Political Queery.

Written By Bernard Busooa.

Essay structure:

Introduction

Redefining politics

Politicisation

Creating a political forum

Queer Politics

Defining Queer

Queer spaces

Public/ Private dissent

The history of subversion

Queer sexuality in a straight world

The Queer as subversive

Queer sex as subversion

Homophobia

Normalism and subversion

Normalism and Queer liberation

The Uniqueness of Queer oppression

The apology

A true community

Introduction

Why bother? It is a question that is often asked and most people feel that either they clearly know the answer or they just don’t care. Being different is hard enough as it is, why should we bother to be conscious of or even proud of the fact we are different and furthermore try to help those who share our differences? In this essay I have attempted to formulate a satisfactory answer to that age old question: why bother? Basically we as Queers bother because we realise that there is an easy way to win short term and a hard way to win long term. Queer politics is about seeing beyond ourselves and not giving up the struggle as soon as we get what we want, a very challenging task for some.  Its about creating a place where people can beg to differ even if we ourselves don’t like what they are saying in the knowledge that one day, if we ever need to use that space, it will be there for us too. Queer politics is the voice of all Queers. Its your voice as well. Even those Queers who denigrate Queer and who distance themselves from Queer politics in order to play at being more normal stand to gain from the struggle for Queer liberation. It is surely a Utopian ideal but it takes us momentarily away from what we have traditionally looked on as political. Being politically Queer is not about fighting for my rights or your rights, its about fighting for everybody’s rights. Not because we believe that they are means to an end but because we know what its like, as Queers, to be marginalised and we are capable of making a commitment to see to it that that does not happen to anybody else. Queer politics is about taking care of each other. I realise that these ideals may sound high flown and Utopian and not practical in their application. I make no apology for the fact that I am basically asking all Queers to be unselfish. Not only do I feel that Queers are capable of it but also that it is our higher duty as human beings to do so and that if Queers cannot do that for each other then we have no moral standing from which to claim that Non Queers shoud treat us with total dignity, humanity and respect. Political Queery has a long but clouded tradition. We have seen some struggle towards the light and we have also known dark times. Even today all round the world there are calls to go back to the “good old days” when Queer was just not talked about. The hatemongers rally around the call for all of us to “Go back into our closets” that “AIDS cures fags” and that the God that supposedly created us out of love is a justification for such fierce hate. If Queers don’t rally together we are doomed and all Queers lose. We don’t fight for special rights, or recognition, we don’t fight for personal reasons, we don’t do politics as a way to meet people. We fight for the bare right to exist as we are and that is the moral strength of our political cause.

Redifining politics.

A lot of Queers would have problems with the word politics right from the start because it depicts a game with strict but irrelevant rules  played by ethereal archetypes of humanity in suits hurling epithets at each other most of whom wouldn’t have even the foggiest notions of the pain and suffering that their rhetoric can wreak on those of us who actually have to live in this world that they create every day. Unnaccountable politicians heap condemnation on the word politics by turning it into a profession and by making it the work of certain people. Although they have their redeeming moments and there are some standouts, politicians in general do not do half of the work of politics and if we wait for them to change things for us we may well find that when the time comes for change to occur it may be in the wrong direction and then all the wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth in the world is not going to prevent unnaccountable legislators from taking away your rights. A utopian belief in the benevolence of our politicians is a defence mechanism that some of us have developed in order to get on with the task of going about our daily lives without sinking into a pit of despair about just how we are going to achieve liberation. It is hard enough just surviving and eking out some level of personal happiness without worrying about the machinations of these men in positions of power. We believe that no matter who they are or what they believe they are still decent people and that no matter who gets elected into office things won’t work out to be too bad. That’s a great way to neutralise the problem, by being non-political. But in doing so we are giving in to this myth that politics is a game played by someone else. We are also surrendering our power and agency to the status quo and thereby contributing our personal momentum in whatever direction the status quo is moving. So if society is becoming more homophobic and more resentful of a blossoming Queer element then we, by doing nothing, contribute to that tide of opinion. Is it any wonder then that so much of what we consider to be political fills us with such a prevailing sense of frustration at its irrelevance?

That’s where it helps to redefine politics, although clarifying what politics actually means is closer to the truth of what I am attempting to do. Politics is not a game with rules, its not something that was invented in the 20th century and perfected by George W Bush. Politics is a study of the way that each of us as individuals relate to each other person in the world. When it is done in the same way for a long time classes of people or groupings form and their ideas become contained and defined. Given a long enough period of time we look at these associations of ideas with groups as being permanent and eternal and that is when our definition of politics becomes clouded. To conclude that politics is about Liberal and Labor and Greens and Democrats and One Nation is an obvious falsehood. To think that its to do with the Struggle of the Left and the Right over a hundred years is still very much a misconception unless we undertand that politics is about YOU. Its about being who you are. Its about each individual making their own personal comment on the way the world should run. Nobody is given the opporunity to withdraw their political agency even if sometimes it looks that way. In politics there is no such thing as a neutral position everyone supports something and if you don’t know what you support then chances are you support what you think is the neutral position but in fact is only the dominant position. Politics is the art of relating to the world as an individual. It is therefore something that individuals do, not something politicians do even if the politician gets all the credit at the end of the process. Politicians represent groups of people, groups of individuals. You as an individual have to start taking back your political agency and trying to spend it in more worthwhile ways. This involves thought and work and even sacrifice. But the choice is yours.

First of all the idea of politics has a lot more to it than what we often think. Politics can be discussing common issues with other Queers, solving problems within our groups and most of all joining and identifying with the Queer community. These activities are political because if we go back to the basic meaning of the word ‘political’ and dispense with all the groups and institutions that are overtly political we see that the process of negotiation within society between groups of people is the substance of politics. No change in possible without a change in society which is only possible for all Queers if Queers get together. So by getting together to discuss problems and suggesting solutions within our own community we are generating an inherently political energy, an energy for change. By recognising this thing called the Queer community we are recognising the oppression that creates it and so we are being political. This is without focusing on more narrow definitions of the word political, telling people what to believe, think, say or how to act. We all contribute by recognising the political nature of this conference and involving ourselves in the important discussions that define and develop our community and its message of freedom and diversity.

Politics as I have defiined it is not about centralising power but about recognising the power of each individual, its not about rules and formality its about freedom. Politics is about what Queers need now and how we as a group are going to go about getting it. It is also about saying that we will stick together as a group because we recognise the principle that if we all fall apart and go our separate ways and Queer ceases to exist then a part of us, an important part of us, ceases to exist also. We are then at the mercy of any politician who comes into power and decides that there are enough bigot votes out there for it to be popular to go back to the middle ages and start burning us at the stake one by one and if you think that that’s ridiculous then just take a look at the history of the world. It is a history of violence against those without a voice, it is a history of power and domination overcoming even the most basic tenets of human decency. Civilisation will only protect us as long as we are willing to protect each other, it will provide a forum but we must provide the voice and we can only do that by coming together.

Politicisation

The reason I thought to talk about politics today is not because I am a particularly politically minded individual but instead because a lot of being Queer is tied up with being political even if we fail to recognise or openly deny the fact. I am sure that certain sections of our community would love to see Queer activists and Queer issues disappear from the face of the earth, from our TV sets newspapers and University campuses. It would be a whole lot easier to deny the existence of Queers if some of us weren’t so  much in other peoples faces all the time. It would be so much easier for groups like Liberty Christians to spread their message of ignorance and denial and trap hundreds, thousands of Queers into lives of lonely despair. It would be so much easier for Conservative groups to argue whatever they wanted about the Queer community if we were invisible. If we were underground. I we operated like criminals on the margins of society and left everybody alone instead of demanding to be accepted fully as part of the very same society. That is what it means to abandon politics in its broadest sense, it means to abandon society and become asocial or antisocial, because society and our place in it is the very essence of what it means to be political.

Creating a political forum

Without politics what other reason do we have to be here? One very popular answer to that Question is to socialise and meet other Queers. Doubtless everybody who is here right now would consider the ability to interact with other Queers at least as a bonus, if not the overridding reason why we are here. It is argued that politics takes away from our ability to ‘socialise’ and meet and interact with other Queers and to just have fun. I agree with that but I am quick to stress we cannot ignore the reason we are here in the first place. First of all why should we travel interstate to be with other Queers? Queers are everywhere, in numbers. Surely there are others like you where you come from, why not socialise with them? The sad fact is that most Queers are still very much locked in fear. We cannot openly interact in many parts of Australia and so its not just a simple matter of finding Queers you also have to find a ‘space’ where you can be Queer and then overcome your fears about being Queer in a straight world. I know for a fact that Queers do not all dress funny and look different. Some Queers have turned blending in into their own particular art form and we pass them on the streets and remember them from Ceasars but we can’t really say hello because that would ruin the illusion. That is the experience I get all the time at my uni. We only ever seem to come out to play at certain locations which are not conducinve to a comfortable place to meet. Consequently forums like this one are gold for anybody who is just a little tired of ‘the scene’. So whatever purpose you may have in coming here one thing is certain and that is that you came to be with other Queers. Irrespective of what you came here to do with those other Queers, that is the theme of our collective presence.  But why? The reason usually is because there is no such thing as a local Queer forum or space where we can do even a quarter of the things that straight people are allowed to do in public all the time. We are sick of having to pass or of being as Queer as possible without being offensive. That’s true of most people though not all.

