lesbian experience that focus on the
homosexual potential in all people.
Homoerotic denotes erotic though not necessarily overtly sexual dentitions that imply same-sex
attraction or that might appeal sexually to a same-sex reader.
Homosocial denotes same-sex friendship of the kind seen in female- or male-bonding activities.

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 Lesbian, Gay & Queer Criticism: The Conversion by J. Neil Garcia
Agbay, Noralyn G. December 2017
Lesbian criticism is concerned with issues of personal identity and politics analogous to those analyzed
by feminists. Perhaps because lesbian criticism and feminist criticism grew from the same soil—as
responses to patriarchal oppression. Lesbian critics address issues related to both sexism and
heterosexism. In other words, lesbian critics must deal with the psychological, social, economic, and
political oppression fostered not only by patriarchal male privilege, but by heterosexual privilege as well.

Gay criticism doesn’t tend to focus on efforts to define homosexuality. Sexual relations between men, or
even just the sexual desire of one man for another, is the generally accepted criterion of gayness.

Queer criticism is used to indicate a specific theoretical perspective. Queer theory, categories of
sexuality cannot be defined by such simple oppositions as homosexual/heterosexual. And what these
categories mean to different individuals will be influenced by how they conceive their own racial and
class identities as well. For queer theory, then, our sexuality is socially constructed rather than inborn to
the extent that it is based on the way in which sexuality is defined by the culture in which we live.

Therefore, any of the examples of gay and lesbian criticism discussed earlier could be included in
a collection of queer essays. However, if we restrict ourselves to its narrower theoretical meaning—its
deconstructive dimension—queer criticism reads texts to reveal the problematic quality of their
representations of sexual categories, in other words, to show the various ways in which the categories
homosexual and heterosexual break down, overlap, or do not adequately represent the dynamic range of
human sexuality.

Tyson, Lois. (2006). Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide.2nd Ed. New York: Garland
Publishing

The Conversion by J. Neil Garcia

It happened in a metal drum.-1 In the flower-shaped basins. -6

They put me there, my family-2
That loved me. The water-3
Had been saved just for it, that day. -4
The laundry lay caked and smelly -5
Dishes soiled with fat and swill -7
Pilled high in the sink, and grew flies. -8
My cousins did not get washed that morning. -9
Lost in masks of snot and dust, -10
Their faces looked tired and resigned -11
To the dirty lot of children. -12

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 Lesbian, Gay & Queer Criticism: The Conversion by J. Neil Garcia
Agbay, Noralyn G.
All the neighbors gathered around our -13
open-aired bathroom. Wives peered out -14
from the upper floor of their houses -15
into our yard. Father had arrived booming -16
with cousins, my uncles. -17
They were big, strong men, my uncles. -18
They turned the house inside-out -19
Looking for me. Curled up in the deepest corner -20
Of my dead mother's cabinet, father found me. -21
He dragged me down the stairs by the hair -22
Into the waiting arms of my uncles. -23
Because of modesty, I merely screamed and
cried. -24
Their hands, swollen and black with hair, bore
me -25
Up in the air, and touched me. Into the cold -26
Of the drum I slipped, the tingling -27
Too much to bear at times my knees -28
Felt like they had turned into water. -29
Waves swirled up and down around me, my
head -30
Bobbing up and down. Father kept booming, -31
Girl or boy. I thought about it and squealed, -32
Girl. Water curled under my nose. -33
When I rose the same two words from father. -34
The same girl kept sinking deeper, -35
Breathing deeper in the churning void. -36
In the end I had to say what they all -37
Wanted me to say. I had to bring down this
diversion -38
To its happy end, if only for the pot of rice -39
Left burning in the kitchen. I had to stop -40
Wearing my dead mother's clothes. In the mirror -41
I watched the holes on my ears grow smaller, -42
December 2017
Until they looked as if they had never heard -43
Of rhinestones, nor felt their glassy weight. -44
I should feel happy that I'm now -45
Redeemed. And I do. Father died within five
years -46
I got my wife pregnant with the next. -47
Our four children, all boys, -48
Are the joy of my manhood, my proof. -49
Cousins who never shed their masks -50
Play them for all their snot and grime. -51
Another child is on the way. -52
I have stopped caring what it will be. -53
Water is still a problem and the drum -54
Is still there, deep and rusty. -55
The bathroom has been roofed over with plastic. -56
Scrubbed and clean, my wife knows I like
things. -57
She follows, though sometimes a pighead she is. -58
It does not hurt to show who is the man. -59
A woman needs some talking sense into. If not, -60
I hit her in the mouth to learn her. -61
Every time, swill drips from her shredded lips. -62
I drink with my uncles who all agree. -63
They should because tonight I own their souls -64
And the bottles they nuzzle like their prides. -65
While they boom and boom flies whirr -66
Over their heads that grew them. Though
nobody -67
Remembers, I sometimes think of the girl -68
Who drowned somewhere in a dream many
dreams ago. -69
I see her at night with bubbles -70
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 Lesbian, Gay & Queer Criticism: The Conversion by J. Neil Garcia
Agbay, Noralyn G. December 2017
Springing like flowers from her nose. -71 I can. Better off dead, I say to myself -76
She is dying and before she sinks I try to touch -72 And my family that loves me for my bitter
Her open face. But the water learns -73 breath. -77
To heal itself and closes around her like a We die to rise to a better life -78
wound. -74
I should feel sorry but I drown myself in gin
before -75

