Dangerous Binaries: Girard in Conversation with Crip and Queer Theories

Drawing on the insights of queer theory, recent disability studies scholarship has begun to engage in the deconstruction of the disabled/abled binary. This project has been signified, in part, by the use of the word “crip.” The term is intended to capture both the fluidity and the socio-political nature of disability. Much like the term “queer” has been reclaimed in queer theory to resist the social shame associated with the identity, “crip” — a shortened form of the derogatory term, “cripple” — has been reclaimed by disability theorists to trouble negative conceptions of disabled experiences. “Crip” is also intended to challenge binary conceptions of disabled/nondisabled and sick/healthy, and foreground attention to the ways all bodies are marked by ever-shifting abilities. It invites grappling with the political, social, and historical significance of these shifts. “Crip” may include those with physical, sensory, emotional, and mental impairments, as well as those outside the boundaries of these categories but who identify with some degree of fluidity of body and ability (Kafer, Feminist, Queer, Crip, 13;  Carrie Sandahl, “Queering the Crip or Cripping the Queer?: Intersections of Queer and Crip Identities in Solo Autobiographical Performance,” GLQ 9, no. 1–2 (2003): 27). 

Margrit Shildrick stresses the need for deconstruction of binary bodily categories in favor of fluidity (Margrit Shildrick, “Critical Disability Studies: Rethinking the Conventions for the Age of Postmodernity,” in Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2019), 34). Standards of autonomy, agency (as rationality and bodily control), and the distinction between self and other mark typical conceptions of personhood that are, for her, a false source of stability. When this falsity is unveiled through the presence of disabled bodies, these bodies become sources of deep-seated anxiety and therefore, are often rejected or marginalized. In light of this, Shildrick aims to dismantle the binary that makes non-disabled people distinct from disabled people, trouble the modernist separation between self and other, and shift the social imagination around the human condition. 

In addition to disability studies, disability theology highlights the instability of disability identity, often drawing on queer and postcolonial theories to complexify the false binary between disabled and non-disabled identities. Deborah Creamer advocates for queering embodiment, noting the creative possibilities for disability theology within queer theory. (Creamer, “Embracing Limits,” 123-127). A number of other disability theologians also call for dismantling identity-based binaries. For example, using Hans Reinders’ disability theology, Weiss Block critiques liberation theologies for their demarcation between oppressor and oppressed, noting the inadequacy of these boundaries for capturing the complexities of identity (Jennie Weiss Block, Copious Hosting, 28-29).

The insights offered by queer and crip theories about the fluidity of identity and the inadequacy of binary categories remain a vital contribution to all identity-related theories and theologies. However, a danger remains: that “queer” or “crip” lose their original power to unveil the inadequacy of binaries and morph into reinscriptions of the exclusive categories they were designed to dismantle. These theories offer minimal tools for preventing the reinscription of exclusive identity categories. Here, Girard can help. 

One of the great revelations of mimetic theory is its analysis of the danger of binary categories. Grounding one’s identity in social categories slides all-too-easily into rivalrous thinking and the perpetuation of the cycle of mimetic violence. Girard notes: “The victims most interesting to us are always those who allow us to condemn our neighbors. And our neighbors do the same” (Girard, I See Satan Fall like Lightning, 164). In grounding identity in the distinction between “us” and “them,” or delineating a binary (and therefore virtually inevitably rivalrous) identity, one is in danger of overlooking the other’s role in her self-becoming. And when identity is constructed by the social other as rival, one’s sense of self easily becomes bound to their expulsion. Brian Robinette writes poignantly, “The preoccupation with victim-identity and the urge to blame readily becomes another form of mimetic rivalry if not transposed within a broader framework of mercy and reconciliation. Hasty appeals for reconciliation without redressing injustices may present significant problems [...], but the preoccupation with justice for victims without the summons to reconciliation is susceptible to its own problems, namely, the mimetic rivalry of competitive grievance” (Robinette, “‘But God Raised Him Up’: Resurrection, Forgiveness, and the Call to Catholicity,” Theologies of Catholicity conference, 2025, 19).

Girard’s insight into the victim mechanism and the revelation of the Gospel offer a path forward for the conceptualization of identity in crip and queer theologies. In the face of the conflict, hostility, and violence that arises from the reinscription of identity-based binaries, the Christian call is to resist the lure of seeing any other as the “enemy.” Mimetic theory calls us to resist the temptation to rivalry or insult, or to define oneself over and against the social other in any regard. The insights of James Allison, Brian Robinette, and others suggest that embracing an identity grounded firmly in relationship with the loving God – the ultimate Other, the original and most authentic Source of our selfhood – offers a promising path forward. An identity grounded not in the social other, but in the Other, is capable of holding the expansive complexity of social and embodied fluidity, while also remaining detached from the sway of competitive and exclusionary relationality.