Same with information, why come all this way to learn? Because a concentration of Queer minds such as this one is still all to rare in our progressive society. A forum like this one contains ideas about Queer art, culture, history, literature, music and Queer ideas than we would find in our travels back home. We are very lucky to have that independent body of knowledge and that’s despite the efforts of those who would try to have it mainstreamed. The truth is that here among ourselves there is a potential for creativity which normalists cannot have. We share our ideas in this friendly space because, let’s face it, there are few other places where we can talk. We come here to talk to other Queers because we want to, we need to because we live in a straight world. We come here to have fun, to be with people like us, secretly admitting to ourselves that those  straights out there are not entirely like us. Being with Queers is more fun, its more honest and real. You feel validated by the fact that people can take one look at you and not make any instant judgments about what you are. That says something about our mainstream world. The homophobic alternative that most of our Queer brothers and sisters have to live in is a second rate alternative to what we have here. That’s why we come, whether we are willing to admit it or not. As a little bubble in political space where we can realise what awaits us at the end of the struggle, total equality. But if all we do is bask in the freedom that is QC and we don’t work on expanding that freedom out into the world then we have failed in the singular and most fundamental goal of getting Queers together in the first place. If QC ends up being a place where we go on vacation to esacpe the world then it is  the prison and eventually will become the tomb of the Queer essence.

That is not to say that QC is a Utopia. We are afflicted by dissent from without just as much, if not more, that other places in society. I would argue that that is only because when we all come together for the first time in a place that purports to represent us there is an intital meeting of political ideas that breeds a furious and sometimes uncivilised free for all which looks very much like political chaos. Nobody has the patience to sit around and wait for the dust to settle, most of us just abandon politics altogether. Instead of making a focused attempt at solving the political problems within our own community we run away from that community and leave it to those who must then bear the burden of the liberation of everybody else and when they stumble we are quick to point the finger and laugh and say “That’s what you get for being political!”. The sad fact of the matter is that denial eats at our unity and that without unity we have no community and that without community we have no political strength and that without political strength you are on your own. The sin many Queers commit is in forgetting how fickle and dangerous and uncaring the straight world can be, abandoning the Queer community for the straight community is well and good but to the target and criticise the Queer community for trying to be political in your absence is a betrayal of those people who fought to give us the rights we enjoy today.

Queer politics.

Queer politics is an ambiguous phrase. It can either mean politics done by queers or it can mean the politics of being Queer. I think that these two aspects of Queer politics should be separated for the purposes of this discussion. The politics of being Queer involve discussing those important political questions which are unique to the Queer community. It means settling the territorial disputes that seem to be endemic to Queer groups. It means discussing what Queer is, who can be Queer and why? It means sorting out homophobia within our own groups and being resolved to fight homophobia outside of our groups. It means talking about this thing called the Queer community and what it is and what it should be. This is the essence of what Queer centred politics is all about and having it in common as representing our resistance to a repressive society. If we can do that as a group then we stand a good chance of changing things for the better.

The other type of politics, that is politics in Queer groups is also important. It is about challenging and eliminating the barriers between Queers that are imposed from the outside. How can we cohere as a group if our community is still fractured by racism, intolerance, belligerence towards other groups. Remember that Queers are from everywhere. Our community cuts through every barrier that separates the rest of humanity from one another. Consequently, for us to be United as a group we have to be tolerant of each other as well. The Queer community cannot have the temerity to argue that we deserve moral treatment while advocating other forms of  immoral treatment against other groups and the Queers that inevitably will be found therein. I would never be a part in such blatant hypocrisy. Having said that though I want to emphasise that other forms of politics are important in the long run but only after we have discussed what is Queer.  It is a fine line to walk between the moderate line of  “Queer first-Queer only” and the extremified notion that Queer politics is nothing more than a general fight for freedom with peripheral application to the struggle of those who don’t identify as heterosexual. My own view of the matter (and I encourage you to form your own if you haven’t already) is that Queer politics is unique and special and should be preserved as a legitimate discourse in and of itself but that it should also serve as the starting point for a broader discussion about how people in general should be treated and how to combat oppression in all its forms. 

Defining Queer?

I have been somewhat disheartened to learn that certain sections of Queer society have nothing but contempt for a definition of Queer on account of the fact that all definitions of the word are inherently flawed. This state of things has come about because of the rather accidental history of the word ‘define’ which means among other things ‘(1) to set the external bourndaries for’ . To define is to limit a group from a larger group, to draw exclusionary borders around a selection of objects. So from the very start we see that a traditional definition would indeed be a flawed way of articulating Queer if we were going to use it as the final arbiter of what is and isn’t Queer. The nature of the Queer community is inclusive rather than exclusive. However if we resolve to use definitions as a starting point to a discussion about what is (and what isn’t) Queer I think we stand to gain a lot more than we lose if we are all open minded about it and tolerant. A definition is a hindrance if it is authoritative and/or final and/or exclusive but the actual form of a definition is not the problem. In fact what seems to have ensued in the Queer community is a false sense of security that since we are no longer defining Queer that we will no longer have problems with exclusion or fights about what is and what isn’t Queer. In fact nothing could be further from the truth. Not only has an unwillingness to talk about what Queer is led to some people attributing no meaning at all to the word or of deliberately seek to blur its meaning in order to achieve some form of post modernist purity but there are also downright agressive attempts to ‘enforce’ what Queer is even without an authoritative definition to act as guide. The only thing that has been destroyed is the concept of common meaning and the honestly constructed definition. So the problems that getting rid of definitions tried to solve are still there only now they are disguised as other things. If the word Queer has no meaning then what are we doing here together? If every single person on earth is Queer then why are Queers still bashed and raped and murdered for being Queer? If Queer means something different to each of us then why are there no plenaries being held about Surfing styles or Moose farming or canoe building?  Despite not limiting Queer we all carry around a fairly stable concept of what it means to be Queer and mostly we share that with other Queers. However we are afraid to disclose this definition because it would inevitably mean limiting it and keeping some deserving Queers out of the equation. What I would like to see happen is for a working definition of the word Queer to emerge that would always be up for review, always negotiable but which would guide our thoughts and would allow us to get brief and fleeting glimpses of the very essence of Queer. We will never truly define Queer because the concept eludes definition by definition but it is an interesting excercise in sharing our thoughts and understanding where we are all coming from. Furthermore I believe it will help us to build a coherent community.   

In this essay I have used my own definition of Queer which goes as follows :

A Queer is a person who identifies as non-heterosexual or who would identify as non-heterosexual if coercive pressures were removed AND who rejects heteronormativity in a significant number of its forms.

I hasten to emphasise that this definition is not the final, comprehensive or authoritative definition of Queer and that I implore you to make your own contributions and modifications  to it as you see fit. The discussion has begun and I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

I also emphasise that the definition of Queer is a matter of being different from the prescribed norm and of resisting that normality by your own actions and by compulsion. This leads on to what I have to say later about the role of the Queer as a subverive and as a radical and so it is a tailor made definition for this essay. I hope that it is recognised as such and kept in its context for the sake of further discussion.

Zoning the Queer  (a question of boundaries)

The issue of how to zone Queer spaces is still in contention within our community. Some people believe that Queers should be fully integrated into society at every chance we get and that through assimilation we will get all the protection we need from our mixed friends, relatives and neighbours. Other voices believe that Queer needs its own ‘autonomous’ space which exists quite apart from straight society and culture where we can just be ourselves in protection and safety. Both the polemics have generated numerous variations and all are worth exploring though I will not do so here. My own view on the matter is that integration is the final end and therefore should be undertaken as far as possible, but only as a process of free and conscious choice by the Queer. The problem traditionally is that when we think of society, every Queer thinks of their own experiences with society and therefore we all have a different idea of what it is. For some Queers straight society is a warm, caring, familial and benevolent environment where nothing is missing, infinitely preferable to anything that a Queer space can provide. For others straight society is a harsh, uncaring even hostile place where we are unrelentingly exposed to resistance for being who we are, for these people a Queer space is a welcome refuge from the daily struggle of being Queer. Presumably most of us lie somewhere in between. Those indivuduals who are already integrated into society should thank their lucky stars that they have had such wonderful opportunity. Still my concern lies with those Queers who need a place to just be Queer. If done properly the Queer space is a place where people come to regroup rather than to retreat. It is an active political space where Queers can discuss how best to engage with straight society in a protective environment where even the most apprehensive among us would be willing to have some sort of say.

While its true that in the end Queer liberation will only be achieved with the active co-operation of straight people. That is no reason for thinking that straight people will proactively legitimate Queers without some action on our part. Rather the final end will be the destruction of the arbitrary distinction between straight and Queer such that it becomes silly to describe some people as one and some as the other. With this end in mind it seems rather silly to actively promote ‘Queer only’ spaces and the idea of integration seems to be a far more conducive scheme. However the strangely paradoxical proposition that by drawing borders around what constitutes Queer we are in fact drawing closer to the day when Queer will be successfully integrated holds more merit upon closer consideration. By defining what is Queer, the Queer community empowers itself and becomes a partner in the negotiation. By relying on normal perceptions or mainstream perception which are dominant and therefore very influential we isolate parts of the Queer community anew. Surely protectionism is the lesser of  the two evils. Given that we are an oppressed group and that we are a minority, the last thing that the Queer community wants to do is to leave bits and pieces of itself behind in a rush to join normality. First a discussion has to occur about just what Queer is and then as a Queer community we have to actively participate in liberating all members of the Queer community.

The problem that arises when we take the individualist approach is that dominant voices are always privileged so certain sections of the Queer community use the entire group as a political springboard to further their own ends. Those such individuals are better off intergrating, right now, and therefore do not mind if society still bears animosity towards other parts of the Queer community. This is counterproductive as what needs to occur is for Queers to identify with other Queers as a community rather than identifying as members of society who happen to like exotic sex and indulge that desire by coming to forums such as this one. This means both defining Queer in the sense that we ask something of Queers in order to generate the necessary energy to create a community and also that we identify with Queer. This is the proess of zoning that was referred to above.

