Queer the Clock

This article is about those said to be emblematic of the future yet denied a place in it. The author specifically studies how Black queer and trans youth reckon with time. If the queer exemplifies a threat to “reproductive futurism” and the child is “the obligatory token of futurity,” where and when does this leave racialized youth, particularly Black queer and trans youth? Drawing on data from thirty in-person interviews and ethnographic fieldwork conducted over the course of one year with youth at Run-a-Way — a shelter and outreach center for youth in Minneapolis, Minnesota — the author illustrates how Black, queer, and trans youth queer a “biological clock” synchronized to “straight time” that demands spatio-temporal conformity within a gender binary and cis-heteronormative gaze. Black, queer, and trans youth at Run-a-Way embody a temporal orientation that refuses the onward pace of gendered progress narratives. The author argues that the temporalities of Black queer and trans youth bely liberal futurities predicated on freedoms and progress narratives. Rather, these youth transgress time to produce otherwise futurities beyond and against white and straight time. As Black youth queer the clock, they place the direction of time under their discretion and privilege liberatory futurities over liberal ones.