A question which I wish to explore this Thursday is: What has made (and makes) queer resistance possible and effective? Which stories of resistance seem especially important and appropriate for our current context? Why? Faderman and Rupp provide insights and discussions on what I believe should be the main center or focus for our thanksgiving and privilege of knowing the queer resistance we have learned: the activists and individuals who sacrificed everything for giving this movement a name.
In learning about the history of certain movements, there is a clear divide and turning point in which those who decided to stand up to the oppression they faced, took action. Oppression as brutal as it may seem, has a silver lining that has allowed for community to flourish and protect each other. Faderman and Rupp speak of both the LGBT community’s struggles and triumphs from the 70s but there is a similar journey is appropriate for our current context. We specifically live in a time in the United States where we are experiencing a rebirth of racial, gender, and systemic oppression. A rebirth of powerful governmental figures, such as Trump, who use a certain language to scapegoat a community. The parallel theme of ‘fake news’ can be seen in Faderman’s introduction to her work “The Gay Revolution” when she states, “The New York Times article that announced the sudden appearance of this ‘gay cancer’ emphasized that in most cases the men had been promiscuous…The Far Right did not waste the shock value” (Faderman 415-416). The exposure of the AIDS epidemic was attached to a certain ignorant language that was meant to scare others such as “landlords being so worried about the spread of AIDs on their premises that they had to evict infected homosexuals from their property” (Faderman 416). In addition, “In June the US Justice Department declared that businesses had the right to discriminate against people with AIDS if they believed such discrimination would prevent the spread of the disease” (Faderman 424). Rupp on page 141 describes it as “a nationwide panic about ‘sexual psychopaths’”. I want to tread carefully when comparing events but there is a similarity in attitudes and actions. Such as the exposure the LGBT community was getting as the news outlets were exposing work about the AIDS epidemic, Trump held rallies which touched on the current immigration policies stating “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs and crime. They’re rapists.” Such as the alarmed landlords, some Americans today wish to discard these people from Mexico who are a threat to the community as a whole. Both situations can be summed up by Buchanan’s call for “the total undoing of the bits of progress that gays and lesbians had been slowly making toward civil rights…”
As a more insightful look into how queer resistance is both possible and effective, it is important to touch on the individuals who acted and voiced opinions against the backtracking of progress for civil rights along with a theme that I am passionate and eager to keep learning about; intersectionality. Stories of those during, before, and after the Stonewall riots are important even for current context because they paved the way of independence and freedom of being able to educate and express need for change such as the ACT UP-ers who’s “energy and impudence were reminiscent of the first days of the old Gay Liberation Front” (Faderman 430). This group along with partnerships were the ones to thank for major changes in how the federal government tests and redistributes experimental drugs, starting with the Accelerated Approval process that the Treatment and Data Committee demanded. History of resistance allows for a shift in consciousness especially though how activists were taught to talk throughthe media, not tothem. They would exhibit a sharing of universal humanity.
The theme of a universal humanity is seen through Rupp’s description of how others can ignite a flame of empathy and even creativity in a snowball effect of movement. “In 1963 Randy Wicker, an inveterate homophile activist, led a picket line at the Whitehall Induction Center protesting the violation of draft record confidentiality of homosexuals. Two years later a tiny contingent in respectable dresses and ties marched in D.C proclaiming “Homosexuals Should be Judged as Individuals. Support Homosexual Rights” (Rupp 167). These activists paved the way to come out and support each other in their own way using their own experiences.
A final story of resistance that I found powerful, personal, and connective to the theme of intersectionality is the Latino movement for LGBT rights in this time. A powerful theme of this movement can be seen through how intersectionality can unite: “You can’t demand equality for yourself while tolerating discrimination against anyone else” (Faderman 421). Activists such as “Ramirez and Palencia…would be a bridge to represent Latinos to the mainstream gay and lesbian world, and gays and lesbians to the Latino world. Chavez and the United Farm Workers cofounder Dolores Huerta marched beside Gay and Lesbian Latinos Unidos in the Los Angeles pride parade” (Faderman 420-421). Education and the urge of those who had personal connections to the AIDS epidemic created relationships that fortified the fight for gay and lesbian rights. The rejection of ignorance and allowing of creating such relationships -- seen then and now -- is going to be the key to end oppression and growth of the civil rights movement.
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