If the challenge of finding a Queer voice is the paramount consideration of our groups then those who are committed to generating new insights are going to have to have a space in which to do that that is free from normalising voices. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with normalism per se, but since Queers today still have very little hope of achieving normal status there seems hardly any point in surrendering what individuality we have in order to achieve a diluted form of it. This means putting people together who are serious about challenging heteronormativity in a space which does not carry any of the dominant influential discourses that we have tried to escape from in the first place. By my definition all such people are Queer and therefore those spaces would be entirely closed Queer spaces.

The idea that Queers should trust fully to our straight counterparts tends, in my humble opinion, to be rather incomplete as a political position since it does not deal with all of Queer oppression. Coming out is important to all of us but there are those who either cannot do it for fear or being hurt or who do it and then are thrown out of home or lose their support networks. For such people integration is a long way into the future and what needs to be done for the bulk of such people is (1) to provide a spaces where they can be safe and (2) to negotiate with society on their behalf.  Lobbying can be done by both straight and Queer people. But providing the reason why we are lobbying is always left to Queers (those who challenge heteronormativity). If someone identifies as ‘straight’ then for reasons of cognitive consistency they must be taken as a member of the ‘straight’ community which is not entirely pro-queer. Therefore straight identifying persons should be allowed to get involved but certain discourses should be kept safe from straight identifying persons who are not out to challenge heteronormativity in an active sense because what Queers say to one another needs to have the highest priority in our groups. If we are getting together to cater to those who are already out then integration may be our top priority, but if the Queer community exists to protect all Queers, including those who may still be in fear, then some degree of confidentiality is a necessity and perhaps a closed Queer space in this sense is not an entirely bad thing. People join Queer forums and groups for all sorts of reasons, some of the reasons are trivial some of them are genuine. Some want to help out and some want to help themselves. This raises problems when the Queer community has to discuss serious issues how it is to divide between those who are serious and those who are not. I think that the best way of doing this is by closing off those individuals who identify as Queer (and therefore are serious about challenging heteronormativity) from those who do not.

I hasten to add before I am labelled as being a hetero-phobe that I believe there should be spaces where Queers and straights interact and that that should be part of the work done by our community. But the crux of my argument is that ideas should be generated in closed spaces and shared in open ones. It takes Queers to discover the uniquely Queer perspective that we are looking for and it takes straights to share in it with us to make it a reality. Ultimately the enterprise is one undertaken by the whole human species but it must start Queer.

Restrictions on Queer knowledge

Being Queer is not just about having sex or being sexual but that is arguably the starting point for any discussion of what Queer is. The way our sexual practices and sexual beings are viewed is at the heart of our oppression and therefore at the heart of what makes us Queer. Sex, Gender information and sexuality are things which predate formal ways of learning and which in any case go beyond that which we formally learn into the realm of common experience. Knowledge of sex, sexuality and gender may not be correct but it is widely disseminated through society via informal mechanisms which are only just being acknowledged as powerful social media. People have sex, and often, but it isn’t often discussed in any great detail in public. When information is needed, it is gathered ad hoc from a multiplicity of sources including the media and society and culture in general. A coherent (if not always an accurate) picture is assembled of what is acceptable and what is not based on experience and inference from observation of parents and peers. Queer people are disadvantaged because the general populace does not provide as much information about Queer sex as it does about straight sex. This pushes Queers to look to more formal ways of finding information. When social attitudes towards an emerging sexuality are negative it is often difficult to bring the subject up at all and so young Queers tend to be rather more secretive about the topic than young straights. As a result of the dearth of information a Queer needs to talk about sex and sexuality more than a straight person because everywhere we look there is less information than what a straight person has. However where can a Queer go to talk about the crucial issue of sexuality? Is all sex the same? Obviously dicussion and research is good at providing the bare bones of what sexual experience is but the element that can elude the curious Queer is the partiular idiosyncratic knowledge which is gleaned from informal means like stories, shared experiences and even jokes which are shared over periods by straight and Queer people alike.

There is also the issue of how much straight company is willling to take of our babbling about our experiences. Insofar as those experiences are shared there is usually no problem however this arguably exerts a pressure on Queers to make their sexual experiences consonant with what straight company would prefer to hear. It also means that those Queers whose experiences are not consonant may need somewhere else to go to find the support they need.  Many straight people are of the view that its alright to be Queer ‘as long as you don’t shove it in my face’ which basically can be translated to ‘I don’t mind what you do under the covers just so long as I am not asked to do anything apart from joke and laugh with you about it.’ Without doubt there are some genuinely friendly and caring straights out there, matching in patience and empathy even the most decorated counsellor or psychologist, hopefully most of us would know at least one straight person like that. But the trap is when we think that most or all straights are going to be like that. Many straights, even those who have nothing against Queers have a line somewhere that cannot be crossed and this line is there to protect them from having to delve too deeply into our true problems. This is not a manisfestation of homophobia, that line is there for everyone equally. The problem is that straight people can empathise more closely with straight experiences (especially over time) and so the line is drawn further back closer to the psyche whereas with Queer the line defines that region which contains everything jovial, humorous and outrageous about being Queer but tends to ignore that which is problematic, depressing and even threatening about the Queer lifestyle. True sexuality is therefore alluded to but not talked about, unless it is done at arms length and with a medical dictionary handy. Queer sexuality cannot be prescribed. It is experimental and therefore it is a grand taboo. Although Queers feel quite comfortable alluding to sexuality we find it hard to actually talk about it and this is because of the difficulties that are imposed upon us by the outside world. It is difficult enough to deal with the issues raised by sexual practice even at the best of times but when Queers do it then it can be problematic.

I am not making a gross generalisation in saying this because I realise that there are plenty of felicitous exceptions to the idea that I have just laid out and without going into any sexual particulars it is hard to clarify exactly what I am referring to. But since it is clear that ‘bare sex’ or the act of getting physical with yourself or another person is something which some people are uncomfortable with all the time, which most are uncomfortable with some of the time and which a majority of people are uncomfortable talking about with Queers for reasons of not really knowing how to handle it for lack of behavioural guidelines it is a fair thing to assume that most straight and Queer people are going to have trouble exploring the rocky terrain of Queer sexuality in an informal but informative manner. This means Queers may need to talk about sex, sexuality and gender and not be able to do it properly, with full disclosure. This is a problem for our community because what it leads to is a gross simplification of what sex, sexuality and gender means for the average Queer. In order to cope with lack of information some Queers may end up with a limited view of what these things are based on what little information is available and the fact that most of that available information is based on what straight people say is part of the reason why our community is still so baffled by what Queer sex, sexuality and gender issues actually mean. This leaves the door wide open for a community which is heavily reliant on what experts and authority figures have to say (which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on which authority figures you actually listen to). But in any event private knowledge is still a very hard thing to come by especially to those Queers who are isolated and marginalised by geographic, cultural and economic constraints.

Queer sexuality in a straight world.

It would obviously be difficult to make any sort of assessment about the relationship between straight sexuality and Queer sexuality because of the complex interactions between them. However it can be said overall that the relationship between straight sexuality and Queer sexuality is predominantly that of the normal facing the abnormal, the regulated beholding the chaotic, the controlled realising the free.

We begin in the family during childhood, the period and place where most Queers have their first truly distonic encounter with themselves. Very few familes bring Queerness to a child preemptively. It is not customary to deal with Queerness until it surfaces, normality is the rule and Queerness the exception. Some Queers, born with external signs of the Queerness, are treated as if they are ill and have arbitrary decisions made for them about such important facets of life as genital sex and gender. In this case Queerness is still an anomaly that must be cured. The average family does not make room for a Queer until it has to. In this childhood phase the Queer is left alone to discover what they are and consequently many queers take to the disturbing habit of reading lots more than their peers. Every Queer is a pocket expert in some related area of reserach. We are born into a world that doesn’t quite fit and this has an impact on the Queer who chooses to accept the responsibility that it brings. Queer childhood is still predominantly a sad and scary time for many if not most of us, but its a time that can be mined for precious experiences if we look back on the innocence of our confusion to our attempts to reconcile ourselves with the world. 

Society then provides our next encounter with endemic heteronormativity. Our social encounters are even more varied than our childhood encounters but most if not all Queers experience homophobia in one form or another throughout life. Because one is more likely to experience homophobia in rural settings there is a pressure for all Queers to become urban and of those who can, most do. There is also pressure to conform to the preexisting culture of the Gay and Lesbian community which is preponderantly European. This is a contentious issue among those who quite naievely believe that all Queers are treated equally on Oxford Street but a simple examination of the imagery and behaviours of people will show that the Queer experience is heavily centralised around a European archtype. Comments like that will get me labelled a racist because of the implications of my indictment of Queer culture but it isn’t so much a race based oppression as a total assimilation of our common culture by prominent stereotypes. Queers who are not European have more trouble ‘coming out’ because the coming out message does not take into account variations based on multi-cultural differences. Those who fit the standard model of a family are more catered for than those who diverge. Society therefore seems willing to allow Queers a very short tether as far as diversity is concerned. We are allowed to be Queer but only under certain conditions and only if we realise that that does not give us any permission to start inventing ourselves or being in any way politically or socially creative. To create, strangely enough, is to subvert. To offer alternative views is to challenge the existing way of thinking. So those Queers who are happy with the status quo must accept it fully. Thereby closing their eyes to the suffering of the Queer community and to its needs. Some Queers try to build lives around a straight model with varying degrees of success. If one is willing to isolate oneself from the Queer community that is always a bonus. The great victory that Queers suppsosedly have already won still has us living in certain places, does not allow us to raise families, does not give legal recognition to our relationships and does not buy anyone a ticket into the insular world of normality for very long because normality ultimately equates with perfection and none of us is that. When the time comes and we are forced to define ourselves, what are  we do? Where do we look?

