I am tempted to share the second essay so many places. That is the question that I suspect has been bugging people ever since being gay gained some kind of respectability. What (or who) is Pride for? The freaks and assimilationists can't decide. Happens when "do you like kissing other dudes" somehow becomes a political, moral, and social stance. How much of the queer movement's solidarity has been based on common enemy politics?
Those are themes we cover regularly at QM. In fact the tagline for the new issue is "As queer cinema goes mainstream, can it hold onto its defiant roots?" The final step on the train of progress is true equality. It's becoming un-noteworthy. Boring. The longer you hang onto the cultural cachet and insist on distinction, the longer you remain stuck on that penultimate rung. You can't have true equality without assimilation, at the end of the day. Anyone who says otherwise is a blank-slate denier of human nature.
That being said, this schism has been in the LGBT movement from the start, and it's been the assimilationists who've actually won all the battles. Gay and bi conservatives won the war of ideas against both the Christian right and the radical queer separatists for same-sex marriage (the latter wanted to destroy the institution of marriage, not join it). Normie beancounters like Frank Kameny and the Mattachine Society laid more groundwork for LGBT people than 100 Stonewall Riots could have. There's always been a quiet majority of queer people — a queer majority — who just want to live and love, and I don't think they would object to St Pridesrick Day at all.
I am tempted to share the second essay so many places. That is the question that I suspect has been bugging people ever since being gay gained some kind of respectability. What (or who) is Pride for? The freaks and assimilationists can't decide. Happens when "do you like kissing other dudes" somehow becomes a political, moral, and social stance. How much of the queer movement's solidarity has been based on common enemy politics?
Those are themes we cover regularly at QM. In fact the tagline for the new issue is "As queer cinema goes mainstream, can it hold onto its defiant roots?" The final step on the train of progress is true equality. It's becoming un-noteworthy. Boring. The longer you hang onto the cultural cachet and insist on distinction, the longer you remain stuck on that penultimate rung. You can't have true equality without assimilation, at the end of the day. Anyone who says otherwise is a blank-slate denier of human nature.
That being said, this schism has been in the LGBT movement from the start, and it's been the assimilationists who've actually won all the battles. Gay and bi conservatives won the war of ideas against both the Christian right and the radical queer separatists for same-sex marriage (the latter wanted to destroy the institution of marriage, not join it). Normie beancounters like Frank Kameny and the Mattachine Society laid more groundwork for LGBT people than 100 Stonewall Riots could have. There's always been a quiet majority of queer people — a queer majority — who just want to live and love, and I don't think they would object to St Pridesrick Day at all.