Identity politics has a way of sneaking up on you.
Once exceedingly popular among gays and many other movements, the idea that one’s “minority” existence challenges higher powers has, in some ways, gone out of style.
Blame it on consumerism, blame it on relatively more inclusion, but for many people “queerness” no longer carries the same sexy, radical thrust. What’s more, identity politics can be seen as divisive in this post-global world. Just look at the gendered, racialized debates that have played out during this extended presidential election.
While identity politics doesn’t provide the fuel for contemporary gay rights debates – marriage, adoption, finances – it has a curious way of rearing its complex head.
Before we go on, we’re so fascinated with the topic because it’s been coming up a lot. First singer Chris Willis told editor Andrew Belonsky he felt his existence “challenges” racism and homophobia, saying, “I think my existence really challenges that.” Then, mere days later, the topic came up while editor Andrew was speaking with Amy Ray, one half of the Indigo Girls.
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That piece will be posted in its completion tomorrow, but here’s a relevant excerpt:
Andrew Belonsky: You used the word “vapid” earlier while discussing the “new lesbian” – and we were talking about the Indigo Girls being lesbians and political. That made me think of the decline of identity politics. I think that a lot of people my age – I’m 26-years old – including myself… I don’t know if I always consider the fact that I’m gay to be a political thing. Do you consider your lesbian identity to be a political thing?
Amy Ray: Um – sometimes. And yours is political sometimes, too, whether you know it or not. If you go hang out in another country where homosexuality’s illegal, you’re definitely political. It depends on what world you’re moving in – your gayness can be very political. People have to realize that their privilege might have something to do with where you are and all that stuff. I don’t know – sometimes I think that being gay is a political thing and sometimes it’s not. I don’t even think about it.
Ray’s comments resonated just now as we read a story about the inadvertent politicization of marriage in California.
Activist Molly McKay tells journalist Laura E. Davis that while she’d rather have her forthcoming gay nuptials be a private affair, she can’t help but frame them in more universal terms: “Nobody wants to be political about their wedding day. But we have to do double duty. There’s no other choice.” Wedding planner Pamela Yager echoes McKay’s message, “[People are] taking it very seriously. It becomes, ‘It’s not just our union.’ It becomes a political message they’re trying to get out.” As McKay and others – like George Takei – are eschewing gifts for pro-gay marriage donations, the politicization of personal marriage moments has manifested in other respects:
When Pamela Brown got married, the two bride figurines atop her wedding cake celebrated her newfound right in California to marry another woman. But one of the figurines had a tiny sign over its head with something more to say: “Vote No on 8.”
…
Brown and Shauna Rajkowski even inserted language into their ceremony in Berkeley that specifically referred to the fight against the proposition. And guests could take home pamphlets, bumper stickers, yard signs and postcards, all advocating “No on 8.”“If I had my preference, I wouldn’t bring politics into it. But we just can’t lose the moment and the opportunity when so many friends and family are together,” said Brown, who is the policy director for Marriage Equality USA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to securing gay marriage rights nationwide.
In this context, a personal moment, one which in many ways shapes your identity, grows and mutates into something else entirely. Perhaps its ugly, perhaps it’s beautiful, but the quest for marriage resurrects identity politics. And, as more and more younger gays get married, even the least suspecting will find themselves inadvertently – and maybe consciously – politicized.
Good luck...
…separating identity and politics. The politicians will use it to draw votes and attack their opponents. Voters want to hear about it from their politicians. It’s the nature of the beast. I think you are misconstruing what’s going on here. That is, that gay marriage is pushing the envelope of what people are willing to tolerate from gay people (i.e. “well ok then, you can be DP’s but please not any more than that”), therefore resurrecting the latent “G-A-Y” issue. Same with Obama — what, a black president? TV star, maybe, but President? What bugs me about anti-gay marriage gays is what would bug me about ultra-lefty black radicals who accuse Obama of selling out, just because he wants to be President. Its a bogus argument.
Trenton
Identity politics never truly died, so I think this isn’t so much a resurrection as a reminder. We have o so gradually gained some acceptance among the general populace for years, but this is the first time in a long time that we are aggressively asserting ourseves as full citizens. In the meantime, however, we have grown somewhat passive and comfortable and so identity politics is seen as divisive by a majority of people.