The media and consumerism are two outlets that seem to have an almost limitless capacity to entice the allegiance of the existentially displaced Queer. I am not critical of the intentions of the whole commodification of Queer culture but irrespective of your political position everyone has to acknowledge that Queer commercialism is now very much a reality. Gay men are sold on a lifestyle that has become a brand in itself. We are young, fit, healthy, beautiful, we are the fantasy of every straight women and the envy of every straight man, presumably we all have very large... bank accounts, our city apartments are immaculate and well decorated, we are fashion fiends, always well dressed, we are always in control, our lives are a sexual playground that has been engineered to perfection with just enough creative work to break the monotony of endless parties and clubbing, we are always in control, we are all educated, white collar citizens with good jobs and DINK lifestyles that provide us with lots of disposable income, we are completely at ease with ourselves, we want nothing to change, we are obssessed with physical beauty and youth, modern popular culture is our religion, self-improvement our favorite hobby, in short we have every reason to be...gay. This is what we are supposed to aspire to , that’s what straight people secretly expect from us (particularly those sections of the straight community that don’t actually know any Gay men). This is the image that Fred Phelps and other clerics of hate feed into their flock, they fear that this is what we are and their envy is our curse. This is the lifestyle we are sold when we enter the gay community. This is the predominant image when people think of Gay men.

Is there anything wrong with this image? Yes! The image itself is wrong. It gets more and more wrong as we get older or if we suffer from illness, if we are poor or mentally ill or otherwise oppressed. It is a race dominated model of sexuality and many non European people still think that the Queer phenomenon is a European phenomenon. So we all aspire to be as perfect as possible, to live up to this image of Queer as archetypal sexual entity. It becomes a very Darwinian process of selection and more and more Queers fall by the wayside until finally those that are left in so-called normality are those very archtypes we described (or at least the most approximate thing humanly possible). Those that have fallen leave the Queer community because their oppressions are supposedly foreign to us and now they are beyond our help. We are still busy piling all of our hard-earned rescources into being the best person we can be and so we cannot help them at all. We suppose that if we as Queers are too hard pressed to help other Queers then perhaps the straight community will chip in instead. The absurdity of that kind of mentality grossly belies its popularity.

However as this aspiration slowly reveals itself as the deceit that it is and we realise that we aren’t perfect we begin to insist that we shouldn’t have to be. Queer is the realisation that as long as Straight is allowed to define Queer, the image will be wrong. Whether it is the image of a caricatured behavioural deviant who adopts some form of pose as an anti-straight protest, or the bitter sexist who hates the opposite sex but wants to be them, the gay misogynist who can’t get his hands off straight men, the godless materialist product worshipping power queer, the confused but fundamentally decent experimentalist who needs to be shown the path back to righteousness. Whatever the hackneyed stereotype that is applied whether it is applied in kindness or in malice or a mixture of both it is not nearly as good as the sorts of images that we can create for ourselves as a community. I mean, isn’t that the whole reason we came out in the first place, to be ourselves. Not to be categorised according to some arbitrary model. It does not really matter if the model is a pathological medical model of the homosexual brain disease or genetic condition or a legal criminal model of the pervert/invert nonconformist or a psychological/mental illness model of the father longing displaced desire complex. They are all false images and they teach us to be something we are not. I hope by now I have managed to stress the importance of Queer generated images and texts, guarded and shared within a Queer community and not a straight managed profit motivated environment where everything is shamelessly mainstreamed.

Political Normalism

We all aspire to some level of normality. The normalist Queer is someone who does this so fervently that it becomes a state of denial. Normality is a defence mechanism with which we disarm the sometimes harsh retaliations that often follow perceived deviance from normal behaviour. Young Queers in particular find that they have to play this strange adult game called being normal or distress is caused all around. We also realise that we are not entirely normal. That being Queer is about being special, unique, coming without an instruction manual. We are forced to invent ourselves. If we dodge that responsibility we must look to the gleaming edifice of normality as our only guide to self development. If we accept that responsibility we must dispense with guides altogether and go about defining Queer through us. Those that seek normality enter a world built by non-queers for non-queers. Its a world that works well for the most part. We sort of infer our place on the margins of straight life and as long as we don’t ask for too much we are left alone to do what we do well. Interactions are frequent between certain parts of the straight community and Queers in certain places and at certain times. In fact for the most part the Queer is seen as somewhat of a novelty, a friendly freak who feeds the normal persons desperate and insatiable desire to be different without being too different. As long as we behave ourselves we are an exotic straight fetish, good for entertainment value. We explain that we are ‘just like everyone else’ and that ‘we are the boy or girl next door’. Or maybe we are just defective straights, you know one hormone too many, one misplaced chromosome out of the dozen, faulty circumcision that sort of thing. This is the essence of what it means to try to accept an inferior version of normality. It means either avoiding real society or  ignoring what we see. It means cutting ourselves off from certain sections of the Queer community instead of facing negative emotions and reactions. It means not being able to share in anybody else’s pain because it hurts too much. It means having only enough in life to look after yourself.

Queer spaces

This brings us to the topic of Queer spaces or a ‘third place’ where we can be ourselves.  Most public Queer spaces are still very much dominated by heteronormative values. We go there to spend money and be with other Queers in a highly artificialised environment where the actual problems of the Queer community are purposefully drawn out of view so we can celebrate. Our interactions are very fabricated even at the best of times, and encumbered by an inability to break away from pre-established customs or patterns of behaviour. We carry on like this because we are still perpetually frightened of not being normal or of taking any degree of autonomy over how we live our lives. This may not be entirely true of you in particular, I do not claim to be an omniscient person and my observation bears the mark of a generalisation especially when directed at a predominantly educated audience. But I would argue that if we look, really look at the Queer community in all of its aspects we will see a group of people looking around desperately for some guidelines as to how to behave and be. For the most part it is not the Queer community that develops its culture and its idiosyncracies, they are put there by external forces governed by heteronormative agents like the media and society. So the scene continues to thrive but other aspects of Queer life are swept under the rug, in particular social behaviour and celebration have replaced thought and discussion. Queers are not expected to discuss because discussion about our problems within our community is a threat to the external status quo. If all Queers are busy spending all their money on alchohol, glitter, make up and drugs then we are doing exactly the most we can to contribute to our own oppression. To talk in a civilised manner about who we are and what we can do to end our oppression is to take a first step towards solving those problems.

Those Queers who are lucky enough to have a home of their own do not escape the rift created between external practice and true Queer behaviour. We have to watch what is said and what is believed because in order not to get political we have to ignore or deny or trivialise our own problems and those of our peers. Our culture has to become exclusive in order to maintain the belief that everything is OK. The atmosphere of frenetic celebration is only possible so long as we can control what is contributed and we can only do that when we know who is going to be around. We have to be careful who to invite and what they say. While I don’t think that any Queer environment is as yet so obviously discrepant I would argue that that is the direction in which we are headed if we do not watch ourselves and do something while we still can. Do we want to end up being so politically paranoid that we worry what sort of Queer we invite into our life for fear that their subcultural discrepancies will pose a threat to the carefully nurtured apolitical atmosphere of the group setting. It is a lot easier to fabricate a pattern of behaviour which is heavily influenced by TV and the media, a view many of us embrace because it offers protection to those who would like more than anything else to be viewed as normal. Its like a badge of honour that says ‘Look! I am just like you” and at the same time, it is closely guarded clique which puts pressure on those who are different and closely resembles the mechanisms of control that are imposed upon us by society.

It so easy to be Queer and average, to have a steady and well-paying job, a nice comfortable house, plenty of like-minded friends, but such epitomes of normality are very few and far between. I have met a few myself and all in all they are very nice people, but they tend to avoid mainstream Queer culture because its so ‘self-destructive’.  Mixed in with our obsession with being normal (which if you go by the straight definition we can never quite do) is all the detritus that comes with our abnormal status. The more we try to conform, the more of us will fall by the wayside. Poor, mentally ill, addicted to drugs, abused, homeless, assaulted, forced into prostitution, driven to crime, subject to violence even murdered for being who we are, our community bears the scars of our multiple infractions with heterosexual supremacy. Still we try to conform to the ‘good kind of life’ believing that if we do everything else right it won’t matter that we’re Queer. But it does matter that we are Queer in a million small ways every day. Some of us feel it more than others and still our community suffers, more so for being divided against itself. Still our common spaces are very much hiding places and shelters or temples to escapism through consumption. We consume to escape, we seek escape because our world, the Queer world, is still very much a place of great suffering and even if the suffering may not be your own, you see it and it affects you. What happens to those close to us affects us deeply and in this manner all Queers are connected together so that the suffering of one spills out and poisons the rest of the Queer community. This is why the most successful escape artists of all have managed to escape from the whole Queer scene altogether, creating little enclaves of safety that are heavily guarded against all encroachment.

Unfortunately not all Queers have that option either. The rest of us can either aspire to it or perhaps get together with other Queers and start working on how to change the way things are so that our communites become independent of everything except a fundamental commitment to the Queer community. By that I mean an independent Queer voice. One that does not belong to big business or even to the government, but to the Queer community itself. This is why we have forums such as this one, in order to develop and refine that Queer voice. I think we all acknowledge how wonderful it is to actually come here and share not just politics but ideas of all kinds and experiences and to meet other Queers. Its a wonderful way to get in touch with what is truly Queer and to understand that nothing so petty as money can even begin to put a value on the freedom of our individuality if only we could begin to fathom it for ourselves. Not all Queers are capable of this because we are so constantly bombarded with heteronormative images and ideas that they become a part of our subconscious mechanism for understanding the world and until we come to a place like this or a few other very liberating forums around the country we tend to think of being Queer as what we see on television and in the movies.

