Now that the homosexual is a much more visible subject, one who is, at times, allowed to speak, then what kind of ethos is that queer allowed? We all know the “acceptable” queer, the “right kind” of gay and lesbian: the faggots and dykes that keep to themselves, that don’t throw it in other people’s faces, that want to be married and serve in the military—discreetly. The assimilated queer—the queer who is not queer—is the good queer.

Grindstaff explores the kinds of rhetorical moves that have both enabled and constrained the emergence of positive gay identities in the last one hundred years. Most notably, he underscores how, “[u]pon entering public discourse, the queer subject is required to make an assertion of universality” (153)—universality about our right not only to have rights but our right to exist: for instance, we are a minority, we have always been around, we are everywhere. But queerness in its contemporary form is, well, contemporary, so these gestures toward the universal are theoretically suspect. Moreover, theories of intersectionality make them practically and materially suspect as well, in that we each experience our queerness differently, in different times, in different spaces, and at different points in our lives. The diversity of queerness gives the lie to our possible reduction to a universal narrative. And that’s the point: the queer is irreducible, uncontainable, itself defying the impoverished logics that reduce desire and intimacy to gay and straight, this or that, male and female, one or the other.