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.
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.
I appreciate this description of the tension between what I think of as the radical-by-choice and radical-by-necessity. In my work in my union, there's definitely a set of folks who are more radicals by choice, in a way that makes being radical key to their self-conceptions. The locus of the radicalism can shift over time, and it's ultimately less important than the (admittedly romantic) idea of being a radical.
There's also a set of folks who are more radical-by-necessity, where their analysis of what we need to change at our workplace to increase our own effectiveness and satisfaction as workers leads to a desire for specific changes that happen to be seen as radical.
Movements will have both, but it makes sense that when the goals of the radical-by-necessity are achieved (or near enough), some of them would drift away. Meanwhile, the radical-by-choice are left to find new goals and search for new radical-by-necessity allies.
The problem is, of course, that once you get one normie victory (marriage rights) and the wind gets knocked out, that leaves you open to revivals of attacks of the sort we're seeing in Florida right now, with people openly calling the don't say gay bill an "anti-grooming" bill, which is shades of the 1970s.
There is a stubborn undercurrent of identity hate in this country and queer rights in particular are both new and vulnerable. I'm worried.
On the contrary, I would argue that once they achieved their goals the LGBT movement got completely highjacked by the Ts, who now pursue an ultra-extreme agenda.
The idea that any group focused on one issue is "abandoning the movement" when their goal is fulfilled is very strange to me.
For one: how many LGBT people are actually Democrats (or further left)? Democrats gave them what they wanted, but supporting a party until you have the thing you want and being a bonafide member of that party are not the same thing. About 20% of LGBT voters are registered Republicans, and while exit polls are fickle, they showed Trump doubled his portion of the LGBT vote from 2016 to 2020. There's no inherent reason LGBT people should be left-leaning, and as time passes and Democrats' support falls into the past, I would expect party identification to further equalize.
For two: if a group is focused narrowly on marriage rights for homosexuals, why should they persist after that right is achieved? Would it not be better for the larger movement if they disbanded and got out of the way, instead of continuing to suck up volunteers and money? A marriage equality group doesn't have the expertise to successfully navigate something like police reform. It would seem better for them to defer rather than pivot.
“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.”
Activists rarely have this/do this. There is usually a huge disconnect between protest and policy execution, and the success here was weirdly specific. We wanted X and got exactly that. Credit is certainly due but it’s tough to duplicate.
One of my oldest friends is married to a trans guy, and he transitioned *way* before the current culture wars, in 2001-2003. He is the soccer parent you describe - pretty unassuming, works a corporate job, wants kids, a dog, and a wife. He's pretty disconnected from the Twitter discourse online and, among other things, thinks the fad of raising children without gender is ridiculous (unless they give some urgent signal around that on their own.)
I would be really curious to see how many people fall under his category vs. otherwise.
The trans rights moral panic was essentially weaponized to keep the activist industrial complex going after the legalization of gay marriage, and it's a big part of how and why the more absurd rhetorical excesses (not to mention real world outcomes) of trans-right activism have probably done more to damage the larger public's opinion of gay rights than anything in the last 40 years.
These are great observations. The criticism of the left that we don't know how to win seems slightly off; the left can and has had many wins. Activists must decide what's more important: the desire to effect change, or the desire to Be Radical.
A favorite Joan Didion line: One oppressed class after an other had seemed finally to miss the point. The have‐nots, it turned out, aspired mainly to having. The minori ties seemed to promise more, but finally disappointed: it devloped that they actually cared about the issues, that they tended to see the integration of the luncheonette and the seat in the front of the bus as real goals, and only rarely as ploys, counters in a larger game. They resisted that essential inductive leap from the immediate reform to the social ideal, and, just as disappointingly, they failed to perceive their common cause with other minorities, continued to exhibit a self‐interest disconcerting in the extreme to organizers steeped in the rhetoric of “brotherhood.”
Nice thought train Freddy. I think what you are touching on is Intersectionality, in that gay marriage was the intersection. Period. All roads led to gay marriage. Once again, politicians were led by the people. Follow the sit-com acceptance of a social idea to see where the country goes. At least when we only had 3 networks. I have been watching Happy Days and MASH for about a month straight on a mission for a future critique, and the social causes they both touch is breath-taking. No time for solutions in that format, but that wasn't the goal.
With trans issues, only a slice is watching Black is the New Orange or Drag Race with RuPaul. It's not like millions and millions of Americans are becoming comfortable with trans. In fact, it's opposite. There is a huge difference between tolerance and celebration. As a father of a college softball player, I cannot imagine my daughter playing against a biological male. She is a catcher and has been laid out unconscious by a larger bio-FEMALE. How would my daughter fare against a 210 lbs 6'3" biological male in a home plate collision? Not good, I bet.
so that's my intersection on this road. Cis-male dad of a cis-female athlete. Or because I am a white straight male I don't get a say?
I know the movement lost their mind when they attacked Greenwald for being a gay pedo for "grooming" his younger husband. Hey, white gay dudes, welcome to my street corner! Now you're just a bad white male.