The difference is that in past movements, in fighting discrimination and sodomy laws and such, we were fighting for the right to things that made us “different” and now we are fighting for the right to things that make us the same as everyone else. That’s why this is “armageddon” for the bigots in favor of Prop 8; this says that we are notjust tolerated, but that we are once and for all truly normal. Thus, i’ve heard more criticism against identity politics as being counter-productive to the queer community. I disagree, because what we want and what identity politics strives for, in theory, is pluralism, not homogeneity. A same-sexed couple raising a child will have a different dynamic than your typical nuclear family, just as a Catholic family has a different dynamic from a Muslim or Wiccan or Qabbalistic family. As regionalism dies, different family dynamics are one of the few things that will survive and prevent us from becoming culturally paralyzed.
That may be alarmist on my part, but in any case I am glad to see people growing more aware of identity politics again and becoming more political in general. Politics shouldn’t consume one’s life, but Americans are often the least politically aware people I know. It’s refreshing to see these people recognizing the importance of this movement and honoring the community as a whole by taking a stand even as they take their vows.
Good luck...
…good comment. Well said, Trenton. A lot of folks won’t vote for Obama because he is black, and lot WILL vote for him for that same reason. But you can’t want to the 1st Black American President and be post-identity-politics at the same time. There’s the horse, then the cart. Our identity horses have a lot of carts to pull before we can put the identiy horse out to pasture.
mark
“Identity politics never truly died,”
yep, still here, still queer
kkoerber
I agree that identity politics never truly died, but it definitely waned as time went on. The simple reason is just that pure identity politics lacks action. So yeah, a few decades ago it was taking a strong stance just to “be” gay, regardless of what that entailed. After a while, though, just being this or that becomes a weak form of resistance, and some sort of action has to back it up.
If we apply that lesson to marriage in CA, getting married and stopping there, shouting “We’re here, we’re married” is not nearly enough. If we are going to use identity politics to the fullest, we should _build_ the new identity and politicize it: go to the grocery stores, adopt kids, play bocce ball, or participate in new activities that extend the “definition” of marriage. That is getting closer to real resistance, and picking up where “we’re here, we’re queer” leaves off.
Long story short: Do as you are. That’s as good a summary of the new identity politics as I can think of.
akaison
The problem with identity politics is that it obscures whether anything is really being done. We can’t get rid of identity politics, but we should understand what that means. The good side of it is that we can feel united around common causes, but the bad side of that is that our union can be used against us for nefarious ends.
daisy
why don’t they overturn N Korea or Iran because of their Nuke possibilities. I got this idea from my friends on ~~Mixed mate.com which is a niche dating service for blacks and whites.
Sean H- Portland, OR
I think avoiding “identity politics” is a new way of being closeted. Anytime some clearly gay person dances around the gay question, I’m like, “just admit it already!” Straight people never dance around their sexual orientation. Being cutesy with your gay identity is just another form of being political with i
M Shane
Thanks Trenton, et. al.: assimilationist politics (esp. marriage) only made the some queers more deliusional about who they are with respect to the rest of society. If anything deurbanization and all the other B.S. just constructed new closets for people who willl always have the same ol queer ideantity.
It’s a pity to see young gay people get married thinking that , in some proximity to het .marriages that that’s the be all and end all to their gay lives untill they start to realize that they are just wasting their lives pretending to be Fred and Ethyl. Gay Identity has taken a sad detour that simply undemines community and real politics. Sorry guys. some things are what they are and need to be marginal for good and ever. I can go fuck women and still I’m queer.despite the Haloween party.
M Shane
The other thing, Trenton about”Americans being the “least political people ” you’ve ever met is not not an indiferent observation it is an utter blasphemy and offense to the “democracy ” that we are suposed to be living in.
Democracy implies that we rule ourselves. It is hard to find an American who knows anything at all about the economics of this country or about the constitution. That is likely why we about to just default to a dictatorship.
Nobody knows anything. Even the news they get is from an elite group of right wing extremists-pretty much all of it.