Queer theory has long built on a defiant view of politics, gender, social categories and citizenship. The divide between social justice minded queers and assimationist gays has only grown wider. GLBT groups have sought to portray the gay community as "just like everyone else"
Queer theory has long built on a defiant view of politics, gender, social categories and citizenship. The divide between social justice minded queers and assimationist gays has only grown wider. GLBT groups have sought to portray the gay community as "just like everyone else"
Queer theory has long built on a defiant view of politics, gender, social categories and citizenship. The divide between social justice minded queers and assimationist gays has only grown wider. GLBT groups have sought to portray the gay community as "just like everyone else"
Shepard, B. (2010). Queer Politics and Anti-Capitalism: From Theory to Praxis. In S.
Burkhard. Queering Paradigms. (Pp.81-100) Berlin: Peter Lang Publishing Group.
"What queer theory has yet to learn," Douglas Crimp (2002) writes in the final lines of Melancholia and Moralism, is "how...we make what we know knowable to the legions?" (p. 301). While, queers have always known pleasure as a resource, the challenge remains how to articulate such a defense in a way which influences lived struggles, in the streets as well as the seminar rooms. Queer activism has long demonstrated that there are countless ways of building family and community outside of conventional patriarichal family structures (DEmilio, 1993; Shepard, 2009). Queer theory has long built on a defiant view of politics, gender, social categories and citizenship (Butler, 1990; Jargose, 1996). While queer theory was born of reflection on activist struggle (Crimp, 2002; Hall, 2003, Jargose, 1996), over the years the fields challenge has been to inject this broad and bountiful, often anti-capitalist disposition into real world social and political struggles (Mattilda, undated). Muddling this picture is another ongoing problem: divining and defining the very nature of queer and gay lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) activism. In recent years, the divide between social justice minded queers and assimationist gays has only grown wider. On one side, stand queers who link the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) movements with broader social justice issues. On the other side, stands a bureaucratic cadre of single issue gay assimilationist organizations who aspire to a place at the policy table. Queers, who envision their movement as a critique of social, sexual, and economic social norms, have long called for something bigger, richer, and more profound than just fitting in. However, GLBT groups have sought to portray the gay community as "just like everyone else", turning their back on issues 2 such as AIDS, homelessness, gender self determination and immigration in favor of law and order social policies, access to marriage, and military service (Crimp, 2002; Warner, 1993). As an assimilationist gay political movement has grown, so has this conflict. Ultimately, queer theory has found itself staring down charges of obsolescence. One way to approach such a challenge is by thinking about the concept of praxis, in which theory and practice intersect. Here, theory is considered as the application of knowledge to action. It is one thing to study and analyze the world, yet the important task involves application, so theory is used to actually improve the conditions of peoples lives. The challenge is to establish a framework for an interplay between knowledge and action, theory and practice (Marx and Engels, 1976; Schram, 2002). Without this, the gap between theory and action widens. For queer theory, the challenge involves how to link its critique with a route toward action, a feedback loop for reflection, and synthesis connecting these understandings. Without such a praxis, queer theory will continue stray from the action which once propelled the field. The following considers both the efforts to describe a queer disposition as well as struggles between academic and activist understandings of this worldview. It includes a short overview on the history of this position as well as case examples of activist struggles which reflect both the tensions and possibilities of the application of the theory and practice to politics. Case examplars involve disputes over differing forms of public space including reproductive rights, sexual freedoms, access to constitutionally protected services, community gardens, urban space, and freedom of assembly. After all, if queer theory is to be taken seriously, then it has be linked with acts of "queer" politics.
Queer Theories 3 Throughout the early 1970s, writers borrowed from traditions, from Marxism to psychoanalysis, feminism to post modernism, to articulate the broad message of gay liberation. Gay papers, born as underground press, focused on urban life, activism, politics, to cover the movement. As the AIDS crisis hit outsiders everywhere, they helped transform an analysis of AIDS activism into a theory of action. And activists and scholars established the groundwork for a broad critical framework eventually recognized as queer theory. Three proponents of this framework were Douglas Crimp, Michael Warner, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Crimp (2002) helped inject a scholarly analysis into ACT UP's challenge to the phobic representations of the epidemic. He argued violence against queers whether leveled at women on welfare, injection drug users, or men who have sex with men in public functions out of a similar anti humanist ethos. Similarly, Sedgwick (1994) suggested that queer no longer be linked exclusively with sexual identity. As the 1990s progressed, queer organizing churned forward bending cultural identifies, gender roles, and expectations. Here, Warner (1993) envisioned a new politics which rejected interest group representation, defining itself against "the normal rather than the heterosexual (P. xxvi). Rather than calling for interest group representation for gay people, queer theory dissected the ethics of democratic citizenship and public life, especially when it came to the stigma of HIV and illness. Once involved in the fight to end the AIDS crisis, queer identity would never again be the same (Crimp 2002). In linking its struggle with those of struggles among other outsiders, queer activism crossed a Rubicon. As a concept and taxonomy, queerness had come into its own, simultaneously challenging notions of heteronormativity and grappling with a bountiful array of impulses and identities. Yet, not everyone agreed with its assumptions.
