First Published: Guardian, December 19, 1970.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The following contribution to the Guardian’s Radical Forum is from Allen Young, former staff member of Liberation News Service now active in New York’s Gay Liberation Front.
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“Homosexuals are sick, products of the decadence of capitalist society. Homosexuals certainly are not an oppressed people. It is absurd to talk about freedom for homosexuals in a revolutionary socialist society because such a society will eliminate the causes of homosexuality and will eventually eliminate homosexuals” (paraphrase of the customary “Marxist-Leninist” viewpoint on homosexuality and gay liberation).
Does the above statement come close to your point of view? If so, remember that Marx and Lenin were never for putting a straitjacket on ideas. Open up your minds!
I’m not about to write an apologia telling you why I’m not sick and decadent. Nor will I write an article telling you how homosexuals are oppressed in this society. Even if you are a tolerant, humanistic, kind person, think a minute about the depth of your own anti-homosexualism. Then compare that to the mentality of the Nixons, the Agnews, the university presidents, the corporation executives, the pigs on the streets and you might get a notion of what it’s like to be gay in Amerika.
It will be a little easier to understand the pain of one homosexual, this one, if you think about how I hid as a “straight”–whether in the home and town where I grew up (yes, that was a little 11-year-old homosexual giving out leaflets for the American Labor party in 1952 in upstate New York), or on the Youth March for Integrated Schools in the late 1950s, the Woolworth picket lines, the ban-the-bomb marches, the SDS national council meetings, the U.S. delegation to the World Youth Festival in Sofia, a trip to Cuba as an invited guest in 1969 and so on.)
(If you’re older, think about all the gays hiding as straights in the great sit-down strikes, the campaigns for Sacco and Vanzetti and Tom Mooney and the Rosenbergs, on the picket lines and in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.)
How much time did I spend worrying about my secret? And, what a secret!–that I wanted to and did love someone of the same sex in a complete way. What a crime, that it had to be hidden from all these so-called Communists (with a big “C” or a little “c,” it hasn’t really mattered until recently; now some of the little “c” communists are taking some time to find out about us, but the big “C” Communists don’t want us marching with our gay signs in support of Angela Davis and they certainly don’t seem interested in finding, out about our oppression).
I won’t give you details about the people who have lost their jobs, been beaten up. been joked about, felt compelled to laugh at those very jokes, committed suicide, become alcoholic, or who are incarcerated and tortured daily in the nation’s mental hospitals.
Some of you want to know whether we have the “right line” or “good politics,” but I say later for that–Sure, we have our phony reformists and some homosexual groups even wave the stars and stripes and want their share of this dying America. But that’s not what gay liberation is all about. But first straight people need to learn about us and about the homosexual in themselves. Most of you would rather not. (Forgive me, but this is an expression of my rage at how everything called “the movement” oppressed me as a gay person the same way that “the establishment” oppressed my gay sisters and brothers.)
Let’s think for a minute about power, for power is the concern of all communists. Communists wish to create a society of equals, where there is no hierarchy and no competition. In traditional Marxist terms, the bourgeoisie maintains power over the proletariat. If you are bourgeois, you are rich; if you are proletarian, you are poor-this is the result of economic exploitation. White people wield power over black people. But the result of racism is not merely economic, not merely the poverty of black people. White people feel superior to black people, merely on the basis of skin color. Making black people feel inferior is a basic part of the racist’s being, because it gives him the perverted pleasure of feeling superior.
At this time in history, racism doesn’t work quite as well but only because black people started fighting and getting themselves together on the basis of their blackness. Even so, most whites probably continue to sense some superiority over blacks.
Anyone who has experienced the orgasm must realize that this is one of the most significant human experiences. For political people concerned with the fate of humanity and the progress of humankind, therefore, sex must be a matter for scientific investigation, for study and thought and for experience. Yet, there is much evidence to show that many political writers, perhaps acting out of the taboos of their cultures and their times, chose to ignore sex. That is certainly true of the two greatest political writers of modern history, Marx and Lenin. As for Engels, he merely initiates an analysis of the relationship between the family and capitalism. Many of the ideas of the movement against sexism–women’s liberation and gay liberation–fit perfectly with what Engels wrote back then. But most of our ideas about sex and power emerge from the experience of women.
Lesbians, who have defined themselves as “the rage of all women condensed to the point of explosion,” are the most courageous and outspoken of our teachers. And we male homosexuals, perhaps because we are seen as traitors to our sex, because we reject the traditional definitions of masculinity, have an additional perspective to give.
What is sexism, this new word, not in the dictionary, coined by women, now an acceptable part of the radical lexicon? (The CP’s Daily World was so concerned that it had a special article to argue that there is no such thing as sexism.)
