gay rights vs gay liberation

theangrybi:

autismserenity:

I keep coming across pieces about the U.S. “LGBT” movement’s history that talk about how, during the 70s especially, one core idea of the movement was that gender and sexuality would, should, get blown wide open. 

That ultimately pretty much everyone was bisexual underneath; that gender itself was a big nonbinary mess; and everyone would be able to be their true bisexual, often genderqueer self after the revolution. We wouldn’t have or need the gender binary anymore. 

This was a much more natural belief at the time, because gay and lesbian and bi and ace had been thought of as essentially different genders. Because “normal” was two binary sexes, with two corresponding binary genders, which were attracted to each other, and would act on that attraction to make more little normal people. This was the function of society, the thing that gave women any value, the whole point of life.

From “Identity and Ideas: Strategies for Bisexuals,” an essay by bi activist Liz Highleyman in Bisexual Politics: Theories, Queeries, and Visions (1995), which I need to quote from more extensively but not rn:

“As the social movements of the early 1970s fell apart or lost their radical edge in the 1980s, the gay liberation movement, now known as the gay and lesbian movement, followed suit.”

This sentence puts it in a nutshell, I think. There was a really concrete shift, from radical “liberation” from the system for everyone, to acceptance from the system for these two groups.

“There was a growing emphasis on an identity politics model that likened gays to oppressed racial and ethnic minorities. Sexual identity was increasingly seen as an immutable characteristic without sweeping social or political ramifications. The movement became more focused on civil rights and assimilation into mainstream society.”

 It wasn’t an accident, that shift away from the overlapping bi/trans/intersex politics and bi/trans/intersex paradigm*. It was extremely deliberate.

It must have seemed like an easier sell to the straight world, which I can understand. I’m sure a lot of people thought that this strategy would benefit everyone.

But not only does it leave many of our issues completely ignored or actively erased, it’s also a model that can never work for us.

This just kind of jelled for me for the first time, reading this. It’s much harder to see if you don’t know about both models, at least for me. I tend to believe the “no no, we’re for you too!” without thinking about how and why that hasn’t been working.

The civil rights/assimilation model is very rooted in the whole idea that “the only thing that’s different about us is which gender we love!” It’s the we’re just like you model. It works pretty well for fitting-into-society stuff: marriage, health care, employment rights, military service, media representation. Stuff that straight people have, so they can go, “okay, I see how you’re like me, it seems unfair and terrible that you shouldn’t have these things too!”

It works really fucking badly for stuff where we are not like them.

The problem is actually that it works really fucking badly for stuff where we do not fit into the gender binary.

That’s the specific way the system demands that we Be Like Them. It treats everything else, everything that isn’t being a binary sex/gender and wanting a binary sex/gender, as a freakish and in-valid choice, and punishes us for it.

The only progress we’ve really seen is that sometimes, it’s not seen as a Bad Freakish Choice to want the “wrong” binary gender, and very occasionally, it’s not seen as a Bad Freakish Choice to be the “wrong” binary gender.

A lot of the trans movement’s progress has come from doing the same thing the gay and lesbian movement has done: “look at us, look how gender-normative and binary-gendered we are, look how we just want to be a normal gender and love a normal gender. Nothing threatening going on here!”

It works. I’m not going to knock that. People use this shit because they are fucking desperate and fearing for their lives.

But it also means those of us who can’t say “we’re just like normal people” become ballast.

You know: the stuff you throw overboard so your hot air balloon can take off.

I think this is what’s at the core of “ace discourse,” “sga discourse,” and all those other gatekeeping arguments. 

The system only, conditionally, grudgingly, gives certain rights, in some places, to the minority of us who have convincingly argued that we’re Just Like Them. It is exceedingly clear to those people that mixing with non-approved groups puts not only those limited civil rights, but also the entire model used to win them, in danger. 

It’s a choice. We all face it. If you identify more with the need for all those normal rights – or with the oppressions around being, or being into, into the wrong binary gender – or you just see that this model is working for some people and you want it to work for you – then you’re likely to cast your lot with the binary-gender-based “gay rights” model, which means you’re likely to take a “gatekeeping” tack. 

If you identify more with the need for total freedom from the rules of the binary gender system, for whatever reason – and you’re not put off by the fact that we don’t have a working political model around that – then you’re likely to cast your lot with the “gay liberation” model, which means you’re likely to take the “radical inclusion” tack that’s inherent to that model. 

* (I don’t think there was an intersex movement at the time; intersex people are still incredibly silenced by not only the media but actively, intentionally, by the entire medical industry. But it is an explicitly intersex-friendly and very ace/aro-friendly model, in a way that the existing model has definitely not been.)

This. This right here is so fucking important to me. As an intersex, aromantic, bisexual, genderqueer person….I feel this keenly.

Its why I’ve felt so disconnected from the community that calls itself “LGBT.” Its why I’ve felt exceedingly more comfortable with the communities that receive backlash from the LGBT – the mogai and queer communities.

The entire model, the obsession, the focus of the LGBT on just “homophobia and transphobia,” or “SGA and trans people,” is only “historical” up to a point. The rejection of the word “queer” and the rejection of calling our community “the queer community” (and any other similarly accepting, non strictly defined community labels) goes hand in hand in all of this.

Its a clear and purposeful prioritization of community members who are binary; of members who are exactly everything I am not.

And to further the evidence that its entirely political, its pretty much entirely western. Every single existing friend I have in the community from other countries express some sort of bafflement at the behavior and treatment of us “less acceptable” members. They get confused when we talk about a-specs or bisexuals not being accepted, because that’s only an issue over here, with the “acceptable” members who have decided we don’t benefit their movement.

But I am so thankful for someone else pointing this out and showing evidence because I am not the best with words, but its something I actively experience and have had to deal with, without the proper knowledge and words to protest my treatment completely.

The current model the LGBT uses is complete and utter bullshit. Its a community the professes to care equally about all of us – but has no problem using methods and tactics that throw us under the bus, because they work for some of them.

If a community is going to have solidarity, then the methods that prioritize certain members while hurting others needs to be condemned. No amount of success for the few justifies harming the other members, lest you give up the pretense of being equally supportive of everyone.

Which is also why I think the mogai and queer communities have gotten under such heavy fire. Its what we specifically get targeted for – we equally support all members, which is seen as unacceptable. We use a completely different model – the rejection of the binary completely, anti assimilation, which undermines everything they’re trying for. We don’t shirk from embracing and displaying our blatant rebellion and differences from a pericisheteronormative society, which effectively ruins the chances of gold star gays getting the community seen as “just like one of them.”

Its why there’s been such disgust displayed at the idea of being associated with “weird, special snowflake” genders, its why the attraction TO those genders has been so heavily scrutinized and invalidated. Its why “mogai” can be thrown around like an insult, its why we get mocked as “radikweers.” Laughing at those of us that dare to fully abandon the binary, pushing us to the fringes of the community and denying us voices, words, resources, and acknowledgement, and actively denying our existence and validity this way is a frantic attempt to save that model that prioritizes them; and they believe doing so will put them in a better, more acceptable light with the rest of society that treats us the same.

Its why respectability politics has become just as much of a danger to me as pericisheteronormativity is.

And this gives me words to express how I feel about it all. “Anti gay rights, pro gay liberation.”