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The field suffered its share of growing pains as it has become an academic discourse (Goldstein, 1997). [I]ts own blind spots, lapses, inconsistencies, and nervous avoidances must be foregrounded if it is to avoid becoming yet another manifestation of the normalizing forces that it claims to critique and to work to undermine Donald Hall (2003) argues (p.8). In addition to the academy, a number of queer theorys positions have met stark opposition in the political arena (Shepard, 2009). For example, many activists reject its vanguardism. The concept came from activists and was appropriated by academics, not the other way around Hall (2003) notes (p.80). If the field is unable to communicate its precepts beyond graduate school, then its political relevance comes into question. A recurring difficulty with current queer theory is this: it often lacks a connection with the embodied practices which help contribute to a queer praxis. In this absence, activists have come to accuse academic queer theorists of divorcing the theory from its activist roots. Activist Mattilda aka Matt Bernstein Sycamore (2004) experienced this first hand during an academic conference at the University of Michigan: organized under the theme, Gay Shame, a reference to the San Francisco activist group of which she was a member. At the conference, Mattilda and company realized theirs was the only panel on activism. [W]e were a fetish object called on for a few realness points. So, Mattilda and company used the opportunity to, stimulate a debate on this blatant appropriation. Mattilda opened the Gay Shame panel by explaining there was a typo in the program. Rather than Gay Shame the program should have read, Gay Sham. What she saw was that: academics appropriate anything that they can get their hands on mostly peoples lived struggles, activism and identitiesand claim to have invented them The aim of her intervention was to cultivate a dialog. Yet, this was not a conversation the 5 academics wanted to have. Instead, we were met with shouting and blatant attempts to immediately silence us, Mattilda observed. The Gay Shame conference was not an isolated incident. The divide between queer activism and theory was expanding. Yet, there are ways to address the divide between theory and practice now facing queer politics. One way to prevent the theoretical cul de sac Mattilda describes is to link a queer social knowledge of politics, and activism within an activist recognition of the subversive possibilities of pleasure. Queer activism has long involved defense of sexuality and difference; queer theory can only benefit by reflecting and supporting, rather than obscuring such activist practices. Queers have a long history of appropriating space with an eye towards repurposing it for other uses, including supporting the creation of communities of pleasure. Such a view builds on the truism that there has to be more to life than work and necessity; hence the imperative of play explained Herbert Marcuse (1955). Through embodied forms of play, activism, and worldmaking, queers aspire to goals beyond equality or cultural assimilation. Rather than embrace a bland GLBT agenda of military service, hate crimes laws, and marriage, a queer politics of play involves a more ambitious and subversive agenda, involving creativity, play, and acts of freedom (Shepard, 2009; Takemeto 2003). Over the years, the free activity which characterizes a queer politics of play would take on many tropes. One recurring trope was anti-capitalism. Rather than articulate capitalism with a somber approach, queer politics tend to reject the obligatory docile bodies and alienated social relations which support it (Berman, 1999; Ollman, 1971). Rather than view procreation as production, queer activism favors eros and pleasure as ends unto themselves (DEmilio, 1993). Rather than view urban space as an engine for economic growth, queer politics embraces the use of public space for social connection, democracy, community building (Mitchell, 2003). Finally, 6 rather than adhere to authoritarian police controls, play favors constitutionally guaranteed forms of democratic expression and freedom of assembly. The cases to follow consider just this queer approach to play and pleasure to help articulate a queer political praxis. Case One Clinic Defence "[Q]ueer, can afford an access to the jouissance that at once defines