No fats, femmes, or Asians: the utility of critical race theory in examining the role of gay stock stories in the marginalization of gay Asian men

Abstract

In the last few decades, proponents of critical race theory have uncovered everyday forms of injustice that continue to affect the lives of men and women of color by exposing the subtle forms of racism that exist in the stock stories told by the dominant group as well as the counterstories told by subaltern groups. However, rarely have we examined the stock stories articulated by subaltern groups to marginalize other subaltern groups. In this paper, I consider the stock stories told by gay White men and the counterstories expressed by gay Asian men to examine subtle forms of racism within the gay community. I argue that we need not only to reveal how the stories narrated by the dominant group continue to maintain social inequality, but that we also need to consider how subaltern groups help to maintain social inequality by adapting the language of the dominant group to use against other subaltern groups.

Keywords:

• gay
• Asian
• critical race theory