DIY EQUALITY

Andrew Sullivan: The HRC and Democrats Won’t Win Us Equality

Bearded, bloggy, Brit bear Andrew Sullivan wants you to stop waiting for the Human Rights Campaign and Democrats to make LGBT equality happen. Obama has definitely earned some princess points in this regard, but Sullybear says queers can help tilt American culture towards equality more quickly by coming out and telling their stories via social media.

Which got us to thinking, what about people who would endanger their well-being by coming out? What about those who don’t have access to social media? And WHAT ABOUT JUJUBEE?!!

Those who can safely come out and those who have access to social media have an obligation to help give a voice to the countless queers who can not and do not. Even though cell phones have put cameras and social media in the hands of millions, not every poor Latino kid living in the country with anti-gay parents can just upload a digital video to YouTube. That kid may not have a phone, a computer, or any way to hear about the It Gets Better campaign. Hopefully she’ll discover the wonderful world of queer computing one day, but until then we owe it to her and ourselves to help make her coming out easier by working to understand her world; not just asking her to understand ours.

Giving a voice to voiceless queers is part of the reason we regularly include trans coverage on this blog because so many other mainstream LGBT media outlets do not. We feel the same way about content involving lesbians, bisexuals, people of color, the poor, the HIV+, and the elderly; we’re lagging behind in those areas but we owe it to ourselves to seek out and tell their stories so we can know more and keep changing queer culture.

We define gay culture, it does not define us.

Last night Queerty went to a gay march in Austin, Texas and noticed mostly white faces in the crowd. Any given day most of the faces on Queerty’s front page is filled with mostly white faces too. We couldn’t help but wonder how we can help change the public face of queers from that of an affluent, caucasian, musclebound speedo-jockey gyrating in a shower of Absolut vodka to the multi-cultural, body-positive, genderfuck that more accurately representing our actual numbers.

We cannot wait for Logo, The Advocate, the HRC, or the Democratic party to notice these excluded groups, represent them in speech or action, and create visual media for them. We have to do it ourselves or no one else will and our invisibility will continue to the detriment of our community.

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