and negates us, Lee Edelman (2007) writes (p.5). Given the subversive nature of queer play, many seek to restrict it. While queer politics involves both a subversive view of pleasure and political participation, over and over again, it has been forced to confront the specter of panic over its challenge to the normative notions of family and citizenship in which alienation reasserts itself as primary social relation. The process often begins with the image of the child as a trope. On every side, our enjoyment of liberty is eclipsed by the lengthening shadow of a Child, writes Lee Edelman (2007, p. 21). This child must grow up unfettered by contact with social outsiders, or even by the threat of potential encounters, with an otherness of which its parents, its church, or the state do not approve, uncompromised by any possible access to what is painted as alien desire Edelman continues (p. 21). Activists have long fought to challenge this prohibitive, enclosing logic. On a rainy Saturday morning in November, 2008 a group of anti-abortion activists, led by Bishop Bishop Caggiano, assembled to hold a prayer vigil outside of a women's health facility in Sunset Park, a neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. But when the Bishop and his group arrived, they were met by a coalition of pro-choice groups: the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, the Brooklyn Pro Choice Network, and the Church Ladies for Choice and (of which this writer is a member). These groups were dedicated to both ensuring access to clinics as well as street theatre to convey their political agenda. 7 The Rude Mechanical Orchestra (RMO) and the Church Ladies each used songs as a component of their street theatre. Dressed in green and black marching band uniforms, RMO members performed Salt and Peppas Push It injecting the words Hands off Our Bodies into the chorus to drive home their manifesto. The Church Ladies offered parodies of popular traditional songs with gay and pro-choice lyrics. If You are Happy and You Know It was sung to the words, If you are Pro Choice and You know It Kiss a Dyke. The Woody Guthrie anthem This Land is My Land took on a pro-choice message with this reinterpretation: This womb is my womb It is not your womb And there is no room for Bishop Caggiano From Flushing Meadow on Down to Bay Ridge These wombs were made to be free!
As I was walking up to a clinic, I got socked by a psycho-Catholic He showed me pictures and showed me lies I said my womb belongs to me refrain (Church Ladies hymnal, P. 6).
Building on the folk tradition used to mobilize crowds for generations, the Church Ladies perform Malvina Reynolds homage to suburban monoculture, Little Boxes, changing the lyrics to Psycho Christians. The first verse highlights the dominant racial make-up of the anti- choice movement. Psycho-Christians, blocking health care Thats the way they get to heaven Psycho-Christians, blocking health care and they all look just the same Theres a white one And a white one And a white one Psycho-Christians, blocking health care and they all look just the same (Church Ladies hymna, P. 4).
The second verse explicitly highlights the homophobia of anti-choice activists. Psycho-Christians, taunting homos Thats the way they buy indulgences 8 Psycho-Catholics, taunting homos And they all look just the same Theres a closet case And a closet case And a closet case And a closet case Psycho-Catholics, taunting homos And they all look just the same (P. 4). Even some police officers laughed at the Church Ladies brand of radical ridicule. The Rude Mechanical Orchestras performance climaxed with a rendition of the 1980s heavy metal anthem 'We're Not Going to Take It' as the anti-choice contingent, still praying, departed the scene. Of course, this cultural activism campy not a new approach. US anarchist Emma Goldman brought the same ingredients to her early-Twentieth-century struggle for reproductive freedoms. In February 1916, Goldman was arrested while speaking about abortion, in violation of the Comstock Law. After her arrest she explained that the battle over birth control had become: a war of the oppressed and the disinherited of the earth against their enemies, capitalism and the state, a war for a seat at the table of life, a war for well being, for beauty, for liberty (Zinn, 2004, p. 34). She concluded, Above all this war is for a free motherhood and a joyous, playful, glorious childhood.
