EP20 : je ne veux plus être gay

I Don't Want to Be Gay Anymore. That's the somewhat shocking title of this episode. And yet, that's not what I think. I am gay. And I'm proud of it. I even believe that my homosexuality has shaped a huge part of who I am today: my sensitivity, my way of loving, my way of writing, my way of seeing the world. So why feel the need to say such an absurd sentence? Because sometimes, I feel like I'm hiding behind an identity. That I've built so much around the word "gay" that I no longer always know where identity ends and the persona begins. Because even before I understood what desire was, I had already been told who I was supposed to be. And I sometimes wonder what it's like to live outside of labels. Even the ones that saved us. In this episode, we talk about identity as a refuge. But also about identity as a prison. We discuss how categories can liberate us, and then sometimes imprison us. We talk about how others see us, about social performance, about pride, about shame, about community, and about that strange feeling of being reduced to a single word. Through philosophy, queer literature, and my own journey, we'll try to understand: Why certain identities become essential to our survival Why we sometimes need to define ourselves in order to exist Why it can become difficult to distinguish who we are from the story we tell ourselves And why growing up might mean becoming bigger than the categories that have shaped us Because ultimately, the real question might not be: "Do I still want to be gay?" But rather: "Who am I when I stop being defined by a single identity?" » In this episode, I talk about: • Gay identity as a personal and social construct • The feeling of being labeled before even understanding one's own desire • How labels can both liberate and confine • Performativity and the work of Judith Butler • Michel Foucault and the modern invention of sexual identities • The social gaze and the construction of the characters we become • The difficulty of existing outside of categories • Gay pride and what it has brought me • Queer literature and love letters • The possibility of being more than one identity Cultural references that run through this episode: • Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin • De Profundis by Oscar Wilde • The letters between Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West • The History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault • Gender Trouble by Judith Butler • The works of Jean Genet • The James Baldwin's reflections on identity and freedom • Queer literature as a space of resistance and beauty Main sources that informed this episode: • Foucault, M. — The History of Sexuality, Volume I: The Will to Knowledge • Butler, J. — Gender Trouble • Baldwin, J. — Giovanni's Room • Baldwin, J. — The Fire Next Time • Wilde, O. — De Profundis • Woolf, V. & Sackville-West, V. — Correspondence • Genet, J. — The Thief's Journal and Our Lady of the Flowers • Eribon, D. — Reflections on the Gay Question • Sedgwick, E. K. — Epistemology of the Closet ⸻ 🎧 Listen to the full episode of the La Dame du CDI podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all platforms. 📲 Insta / TikTok: @Nathanael_rousseau