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52 k 2 Be­ yond Queer Na­ tion­ al­ ism Chang­ ing Strat­ e­ gies for Chang­ ing Times The mis­ sion of the Point Foun­ da­ tion is to pro­ vide schol­ ar­ ships for LGBT col­ lege and grad­ u­ ate stu­ dents who not only are doing well in ­ school but also show a com­ mit­ ment to com­ mu­ nity in­ volve­ ment and to goals of so­ cial jus­ tice and so­ cial ­ change. In 2008 I was in­ vited to be one of the ple­ nary speak­ ers at its an­ nual con­ fer­ ence, which ­ brings to­ gether all its schol­ ar­ ship re­ cip­ ients. Be­ cause it was the for­ ti­ eth an­ ni­ ver­ sary of 1968, a year of tre­ men­ dous up­ hea­ val in the­ United ­ States and ­ around the globe, and be­ cause the media were giv­ ing so much at­ ten­ tion to ­ events of that year, I de­ cided to frame my re­ marks ­ around a ­ contrast ­ between then and now. How had ­ change been ­ achieved, I asked, and are the strat­ e­ gies and mind­ sets of the past still ap­ pro­ pri­ ate today? k I make my liv­ ing stud­ y­ ing and teach­ ing his­ tory. I do it be­ cause I love his­ tory. I can’t stop my­ self from think­ ing like a his­ to­ rian. What I mean by this is that I find my­ self fre­ quently draw­ ing com­ par­ i­ sons in my head­ between past and ­ present, ­ between then and now. I think about the pas­ sage of time, about what has ­ changed and what ­ hasn’t. This is a good time to be a his­ to­ rian. We are liv­ ing at a mo­ ment when it is hard not to be aware of his­ tory and his­ tor­ i­ cal ­ change. We have just lived ­ through a pres­ i­ den­ tial pri­ mary sea­ son un­ like any other in ­ American Beyond Queer Nationalism 53 his­ tory. The final two can­ di­ dates stand­ ing for the nom­ i­ na­ tion of a major po­ lit­ i­ cal party were an ­ African ­ American man and a white woman. If you have any sense of his­ tory, you can­ not help being ­ stunned and awed by such an out­ come. We’re also liv­ ing ­ through the for­ ti­ eth an­ ni­ ver­ sary of one of the most tu­ mul­ tu­ ous years in US his­ tory. ­ Events of great mag­ ni­ tude are being re­ mem­ bered in the press al­ most con­ stantly. Nine­ teen ­ sixty-eight was a year when the war in South­ east Asia fi­ nally took the turn that led the ­ United­ States even­ tu­ ally to dis­ en­ gage from a ­ deeply un­ pop­ u­ lar con­ flict. Nine­ teen­ sixty-eight was a year when a ­ president’s pop­ u­ lar­ ity sank so low that he was re­ pu­ di­ ated by his own party and did not even try to run for re­ elec­ tion. It was a year when dis­ or­ der and chaos, pro­ tests and re­ bel­ lions, swept ­ across the ­ United ­ States. Two char­ is­ matic pub­ lic fig­ ures, Mar­ tin Lu­ ther King Jr. and Rob­ ert F. Ken­ nedy, died by as­ sas­ si­ na­ tion. Riots and re­ bel­ lions tore cit­ ies and col­ lege cam­ puses apart. The world ­ watched on tele­ vi­ sion as po­ lice in Chi­ cago went ber­ serk and at­ tacked dem­ on­ stra­ tors, jour­ nal­ ists, and un­ sus­ pect­ ing cit­ i­ zens dur­ ing the Dem­ o­ cratic ­ Party’s na­ tional con­ ven­ tion. Rad­ i­ cal fem­ i­ nists pro­ tested out­ side the Miss Amer­ ica pa­ geant in At­ lan­ tic City, and ­ women’s lib­ er­ a­ tion ­ consciousness-raising ­ groups were spring­ ing up all over the coun­ try ­ faster than one could count them. Let’s use that year, 1968, as a meas­ ur­ ing point of ­ change for LGBT peo­ ple over the past four ­ decades: • In 1968 ­ forty-nine out of fifty ­ states had sod­ omy laws. The govern­ ment crim­ i­ nal­ ized homo­ sex­ ual be­ hav­ ior, even in pri­ vate ­ between con­ sent­ ing ­ adults. Today there are no sod­ omy laws; the Su­ preme Court de­ clared...

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