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Our Lost Gay Radicalism
The Stonewall riots of 40 years ago led to demands for liberation. Now we meekly hope for equality
This weekend marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York when, for the first time in history, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people fought back against decades of police harassment.
Previously, LGBT people worldwide had largely complied with arrest and criminalisation. But not in New York on the nights of 27 and 28 June 1969. What began as a routine police raid on a gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, turned into sporadic street battles. In the aftermath of this history-making queer resistance, the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was formed in New York and similar groups sprang up across the US and the world. The modern LGBT rights movement was born.
There had been earlier homosexual law reform and welfare organisations in the US, Britain and the Netherlands. But these were small, discreet lobby groups. Their members were brave trailblazers but very defensive and mostly closeted.
The global GLF movement was radically different. It was a watershed in queer consciousness - the moment LGBT people discarded victimhood and stopped apologising. Instead of pleas for tolerance, the demand was unconditional acceptance. Thousands came out. This had never happened before.
I joined London GLF, aged 19. Our slogan: Gay is Good. These three simple words were revolutionary. Until then, nearly everyone - including many LGBTs - believed that gay was bad, mad and sad. Whereas mainstream society saw homosexuality as a problem, we said the problem was homophobia. Straight supremacism was, to us, the equivalent of white supremacism.
Our vision was a new sexual democracy, without homophobia and misogyny. Erotic shame and guilt would be banished, together with socially enforced monogamy and male and female gender roles. There would be sexual freedom and human rights for everyone - queer and straight. Our message was "innovate, don't assimilate".
GLF never called for equality. The demand was liberation. We wanted to change society, not conform to it. Equal rights within a flawed, unjust system struck us as idiotic. It would mean parity on straight terms, within a pre-existing framework of institutions and laws devised by and for the heterosexual majority. Equality within their system would involve conformity to their values and rules - a formula for gay submission and incorporation, not liberation.
We argued then, and I still argue now, that accepting mere equality involves the abandonment of any critical perspective on straight culture. In place of a healthy scepticism, it substitutes naive acquiescence with the hetero mainstream. Discernment is surrendered in favour of compliance. While heterosexuality has its good points, it also has its downsides, like the machismo of many hetero men, which is linked to gang culture and violence against women.
In the 40 years since Stonewall and GLF, there has been a massive retreat from that radical vision. Most LGBT people no longer question the values, laws and institutions of society. They are content to settle for equal rights within the status quo. On the age of consent, the LGBT movement accepted equality at 16, ignoring the criminalisation of younger gay and straight people. Don't the under-16s have sexual human rights too? Equality has not helped them. All they got was equal injustice.
Whereas GLF saw marriage and the family as a patriarchal prison for women, gay people and children, today the LGBT movement uncritically champions same-sex marriage and families. It has embraced traditional heterosexual aspirations lock stock and barrel. How ironic. While straight couples are deserting marriage, same-sexers are rushing to embrace it: witness the current legal fight in California for the right to marry. Are queers the new conservatives, the 21st-century suburbanites?
Don't get me wrong. Despite my critique of marriage and my advocacy of a more democratic, flexible model of relationship recognition and rights, I oppose the ban on same-sex marriage. It is homophobic discrimination. Sadly, most of the LGBT movement in Britain is now too feeble to demand marriage equality. It meekly accepts civil partnerships instead of civil marriage. This is not equality. Separate laws are not equal laws. There would be riots if the government banned black people from getting married and offered them civil partnerships instead. It would be denounced as apartheid. Well, that's what civil partnerships are: sexual apartheid. Same-sex couples are banned from civil marriage (homophobia) and opposite sex couples are banned from civil partnerships (heterophobia). Two wrongs don't make a right.
The LGBT community's retreat from radicalism signifies a huge loss of confidence and optimism. It has succumbed to the politics of conformism, respectability and moderation. What a shame. GLF dared to imagine what society could be, rather than accepting society as it is - and so should we.
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18 Comments so far
Show AllMost LGBT people no longer question the values, laws and institutions of society. They are content to settle for equal rights within the status quo.
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I don't give a flying f*** what you do in the bedroom.
Its none of my business whatsoever.
But I'd like to alert the LGBT community that NONE OF US has ANY rights anymore.
If you no longer question... "the values, laws and institutions of society" then you're part of the problem.
And you're fighting for NOTHING.
Your phone/email can be tapped just like mine without proving probable cause and a warrant.
You can be herded to an isolated zone to "practice" your "free speech" just like me.
You're medical, bank and library records are fair game for any government official.
You can be named an "enemy combatant" and deprived of your right to habeas just like me.
Until we ALL put our secondary side issues away and fight for our core constitutional rights we're all permanent second class citizens.
I hope you achieve your equality some day soon.
But not at the expense of all your other remaining god-given human rights.
