In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • The Absence of Context:Gay Politics without a Past
  • Jen Manion (bio)

LGBTQ history is marginalized in so many ways. Its volumes are scarcely stocked in large warehouse bookstores—and certainly not in the actual history section that is dominated by books about war. Most U.S. history textbooks are deemed complete with a passing reference to Stonewall. Our own contemporary political movement for LGBTQ rights and equality has shown little interest in or need for knowledge of our community’s history. Even feminist and queer academic spaces have taken an anti-historical turn; fields that count significant numbers of historians among their founders (such as women and gender studies or lesbian and gay studies) have become decidedly presentist. Just because the history of our communities, identities, and organizations is marginalized, however, does not diminish its significance.

The fact that Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” has become a gay anthem of sorts is not surprising. It affirms those who are being harassed by their families or religion to “change” their sexual orientation or gender identity. Those over the age of forty can enjoy pop culture’s open embrace after decades of public gay-bashing disguised as political discourse. Although many (but by no means all) LGBTQ people believe they didn’t “choose” to be gay, our simplistic celebration of this concept comes at a price. The idea of being “born this way” essentializes our often fraught and bumpy individual experiences of coming to terms with our sexual and/or gender identities while dehistoricizing queerness entirely. The concept actually eclipses the need for critical examination of gays as [End Page 115] a group with a past. It was, however, a perfect anthem for the same-sex marriage campaign.

The 2008 passage of Proposition 8 triggered collective outrage and fueled the most widespread national protests for gay rights since record numbers of people took to the streets to protest the violent murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998.It may seem like ancient history in the wake of the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling declaring the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, but the backlash represented by the 2008 election-day passage of Proposition 8 overturning same-sex marriage rights in California motivated a new generation of activists to advocate for lesbian and gay equality and take to the streets. Immediately following this event, Join the Impact became the central organizing vehicle for nationwide protests.1 At a rally in New Haven, Connecticut, over 300 people gathered and marched. Nearly three dozen students from my campus, Connecticut College, woke up early that Saturday morning and drove to New Haven to join the nationwide effort. They brought handmade signs. One of them took over the microphone and inspired the crowd with a brief speech before leading the chant, “Yes to Love.”

Young people spoke with passion and anger, moved by the conviction that fighting for the right of lesbians and gays to marry is, as one of them told me, “our generation’s civil rights movement.” The focus on same-sex marriage as the single most significant gay rights issue of our time and the shallow, polemical, and ahistorical debates that framed it, however, signal not how far we have come but rather how systemic and powerful heteronormativity really is.

This rally was a turning point for me as a queer feminist historian and activist who was ambivalent about the same-sex marriage movement, especially as it grew to overshadow other queer organizing. My involvement with student activists fired up about same-sex marriage forced me to face the fact that I was disappointed, annoyed, and a little lost. How could my community be consumed with something that I understood feminism and gay liberation to be against? In certain political and scholarly circles, there was a feeling of anguish over the fading potency of feminism in public discourse and the increasing conformity and depoliticization of the gay community.

The privileging of marriage has real consequences. It stigmatizes and threatens to further marginalize the most fabulous, polyamorous, free-loving, sex-loving, and gender-nonconforming segments of our community.2 Social stigma is one thing—legal stigma yet another. Legalizing same-sex marriage rather than...

pdf