24 GSCENE
QUEER LIBERATION:
WHY LGBTQ+ EQUALITY IS NOT ENOUGH Gscene, along with Brighton & Hove Pride, commissioned a series of lectures for Pride Week 2020. Guests were invited to choose their own subject. Starting this issue with Peter Tatchell’s lecture, Dr Sam Hall’s will follow next month. Both are available to watch on YouTube. These are edited versions of the transcripts, in parts using paraphrasing to retain the sense. ) My starting point is that equality is now the mantra of the UK and indeed global LGBTQ+ movement, so the idea that equality is not enough is very controversial and challenging.
Although equality has much to recommend it, I don't feel comfortable with the way most of our community has lowered its aspirations to the limited goal of equal rights. They are important, but they are not enough. I ask the question, whatever happened to the lofty ideals of queer liberation and sexual freedom? Where did they go? We have too often moved away from defining our needs and fallen meekly into the prevailing heterosexual consensus. Look at same-sex marriage. Winning marriage equality was tremendously important, and I was spearheading that campaign from way back. I agree that homophobic discrimination against same-sex couples is wrong, that it had to be challenged because it was a form of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, but I would ask the question, do we really think that the model of marriage is the best framework for recognising relationships whether opposite sex or same-sex? My argument would be that if we were starting from scratch, the marriage model wouldn’t be the one that we would adopt. It is too dogmatic and inflexible. Regardless of different diverse relationships and lifestyles, the marriage model is based upon a long tradition of the way in which the law recognises relationships. We need a more democratic egalitarian alternative. The way in which we just
conceded the argument that marriage is the gold standard of relationship recognition shows a lack of imagination and a bowing down before a model of relationship recognition and rights that was devised by straight people, not by us. The end result of merely accepting equality is that the dominant agenda is about equal rights and law reform rather than transforming society. We don't question what we want, equality within the status quo, and this is very much an agenda about conformism and assimilation. It doesn't acknowledge that we queers, out of our history and experience, may have better ideas, may have alternatives that we could produce instead of what exists. This political retreat represents a massive loss of imagination, confidence and vision. Equality is important, but it's not sufficient, it's not the panacea that many people claim. Now equality for LGBTQ+ people inevitably means parity on straight terms within a preexisting framework of values, laws and institutions. These have been devised by and for the straight majority, not by us. Equality within their system involves conformity to their rules. This is a recipe for submission
and incorporation, not genuine queer liberation. Although getting rid of homophobic discrimination is a laudable aim which I support, it doesn't go far enough. Ending anti-LGBTQ+ bias will not resolve all the problems faced by queer people. Some of our difficulties arise not simply from homophobia, biphobia or transphobia, but also from the more general erotophobic and sex- negative nature of contemporary culture, which also harms straight and cisgender people. You can see this in the way in which sexnegative attitudes are evident in the censorship of sexual imagery, the inadequacy of sex education lessons, the criminalisation of sex workers, the outlawing of consensual sadomasochistic relationships and of course the criminalisation of teenagers who have sex with each other before the lawful age of consent. In those different ways we see that the anti-sex culture is still deeply ingrained in our society. I want to emphasise that the drawbacks associated with seeking mere equality are not limited to our community, they apply to women who are usually forced to compete on male terms to get ahead in the workplace. They apply to black people who tend to only succeed if they adopt a white middle-class lifestyle and assimilate into the dominant European culture. Both women and ethnic minorities have discovered to their cost that the equal rights agenda is not about respecting difference and validating it, it’s mostly about obliterating it. So where is the dignity in that? How can we have self-respect if we sacrifice our queer identity and our queer culture for the sake of parity? It is acceptance, but acceptance at a price that is not worth paying.
“Whatever happened to the lofty ideals of queer liberation and sexual freedom? Where did they go? We have too often moved away from defining our needs and fallen meekly into the prevailing heterosexual consensus”