How does The Conversion’s case represent, among other things, the social and psychological
conflicts of gay identity coming of age in a heterosexist world?

The poem tried to portray the life of a gay person who converted himself from being gay back to
its original gender—male. That is because his father could not accept him. “in the end I had to say what
they all wanted me to say. line 37” The action is thought to “shock” the boy to “his senses” and revert to
the “proper” gender. And while the last line of the poem may refer to a hopeful tone, I always felt the
poem to be quite sad. The persona may have been “saved,” but his current life is just as marred with
violence as when he/his “other” self was killed. Obviously, this is gender oppression from the family of
the author. “I should feel happy that I’m now redeemed. And I do… line 45-46.” This line speaks so
much about our choices in life whether there are heart aches and painful experiences we have to take the
risk for we know that there is something better after all of these sacrifices. The message then is to be who
you are and don’t let others dictate who you should be and what you will be. It is very strong that we
need to accept who we are and also accept others for who they are. There should be respect for everyone
regardless of gender. The poem then speaks for itself through emotions. “I sometimes think the girl who
drowned somewhere in a dream many dreams ago. line 68-69”.

In what ways might the story be said to illustrate the operations of compulsory heterosexuality?

Compulsory heterosexuality is the idea that heterosexuality is assumed and enforced by

a patriarchal society. This refers to the idea that heterosexuality can be adopted by people regardless of
their personal sexual preferences. Heterosexuality is viewed as the natural inclination or obligation by
both sexes. Consequently, anyone who differs from the normalcy of heterosexuality is deemed deviant or
abhorrent.

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 Lesbian, Gay & Queer Criticism: The Conversion by J. Neil Garcia
Agbay, Noralyn G. December 2017
Ironically these lines show how the operations of compulsory heterosexuality happens. “It
happened in a metal drum.-1 They put me there, my family-2 That loved me. The water-3 Had been saved
just for it, that day. -4”. Ironically because the ‘family’ that loves me, referring to his father and uncle.
Yet, their actions are atrocious to him in order to make him follow that set obligation by the society. The
patriarchal society forced it to him by torturing him. “That is how they do it. Brutally done. Girl. Water
curled under my nose. -33 When I rose the same two words from father. -34 The same girl kept sinking
deeper, -35 Breathing deeper in the churning void. -36 In the end I had to say what they all -37 Wanted
me to say. I had to bring down this diversion -38”

The Conversion by Neil Garcia. https://criimeflick.wordpress.com/page/3/

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