For Goldman, whose work helped establish the foundations for both anarcha feminism and queer theory, an anti-capitalist critique overlapped with the pursuit of a richer experience of the world on ones own terms. Much of Goldmans philosophy was based on a broad belief in personal freedom. For Goldman, joy and justice intermingled, neither able to exist without the other. Today, Goldmans adage on dance and revolution provides the underpinnings for the street party-style protest of Reclaim the Streets and the global justice movement of movements. 9 Her thinking reflects a distinct humanist approach to queer politics. Writing about this world view Lee Edelman suggests this kind of politics: delights in the morality as the negation of everything that would define itself, moralistically, as pro-life, (p. 31). Of course, advocates such as the Singing Nun, Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman sacrificed everything to challenge the pseudo morality of the Comstock law which linked discussion of reproductive health with obscenity (Gilfoyle, 1992; Kendrick, 1996). Over the next century, queer activists would continue to battle the prohibitive politics of Comstocks ilk. Taking apart the arguments of the self appointed moralists, would remain an ongoing target of queer politics and activism. Current battles over abstinence-only sex education mirror much of this the struggle between supporters of sexual self determination and advocates of social control dating back to the Comstock era (Gilfoyle, 1992; Kendrick, 1996). Within this context, a queer imperative still resonates. The point of queer theory and activism, of course, is that abstinence is an unworkable approach, borne out by rising HIV transmissions. Sexual repression is unhealthy. Much of this debate has yet to be resolved. The struggles between personal autonomy and social control which mark the clinic stand-offs, are emblems of a larger contested space. [Q]ueerness names the side of those not fighting for the children, the side outside consensus, Lee Edelman (2008) suggests (P. 3). [Q]ueerness, by contrast, figures, outside and beyond its political symptoms, a place, to be sure, of abjection expressed in the stigmaa place from which liberal politics strives quite reasonably, given its unlimited faith in reason to dissociate the queer, (p. 3). The second case example explores just such a circumstance. Case Number Two Urban Spaces 10 The history of queer activism is marked by efforts to break apart silences which support social inequalities. Queer organizing finds its roots in the 1966 disruptions at the Black Cat Bar in Los Angeles and Comptons Cafeteria in San Francisco, as well as the 1969 riots at The Stonewall Inn in New York. These watershed moments were followed by subsequent challenges to sodomy laws, psychiatric classifications, and public mores around pleasure. By the 1970s, the Gay Liberation Movement was dynamic and vast. Throughout the decade the movement linked its work with a struggle to create a queer public commons, including bath houses, piers, and other public spaces. Here queers recognized that a democratic pursuit of happiness included countless permutations, many taking shape in spaces where outsiders and members of the tribe converged, including bath houses, hussler bars, clubs and community gardens (Benderson, 2007; Crimp, 2002). Throughout 1990s, queer activists helped defend public spaces from the encroaching developers from suburbia. Veterans of ACT UP joined environmental activists to save green spaces, having been reclaimed from vacant lots and built up into verdant oases (Mitchell, 2003). Gardens functioned as particularly subversive spaces where a cross section of neighbors from all walks of life converged to share space and build common ground; these spaces cultivated alternative models for social relations which could thrive outside the parameters of buying and selling, and other workings of capitalism (Holtzman et al, 2007). This, of course, is part of why they were under attack. Queers have long participated within such campaigns and politics. Recall the genderfuck queer performance group, the Cockettes, from the early 1970s. Members of the group first performed unclothed in the trees in San Franciscos Golden Gate Park. When the Palace, where the group found a space for their shows, started charging entrance fees for their shows, their 11 founder Hibiscus revolted. Ever an advocate of play over professionalism, Habiscus opened the back door of the Palace, so fans without money could attend (Tent, 2004). Play has to be free. Yet, the issue of public vs private spaces never resolved itself vis a vis queer activism. More than anything, queer conjures the poetic contradictions of politics and social life. Queer marks the other side of politics, Lee Edelman (2007) suggests (p.5). (p.7). None of this is to suggest this makes such politics simple. Throughout the Spring of 1999, the City of New York planned to auction off hundreds of community gardens. I had been participating in civil liberties activism as a member of both the Lower East Side Collective (LESC) and SexPanic!, two groups fighting the restrictions of the Quality of Life Crusade. One of my first actions with LESC was participating in a direct action campaign to successfully halt the sale of 114 community gardens earlier that spring. Activists had been less successful in defending public sexual spaces. So that June 1999, SexPanic! planned to hold a community forum on the loss of public sexual spaces. I was interested in building the linkages between groups facing attacks on their meeting spaces from the West Side of the City to the East Side of the city. What connected these spaces was their importance as meetings spaces. While members of LESC were veterans of queer activism, others in the garden movement were reticent about considering the linkages between movements and various struggles for public space. June 16 th , 1999 I posted a notice on a SexPanic! event dubbed, Vanishing Queer New York to be held at the Lesbian and Gay Community Center on a garden listserve called Cyberpark. -> Hear about New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's war on Queer New York --
