The lessons of a gay-rights victory
So gay people have become a little straighter this past week. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage is a historic coup. Love Wins, as the hashtag goes, and who wants to argue with that?
Amid the celebrations, though, some critics have expressed concern that the LGBTQ movement may now be seen to have served its purpose when clearly there’s more work to be done. It’s great that gay couples can now receive the many benefits that other married couples do, but why can those benefits only be accessed through marriage? Instead of letting more people in the gate, why not work on tearing the gate down?
Other critics fear that the focus on such amainstream goal as marriage, with all its attendant heteronormative baggage, does a disservice to the radical history of gay activism. Queerness means more than two people with similar-looking genitals loving each other until death (or gay divorce) do them part; it’s a history of people seeking equality, yes, but not conformity.
Marriage is sort of the proving ground for who’s gained legitimacy in the eyes of society (consider that in the States, interracial marriage wasn’t fully legal until 1967), and continuing to use a tradition with a history steeped in patriarchy, religion, and state governance as a measure of personhood can leave a bad taste for those who have always been weighed and found wanting by those scales.
But the tide can flow both ways — maybe it’s time for straight people to become a little gayer! Inspired by conversations and Facebook posts from friends on both sides of the border, here I humbly suggest a few ways heterosexual culture can queer itself.
1. Families are made, not born Gay relationships have been a lot of things: spat on, mocked, bashed, ignored, swept under the rug. One thing they haven’t been (until recently) is regulated. One great thing about existing in the margins of society is the relative freedom to create relationships that are meaningful to you.
Queers are particularly good at forming caring, protective, nurturing friendships that aren’t just placeholders for romantic partners and biological children. While coupledom (straight or gay) is still the most privileged way of doing personhood, it would be interesting to see people at large invest in friendships and other bonds, not just as something to do when your partner is hungover or hogging the Netflix but as a way of creating a supportive network of kinship that goes beyond biology and sex. After all, the nuclear family is a relatively new invention and not necessarily the best or only way to do things.
2. Change comes from below June 28 was the 46th anniversary of Stonewall, the series of protests against police led by mainly working-class queers and trans people of colour that are generally cited as a turning point in LGBTQ activism. It’s no coincidence that most Pride celebrations take place around that date; the first Pride parade, as the graffiti says, was a riot.
In the 1980s, it was gay men and lesbians who mobilized around HIV/AIDS, demanding access to better treatment, calling attention to a national health crisis, and basically creating the idea of safer sex.
If things are better for LGBTQ people today, it’s not because rights and privileges were granted from above by benevolent leaders. They were fought for by those who had no other choice.
Anything we have a choice in today was probably fought for by someone before we were born. We ought to consider what kind of future people we’re fighting for now.
3. Queerness is about becoming, not being
There is something decidedly visionary about queer liberation, as there is with any liberation movement. It imagines the world to be, not just the world as it is. Some say the SCOTUS decision was unthinkable 50 years ago. But that’s not true — someone thought it, and imagined it, and figured out how to get there. It takes a sort of mad vision to look beyond the conditions of the everyday.
But the work is never done; there’s no end to the need to look at the status quo clearly and head on, and declare it not enough.
So, congratulations, American gays and lesbians: you’ve earned the right, to paraphrase Kinky Friedman, “to be as miserable as the rest of us,” (including Canadian gays and lesbians since 2005). Good luck, and stay sharp. You’ll need to.