Meanwhile, Across the Atlantic…

From the New Statesman (the magazine, not Alan B’Stard):

The Stonewall riots in New York in 1969 have passed into legend as the catalyst for the modern Anglo-American gay liberation movement; in 2012, we’ve forgotten what the fight was originally about. The image of racially mixed drag queens, dykes and poor street queers fighting back against police brutality is about as far from the contemporary ideal of the well-off assimilationist gay as you can get. The matching Volvos and semi-detached houses of buttoned-up 21st century gay(-friendly) conservatives are representative of a different, diluted era, and rather a saddening one.

Equal rights as an end goal reflect an understandable desire for an easier life. There’s a strong logic in the idea that normalising same-sex desire entails less stigma, trauma, and violence directed towards LGBT people. But a quick search for “gay marriage” on most-read British LGBT news website Pink News returns 3617 results, compared to 1247 for “violence”, or for “poverty”, a measly 178. Make no mistake, this is not because violence or poverty have ceased to be issues for LGBT people. More likely, the coverage reflects the dominance of the interests of white, middle-class, educated, and dare I say it, conservative gays and lesbians in the movement.

…

[P]rioritising equal marriage as a cause has actively meant the exclusion of other important approaches. Where are the campaigns against the poisonous ideology which supports financial and political reward for those who are married?

…

The “Conservative case for gay marriage” is spot on. If you want to reinvigorate social conservatism for the austerity generation, it makes sense to support equal marriage. The pity is the gay movement is buying into it. Hijacked by those we used to stand in political opposition to, today’s gay movement has lost its teeth.

…kinda like a meth addict.

The Stonewall Rebellion: Whose Riot Is It Anyway?

Here’s a link to an essay written by my friend Michael Woodward, who works at Wingspan and with the Southern Arizona Gender Alliance, back in June 2007:

The Stonewall Rebellion: Whose Riot Is It Anyway?

Each year the LGBT community celebrates its pride in June to mark the anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, an event considered by most as the “shot heard ‘round the world” for the gay rights movement.

I wanted to take a moment to reflect on another side of Stonewall—one you likely have not heard as much about.

While the Stonewall Rebellion galvanized the quest for gay and lesbian equality, it also sparked what has become one of the longest-running controversies in the movement: the rift between the gay and lesbian community and the transgender population.

Read the whole thing, as they say on the Intarwebs.

UPDATE: More History Goodness:

Monica explains why the transgender community hates HRC.