Exile and Pride

Classism is bias or discrimination against someone because of their socioeconomic status; it is related to but distinct from class inequality, which refers to the material differences between social classes. Both are important ideas in Exile and Pride. Throughout the Prologue and both parts of Exile and Pride, Clare examines the importance of socioeconomic status in identity formation and the necessity of considering class in intersectional movements. Class is particularly essential to Clare’s consideration of the chasm between rural and urban communities. As Clare notes in his essay “losing home,” he cannot “separate” the issue of class from his rural identity. Rural communities are often impacted by economic hardship, as Clare explains through the example of Port Orford, which has limited economic opportunity outside of the timber industry. Environmental justice therefore requires considering socioeconomic inequality, as the very thing that keeps the people of Port Orford employed destroys the natural world around them. However, Clare argues that middle-class, urban environmental movements not only fail to consider the impact of their actions on working-class and rural communities but often show outright contempt for those communities—a form of classism.

Gender is among the most important terms in Exile and Pride. Where “sex” refers to the physical attributes associated with being male, female, or intersex, “gender” refers to the norms and roles that society associates with men and women. “Gender identity,” meanwhile, refers to someone’s internal sense of being a man, woman, both, neither, etc. Clare’s discussion touches on all of these concepts, including the ways they can be entangled with one another. For example, Clare explains that though he was assigned female at birth, his cerebral palsy made it more challenging to adhere to the physical constructs of girlhood, like wearing high heels or makeup. Clare also did not want to adhere to those norms, in part because of his internal sense of his gender (Clare would later come out as genderqueer), but also because his girlhood was complicated by his father’s repeated physical and sexual abuse. Though Clare is careful to explain that abuse did not “cause” his gender identity, he suggests that it epitomized one socially constructed aspect of “womanhood”—namely, sexual availability to and domination by men—that he wanted no part of.

Homophobia is a common term for prejudice or discrimination against people who engage in relationships with others of the same gender. However, organizations such as GLAAD now tend to consider it inaccurate, as this prejudice is not necessarily rooted in “fear” (the literal meaning of “phobia”). Indeed, “fear” is not something that Clare deeply engages with. Rather, his exploration of homophobia centers on discrimination, which he describes throughout the entirety of Exile and Pride, exploring how anti-gay bias manifests in rural versus urban spaces and how anti-gay bias intersects with ableism, racism, and classism.