[Marxism] Shrunken dreams: the retreat of gay lib

[David Thorstad <binesi@xxxxxxxxx>]

This piece by British gay activist Peter Tatchell shows more insight 
into the waning of gay liberation than all the hoopla over marriage, 
equality, militarism, assimilation, and conventionality that have 
replaced the movement's radical critique of hetero society.
David
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UTVNews

Friday, 26 June 2009


   
**http://u.tv/News/Our-lost-gay-radicalism/5ce44827-ea57-46dc-a3d4-321ae5feb270**


   *Our lost gay radicalism*

**Peter Tatchell: 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 q**** 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 
q**** 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 – q**** 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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