Yesterday, the last day of Pride Month, The New York Times published opinion article Matthew Vines argues that the movement to identify as “queer” is contributing to the contemporary backlash against LGBTQ+ rights. In this work, he argues that “being gay is not a rebellion against normal life.” As a queer public historian, I disagree. Being LGBTQ+ is a revolutionary act because American society was and still is built on heteronormative, cisgender norms. One need only look at yesterday’s Supreme Court decision upholding the ban on trans athletes to understand that LGBTQ+ rights are still under major attack.
Vines and other white cis gay men and women who refuse to use the word “queer” or understand their bodies, identities, and relationships as political fail to recognize what protects them from discrimination and guarantees their right to marry the person they love.
remember your ancestors
The Stonewall Riots, largely considered the birth of the modern LGBTQ+ movement, were a reaction to the police raids that began in June 1969. This is a groundbreaking backlash against systematic police brutality, state-sanctioned imprisonment and violence against LGBTQ+ people, and these uprisings that mobilized the larger LGBTQ+ community are the reason why lesbian, gay, and bisexual people have the right to marry people. they love
Vines’ rights were secured in the first place because of black queer and trans people, people who recognized that being queer was both an identity and a political act. Denying the identity of “queer” perpetuates not just the stigma surrounding the word itself, but queer and trans people as a whole, denying the rich heritage of our queer and trans ancestors who fought for the rights we have today. When queer and trans people reclaimed the word “queer” that had previously been a slur against us, it was a call to resist the very gender and sexual assimilation that had weaponized the slur itself.
Because the United States essentially remains a country that enforces and celebrates a heterosexual, cisgender majority. Being queer, resisting and rejecting norms that normalize and essentialize gender and sexuality is a countercultural act, whether people like Vines are prepared to admit it or not. Historically, sections of the LGBTQ+ community, primarily the most privileged, have historically and currently attempted to sanitize the community’s image and events, including excluding transgender, kink, BDSM, and drugs on the grounds that they infringe on family-friendly events and “give the community a bad name.”
freaks are family
In 2000, the Millennium March on Washington was promoted. gay and lesbian assimilationinsist that they, or us, are just like everyone else. Vines appears to have copied and pasted this text into an article published yesterday. However, in response, a group called Freaks Are Family Contingent, organized by DC Radical Fairies and Buy Insurgence, marched as an alternative to the main group. The group, which intentionally included witches, transgender people, people practicing kink, and poly people, denounced assimilation as perpetuating the same marginalization that gay and lesbian people faced 50 years ago. To this day, “Freaks Are Family” roar Calling for radical inclusion and resistance to assimilation in Washington, DC and beyond. One of my dearest friends, Reverend Eric Erdrich, a longtime radical elf and community leader in Washington, DC, was part of this groundbreaking movement.
Vines probably has a point. Some members of the LGBTQ+ community remain restful and complacent in their privilege, refusing to recognize the fragility of their own civil liberties and those of others. As historians and political scientists have argued, attacks on transgender people’s rights are likely to advance threats against same-sex marriage that were themselves secured nearly a decade ago.
endanger his and our rights
Celebrating the 10th anniversary of Obergefell vs. Hodges, Oklahoma State Senator Dusty Devers I said it was a same-sex marriage. It is not a law because “the Constitution does not include the right to recognize same-sex marriage.” Devers made the comment in a conversation with Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, who believes the Bible justifies the killing of homosexuals by Christians. The news was first reported yesterday by Right Wing Watch, a far-right monitoring group, and added: LGBTQ nation Expressing concern about inflammatory comments about drag queens and LGBTQ+ books in elementary and junior high schools.
Devers said, “Obergefell is not a settled law. It is plagued with immorality imposed by judicial decision, and a court’s opinion can only be called a ‘settled law’ if it is firmly rooted in the Constitution and the traditions and traditions of the American people.” ” he declared. Although this is clearly false, this argument is increasingly used by far-right leaders to argue that precedent decisions are not fixed.
The main beginning of this moment was the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. A landmark ruling in 1973 guaranteed federal access to reproductive justice, but nearly 50 years later it was overturned and many states enacted their own laws banning abortion. life and death situation. Many people have died not only because of these bans, but also because medical professionals have been reluctant to provide vital, life-saving medical care for fear of losing their medical licenses or being sued.
So for many LGBTQ+ activists in 2022, legal protections for same-sex marriage, especially those provided by the landmark 2015 Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges, made sense. That will be the next one to fall.
Immediately after the US repealed Roe v. Wade 2022, Judge Clarence Thomas expressed an opinion He said the court should also reconsider rulings in other landmark cases like Griswold v. Connecticut., Lawrence vs. Texas, and Obergefell v. Hodges.. These rulings protect access to contraception, LGBTQ+ relationships, and marriage. And, echoing Devers’ call today, Lawrence argued three years ago that the Constitution’s Due Process Clause does not guarantee these rights. Calls for reversal of Obergefell vs. Hodges It’s growing more so by the day, and distancing himself from homosexuals and the broader movement won’t protect him.
In fact, Vines’ opinion piece makes it clear that he is definitely not “queer,” but as many queer people have cried out over the past 24 hours, that’s not a good thing. When he and others fail to not only support but join a revolutionary movement for the liberation of all LGBTQ+ people, to stand and fight in solidarity with trans, non-binary, and intersex people who are repeatedly targeted by governments, stripped of their IDs and access to public spaces, and killed for the very reasons they are, they become part of the problem.
They have become the very alienators who targeted people like them 50 years ago: white cisgay men and women who lost jobs and lives for the sake of their loved ones. In fact, Vines is not “queer,” but in doing so he undermines not only his present right to truly live and love, but the strength of the very community that secured him the right to do so in the future.
Actually, I’m gay and queer. It Matters appeared first on the Washington Blade: LGBTQ News, Politics, LGBTQ Rights, Gay News.
Source: Washington Blade: LGBTQ News, Politics, LGBTQ Rights, Gay News – www.washingtonblade.com
