The Queer/Gay Assimilationist Split: The Suits vs. the Sluts

Monthly Review, May, 2001 by Benjamin H. Shepard

In the end, what is apparent is that the queer/gay assimilationist split is a class division within the gay movement It is as much about capitalism as it is about anything else. "The question is what's going to happen as a result?" wondered author Sara Schulman. She continued:

The ideal would be that gay people could take our place in the left that we've never been allowed to have. That would be the best. I would rather be with people who have the same social vision as I do [but] they don't want us. The reason we can't right now be fully integrated into the broad left and be in a position of leadership, is because what gay liberation requires is that straight people see themselves as not neutral, not natural, and not objective. It requires that they be transformed in their self-image. And that's a high order. It is the same barrier that race has faced inside the left. It is about dominant people having to see themselves as subjective and not owning neutrality.

Martin Duberman has written about the same issue. In an essay entitled, "The Divided Left Identity Politics vs. Class," he suggests that instead of considering identity vs. class, the often white, heterosexual left could actually benefit by considering the "emancipatory possibilities" of queer and feminist theory. Among queer and multi cultural theorists, there is a debate about the inadequacy or possible transience of identity labels, such as "gay," "black," or "Latino." If the broader left were paying attention to the lessons of queer activism instead of asking queers to conform to heteronormative prerequisites, they could gain potent allies in the struggle against entrenched class (and race, and gender) hierarchies of privilege. [14]

In Conclusion

There is a way out of the queer/gay assimilationist split. Currently a number of queer activists are borrowing the lessons of Seattle and attempting to create a new queer politics which does not see identity or class based activism as zero sum games. An alliance of queer and labor activists is emerging; the first glimmer was the "Lesbian/Gay Labor Alliance" that formed to defeat the homophobic Briggs initiative in California in 1978. This ongoing development is set out in the excellent book Out at Work: Building a Gay-Labor Alliance, a volume of essays and interviews edited by Kitty Krupat and Patric McCreery, two American Studies graduate students at NYU. Their thesis is simple: "We start from the belief that sexual rights can be pursued most effectively through a radical coalition between labor and GLBT movements." [15] To young people suddenly, personally, aware of their sexual oppression, the alliance of queer and labor activists offers more hope of changing the world, and their lives, for the better than anything on offer from the likes of Andrew Sullivan. A path opens up as a new century arises; a vision of teamsters, turtles, and queers blocking downtown intersections all over the world that should bring both a grin and a tear to such of the queers' homophile predecessors as have survived--who could have imagined?