If you happen to run in the weird little political niches I do, you will no doubt be familiar with a particular argument about the LGBTQ movement (which we used to call the gay rights movement) and the fight for marriage equality: that achieving the latter neutered the former, that after the 2015 Obergefell Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage across the country the LGBTQ movement deradicalized, went corporate, became just another pawn of the centrist leadership of the Democratic party.
There was a time when I agreed, would occasionally make that argument myself. It does seem inarguable to me that the assumed place of gay and lesbian people in radical spheres has certainly diminished. But as for the broader complaint, at this point, I just… I don’t know, man.
First, arguments about these deradicalizing tendencies seem to imply some sort of central authority or leadership that didn’t really exist. Certainly, there were and are high-profile organizations that played a role in shaping what would become of the gay rights movement, and they can be criticized as anyone sees fit. But the overall movement was this big gangly unruly sometimes-rudderless beast, as all major political movements are, and it’s not like anyone had a firm hand on the wheel. Even if there was more in the way of clear leadership, that sort of movement is huge and unwieldy, and trying to direct it is like piloting a cruise liner. Even at the time, there were mixed feelings about Obergefell; I know some who thought that the gradual spread of gay marriage on a state-by-state basis, well underway at that point, would result in a more democratic and thus more durable institution of same-sex marriage. But it’s not like people who had fought for gay marriage their whole lives wanted to turn the Supreme Court down.
The deeper point is simply that social acceptance is always going to involve some inherent deradicalization. It’s not entirely coherent to say that you want particular relationships and behaviors to be socially acceptable but for the culture associated with them to remain radical. (Normalization and radicalization are not quite perfect antonyms but they’re close.) In a rigidly heteronormative society simply existing as a queer person or loving someone of your same sex is a radical act. As societal acceptance grows your romantic life becomes boring like everyone else’s. I hope gay people who just wanted normie status are enjoying it.
I think a version of the complaint that makes more sense is less that the LGBTQ movement is no longer radical itself and more that a lot of people who were actively involved in that movement and sundry related causes sort of jumped ship. In this telling, a lot of gay activists motivated by the fight for marriage stopped “showing up,” ceased actively participating in left-wing organizing, and so are guilty of abandoning other marginalized groups like Black people or feminists. The first thing to say is that there are many, many veterans of the gay rights movement who remain deeply involved in general lefty politics and organized (to pick a salient example) around BLM in the last couple of years. But the other thing is… most people are politically self-interested. They devote time and energy in the face of great odds because they hope to eventually get something out of it for themselves and their community. Of course I prefer for people to stay activated and to fight for the rights of others, but left-wing politics is at its heart about showing people that the best interests of others are your best interests, too. If it’s true that many gay and lesbian men and women retired to their marriages and respectable lives of voting for Democrats and not doing much else, it’s largely a reflection of the broader failure of the left to motivate and activate in general.
Some gay people just really wanted the right to get married and to be left alone, and when they secured that they dropped out. Perfectly understandable.
All of this will forever be filtered, for me, through a certain framework of thinking about the gay rights movement that I have inherited, a New York-centric, existentially political and defiant approach to gay rights, the legacy of Larry Kramer and people like him. It happens that this is also, broadly speaking, the framework of the American media, as so many of the basic assumptions about culture and politics in the media are filtered through New York and with the prism of college-educated bobo types. But I’m frequently reminded that this perspective is profoundly overrepresented, and that there are many gay men and women who are much less invested in the legacy of Stonewall and much more invested in being comfortable soccer parents. If you’re Black you have Black parents and you very likely grow up in a Black social world with a distinctly Black culture, so there’s more opportunity to absorb a certain political orientation from other Black people, to have a communally Black point of view. But many gay people grow up as the only gay person in their communities, at least as far as they knew, and thus have to carve out their own vision of what gay identity means. And what I frequently find is that a good number of them feel no particular connection to what we think of as gay culture.
For the record even an organization with the radical and activist bona fides of ACT UP was sometimes derided as moderate and incrementalist by other activists. It’s all relative.
Another point that needs to remain central is this: in 1996 a Democratic president signed the anti-gay marriage Defense of Marriage Act; in the 2004 election the GOP used opposing gay marriage as a nationwide wedge issue and to great effect; by 2012 gay marriage was legal in nine states; in 2015 it was legal across the country. That is frankly astonishing social progress in a remarkably short period of time. Whatever attendant concerns we might have with the movement or its aftermath, you really can’t argue with the results. And it’s easy to imagine that a more uncompromising, radical gay marriage movement takes longer to achieve change. It’s worth noting that the fight for gay marriage enjoyed a strength where I keep identifying weakness in other lefty movements, a specific, tangible policy goal. Should the movement have succumbed to the left’s “kitchen sink” problem, the tendency to insist that every demand be invoked at every turn - I have on multiple occasions been witness to fights about whether demands for Palestinian rights should be included at protests for affordable housing - I think progress would have taken longer.
As I suggested above, I do think it’s perfectly fair to complain about specific organizations and their post-Obergefell politics. Complaints about the Human Rights Campaign are both longstanding and legion, particularly its coziness with the Democratic party and its major figures. (A coziness that sometimes provokes serious embarrassment.) Many gay rights organizations have been scrutinized over where exactly donated funds go, but then this is a generic complaint against almost any nonprofit organization. To whatever degree gay rights organizations fail to stand up for broader left principles, whether out of fealty to the Democrats or to donors or for any other reason, you can criticize them. The deeper issue of how issue-specific groups can contribute to a broad radical agenda without falling into the kitchen sink problem will endure.
I think a clear connection here is the trans rights movement. Many within that movement are deeply invested in avoiding the (perceived) deradicalizing trend of the broader LGBTQ movement. I can’t offer much in the way of constructive advice as I have no particular wisdom on that score. The status of trans people in the United States is very strange right now, where many in the media, academia, and politics relentlessly celebrate trans people in the abstract, while in much of the country simply being trans means that you live under significant physical threat. Neither certain cis allies nor transphobes seem interested in normalizing trans life. Where that movement goes next, I can’t say; there’s not that one clear policy demand the way there was with gay marriage. But I will suggest that, whatever the trans rights movement’s destiny, societal acceptance comes with it a certain sanding off of the edges, with a mainstreaming, with a loss of radicalism. It’s just baked into the cake, for good and bad.
I watched Paris is Burning again the other night. Even then, in the late 1980s, came complaints that the drag ball scene was becoming too corporate. So it goes.
Ironically I believe that the anti-trans bills currently going around in Texas and elsewhere will ultimately strengthen trans rights. These bills are so awful on their face that they may turn the general public over to the cause, and they’re exactly the kind of tangible policy goal you describe. Mind you I’m under no illusions about this: these laws will do active harm and the fight will be difficult. But I think it’s a fight that can and will be won.
Very much agree but I'd go further. Getting to be a normal, (dare I say boring?) part of society is the ultimate win of any rights movement - surely? There is no legitimate argument for disappointment in the loss of radicalisation.
To me, the backlash reveals two things:
1) The entitled sense of betrayal: "You should be fighting for OUR gang" that typifies political types - in this case the assumption that being sexually attracted to the same sex makes you inherently left wing (pretty funny). This is actually quite childish.
2) How profoundly the battle - not the outcome - was the most important thing all along for people. Of course these people are upset on some level: this particular skirmish in the cosmic battle against good against evil is just over and they missed deploring their enemies, fighting and the camaraderie of battle. We're supposed to all be agreeable and think conflict is bad, but we love struggle because it gives us meaning. This one I can understand - and I think we ignore this particular need at our peril.