“Queering Katrina: Gay Discourses of Disaster in New Orleans.

For Thursday’s class, I signed up to read Gary Richard’s article, “Queering Katrina: Gay Discourses of Disaster in New Orleans.” Richards, a resident of New Orleans prior to, and during Katrina, began the article with the flaws within an all too common description of New Orleans that is often accepted as fact. Prior to Katrina, Richardson describes Conservative’s contempt with New Orleans, a city perceived to be be boasting with sin, incessantly perpetuating homosexuality, and excess in all its many facets. On a very micro level, I can relate to the struggle with accepting and denying this presentation of New Orleans. More often than not, when I meet new people, a reaction to learning that I attend to Tulane is often riddled with admiration that I can “actually study” in a “party city.” Academics or other aspects of New Orleans that I love, and love talking about, are often eclipsed by questions and anecdotes of drinking, partying, and parades. However, my experiences, feelings, and thoughts regarding misrepresentation of New Orleans are not even in the same realm of those impacted by the misrepresentation of the LGBTQ community post Hurricane Katrina.

Hurricane Katrina was depicted as a divine punishment for the sin and overt sexuality embodied in the city, specifically, this punishment was directed towards male homosexuality. From here, there was an unfettered tethering of Hurricane Katrina to male homosexuality. This theme was carried out as individuals witnessed and read about pornography, sex toys, and other “sexual accoutrements” literally floated to the surface and were emblazoned at the forefront of people’s homes, lives, and identities. (Richards, 523) This resulted in what Richards describes as,  “uncontrolled outings” of many queer individuals, with an emphasis on gay men. In efforts to recover and repair what remained of the city, additionally, an influx of Latino men, many of whom were recovery workers, resulted in an uptick in acts of homosexuality that were chalked up to being situational. Paired with pre-existing notions of New Orleans that were embedded in hyper homosexuality, texts that were gay authored and gay focused published post-Katrina further “demonized” New Orleans and portrayed it in such a way that diluted the diversity, important cultural aspects, and historic relevance of the impact of the Hurricane and those affected by it.

I found this reading particularly interesting, aside from the personal connection I made with it, due to the abundance of new information I absorbed from this short article.