-> The Latest Targets -> Attacks on Sexual Civil Liberties -> Disruption of HIV Prevention Efforts
-> Please join us for this crucial community discussion and -> Help us make plans for resistance 12
-> XXX Shops -- ZONED OUT -> Bathhouses -- PADLOCKED -> Peep Shows -- OUTLAWED -> The Piers -- POLICED -> Bars and Clubs -- RAIDED -> Cruisers in Parks -- BUSTED
Over the next week, activists debated whether I should have posted the announcement to the list. Under the subject heading, Vanishing Queer New York, the flame war served to illustrate Lee Edelmans point that queer marks the other side of politics. Differing views of public space, approaches to civil liberties, and sexual civil liberties found expression through the week long discussion. On the one side, a moderator maintained a liberal view of public space and politics which precluded debate about sexual liberties activism or public sexual culture; on the other side, a wide range of activists suggested such discussions were entirely germane to debate over public spaces such as gardens. June 17 th , 1999, I received a notice from list serve moderator informing me: In the cyberpark listserv, discussion is limited to issues relating to parks and public space in the city of new york. we have to make tough choices as to whether the posting is appropriate to THIS listserv. The note concluded: While the issue you have brought to cyberpark is of great importance, it is not appropriate to the discussion of public space. The following day, I posted a public response to the entire list, defending my position that my post on queer space was germane to a list serve dedicated to issues of public space. Throughout the day, members of the list serve chimed in under the subject line, Re: CYBERPARK: vanishing queer new york 86'd. The flame war of hostile interactions among subscribers to the internet discussion list would last for the next week. One observer, Tim who had gone to a few SexPanic! meetings addressed the list moderator, posting: I don't know who 13 made you king in deciding what is appropriate in issues around public space, gardens, parks, and the individuals who use the spaces, plus the individuals that attack those places. Instead, he suggested such issues overlap. Whether it is the plant, the earth, or the individual, I believe it is appropriate for any issue to be on this listserve for all persons interested in the remaining public spaces of New York. Tim concluded his post with a call for tolerance and connection. Other posts were informed by a distinct theoretical understanding of the queer meanings of public space. A small group of gay activists chimed in about the connections between cruising and public space. On June 20 th , Mark wrote: As far as I can tell, all Ben did was post a notice about a Sex Panic! event that concerned many of the sorts of spaces under discussion on this list--piers, parks, public streets. Even the quickest examination of queer culture shows the importance of these spaces Yeah, queer public space is about getting off (which is a reasonable end in itself), but also about finding and making community, HIV education, political outreach, creating art, and a whole lot more.
More than anything, the author suggested that a queer perspective involved grappling with notions of difference. One of the reasons for coming to a public space, even a virtual public space such as CyberPark, is to encounter the unfamiliar and perhaps unsettling. It's about exploring difference. Given most of the participants on the cyberpark list preferred the gritty, crowded New York street to the whitebread mall, a wiser course of action is to initiate discussion, rather than stifle conversation. [L]iving in NYC is all about experiencing the unexpected, the different, starting dialogues with all sorts of diverse peoples, which is what the Giuliani administration seems intent on subduing. While the recognition that people are different is a core axiom of queer theory (Hall, 2003), the principal is easier in theory than in application, especially in relation to questions about sexuality and public space. Marc recalled a similar flame war which took place when he posted a call for a Gays for Gardens contingent at the Pride parade the previous year. While it 14 is not always comfortable, the public commons can generally handle the specter of difference. Yet an appreciation for the democratic nature of public space informs such a position. The point of queer activism continues to be to push such ideas into the light of day, queering paradigms of self, community and public space. [L]et's get down to brass tacks, Mark continued. Many of the strategies used in the recent victorious campaign to save the auctioned gardens were derived from groups like Act Up, Lesbian Avengers, and the queer-infused Livermore Action Group. Such activism helped transform the movement, infusing it with a raw burst of activist knowledge and practice. Linking queer activism with the struggle for community gardens, the post helped connect the dots attacks on queers with the concepts of self determination and public space. A good friend of mine was held in jail overnight simply for using a Central Park bathroom in the middle of the afternoon and looking queer, Mark continued, noting that to a certain degree he had been censoring himself. I realize that these are difficult, touchy subjects to bring up. (That's why Sex Panic! is such a great name