Both because of and in spite of

Towards the reclamation of queercrip joy

Bibliographic Data

ID18964451
AuthorsM Ingram (0000-0002-1968-0232, Queen's University, corresponding author), Kai Jacobsen (0000-0003-4610-043X, Carleton University)
Year2025
Volume28
Issue3
Pages795-810
Publication date2025-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSexualities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1363-4607 • E-ISSN: 1461-7382
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/13634607241264319
OpenAlexW4400016659
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited39

Queer, trans, disabled, and neurodivergent people are frequently used to represent pain, suffering, shame, and disgust in dominant heteronormative and ableist discourses. However, many queer, trans, and crip scholars, artists, and activists have reclaimed previously pathologized and denigrated experiences as sites of pleasure and joy. Importantly, this queercrip approach to joy does not position joy as an opposite or replacement for pain, but embraces joy and pain as simultaneous and co-constitutive. This essay explores the proliferations, potentialities, and limitations of queercrip joy as a site of resistance to cisheteronormativity and compulsory able-bodiedness. Specifically, we spotlight gender euphoria and disabled joy alongside the scholarship of authors like Sara Ahmed and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and the intersecting fields of crip theory, queer theory, trans studies, and affect theory. Ultimately, we argue that queercrip joy exists both because of and in spite of the pain of enduring oppression and physical and psychological pain. As such, queercrip joy is not merely a pure happy object, but a complicated formulation of intimacy, pleasure, pain, validation, refusal, and relationality–an indicator of the very attachments that allow us to be affected. Therefore, celebrating queercrip joy is an insufficient yet necessary tool for queer, trans, and disabled liberation

Archaeology · Land reclamation · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · History · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Psychology

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access