Dear Jennifer,
I read your recent Huffington Post article ("
How Adam Lambert Is Hurting Gay Marriage") with varying degrees of frustration and horror.
First of all, I find it very telling that your title focuses so exclusively on gay marriage. I guess it shouldn't be surprising: when I recently came out to a coworker she rushed to assure me that she supported gay marriage. To which I wanted to respond, "....so?" I have no desire to ever get married; yet my identity has become synonymous with that struggle...in fact, gay marriage has come to dominate any discussion of gay rights.
I use "gay" here in its proper definition -- i.e. "same-sex, esp. men" - because that is exactly what gay rights has become: upper-class, white gay men and lesbians determined to make their lives exactly like those of heterosexual people. We have seen the Holy Grail, and it's a white picket fence with a house, two parents, and 2.5 children. The perfect nuclear family, modified only slightly, just a little bit, pretty please. Who could ask for anything more? No one, according to you.
And here I thought we were supposed to be fighting repression, not perpetuating the practice.
Which is not to say that I am against same-sex marriage -- just against the idea that it's the
only dream worth aspiring to, and that a pseudo-heterosexual lifestyle should somehow be
my ideal, too. Two friends of mine, lesbians, got married during that brief, precious window of opportunity in California. They had a full ceremony, one of them changed her last name, the whole works. Oh, how lovely, you'd probably croon, and put them up on a kid-friendly slideshow to show mainstream America how nice and friendly the Gays really are, how we really want to be just like them.
Except, my friends were and continue to be in an open relationship, and are into the kind of scene that revels in leashes and crawling around onstage. That is the kind of marriage that makes them happy. It works for them.
It's very clear which part of their marriage is palatable to mainstream America, and to you.
You remind me of Frank Kameny, the gay rights activist who organized marches in the 60's. He's inarguably a pioneer; he also forced women to wear skirts, men to wear suits and ties during the marches and wouldn't allow same-sex handholding. When two women attempted to do so, he immediately broke them up saying, "None of that!" You and Kameny are both so focused on achieving the same rights as the heterosexual majority that you have adopted their tactics, too -- censorship and moral panic. Oh my god, Adam Lambert is destroying the moral fabric of
America the gay community.
It was the drag queens and hustlers at Stonewall, Jennifer. And it was the drag queens and hustlers who were very quickly edged out of the mainstream gay rights movement by people like Kameny because they were too gauche, too gaudy, too sexual. Sound familiar? Yes, Adam Lambert got up in front of millions of Americans and dared to openly express his sexuality; it's a sexuality that includes BDSM tones, as anyone who's seen him perform or read his interviews will know. You rushed to side with the FCC and wag your finger at him, because that's what you really want: to be part of that big happy majority and never mind what parts of your identity or community you have to repress or screen in order to make all gays seem non-threatening (acceptable, apologetic).
Newsflash: if we all behaved in a way that wouldn't shock or upset mainstream American culture,
none of us would be queer. And I use "queer" in its adopted definition, meaning "all of us." The married lesbians who enjoy flogging. The transman wrestling with the start of his transition and being told by his LGBT college class that chromosomes are the sole determinant of gender. The asexual currently glaring at her computer screen as she types furiously away. The glam rocker who put on a performance no more salacious than those of his straight peers. We are a far more varied community than just "gay," and no, not all of us want that white picket fence. Jumping on a high horse to condemn how
anyone in our community expresses their sexuality (within the legal and moral confines of consent) is the kind of thing best left to Jerry Falwell, whose foundation Liberty Counsel has rushed to condemn Adam Lambert as well. You're on the same side as
Jerry Falwell right now, Jennifer. Well done.
Adam Lambert might indeed be hurting the picture of The Harmless Gays Who Just Want To Live Like Regular Folks that you're so desperately propping up, but
you are hurting the queer community.
But you don't care. You want to live in your pretty glass house with all the trappings of a heterosexual life, but with a chewy gay center that is properly tucked away so as not to shock the neighbors. So you go on Huffington Post and you decry a man for openly expressing his sexuality, calling it thoughtless, degrading, and dishonorable.
I know a word just as dirty as "dishonor," Jennifer, and twice as damning:
sellout.
Regards,
A Queer Woman
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