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.
I appreciate this description of the tension between what I think of as the radical-by-choice and radical-by-necessity. In my work in my union, there's definitely a set of folks who are more radicals by choice, in a way that makes being radical key to their self-conceptions. The locus of the radicalism can shift over time, and it's ultimately less important than the (admittedly romantic) idea of being a radical.
There's also a set of folks who are more radical-by-necessity, where their analysis of what we need to change at our workplace to increase our own effectiveness and satisfaction as workers leads to a desire for specific changes that happen to be seen as radical.
Movements will have both, but it makes sense that when the goals of the radical-by-necessity are achieved (or near enough), some of them would drift away. Meanwhile, the radical-by-choice are left to find new goals and search for new radical-by-necessity allies.
The problem is, of course, that once you get one normie victory (marriage rights) and the wind gets knocked out, that leaves you open to revivals of attacks of the sort we're seeing in Florida right now, with people openly calling the don't say gay bill an "anti-grooming" bill, which is shades of the 1970s.
There is a stubborn undercurrent of identity hate in this country and queer rights in particular are both new and vulnerable. I'm worried.
On the contrary, I would argue that once they achieved their goals the LGBT movement got completely highjacked by the Ts, who now pursue an ultra-extreme agenda.
The idea that any group focused on one issue is "abandoning the movement" when their goal is fulfilled is very strange to me.
For one: how many LGBT people are actually Democrats (or further left)? Democrats gave them what they wanted, but supporting a party until you have the thing you want and being a bonafide member of that party are not the same thing. About 20% of LGBT voters are registered Republicans, and while exit polls are fickle, they showed Trump doubled his portion of the LGBT vote from 2016 to 2020. There's no inherent reason LGBT people should be left-leaning, and as time passes and Democrats' support falls into the past, I would expect party identification to further equalize.
For two: if a group is focused narrowly on marriage rights for homosexuals, why should they persist after that right is achieved? Would it not be better for the larger movement if they disbanded and got out of the way, instead of continuing to suck up volunteers and money? A marriage equality group doesn't have the expertise to successfully navigate something like police reform. It would seem better for them to defer rather than pivot.
“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.”
Activists rarely have this/do this. There is usually a huge disconnect between protest and policy execution, and the success here was weirdly specific. We wanted X and got exactly that. Credit is certainly due but it’s tough to duplicate.
One of my oldest friends is married to a trans guy, and he transitioned *way* before the current culture wars, in 2001-2003. He is the soccer parent you describe - pretty unassuming, works a corporate job, wants kids, a dog, and a wife. He's pretty disconnected from the Twitter discourse online and, among other things, thinks the fad of raising children without gender is ridiculous (unless they give some urgent signal around that on their own.)
I would be really curious to see how many people fall under his category vs. otherwise.
The trans rights moral panic was essentially weaponized to keep the activist industrial complex going after the legalization of gay marriage, and it's a big part of how and why the more absurd rhetorical excesses (not to mention real world outcomes) of trans-right activism have probably done more to damage the larger public's opinion of gay rights than anything in the last 40 years.
These are great observations. The criticism of the left that we don't know how to win seems slightly off; the left can and has had many wins. Activists must decide what's more important: the desire to effect change, or the desire to Be Radical.
A favorite Joan Didion line: One oppressed class after an other had seemed finally to miss the point. The have‐nots, it turned out, aspired mainly to having. The minori ties seemed to promise more, but finally disappointed: it devloped that they actually cared about the issues, that they tended to see the integration of the luncheonette and the seat in the front of the bus as real goals, and only rarely as ploys, counters in a larger game. They resisted that essential inductive leap from the immediate reform to the social ideal, and, just as disappointingly, they failed to perceive their common cause with other minorities, continued to exhibit a self‐interest disconcerting in the extreme to organizers steeped in the rhetoric of “brotherhood.”
Nice thought train Freddy. I think what you are touching on is Intersectionality, in that gay marriage was the intersection. Period. All roads led to gay marriage. Once again, politicians were led by the people. Follow the sit-com acceptance of a social idea to see where the country goes. At least when we only had 3 networks. I have been watching Happy Days and MASH for about a month straight on a mission for a future critique, and the social causes they both touch is breath-taking. No time for solutions in that format, but that wasn't the goal.
With trans issues, only a slice is watching Black is the New Orange or Drag Race with RuPaul. It's not like millions and millions of Americans are becoming comfortable with trans. In fact, it's opposite. There is a huge difference between tolerance and celebration. As a father of a college softball player, I cannot imagine my daughter playing against a biological male. She is a catcher and has been laid out unconscious by a larger bio-FEMALE. How would my daughter fare against a 210 lbs 6'3" biological male in a home plate collision? Not good, I bet.
so that's my intersection on this road. Cis-male dad of a cis-female athlete. Or because I am a white straight male I don't get a say?
I know the movement lost their mind when they attacked Greenwald for being a gay pedo for "grooming" his younger husband. Hey, white gay dudes, welcome to my street corner! Now you're just a bad white male.