On Sunday, Sept 20, USM had a visit from Sherry Wolf, a socialist, gay rights activist, and author of Sexuality and Socialism. On the seventh floor of the Glickman Library, Wolf came to talk about her book, and about roots of LGBT discrimination.
After an introduction by Sarah Parker-Holmes, USM’s Center for Sexualities and Gender Diversity coordinator, Wolf started with a lively lecture about the relationship between sex and socialism. She noted that she does address the science of sexuality (“more than people are used to talking about it,” she said) in her book. Speaking of biological determinism, in this case the idea that our orientations are predetermined by our DNA, Wolf said “I think we need to reject this notion of our sexualities.” (I agree.)
Proud and confident in her “Tax the Rich” t-shirt, Wolf discussed the roles of Democrats and Republicans in recent history (she is “unabashedly a socialist, a Marxist”). Quite honestly, it is just obvious that neither party has done enough for the gay rights movement in past years. Or decades. Wolf suggests that many members of the LGBT community are tired of fighting these parties, and just want equal rights.
“We are at a turning point of sorts. Since the Prop 8 reversal of rights, the outlook is suspicious of democrats, and rightfully so.” She points to a huge weakness (besides not federally recognizing same-sex marriage) of the democratic party-the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. The public must now understand that “Obama needs to be pushed by mass pressure.” DADT has been pushed aside, and regarding marriage rights, there are “political limitations of this state-by-state strategy” and we need to “fight for it in all 50 states, once and for all.”
Wolf talked about capitalism as a structure under which discrimination flourishes (discrimination, here, specifically regarding sexuality). She brought up capitalism’s dependence on consumerism, and its number one advertiser as sex. “Phony models of sex contribute to negative body image. and attitudes about sex.” She also brought up that “there is nothing scarier to the few on top than the gathering of multiracial, multiethnic, gay and straight people-everybody-coming together and showing solidarity… The politics I argue is: injury to one is injury to all!”
Wolf told a few inspiring stories to illustrate how the LGBT community is fighting back harder than ever against discrimination. “What is new about the posture of this new movement is that people aren’t taking it anymore.” She talked about two Black lesbians who embraced each other while paying their check at Tastee Diner in Silver Spring, Maryland. The couple was asked to leave the restaurant by a disagreeable manager who informed them that people were “trying to eat.” (A straight couple was nearby kissing, but they were ignored.) The following week the lesbian couple brought in dozens of their gay friends in for dinner during the restaurant’s busiest time.
In Illinois there was a gay couple in a bar that made the bar’s owner angry enough to put up a sign in his window saying “This is not a gay bar.” The gay community in the area was pretty upset, and basically said, “Well f*** you, now it is.” And I am happy to report, that now, indeed, it is. What Wolf pointed out is that “it’s not these [discriminatory] actions that are new, but the response to these actions.”
Before the question and answer session, Wolf ended at exactly the right point. “We need to ditch this male/female binary we’ve grown up with… [Referring to the upcoming Equality March in D.C.] The demand for the march – to be blunt – is full equality. We can’t go around begging for tweaks… Enough with the crumbs, we want everything!”
Sherry Wolf’s Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics, and Theory of LGBT Liberation is available on amazon.com and at other book retailers
An excerpt:
“What would sexual liberation mean? We can, perhaps, agree on what must disappear-institutional and legal discrimination against LGBT people, fixed gender roles and sexual identities, legal constraints on consensual sex, and social repression of sexual experimentation, etc. While many of us dream of a world in which we are free to do as we choose with our bodies and sex lives, living under capitalism, where sex is bought and sold, bodies objectified, and relationships constrained by material forces out of our control, it seems that even our fantasies must be limited somewhat by the world in which we live.”
On October 10-11 there will be a National Equality March in Washington, D.C. More info can be found at http://equalityacrossamerica.org