Public / Private dissent

The Queer rebellion is a private one. Its a rebellion that takes place in our hearts and minds when we realise that although it hurts to be different (and to do so without compromise) it hurts even more to lose yourself. The Queer imperative is not negotiable, it compels us to advocate individuality and a change in informal but pervasive mechanisms of social control. It is a call to live our entire lives as Queer instead of just relegating Queer to between 8pm and 5am on Friday and Saturday nights. However, in a time where the distinction between what is private and undisclosed and what is public and scrutinised , impacts directly upon Queers, we have gained a number of significant victories in the public sphere with the decriminalisation of homosexuality (over 18 of course) and have won many battles in trying to educate Queers and bring our causes ‘out there’. Some of our most successful advocates have been vocal activists, who choose an intensely public mode of political expression. This has led a number of forces to argue that since all of these victories are being publicly won, the battle for equality and recognition is almost over if it hasn’t already been won. However if we take a closer look and burrow down into the private sphere we see an entirely different picture that is both scary and disturbing. Queer suffering is made private, is not discussed and is therefore not part of the suffering of the world. Queer suffering is the suffering of a person who has made a choice in life and now must live with the consequences of that choice. If you want to enter this so called Queer community and happily accept the deviance of your behaviour then straights should not be roped into helping you out if things go wrong. A lot of Queers feel the pressure not to admit that entering the Queer community comes with difficulties, most would like to tell all their straight friends and family what a wonderful thing it is to be queer. Nobody wants to paint a picture of sadness and vulnerability and so we all try to couch those negative feelings and keep them private. Queers suffer in private and we rejoice in public so the straight community thinks we’re fine. Those who cannot totally immerse themselves in escapist scene culture or those who are the most isolated from it suffer the most from this mentality that Queers are all happy all the time.  Queer Teenagers especially commit suicide all the time. Private suffering manifests itself in the so-called peripheral oppresions. The multiple disadvantages that are not given legitimacy because they belong to those who are oppressed, they are not real suffering, not clean suffering. The stigma marks the distinction between how we are allowed to suffer and how we really do suffer. But if you look at the whole picture at once it is very hard to stay between the lines. Nobody will help you because obviously your choice of lifestyle is your own.  

The true path out of this nightmare lies in abolishing the great lie that has arisen within the Queer community that being Queer has to be better than being straight for all Queers at all times or the opposite is true and it has to be worse. The truth is that being Queer is so rich and diverse a set of experiences that sometimes it has its moments of great joy and sometimes great sadness like any other lifestyle. The problem is that some Queer focus so heavily on the moments and images that we lose sight of the problems that afflict our community and the ability to talk through them to a point of reaching an agreed solution. At some point many Queers lost the joy and replaced it with a senseless euphoria which is a great shame. Getting back to the reality of the Queer experience means not explaining it away in terms of unfelt sublime encounters with a divine being when that isn’t how we truly feel. Its not about equating lesser happiness with total happiness and its not about the blind pursuit of the trappings of happiness at the expense of its substance. It is about making Queers comfortable and happy with their sexualities in a safe, quiet environment where talking can occur and then letting all Queers go out and find their own happiness. Queers deserve total happiness and we can only get it by facing and fixing the problems within our community.

The Queer escapist is the person who seeks happiness in its most potent material form and loses the inner significance of what it means to be humanly happy. This person has had an inordinate impact on the way that all Queers persue their happiness. If we look at what Queer happiness means we see quite clearly that in large sections of the Queer community happiness is linked with material extremity of one form or another. Multiple sexual partners, money and consumption, alchohol and drugs in increasing doses,  noise and energy and euphoria. But there is a rival idea which says that Queerness is so overwhelmingly spectacular in and of itself that Queer happiness can be redefined as the pleasure of not being limited by traditional behavioural patterns in an environment of understanding, safety and trust. Being free to explore what it means to be Queer is a ticket to venture out of the delineated straight space and walk into an unknown territory which is undefined. Queer is the beginning of a long journey towards freedom, if we are willing to regard it as such. If all of this sounds a little bit herbal and vague then I have succeeded in my intention. Happiness was never meant to be pinned down anyway, and what I am trying to allude to is something which cannot fully be described, especially not in an essay. It ties in with our spirituality. But I truly believe that such is the potential of getting in touch with what it truly means to be Queer. The sort of freedom that I allude to certainly defeats the need to escape.

The history of subversion.

Not only is Queer sex rebellious by its nature but it is also very subversive. I want to look at the role of political subversion and at some of the subverts of history in order to show that we have a lot in common with groups of people throughout history that have shared our position of oppression very closely. Queer oppression is an oppression of someone because they challenge a long held belief about society and in particular they reveal and therefore challenge the insidious ways that society and in particular those in power within society control the rest of the population. We share this position with a distinguished list of groups including witches during the middle ages (and those innocently accused of witchcraft), scientists who challenged the teachings of the church and early Christians who challenged Roman theology. The interesting thing about those particular groups was that they challenged the status quo and therefore posed a threat to the mechanisms of control that had establised power. It is this oppression through persecution that all true Queers share by posing a threat to the status quo. Typically a person accused of witchcraft was at best merely a nonconformist and at worst someone who just had the wrong people for enemies. Mostly they were women, because a female nonconformist was so much more of a threat than a male one because of the double treason of being a nonconformist threat and a free thinking woman. Queers today are still fiercely persecuted in many parts of the world in ways that closely resemble the old style witch burnings of the middle ages because our threat is very similar. Our lives exemplify a rebellion from regimes of control of the mind through control of the behaviour of citizens. The behaviour itself is of no consequence. In ancient Rome people were killed for receiving Communion or holding a Christian mass whereas today Queers are refused mass and persecuted by the very Church that has known what its like to be subversive in the past. What counts as subversion is the act of refusal to conform to a prescribed form of behaviour and this is what Queers do that frightens the daylights out of normal people.

Because we don’t do what we are told we set a bad example and so we are a threat to those who profit from the domestication of the masses.  We don’t neccesarily have to be, just like Christians don’t necessarily have to be subversive either. In fact when it is shown that we are out in sufficient numbers and that we are not going to go away we will lose our status as subverts and be accepted back into the community.  But the only way to do that is to be vocal, to be united and to be persistent about what we want and to not settle for anything less than everything. The concessions that society has made to the Queer movement so far demonstrate that a highly conformist society is quite willing to make concessions to vocal advocates of change just so long as at some point we shut up and get on with pretending to be this thing called normal. The tension that exists within the Queer community at this point is a matter of how far we are willing to go as a group before we stop being subversive and start being normal again. It is a power that allows Queers to decide what is normal and what is not as long as we stick together. It fits us into a grand tradition of people who in the past have shaped the present and gives us a chance in the present to shape the future.

The Queer as subversive.

Being Queer is simply about doing things which fall outside the prescribed bell curve of human behaviour. So immediately the Queer person is placed in a position where what seems to us to be internally real is in conflict with what we are told is real by authority. Authority has methods of dealing with Queer behaviour and traditionally they have involved trying to kill it with drugs or therapy or prison or even capital punishment. But Queer individuals are motivated by an internal reality that seems to transcend external authority figures and there are examples of Queer behaviour (not neccesarily homosexual acts) that have incurred the wrath of society way back since the time of Moses and earlier. So often the world does not fit comfortably around the Queer, we are given a place and it seems that we are not willing to occupy that place. We search for a fuller expression of our humanity and it is not to be found in the status quo. Wherever we go and whoever we may be we are allowed to seek what all humans ultimately want but we can’t really get it in a heteronormative world where everything is built for a straight lifestyle. So from the very beginning the Queer occupies a place in society that is both outside and inside. We know what it feels like to be a functional part of society and then we know simultaneously what it feels like to face being outcast from that very society because what we are is foreign to the traditions that we have been taught. This is the fundamental discrepancy and I realise that it does not apply equally to all families and all Queers. Some Queers have a lot less trouble with expressing themselves for who they are at home than others do. Some Queers seem to face no problem at all. But all Queers eventually meet the resistance that is still endemic within our society, even those who insulate themselves in Queer ghettos cannot completely fortify themselves from the occassional incursions of hatred and ignorance into even our most protected territories. Most Queers face resistance for being who they are, for some it comes as transient parental concern and takes the form of pleading or sober advice, for others its insistent parental resistence and it comes as dismissal and discipline, for others it is rejection, violence or abuse. Rest assured we face it because we challenge the beliefs of the people we love and cherish and wish to please more than anyone else in the world. We disappoint them and anger them because secretly they know what we sometimes fear to acknowledge, that we are not fully accepted anywhere and that to choose to be Queer still means choosing to be something slightly less than what a human being is supposed to be. Is this a political position? In the sense that we as individuals have to negotiate our living space, have to take our concepts of ourselves into our own hands it most definitely is.

The Queer therefore occupies a place that has been occupied in the past by a whole host of people with whom we share nothing more than the fact that we have faced persecution as a group because of what we are. The subversive in this sense has no choice but to argue for life or give up and accept control or alternatively to die. Not only does this place the Queer in a position of choice, having to decide whether we are willing to go forward as a group or to stick to the relative safety of being invisible and alone but it also places the Queer in a place that makes us more subversive than many of us would ideally like to be simply by virtue of what we must do in order to get what we want. The subversive person opposes tradition and established power, the subversive person is a force of change. Society fears people who are called subversive and so do many Queers. The fact is that subversion only means being different and arguing that you have a right to exist. Those who believe that we have to be antagonistic or extreme or even violent in order to be subversive have missed the point that i am trying to put across. In order to be subversive you anly really have to be yourself. If we are Queer and there are those that do not like what we stand for by virtue of who we are, then simply by existing we are making a political statement. This might cause some discomfort and anxiety but what I am talking about is not childs play. There are people out there who want nothing less than to see all Queers vanish from the face of the Earth. It is not for us to ask why they think that way. But merely to realise that being ourselves puts us in danger for our safety and our lives unless we act, even if we have no reason to act on behalf of ourselves then to act on behalf of others. In other words to fight homophobia now while we are in a position of relative strength or to wait until it grows and gathers strength and then to fight it later. This is the dilemma.

