PISSAR's Critically Queer and Disabled Politics

Author:

• Isaac N. West (Indiana University)

Abstract:

This essay examines the rhetorical possibilities of queerly-inflected coalitional politics. More specifically, I analyze the actions of PISSAR (People in Search of Safe and Accessible Restrooms), a genderqueer and disabled group dedicated to securing bathrooms that accommodate non-normative bodies. By negotiating a spatially-based consubstantially of shame, PISSAR appropriated shame as a political emotion capable of uniting, rather than dividing, individuals with similar needs.