While I don’t believe there is a “precise aesthetics or style” to “queer writing,” I also do not believe it can exist outside identity politics….. “queer” to me is a particularly politicized identity, and one that I don’t identify with personally, although I have no objection to others labeling me as queer. Personally, I identify as a lesbian, which I know in 2013 (almost 2014) is a somewhat old-fashioned term. I identify as a lesbian because I identify strongly as a woman, and “queer” can erase that. And that thought led me to realize I would identify as a queer woman, just not simply as queer….. Moving on to literary endeavors, I think they can suffer from identity politics, but that’s because I’m a commercial writer trying to make a living in a capitalist economy where queerness is marginalized. I don’t write novels that are about queerness, even though my characters are queer (and I do believe my characters would identify that way). I have indeed read novels that would have been better — structurally, plot-wise — if identity politics had been less front-and-center. However, sometimes identity politics is the point of fiction, and I believe it’s disingenuous to criticize that kind of work for doing what it sets out to do.
Malinda Lo (me!) in “Queer Writing and the Strictures of Identity Politics,” part of Marcie Bianco’s Ephemera column at Lambda Literary (click through to hear from more writers about queer writing)
Question of Smoke 