Being Queer creates a discrepancy between what we are and what others perceive us to be. The fact of this split between what’s expected and what is real creates a rift within us that we then must negotiate. The Queer moves to redress this either by changing in order to fit in as well as possible or tries to change society to be more accomodating. Herein lies the division between the political queer and the non political queer. The political Queer believes the world is wrong and the world is changeable. The non-political queer takes the low road, the easy option, of changing to fit the world. Fortunately for this fellow it is a lot easier today to conform that it was fifty years ago. Today there are places that a queer can go to be with other queers in relative safety. For a lot of Queers that is fine and so they remain non political. The problem is that the initial discrepancy has not changed we have just given up a part of ourselves to be more streamlined. We are still a square peg only now we are with a whole lot of other square pegs and so its not quite as noticeable. The normalist works and makes money and builds a nice cosy comfortable life based on perceptions external to the Queer community that are projected onto it by forces like ‘the media’, ‘society’ and ‘the law’. These forces decide what we can and should do, how we conduct our relationships even down to how we are supposed to dress and decorate our homes. Queers have few role models even at the best of times and so it seems like a perfectly feasible option to take our hints from society at large. That is all well and good but two conditions have to be met first. There has to be an independent Queer community that is able to access what Queer people need and want and provide Queers with a voice and secondly the society that is providing us with our “lifestyle” cannot be homophobic in any way”. In our own society it should be plain that those two conditions are not met and that as a result the Queer is forced to live an incomplete half life envisaged by some uncaring other. Taken to its extreme the normalist queer becomes a glorified stereotype that is instantly understood by all straight people but who has nothing internally of any substance to contribute out of fear of ‘rocking the boat’. In order to be supposedly ‘neutral’ we have to close our eyes to the accepted norms and traditions that we are loyal to and pretend that they don’t lie behind our political position.

Queer sex as Subversion

What kind of sex are we talking about when we talk about Queer sex? We are talking about homosexual sex, about sex outside of whatever prescribed norms for sexual behaviour have been handed down by society, about sex without prescribed rules and without power relationships, about individuals who approach sex without prescribed gender roles to tell them them what to do, about sexual acts which directly persue pleasure and gratification and deep fulfilment as opposed to sex which has a function and a social role. These things and more are to be classed as Queer sex in the sense that they were more or less invented within and championed by our community. Queer sex is underfined, unregulated and uncontrolled. In other words Queer sex is everything that normal sex isn’t. Normal sex starts at the centre of its ideological foundations and expands from them. Pleasure is used to cement together a functional union. But experimenting with untried forms of sexual union and then forging functional relations from them is a reversal of the way people are taught to go about sex. Our Queer sexuality speaks to us each individually and in ways that society cannot immediately understand and control. By taking sexuality out of the hands of doctors and moralists Queers are claiming a part themselves as personal and therefore sacred. Queer sex is a form of subversion. It is a rebellion against our own unique form of oppression. If you think that I am abstracting or exagerrating the perhaps you could provide a reason why for most of history and still today throughout the world Queer sex is against the law. By refusing to see ourselves as deviant or disfunctional Queers are actively performing sexual acts which challenge some of the most rudimentary assumptions of our society. It is an act of defiance against those who would prescribe acts and behaviour on the basis of what is most common and therefore most acceptable. If the spin that I am putting on Queer sex srikes you as being unnecessarily seditious then perhaps I could challenge you to provide me with some other reason why Queer sex is seen as a challenge to morality and why our chief enemies are to be found among the devoutly religious. 

The presence of Queer sexuality has changed sexuality in many ways and for many people. Even the straight sexual union is now viewed in a different light as a result of the loosening of the stranglehold that conventional morality has  had on Western sexual practices for many generations. Queer sexuality has challenged the place of Churches and Governments to dictate to humanity how we persue pleasure in the world. It has done this by presenting an alternative, one which many have accepted as being the truer model of what it means to be human. This is done even by those who claim to be fiercely apolitical but who identify beyond the prescribed norm. Even in little ways when we step over the border of what is deemed to be normal there will be elements of opposition within the community, not because homophobes are just sick and they need someone to pick on but because they reflect the inner fears that society holds and that all members of society would be encouraged to hold if the homophobes had their way in the world. Homophobia is not just a force which stems from ignorance, it is actively inflamed by community leaders who fear the consequences of people taking their sexuality into their own hands. This may seem like a conspiracy theory until you see some of the arguments that homophobes produce.  They may recognise the threat that we pose to the established order even when many Queers do not. I am not suggesting that we take out our flame throwers and hand grenades and start killing everybody. When I say threat to the established order I mean in the way of thinking and behaving. Simply by being Queer we are opening doors into sexual behaviour that others may go through in the future. We a pioneering a new way of life for humanity based on models other than the heterosexual union. All the structures that are heavily invested around the heterosexual union (eg the nuclear family, the instituion of marriage and gender roles) stand to lose out if we are sucessful. So perhaps it is no wonder that there is opposition to what we propose. Nevertheless its not as if we can pull out of the discussion since we are talking about our singular right to be ourselves.

The guardians of morality have traditionally been the Queer communities most established enemies. That is true in the sense of the Church and Conservative politics administering a form of thought control in the guise of moral prescription. However morality is not a set of rules, morality is a forum a debate or discussion which all are welcome to join. Morality has as its basic function preventing harm, maximising human happiness, actualising human potential and yet somehow it has been turned it into this masochistic tool of oppression and denial. Queers who are brave enough to take morality into their own hands by acting morally and being Queer at the same time are a threat to institutions that prescribe morality without achieving actualisation.

It is these so called moralists who pose the greatest danger to our cause and it is through their eyes that we see the most important aspect of our role in the world of politics. We are perceived as the destroyer of the traditional way of life. Our sexual practices are scrutinised and there is much recoiling in mock horror as the “true nature” of our sexual habits are revealed. The physical and real nature of Queer sex is the reason why it is seen as such a threat. It stands out as a form of sexual practice which can still be safely attacked by the so called ‘moral majority’ when the truth is that straight people have used the sexual revolution as a vehicle to revolutionise their own sexual practices and shake off the shackles of a repressive past. We are a focal point for all of society’s anxieties about revolutionising sex because we are so different and those who are opposed to change are opposed to us. There is really not much we can do about this as Queers except give back what we have already gained and climb back into our closets firmly shutting the door behind us. Well I for one am sick of the smell of moth balls! Consequently the only alternative is to fight back (not physically but politically).  We cannot simply give in and accept the current levels of opposition as normal and healthy and not taking the point any further. It is a strange position to take because it denies history and lacks vision for the future to think that ‘this is it’ and that things cannot get any better or worse than what we have today. Our revolution is not yet complete and consequently our contribution to society is still being judged and assessed and part of that involves heavy criticism by the proponents of tradition. But further acceptance is possible only when we accept that further action is necessary.

However there is more to this sexual revolution than meets the eye. It goes back to the use of pleasure as a means of control and how when certain forms of pleasure are controlled such as reward, material wealth, and token symbols of accomplishment and achievement and other forms of pleasure must be curbed so that the focus is put on those methods that are controlled. I say that after having remarked on the absolute obsession that straight people and most Queers have with trying to buy pleasure in all its forms. A truly satisfied person does not focus so myopically on revering sexual freedom as the province of the perfect. It is scary how many people are still trapped by these outdated notions but it again goes back to the concept of control. Queers and straights have sexuality prescribed to us so that it is restricted and not entirely pleasurable. Pleasure is restricted because it is then promised as a product and sold. The pink dollar is big business largely because Queers feel they have to buy stuff in order to be properly or fully Queer. To resist this perfidious notion is at that heart and soul of our political resistance. Being Queer is simple, its being yourself, nothing more, nothing less. That is the essence of the pleasure that you seek and that Queer provides. If you have not got that pleasure then perhaps you are looking for it in the wrong place. So the Queer community is not only a threat to the notion that sexuality is supposed to have a function, it is also a threat to the notion that sexuality can be packaged and purchased in its complete form. Queers reclaim the authority to sexuality by re-inventing sex. This may seem like a shallow form of protest because it is so private but its power lies in the fundamentality of the mechanisms of control that it challenges.

Homosexual sex is still something that we have to come to terms with as young adults and as full adults. As Queers we do not like being told what we should and should not do by those whose motivations for informing us hint of control. Still I am not suggesting that medical and psychological advice is not to be trusted. When presented with a sincere concern these forms of information are just as genuine as any other. The trick is knowing when the advice is genuine and sincere and knowing when its plainly homophobic and wrong. Just like any other sector of society the Learned professions are a mixed bag of Angels and Bigots. Being able to extract useful information and reject negative information is a task which requires intense research and exchange. When this is done by young people who have no idea where to look, it becomes even more important that the information is collected by somebody and presented in an unbiased and supportive way. If done properly this can actually be a liberating experience. The Queer person learns what it means to be Queer and is then free to choose what sort of Queer they wish to become. Otherwise pressure is put of Queers to conform disguised as information. There are numerous books out there, just to give an example, that prescribe total abstinence in dealing with persistent homosexual impulses. Some learned psychologists still prescribe aversion therapy and electric shock therapy to deal with homosexual feelings and thoughts. These people are undoubtedly intelligent but their focus is not on Queer persons. That is the task of the Queer community, to liberate what it means to be our sexual selves. To reclaim that information that is ours and to keep it safe. The Queer is unlimited in their ability to love their partner because there are no guides, no instructions, no prescribed method of loving and being happy. We are guided to the point of sexual union by a force that we cannot control and when we reach it the result is a new form of pleasure that we were not told about in primary school (or uni for that matter). If this does not raise questions about what other forms of pleasure may exist that we have not been told about then I don’t know what could. This awareness that there are things which we are not told about by authority is a realisation of a greater freedom which Queer can lead us to in time. It can be quite an amazing and quite a daunting prospect to have to invent yourself in light of a new image and most people are not interested in such an existential remodelling but it is the calling of every Queer and the reason why we come together.