Many gay/lesbian movements have been largely taken over by the affluent urban gay contigent, which naturally follow their economic interests. In turn, the not-so-accurate perception of gay people as having lots of disposable income, makes them attractive to big corporations.
Genuinely radical or anarchist gay/lesbians prefer to describe themselves as "queer" and even "dyke".
I'm part of the affluent urban bigurl contingent - unlike the government, most major and many smaller corporations extend benefits to same-sex couples. They work for and appreciate our business, they sponsor our events. They are nice to us, why shouldn't we be nice to them? Because they take advantage of dumber-than-dirt, over breeding, flag waving, bible thumping Joe and Susie Sixpacks who attempt to screw us over at every turn? Er the enemy of my enemy is my not-so-trustworthy ally/friend.
Politicians pander to the majority, Corporations pander to those with talent/money. The LGBT community will never be a majority, but as a whole we have more than our fair share of money and talent.
I would argue that "genuinely radical" gay men and lesbians don't use homophobic hate speech (like "queer") to name themselves.
Dyed-in-the-wool bigots (like Joe the Plumber, recently) call us "queers." The word means "sexual deviant." There's nothing radical about calling gay people calling themselves "queer" - it's exactly the language the most conservative straights use.
What's really radical is to claim our dignity.
Yeah, everyone should act like Perez Hilton.
Peter, the lost gay radicalism occurred in the early 1970s when gay men gave up questioning male sexuality. This questioning was so powerful that almost every patriarchal cultural force, including gay male community commercial interests, arose to defeat it. However, the defeat arrived even quicker than did the rise of the movement. Why, because the resistance to it lacked will and determination--the objectification of women and all representations of female-ness was just way too natural, too right, and appealing in the not so final analysis.
I respect Peter Tatchell a lot, but I respectfully disagree with much of what he's saying here.
As a gay man who really does know what oppression means, I'm sick of being dictated to, whether by straight people who want us not to exist or by GLBT people who want us to be more "radical." I want equal marriage rights - I honestly don't need anybody, gay or straight, telling me that I shouldn't want to create particular types of same-sex loving relationships - whether because it's considered "immoral" (the homophobe's view) or because it's "assimilationist" (the more-radical-than-thou GLBT person). LGBT people know what it feels like to be vilified and have our relationships trashed - so to have other LGBT people doing the same thing in the name of a "more radical" vision is simply unacceptable.
Society will never, never be anything but - at best - what Tatchell calls "a flawed, unjust system," in which we all try our best to live ethical, meaningful lives, each according to his or her understanding. To tell me I have to give up the demand for simple equality until the "real" radicals of the world create an ideal, totally unflawed, perfectly just world . . . well, I just can't agree. Let us create justice as we can, correct what flaws we can, and live our lives with whatever dignity we can claim.
Maybe you missed Tatchell's next-to-last paragraph:
"Don't get me wrong. Despite my critique of marriage and my advocacy of a more democratic, flexible model of relationship recognition and rights, I oppose the ban on same-sex marriage. It is homophobic discrimination. Sadly, most of the LGBT movement in Britain is now too feeble to demand marriage equality. It meekly accepts civil partnerships instead of civil marriage. This is not equality. Separate laws are not equal laws. There would be riots if the government banned black people from getting married and offered them civil partnerships instead. It would be denounced as apartheid. Well, that's what civil partnerships are: sexual apartheid. Same-sex couples are banned from civil marriage (homophobia) and opposite sex couples are banned from civil partnerships (heterophobia). Two wrongs don't make a right."
Excellent post. This reminds me of women who felt betrayed by the liberation movement that was supposed to 'free' them (Even GS later became disillusioned with the movement she led!). Corporate America smiled, and now being a 'stay at home mom' is not an option for most (liberating??). Remember the do it all frazzled woman who could spit on the so-called male chauvinist pig? How many had to go run for the shelter of mother's little helper when the stress of it all reached a crescendo? Have you noticed that hardly anyone speaks of harmony? It's always a battle against this or that, or that we must accept and tolerate (which becomes suppressed animosity). Many radical movements serve the egos of their leaders much more than the greater good. Gay or straight we all must learn to be much more discerning in this regard.
A big part of the difference between 1969 and 2009 is that there was a society-wide zeitgeist in favor of social transformation in the late 60s and early 70s, of which gay liberation was but a relatively tiny branch. It was clear at the time that the gay liberation movement was inspired, as we all were, by the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the women's liberation movement, Third World liberation movements, environmental movements, back-to-the-land movements, and many more, all of which had broad public support. There was a sort of mass enlightenment about the nature of society that has been smothered and reversed now.
I find that young gays today (and young people in general) often can't even comprehend that there was ever that kind of spirit in society and thus can't understand criticisms of gay marriage campaigns or gays-in-the-military campaigns. And I have to say that it is no advance at all to have out gays who are right-wingers, like the Log Cabin Republicans and various strands of right-wing Libertarians in the US. That is nothing but regression and does no good for anybody.
