But even some progressive gay white men say they feel alienated from a movement they see becoming more radical, particularly online, where the tenor of conversation is often uncivil.
Hot take: I'm honestly, vocally sick of settler-gay men who demand that you handle them with kid gloves when their entire existence within the community is an existence blanketed in microaggression at best, when they're not being outright full-on macroaggressive about someone that 'doesn't fit their "preference"'; and I'm genuinely glad people are starting to talk about it.
Hey folks, just want to drop some keywords for folks who want to do more reading - Though it's never directly mentioned (which is weird because this fight is at least fifty years old and has always had two fairly well defined sides and there are libraries of scholarship and zines about it) this is part of the ongoing conflict between Queer Liberation and Queer Assimilation. Searching either term will lead to to scads of text going back decades, literally generations.
Also, it's always worth re-reading the Combahee River Collective statement, which is mostly cited as the point where "intersectionality" as a concept started.
yes exactly this. i just did a lot of research on assimilation and liberationist currents in the queer community for a class very recently. i think i'll compile some of the resources i found and share for those who don't know this history once i get up later.
ok so these sources delve into assimilationist and liberationist history, why the split occurred etc.
Beyond Pink or Blue (Leslie Feinberg Speech) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaRF0Ohb1mg
these journal articles go into more depth and give further historical context to what Leslie is mentioning in hir speech.
Gay Liberation: How a Once Radical Movement Got Married and Settled Down https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/https://www.jstor.org/stable/24718619
Queering the Panthers: Rhetorical Adjacency and Black/Queer Liberation Politics https://files.libcom.org/files/CorriganQueeringthePanthers2019.pdf
The Queer/Gay Assimilationist Split: The Suits vs. the Sluts https://monthlyreview.org/2001/05/01/the-queergay-assimilationist-split/
i also wanna call attention to a book that comrade YearOfTheCommieDesktop shared in this thread. I haven't read the Gentrification of the Mind but it looks like a great read and recommendation that is very relevant to these concepts.
all of these are introductory and US-centric so definitely do more research but I think its important to look and fully understand this history so that you can point out similar sentiments of assimilationist and homonormative rhetoric within queer spaces.
all of these sources are historical but queer liberationists haven't stopped fighting and more often than not, there are anti-assimilationist queer orgs trying to build momentum to re-establish our roots everywhere.