Abstract

Franklin Kameny’s 1963 congressional testimony was not the first instance of gay and lesbian issues being subjected to public inquiry, but his invited presence nonetheless represented the first time that an openly gay individual would testify to Congress. This essay argues that his testimony represents a unique form of rhetorical delivery—embodied silence—that combines public visibility and the language of embodiment with that of silence. Embodied silences interpellate audiences into witnessing absence and disrupt understanding a rhetor and/or their words. From Oscar Wilde to ACT UP, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals are regularly conceived within a negotiation of absence, a queer embodiment of the unspoken and unarticulated. Silence’s legacy and continued centrality to publicness, therefore, marks an important conceptual framework for analyzing these rhetorics. Highlighting homophile activism’s unique historicity, this essay argues embodiment and absence are vital to future queer rhetorical theorizing.