Despite our seeming progess in the last half century the larger proportion of Queers around the world still have to break the law in order to be Queer. An even greater proportion of Queers break all sorts of mores and norms that are not inscribed in law but that are enforced everyday by the limits of straight tolerance of all that is Queer. This is still the rule rather than the exception and it continues to be the case because there is a thin dividing line between those things that are considered normal and those things that are considered abnormal. It means nothing at all that most people, if they were honest, would identify with what is abnormal. Normality is a myth that persists in our common spaces because it has superseded neccessity and become a status symbol all of itself. Those individuals who are not afraid to class themselves as abnormal (or perhaps more appropriately as transnormal) are actually committing a grave political faux pas by undermining a rule which goes well beyond the sexual preference to pose a challenge to conventional society in general. However it is important to identify as transnormal because only when we do can we begin to articulate an alternative position of what sexuality actually is. If we do that from a position of normality and try to extend normality from within then we are really just trying to bake a cake with only flour since normal behaviour is the only thing we have to go by. Normality is traditionally considered that position that is protected by the majority and that is unassailable by those who would see some change. It is the last refuge of the bigot (to paraphrase Johnson). Anyone who wishes to share normality with normal people has to be prepared to give as well as take. That means sharing a platform with people who think our sexuality is a disease, or a curse or the sign of abject degeneracy. If one is to present the case for normality from a normalist standpoint one must start from an objective position and show using logic and reason that our sexuality is fine. It has never occurred to the normalist polemic that few people become Queer “for good reasons”. Those of us that are Queer by nature cannot really see the worth of trying to justify our sexuality because our sexuality is not negotiable. It is therefore incredibly frustrating to try to argue with someone whose opposition is just as irrational and which will simply not be counteracted by a resort to logic. So whereas the normalist sits through lecture after lecture of lies and thinly veiled negative emotions ranging from discomfort to downright hatred in any ‘neutral’ forum those transnormalist Queers do so only after having been to a ‘third place’ called the Queer community where we can find support and validation for our views and perhaps even new arguments and ideas without the fear of having to generate them on the spot under fire. What kind of an army would even think about asembling its weapons on the field of battle. It sounds silly but many Queers start and continue arguments in ‘neutral’ forums only in response to what is thrown at us by our opposition. The justification behind this is that straight people are basically fundamentally pro-queer and that if we put our faith in their numerical supremacy and appeal to all that is good in them we will not have to do the work of trying to validate our own community and creating a ‘protective space’ for Queers. I think that that is true in theory but the fact is that within the straight world there are conflicting elements of acceptance and hatred and that rationality, by itself, in this case would be rather unproductive.   

Homophobia

Despite the seeming agelessness of homophobia as a practice which is evidenced in some of the oldest texts we have we ought to be careful to acknowledge that no acutual single behaviour has been uniformly unnaceptable throughout all of history (although correct me if I am wrong). During all of history however one thing has remained obvious and that is that some forms of behaviour have been deemed acceptable and some have not. The difference has not been one of obvious and external moral principles but instead has involved power and traditions which have controlled us in favour of explicit and implicit behavioural norms. It is justified and rationalised in countless ways in order to mask the underlying framework of political oppression. If you look at some homophobic literature you will realise that there is no consensus as to exactly why we are hated, some will quote the bible, others because they are emotionally repulsed by our behaviour, others because we are immoral, because we are defective. Pretty much the only thing that they all have in common is their hatred of us as Queers. The reasons given are not so much reasons as they are post hoc justifications for a reaction based on fear and shame and self-hate which is aroused in a person who is filled with ignorance and who is afraid to confront what we represent.  If we look deep into the heart of homophobia we see there that those who are homophobic are not so out of any great and pervasive sense that we are wrong or different. Rather hatred is taught primarily by those who would tell us what is right and what is wrong. The Church in particular has a role to play in generating homophobia. It is the same people who profit from telling people what to do that make others hate because it protects their hold on the power they have over the minds of others. We are hated because we are different and because we undermine some aspect of their flimsy world-view. If conformity and control are important for the functioning of a healthy society then by breaking the rules we are udermining society and therefore we must be evil. In many parts of the world anti-queers are still in the vast majority and their existence is a direct threat to our freedom.

How do we eradicate homophobia? We do it by acknowledging first that we are Queer and that being Queer connects us inexorably with other Queers, that on our own we can’t do very much but that together we can do anything we set our minds to. It means challenging the long-held beliefs and assumptions about ourselves. It means becoming (in full recognition of our Queerness) an individual. It means not keeping quiet when homophobic comments are made. it means standing up for other Queers. Once you start opposing homophobia in all of its forms you may be surprised how much of it there actually is out there and how much resistance there is about actually changing it. Some people are just not willing to become political in the traditional sense and I understand that there are valid reasons for avoiding the issue the main reason being fear. Those political Queers who know what its like to stand up in a room full of people and be the only Queer will know how intimidating it can be to be publicly Queer in a homophobic environment. In a perfect world we would all be united in our struggle for human rights for Queers but this is not yet a perfect world and so as the struggle continues the Queer movement relies on those brave enough and strong enough to take the weight of the full force of homophobic resistance. Even we, the Queer community, often chide political Queers for going too far for being antagonistic and aggressive. That may be so, but its largely a matter of making up for small numbers with loud voices and actions. We wish they would just shut up and stop drawing attention to us and just try harder to be normal. But in doing that would they not be surrendering us to the ignominy of isolation. Where would we be without a voice?

The threat of homophobia is one that cannot be taken lightly. Like racism, homophobia is a pattern which cannot simply be dealt with when it manifests. It may be harboured in otherwise decent people and passed on like a disease of the mind from parents to children, from authority figures to the general population and from straight people to Queers. It is not an agressive force despite its manifestation as such in certain extreme cases. The judge who gives a defendant leniency on account of the fact that the man he murdered was a homosexual who provoked him by making a pass at him is a homophobe and is just as dangerous as the dimwit murderer because of the message that it sends out to all people that its not OK to kill people but exceptions will be made under certain circumstances if they are Queer. Leading Church figures who go above and beyond the call of duty in order to antagonise the Queer community send a message that its alright to dislike Queers because ‘God said so’. Politicians who take all sorts of weird positions on the issue based entirely on the moodswings of a predominantly straight population .These authority figures are not connected directly to the violent acts that are committed with their sanction yet they are just as dangerous if not more for the pervasiveness of their messages. Homophobia is not a set of actions it is a way of thinking and that is how it must be combated. Otherwise looking to the powers that be to excercise clemency is our only alternative.

Normalism and subversion

The question of how to deal with our oppression us is a daunting one. Some people within our community are quite willing to live with half liberation and to be quite honest with you I cannot blame them. Nobody who realises how set back we are sa a group can be blamed for trying to extract some measure of human happiness out of this life by just doing what we are told to do as individuals. There is nothing wrong with that position as such and I would bid you farewell as our roads in life take different paths, hoping that one day they will meet again under better circumstances. A second but rather impractical option would be to kill everyone who doesn’t agree with us, or wage war on straights and their lifestyle. I mention this because surprisingly this is how some people think and directly or otherwise it may be behind some of the belligerence with which some Queers tackle politics. If we antagonise groups of people we will inevitably find that we lose allies and that our own community (braced for some sort of confrontation) is forced to tighten its grip on those who belong to it. I don’t think that that is a sound option. A third option is to work on starting to change peoples attitudes. There is no real easy way of doing this indirectly. Changing peoples attitudes to Queer means confronting those attitudes, it means facing negative reactions fear, disgust, anger and even hate. It means talking to people who may not want to hear what you have to say. It means coming face to face with the harshness of homophobia and having the courage to not back down. If there was a harmless and easy way of changing attitudes without being pro-active by now we would already have achieved our liberation. But I fear that there is no point in preaching to the converted. Queers have to go out into the community and show themselves to be present and active. We have to forget all the petty pseudopolitical dialogues that go on within our groups and split us up and weaken our community. We have to articulate the essence of Queer and uphold it and be Queer to ourselves and to each other. This means sticking your neck out, it means risk, it means danger and I understand that that danger is too great for some. But those of us that can should put on a brave face and stand up bearing in mind how much more dangerous it was years ago when 20 men and women marched in protest at the very first Mardi Gras. How their sacrifices made the world a safer place for us and how our efforts can make the world safer still for all Queers and for all time.