After Viet-Nam the system logicked out how to euthanize resistance, unrest and social movements in the womb.
Proof is in the dead fetuses. Methods are subtle with multiple nullifying counter messages, infiltrants and cultivation of strife within groups. No beatings which obviously catalyzed dissidence. That was lesson # 1. But many, many more were learned after the powers that be got scorched in the late 60's and early 70's.
Picture the pen in shirt pocket set clustering in "think tanks," in the late 70's figuring out how to insure that collectively we dare not rise up again. And bang, disco, which killed our soul forever. Very sophisticated.
I have no idea what you said. But you certainly write a most interesting and challenging English.
I wonder where you learned it.
Hi waiguoren, I meant The System studied (pen in shirt pocket set, think tanks) the logic of the Anti-War movement. Isolated every identifiable variable which potentiated, empowered, breathed life into any form of "Radicalism." They, the government then learned and has perfected techniques for nullifying (in the womb, before movements begin) any sectors in the US where Radicalism might otherwise find fertile ground-the successful extirpation of unrest before it begins (dead fetuses) we have seen clear evidence of-The freaking Iraq War, Bush & Cheney, the 8 years of bloodthirsty tyranny at home and abroad. In the late 60's, early 70's, that would have caused an incendiary reaction in the US, by you and I, a wave of people who despise mass murder would have coalesced en masse.
BUT, we have been euthanized, and subtly. The vacuum where resistance should be a flame is astonishing. much peace, (the lexicon from reading, James Lee Burke, Elmore Leonard, Robert B. Parker, Paul-Corinthians et al, Christ's words, AsiaTimes, AntiWar.com, Hemingway, and sometimes, God Help Me..."The Directions," on boxes.)
Words, their symmetry, rhythm and grace. "You don't need a sword to cut flowers, you don't need a gun to blow your mind."
I agree, not just the LBGT but many movements including Feminism, Environmentalism, Third world liberation, etc have been nerfed so as to appeal to mainstream culture - thank you "peace, love and can't we all get along" activists.
It's why you get a Che tee shirt in most suburban malls. Look, they are just like US!
No, we are are not, or at least I, have no desire to be a freaken suburban drone living the AmeriKKKian dream.
The author does show his age when goes on about how we retreated back to "marriage". That's the hetronormative life style, which should be knocked off it's pedestal, but it's still a choice some people(gay or straight) may wish to adopt.
The reason why we fight for same-sex marriage is that until homosexual couples get equal rights, it will be impossible to push for things like polygamous relationships
How is any form of loving/sexual relationship between two men "heteronormative"?
Actually, we fight for same-sex marriage out of concern for the welfare and human rights of gay men and lesbians - not as a steppingstone to something else that someone else might think more important. Gay/lesbian rights are important in themselves.
Because they act like a straight couple living out in Stepford Stupidia... I mean Suburbia,it's the same thing actually.
Heteronormatives model their relationships after the traditional nuclear family,or DINKs, regardless of their sexual orientation.
Impose and demand, is that REALLY the best way to achieve a compassionate and harmonious end, remembering that means and ends are interrelated? That's why military force and violence will never bring real peace, for example, and 'violent' revolutions rarely have a lasting [positive] effect. Without transformation of the individual, society remains essentially the same--violent, greedy, and cruel--albeit with a more refined and genteel spin. In my view, more self-understanding is called for, from which a more compassionate society will naturally arise. Imposing ideology and belief upon others has been been tried since the inception of civilization and clearly has not worked. Yes, a radical approach is needed, but one of a different kind.
I find this thread to be frustrating because it is written without regard for history. No one has yet to mention the role of the AIDS crisis in shaping the changes in GLBT activism.
As a straight ally of the movement I participated in the 1987 March on Washington. The division at that time among activists over "The Wedding" held in front of the Justice Department illustrated for me how the movement of 20 some years ago was evolving to claim rights that would benefit GLBT people AND confront society regarding the oppression GLBT people has faced historically. Many of the older activists I worked with were skeptical about the aims of "The Wedding." Yet the loss of so many activists to AIDS sobered a lot of people as to the limits of sexual utopianism. I think that the focus on marriage rights is largely a result of that experience.
Rather than a "massive retreat from that radical vision" I think that today’s GLBT movement has gained important victories while learning the hard lessons of its early utopianism.
Freedom is a constant struggle, which I think is more readily won with focus on practical reforms rather than grandiose schemes. The history of the GLBT movement provides important lessons in how such a movement can win real change.
That said, I hope that in the future we move toward a situation where the state acknowledges civil unions without regard to the gender of the partners and marriage is the province of religious institutions. For those who want the blessing of their faith traditions, they can have marriage. For the rest of us, the legal partnership ensured by the state will be enough.