Here’s what the male homosexual workshop at the Philadelphia plenary of the Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention said about sexism:
“Sexism is a belief or practice that the sex or sexual orientation of human beings gives to some the right to certain privileges, powers, or roles, while denying to others their full potential. Within the context of our society, sexism is .primarily manifested through male supremacy and heterosexual chauvinism. Since in the short run, sexism benefits certain persons or groups, in the long run it cannot serve all the people and prevents the formation of complete social consciousness among straight men. Sexism is irrational, unjust and counterrevolutionary. Sexism prevents the revolutionary solidarity of the people.”
The struggle against sexism is, basically, the struggle against the power wielded by men over women. Homosexuals are victims of sexism in a special way because we defy the pattern of male-female relationships in which this power play is expressed. Female homosexuals become “woman-defined women,” not limited by association with a man (as in “Mrs.” Smith, or “Joey’s” “chick”). Male homosexuals refuse to accept the consummation of a possessive sexual relationship as the essence of manhood. We seek a new definition of ourselves as men where “man” is not superior to “woman,” where strength can include the shedding of tears.
Only a sexist society can create such categories as homosexuality, heterosexuality, even bisexuality. Children are born sexual, with the potential to completely love all bodies. Only because our capitalist values and nuclear family structure coerce children into sex roles do they become limited in their sexuality. “Successful” socialization makes heterosexuals. We homosexuals have rebelled against sex roles. For this we merit neither medals nor pity. Just the right to feel free and become actualized. As for our parents, they deserve neither condemnation nor consolation. They should not suffer under the mythology of bourgeois psychology. Their “mistakes” (as in “What did we do wrong?”) were no graver than the mistakes of parents whose children are heterosexual. I say “right on” to the parents of homosexuals because they have helped make possible our role in this movement for equality. And for you heterosexuals who are still up-tight about us, who want to eliminate us altogether, let me say this: you’ll never succeed, not as long as you hold on to sex roles, not as long as you stay straight. As one of my gay sisters wrote in one of the earliest gay liberation articles, “You will never be rid of us, because we reproduce ourselves out of your bodies–and out of your minds. We are one with you.”
Think about this: it is the so-called “effeminate” characteristics of the male homosexual which are the primary subject of the hatred and ridicule of straight society. The maintenance of separate sex roles is the essential task of the male supremacist. (In Cuba, where sanitary napkins are in short supply, the revolutionary government has installed elaborate beauty parlors in work camps and schools. When being shown such a beauty parlor at a physical education school, I was told specifically by my guide that the purpose of the beauty parlor was to be sure that the women stayed feminine, that is, didn’t become lesbians. Yes, I will defend the Cuban revolution because it is in the front lines of the battle against our common enemy, U.S. imperialism, and it has begun to transform the lives of the Cuban people. But Cuban society is sexist; Cuban gays are very oppressed and if machismo is not destroyed by a cultural revolution within a generation or two, the Cuban revolution will not only continue to deny equality to women and homosexuals, it will fail in its general economic and political goals.)
Gay liberation provides a vision for a post-revolutionary society, a vision of true equality. Without us, the revolution will not be complete. We have our obligations, too, those of us who are white, to learn about and struggle against our racism, to support third world peoples. Gay men still express male chauvinism. History is moving very quickly and the power wielded by U.S. imperialism at times seems overwhelming. But if that slogan we’ve all chanted so many times–“Power to the People!” –means anything at all, it’s time for the people to get together. And that’s what gay liberation is all about. We fight for revolution; we create our separate identity for our survival.
Remember, women’s liberation isn’t divisive. Male chauvinism is. Gay liberation isn’t divisive. Heterosexual chauvinism is.
There’s a lot more to say-on alternatives to the nuclear family, children, sex roles, bisexuality, the experience of homosexuals in different social classes, the experience of third world gay people and the various gay organizations and how they view the struggle, And there can never be enough reminders that the writer is a male homosexual and female homosexuals have their own perspective. But space is limited and the Guardian has’ ignored us for too long, so the apology should be theirs, not mine.
For further reading on sexism, see Kate Millett’s “Sexual Politics,” your favorite women’s liberation anthology (even though every article might not place things perfectly in the familiar anti-imperialist context) and the brand-new gay liberation packet, which you can obtain by sending $1.25 to Gay Flames, Box 410 Old Chelsea Sta., New York, N.Y. 10011.
A final word to all you gay people out there. Gay people are beautiful. I didn’t know that for 15 years, because this whole society taught me otherwise. Let’s get together. We can be together. We can fight and win together.