From Stone Wall on: Going back to go Forward The Childhood of the Revolution, The revoluti
author: Atomic!
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Op-ed piece about the state of Queer liberation at the 40th anniversay of stonewall, and a call for the reradicalization of the queer politic
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It is indeed hard to escape it. Though the mainstream "straight" media pays it no heed, the gay media is abuzz. This summer marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. What makes Stonewall significant? Was it the first queer voice of the modern era? Certainly not, during the Weidar republic there had been a brief shining moment when significant strides had been made in the city of Berlin (this of course ended very badly, the rise of Adolf Hitler changed the cities "civil union" registry an easy way to identify, locate and round-up large numbers of what was the first modern queer rights movement. Though some fled and even a few waited out the war in hiding in Germany itself (for example the DaDa artist Hannah Hoch). It wasn't even the first time that the subject of gay rights had been advocated. The sisters of Bolita, and the matachine society had been "respectably" (and with all due respect to the immense bravery of those early advocates) quite ignorably picoting in DC, and doing the "letter writing" thing. No, what made Stonewall special, what makes it the Day we remember was that it was the day when queers not only advocated for their rights but refused the model of hetero-superiority. Rather than try to persuade the "big America" that they were deserving of human rights, the Queers of Stonewall stood up to the Cops in the streets of New York and REFUSED to be anything less than human.
It is an interesting moment, 40 years out, and to a certain extent the progress has been remarkable. With 5 states of the union approving gay marriage we are presented with a fascinating vista in which to view our movement, our identities and yes, ourselves. Queer Liberation represents a great deal more, in the end, then simply the liberation and equality of GLBT people. The gift of the queer rights movement is to grant individuals the power to self-define and to learn the skill of negotiating relationships. What feminism began, Queer liberation has begun to expand, and must eventually overwhelm the world with. The idea that None of our relationships my be simply based on an assumed model, that none of us has the right to presume a preconceived "order" upon human interaction. This began with Women agitating for a larger place in society, continued in women questioning assumed gender roles. Queer people, having no real pre-established model to turn to in terms of modeling a relationship are therefore, by necessity pushed to the forefront of the conscious creation of relationships. The fight for Queer Marriage is only the beginning.
It in fact has consumed so much of our attention, that we scarcely often can see any other issue in the Queer radar, but I ASSURE you, they are there! And in their own way, more pressing, and far more revolutionary! When we seek to open the definition of the Romantic/ life partner relationship to negotiation we also give this gift to straight people, who's relationships become increasingly more open to conscious definition and negotiation.
The next step involves the Elephant in the room. It is the subject that the main stream gay press fears to speak of, the fear of being seen as radical again. The fear that we may lose ground on gay marriage and "gays in the military" (a fight I can barely comprehend even in theory) has, in its way become the Anti-stonewall. The greatest challenge to the queer liberation movement, lies at the doorstep of what may be that least considered great human social liberation movement: The Rights of Children. I speak here of a queer suicide rate, a queer hard drug abuse rate, a queer alcoholism rate, The queer youth run-away (read throw-away)/ homeless population, with the street prostitution that accompanies this that dwarfs any comparison to society at large. These horrors grow from the dark seed of Child-property, and the assumed parental rights.
Now I am indeed walking on the most treacherous of political grounds, Sacred cow tipping, of that greatest of mythological creatures the wholesome family. But go there I, and more importantl we, must! It is the "right" of a parent to emotionally/ psychologically abuse a child in the name of the presumptions of culture, religion and simply the preconceived bigotries of the adult parent (read owner/handler). The darkest, and most painful reality of growing up queer, is that we may be raised in the home and at the hand of our own persecutor, and society at large judges that it is right to allow a child to be told they are evil, dirty, wrong, if that is the belief of the parent. When one person's belief may take precedence over someone else's rights to life and happiness, this is tyranny indeed!
We have allowed a debate over marriage rights, to take our eyes off true liberation, and focus upon the fetish of equality and liberty rather than the true article! To move forward, we must step into the grand brave shoes of Stonewall, of Act-up! Of Queer nation, that have been handed to us! We must now become that person who was not there for us, become that movement that we did not have! For when the revolution comes, the final revolution, the real revolution, it will be a child that leads the way.
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http://www.isreview.org/issues/63/feat-stonewall.shtml
