The Shame Parade

Wednesday is JointheImpact's Day Without a Gay, inspired by 2006's Day Without Immigrants. LGBTs and allies are asked by Jointheimpact.com to take a day off work if possible, to volunteer if possible, and to spend nothing (including not contributing ad revenue by using the TV, radio, or Internet) if possible. The event, like all protests, isn't mandatory; we'll all participate in whatever ways, or to whatever degree, we choose. And I don't think not participating in the protest reflects poorly on someone's status as an LGBT person or as an ally; we can all find other ways to do LGBT activism.

But I'm glad this sort of thing is being organized. Along with other participants (I estimated about 150), I attended the Jointheimpact.com anti-Prop 8 protest here in Jackson, Mississippi a few weeks ago and marched around the state capitol. It was the largest gay rights protest I'd ever been part of in this state, and reflects, I think, a growing national movement for LGBT rights.

That said...

I'm troubled by some of the tone I've seen surrounding LGBT rights activism recently. Andrea Zanin of Sex Geek nailed it when she called down one of the anti-Prop 8 emails distributed by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom. The worst sentence, to my mind:

We beg to be given a right that requires responsibility and commitment, yet we, as one strong community, have not proven to this nation that we deserve to be taken seriously!

Zanin rightly tears this apart:

The first two words - "we beg" - made me cringe from the get-go. Are queers in the States begging for same-sex marriage rights? And if so, why the hell would they take that strategy? Begging implies powerlessness, and queers are anything but powerless. The staggering legal, political and cultural victories that queers have achieved (in both Canada and the States, not to mention elsewhere in the world) in barely a few decades are nothing short of miraculous, and those victories were not won by snivelling and apologizing and begging. They were won by dogged lobbying, creative street-level activism, community-funded and pro-bono-staffed legal challenges, and the loud public shaming of influential individuals who stood against full civil rights for queers.

Zanin's critique of the mass email--particularly the way it throws trans people under the bus, and completely whitewashes Stonewall--is well worth reading. But I'd like to focus on this bit because I think she highlights something very important about the gay rights debate: shame.

A gloomy 1996 article by British journalist Peter Tatchell has been making the rounds lately. I'm not crazy about it. Money quote:

The idealism, solidarity and activism that was so significant in the first 25 years of the post-Stonewall gay psyche is now being superseded by a new gay zeitgeist of consumerism, hedonism and lifestylism. This shallow, vain, frivolous, amoral, self-obsessed, commercialised trend in gay "culture" is not a pretty sight, and no amount of glamorous beefcake in Calvin Klein underwear can disguise its essential ugliness ...

While it has been possible in the past to unite much of the diverse gay community around our common interest in winning human rights, it's impossible to build any sort of sustainable coalition around consumerism. This means that the current trend, unless arrested, is likely to lead to the fragmentation and demise of the gay community. That would leave us more or less defenceless. Perhaps that's what some people want...passive, gullible queer consumers?

If we look at the NCSF bulk email and the Tatchell op-ed, we see a common strand: that LGBTs, or at least gays and lesbians, should be ashamed of themselves as a group because they haven't earned the rights other activists are seeking on their behalf.

I know it's frustrating to do gay rights activism right now, and I've aired a few frustrations of my own. But I think the last thing we need to do is buy into some weird, homophobic idea that LGBTs are a bunch of hedonists who don't deserve equal rights unless they do X, Y, and Z. We do need a stronger LGBT rights movement, but we need it because the movement is necessary in order to achieve social change and because the work needs to be done--not to prove that the LGBT community is worthy of equal rights, because we already know that it is.

And the "begging for rights" approach also plays into the shame that, frankly, I suspect is central to the nonparticipation of so many LGBTs in the movement. I have never really gotten to know a lesbian or gay man who did not, at some point or another, sound embarrassed about or ashamed of their sexual orientation. And small wonder why. Sexual orientation and gender identity are silent minority statuses; so many people grow up hearing, and usually saying, horrible things about Those People--then gradually come to the realization that they, too, are Those People. I don't have a hard time believing that it's hard to come from that place and do LGBT rights activism.

I'm not saying there's no place for shame in the LGBT rights movement, and I'm not saying I'm in a position to arbitrate where that shame is. But the NCSF email and the Tatchell op-ed reflect a sloppy, blame-the-victim approach to LGBT rights. If you're participating in the Day Without a Gay to stand up for yourself or those you care about, or to change things, or as an expression of pride and power, or even because you think it might be fun, then that's wonderful. But if you're participating in the Day Without a Gay because you think you need to risk your job and take a fast day to prove you're worthy of equal rights, that isn't really necessary. You were worthy of equal rights the day you were born. Go out and be part of the movement, but don't hang your head--be proud of who you are. Because if there's one lesson that the history of human rights has taught us, it's that nobody has ever achieved equal rights by begging for them.