Some Queers go further and argue that we should do nothing. That the Queer community is fine just the way it is, or that there shouldn’t even be a Queer community at all. That’s a worthwhile argument to consider because it is one that is rapidly gaining credence in some circles of the Queer community. The calculus of such a political view is quite clear. If you are successful, rich and you live in a very successful rich and tolerant queer/straight community then what reason have you to get your hands dirty fighting other people’s battles? Who cares if other people are disadvantaged? Nobody owes them anything right? The logic of that statement hides its brutal inneffectiveness. Queers who are at the top of their respectives heaps can be as dismissive as they like about the work that is being done on the ground. It may not be as apparent today but the vast majority of Queers still exist on the threshold of in and out, kept away by fear and insecurity. Most Queers also love and need a common culture, the bonds that are formed within our unique community. We like to hear music made by queers, see art made by queers, read poetry and stories written by Queers, we like plenary’s which go into Queer history and even Queer politics because that is the only time in our lives when we can feel like, after everything else has settled, we now truly belong somewhere and everywhere. Unrestricted by the shackles of a heteronormative society. This is something that can be enjoyed equally by all, that for one fleeting second before mainstream culture realises its value, belongs to us and is the outlet for all of our pent up creative energies. Normalists are happy for the most part being who they are and where they are. The tragic thing is when that isn’t enough for them and forums like this one must also be co-opted. Eventually they all turn out the same and we move away again yearning for the true taste of an original word or deed somewhere in the mixed up place we call the Queer space. I suppose the motto of the normalist Queer must be “If I want it then I can buy it somewhere on Oxford street.” The pink dollart is now big business and the line has been blurred between what queers want and what queers are really supposed to want. But in the end the Queer community is precious because its real.

If being Queer is about being in anyway marginalised, if it means negotiating with those who hate us and marking our lines of control, then maybe we have already won. If being Queer means accepting that 30% of suicides are Queer deaths and many more involve issues of sexuality as exacerbating factors then perhaps victory is already ours. If it means choosing to be happy now rather than being free at some point in the future then perhaps that’s ours too. I do not think that any Queer who strives to be normal should be excluded or villified as a result. Perhaps the best thing a normalist Queer can do for their community is to just stand back and let political Queers get on with the job of achieving what the rest of us are incapable of. Or else we just need to settle with what we have.

The subversive Queer is not a subversive who happens to be queer, the two go together. To be properly Queer is to be given an opportunity to be subversive that not many members of the community will ever get. Still very few members of our own group take up the challenge of being subversive because to do so would mean thinking differently and challenging your friends and neighbours to think differently also. The word subvert has a meaning which tends to imply a form of political change that has more to do with politicians than with real people on the streets. Subversive means challenging some sort of political institition, especially the government. However there is a much more meaningful definition of the word subversive which is the one I prefer to use and that is challenging common beliefs or mores. In this sense the meaning of a subversive more appropriately describes our political Queer. We are subversive because homophobia exists and we are trying to destroy it, therefore we are trying to destroy some belief that exists now and those idividuals who profit from that belief will oppose us but does anyone really believe that they ought to be left alone? (the beliefs I mean not the people). Rather than looking at subversive people as professional troublemakers who are necessarily overly angry or even who are bent on destroying the world, my view of subversion is of a positive force which destroys the established oppression by creating viable alternatives to it. 

Nobody wants to be labelled a troublemaker. There is a certain stigma attached to standing up and advocating something different to what we have been taught to believe. It is no wonder that many Queers are uncomfortable with being pushed into a rebellious role and many have always advocated a Normalist position in order that Queerdom not antagonise the very people who will supply us with our freedom.  However for some people there is no choice and no way to deny the antagonism of institutionalised power. Queers were once a part of that small group of people who just did not fit into the life we were being told to live. The law and Criminal justice was invoked to keep us in line, we were the targets of crime, ignored and outcast by mainstream religion, abandoned by our families and friends and (to make matters just unbearable) unable to join the army . Queers had no choice but to become political. Our anger was a force of positive change in all of society. The discussion of sexuality has become an accepted excercise largely because Queers have stepped up and intitated discussion. But now that a state of formal equality has been achieved and some Queers are moving away from the cause because ‘we won’ there is an added burden placed on those who really don’t feel that very much has been acheived at all. Normalist Queers are now free to become normal again and are willing to accept a contingent and inferior form of normality instead of continuing to stand up for some substantive equality.

Normalism and queer liberation

I like the argument that Queer people have already been liberated and that there is nothing more to fight for. This idea is actually quite popular among Queers too and even among Queers who are visibly struggling. The reason why is because nobody likes being left out, we clamor to be included in the great heterosexual family and when we are granted conditional entry into that family a lot of Queers abandon the cause and flock back to their old sense of belonging. I can’t really blame anyone for feeling like that. It does not matter that the newly assimilated Queer has to conform to a sometimes rigid pattern of thought and behaviour in order that their straight peers may comprehend without having to think too much. It always helps if your model of what Queer is comes from television because then it can be shared with all the straights that watch those shows as well. But the price of that freedom is that we stop struggling and stop asking for things. Is it too much to ask that we be safe in every corner of this country without having to hide our sexuality? Straight people take that safety for granted and when we ‘pass’ we are left alone. But what about those  Queers that don’t want to pass or can’t pass? When will straight society realise that Queers are here to stay and start taking steps to make Queers a part of the community.

Another important difference is in the way we view actions and behaviours. When, for example, an individual like Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten and killed because he was Queer large sections of the community were up in arms about the crime and demanded that the offenders were punished. But the anger that was felt at that moment generated far less substantial change than it should have. We know the world is full of individuals and that those individuals will all have ideas and beliefs. Some individuals are Queer, some are pro queer some are non queer and some are anti queer. Because of the distribution of these individuals we find that Queers try to gather around collective centres like Darlinghurst or Newtown for group safety or if they can enjoy the Queer scene from a distance, from a nice home going to and from nightclubs. Those Queers without access to these geographical centres can still access Queer groups and social networks online, by phone, in the papers or at designated venues run by benevolent Queers groups like ACON and Family planning and student networks too. So all in all most Queers are reached in some way or another. Still some escape the safety net because all occassions do inform against them. Young rural Queers, non english speaking queers poor queers and homeless queers in particular can find it very hard to integrate or even to enter our closed groups for mundane reasons like being unable to get the information, being unaware, having no transport or means of contact or just being very afraid. But for the most part the Queer community has eked out a territory and from there we engage the straight community to flush out the anti queers from their midst so that we can enjoy unrestricted freedom to be ourselves in the world.

The problem is that if we look at it from an individual perspective there is really nothing we can do to rid the world of homophobia. We can give money to Queer groups that do outreach work, we can go to nightclubs and shopping malls and on the internet and be with our friends and be as Queer as we like. Some Queers solve the problem by avoiding rural areas like the plague, living their entire lives within the confines of the city. Its sort of like saying “Yes! I am totally free!! I just choose never to leave this chalk circle that has been drawn around me.” If we go about in this manner we can almost tell ourselves there is no problem, there certainly isn’t a problem for us. The bashings and suicides and depression are all taking place somewhere else and that’s fine because we are safe. So what can we really do but throw more money at the problem. So homophobia lurks like a dark shadow across the landscape. The non-politcal Queer does not, and cannot, stand up against it without offending a lot of ‘neutral’ friends and isolating people. The non-political Queer, the so called ‘normalised Queer’ is surrounded by normal people and normal people may have a wide range of views including those verging on the severely homophobic. So what can a normalised Queer do? How angry is a normalised Queer supposed to get before their friends suddenly decide that they are a looney and not worth the time anymore. Homophobia is not just violence, it is assumptions, harmless innocous assumptions that can reside in even the most well meaning individuals,even in Queers themselves. These ideas fuel fears which then become reactions but only under certain circumstances. So Roger, for example, may be a typical non Queer and polite and calm but once a gay man makes a pass at him that’s when all these fears and insecurities that are buried in the supposedly innocent assumptions that people have manifest with often brutal consequences. Roger may in fact be a Queer friendly person or even tolerant but the line is fine and hard to draw. So the nonpolitical Queer feels only allowed to address Roger once he has committed his misdeeds and become violent. Because only then are his assumptions shown to be legally wrong. But Roger could be any one of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who are safely incubating these assumptions waiting for the right set of circumstances in order to release them. The non-political Queer is the type of person who expresses unmitigatyed outrage at the death of Matthew Shepard, it was only in the wake of a brutal murder that Queers in general rallied agains a wrong. The criminals were duly prosecuted and put away and many of those same normalist Queers retreated back into the world, threw away their placards and bullhorns feeling that something genuinely substantial had been accomplished.

The failure to achieve any substantial change is supported by one of the flaws in the assumption that we cannot fight what we cannot see. If a person is violent then they must be stopped but many Queers draw the line questioning the often innocent but false observations held by straight peers because we don;’t want to burden them with the task of having to think to much about Queer. The Matthew Shepard case raised awareness of homophobia at its extreme but did little to reveal the true nature of the beast because many non political Queers refuse to let such occassions be turned into a chance for the do gooder uni student lefties to say “I told you so”. The anger was over way too soon. The victory was sound because it was sealed, and that’s where it ended. A single criminal act was punished but as far as substantive political change it concerned not nearly enough was done. Homophobic violence is predicated on homophobic thought and homophobic thought must be eradicated if we are ever to eradicate violence.

Every true Queer is political and it is by virtue of the sacrifice and toil of Queers that have gone before us that we enjoy the rights and freedoms that we do. Our community is not perfect, nor are our continued freedoms guaranteed. Do we or do we not owe it to all of Queerdom to take a stand and fight for a better life for ourselves and each other. That’s what being political is about. It’s about standing up for yourself by standing up for others. Its not about standing up for yourself and then sitting down when the battle is half won or, worse still, sitting down and waiting until someone gives you another reason to stand up (ie another brutal murder) because by that stage it may already be too late. The idea that we fight as individuals is comical since, if we lose, we will all vanish as a collective. The reality is that this debate cannot be undertaken by a few prominent people in positions of power and wealth who are going to represent us all out of benevolence and charity.  I would prefer having a voice