Queer Liberation & Revolution
Jumphord Ballast has accessed a computer. Now it will be Tumblr's issue. Anyways. Sometimes there is a difficult line as a queer person to recognize is being drawn in the sand. I have the (mis)fortune of being able to identify as a cis person in day to day life. Most people I meet instantly assume I am cis, assume I am heterosexual. While this is an added layer of protection from those who would do me harm, there is perhaps a layer of guilt as someone who is aware of the harm the LGBTQ+ community is facing within the modern day.
This post is not a "woe is me, it's so hard being able to present as my AGAB while people are being beaten to death, stabbed, shot, abused, tossed to the curb, and verbally degraded. But look at ME and how I FEEL!" sort of post at all. I know and recognize the special privilege it is to be able to present as cis-het and not have to look over my shoulder for someone with a deep hate in their heart coming at me with a knife. I am simultaneously thankful and deeply hateful of it. I wish for a world where presenting as cis-het isn't needed. I wish for a world where someone can present in any sort of way and no matter what perhaps the most judgement they get is a confused glance for their interesting fashion sense.
There is a seemingly forgotten aspect of LGBTQ history among younger adults such as myself. The fight for LIBERATION as opposed to the desire for REVOLUTION. Many in our community who fought for, died for, and bled for the beginning of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement were not fighting for a double layered cause of socialism in our time or the destruction of a capitalist exploitation system. Both of these are extremely noble goals and those who fight for them have my full support, but these people were fighting for LIBERATION. For the ABILITY to be themselves, to love who they loved, to present how they wanted, and not be tossed aside like trash because of who they were.
Now I can see the thought forming in your head, the thought that queer liberation goes hand in hand with the destruction of capitalism. But I refute that idea with the counterpoint of "Queer liberation is the first step to revolution." Queer liberation is the tipping stone to the massive social upheaval many of us want. We cannot as a society strive for a better future until we as a society acknowledge the parts that are downtrodden, that are cast aside. Many of us have a cushy idea of who we should be fighting for, who needs this the most. But it's an abstraction. It's not a fully gestated image of those who so desperately need our help.
Let me segway this into a story. As a young pre-realization-queer me, I was raised in a very conservative household. I grew up within the church. I grew up surrounded by people who were die hard believers in the party that would eventually transition into the American MAGA movement. As a young child these were the ideas espoused to me and so they were what I believed in.
To the disappointment of the current version of me, to the never-ending acknowledgement of my failure to grow until after the harm I potentially allowed was done, I remained this person well into my freshman year of high-school. My freshman year was highlighted by a rapid change in the acknowledgement of who I was as a person. The realization of my queerness, the acknowledgement of the fact that people did not like people like me growing up in a rural town of western North Carolina.
Near the middle of the freshman year, before the full gestation of my realization of being queer set in fully, I dated this nice girl who had a friend who happened to be transgender. This girl, like anyone else in high school, just wanted to get through her day and live a life like any other normal child. The people around here, some way, some how, discovered she was trans and this story spread throughout the populace like wildfire. A large group of students staged a walk-out to protest "a boy going in the girls bathroom." All sorts of horrific and vile rumors circulated about this poor girl who had done nothing more wrong than just acknowledging who she was to herself. She was attacked by a gang of boys at one point who hoped to dispense some sort of vigilante justice upon her. She was spit on, she was cast aside, and at some point, it became a big enough issue that people outside the school started to notice.
The story reached the news. The story reached the parents. The news and the parents came together at a protest at the county Board of Education meeting. The news interviewed these parents and published the horrific things they said about a child. They platformed the ideas of these people, spread them so more people could read them. It became a hot issue that lasted about a month until this girl transferred out of my school and we didn't hear anything else about her. From the few limited times I've seen her on social media she is doing well. She found acceptance that was so terribly denied to her by other children who were fed disgusting lies by the adults in their lives and who allowed themselves to get swallowed in those lies.
I can proudly say I was not one of those children who staged a walkout or who really cared what this girl wanted to present as. I can say however, that as someone who was developing a mindset to evaluate how they felt internally, I woefully did not do anything to support her either. I did not say a kind word, I did not say something to those who were saying horrific things about her. I sat by and watched from a distance someone who should have been allowed to exist get pushed out of the one place they should have been safe. That single memory, that single small chapter in the book of my life, has since influenced my entire viewing of queer liberation as a whole.
People like her should not be outcast. People like her should not feel unsafe to use a bathroom, to request to be called a certain name, to ask the basic respect of using their preferred pronouns. People like her should not have to fight for the ability to make themselves feel comfortable in their own bodies. People like her should not have to FIGHT to not be ASSAULTED in a bathroom because someone is transvestigating them.
In a roundabout way this story circles back to my point about queer liberation and the perhaps narcissistic guilt I feel of being able to protect myself by not correcting people. Queer liberation is that girl being able to be herself. The guilt is knowing that I can protect myself while people like her cannot.
I wrap this up with one final point. While I may experience this foolish guilt, and while queer liberation may be a far off beacon of hope, there is an inherent burden placed upon people like myself. We need, we MUST, use our privilege to support those who cannot exist in the way we do. We must use our ability to blend in as a way to break out. Break the mold. Tell people that they are wrong. Tell people that their enemy is not the trans person in the bathroom next to you, the enemy is the person who sold you that lie in the first place. THAT, dear reader, is what "No Revolution without Queer Liberation" means. The removal of judgement for those outcast by a society that failed them. The groundwork of equality to be laid.
Thank you, and Happy Pride.