for a group.) Yet, he called for members of the list to encourage, rather than discourage, their involvement. We've all had too much shame in our life already. In many ways, the debate over the queering of public spaces took a liberal leaning discussion list and turned it into a space for debate over difference. By the time it was over, the covert silences over homophobic discourse felt disrupted. Well, you managed to stir things up quite a bit! Good for you. I think skirmishes like this are very good, Bob Kohler, a Stonewall veteran, who was also involved with SexPanic! would write me when I sent him some of email thread that Sunday the 20 th of June. Later in the day, CIRCUS AMOK, a New York queer performance group, planned to put on a free show in Tompkins Square Park with a free, fabulous, with a community garden theme! one Cyberpark 15 member would noted, advertising it on the list, reconfirming the links between queer space and public space. By the end of the week, the topics of harassment of cruisers, public sexual culture, and stigma had become a part of the debate about the gardens, along side debates about civil disobedience, green space and DIY politics. Linkages between identities and activist communities are never simple. Yet, as the case suggests, a theoretically informed queer activist perspective can help queer paradigms and conceptions of meaning of public space. Case Number Three Parade Without a Permit
Spring of 2007, both veterans and first time activists discussed plans for the twentieth anniversary of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). As the group outlined plans for its anniversary action, a number of age old debates over conflicts between identity based GLBT and a more post modern queer understanding played themselves out over the ACT UP 20 List serve. ACT UP is historically credited with infusing a critical praxis into queer theory and vice versa (Crimp, 2002). So it was not surprising these debates took hold during discussions of its anniversary action. At issue was the very nature of queer activism. April 12, 2007, I posted a call for a parade without a permit organized by a new queer direct action group called the Radical Homosexual Agenda (RHA).
PARADE WITHOUT A PERMIT!*** An Un-Permitted Queer Parade to Call Out Christine Quinn and Defend Free Assembly
Calling All Queers, Allies and Anyone Effected by NYPDs New Rule (AKA Everyone in NYC)!! Join us in the streets as we challenge the NYPDs new law preventing assembly. Or cheer us on from the sidelines.
Early in 2007, the NYPD published new regulations restricting freedom of assembly in New York City. Working with the speaker of the City Council, who happened to be a lesbian, the 16 police altered the definition of a "parade." Any public gathering of 50 or more people would require a "permit" from the NYPD. The last line included a nod to history. The Stonewall veterans never asked for a permit and neither should we! Shorter after I posted the Parade without a Permit announcement, one of the founders of ACT UP posted a comment on my post under the subject line, Re: [actuparmy] unpermitted parade declaring: Here is a fine example of queer activism - :-) I like it - Eric Sawyer Over the next year, the Radical Homosexual Agenda would build on the coalition of gardeners, bikers, queer activists and public spade advocates who took part on the gardens direct action of the previous decade to help frame issues of freedom of assembly as a queer issue. Members of RHA would fight the permit regulations and for the right of freedom of assembly, at every turn, participating in a number of unpermited parades, yearly drag marches, and critical mass bike rides, reminding organizers that issues of freedom of assembly are essential to a queer organizing ethos. Without public space, it is very difficult to think about issues of democracy, members of the group would insist. Throughout the next two years, members of RHA would fight the permit regulations and for the right of freedom of assembly, at every turn, reminding organizers that issues of freedom of assembly are essential to a queer organizing ethos. Without public space, it is very difficult to think about issues of democracy, members of the group would insist. The RHAs queer perspective on movement history helped infuse a vitality into the activism and debate over the permit laws. Summer 2008, members of RHA met with the Radical Faeries, the Church Ladies and many others for the annual Drag March, held the Friday of Pride weekend. An unpermitted action, a march from Thompkins Square Park, on the East Side of the City, to Stonewall Inn, on 17 the West Side, the boisterous yearly event was just the kind of issue RHA was defending when it organized against the parade permit rules. While the 2008 parade turned out to be a joyous, playful spectacle, it was just about shut down before it could begin. Hucklefaery, who helped organize the event, wrote about hitting the streets with the other organizers, including the Church Ladies and Radical Faeries, to elude the police through a cat and mouse game of direct action. At first, he confessed that he panicked when the police approached. Who's in charge they asked. No one, Hucklefaery stammerred, bluffing for time. Do you have a permit? they asked. I don't know? he bluffed. You're all going to jail, the cop retorted. While this conversation was taking place, the Church Ladies clogged the street with drag queens, friends, and supporters in various stages of drag and undress. Songs and chants echoed through the Village air as the sun started to set. After speaking with police, Hucklefaery turned around to see the street clogged with queer bodies. [W]hen you guys held the street, it was so fucking inspiring that I went back to the cops and made them listen... Emboldened he told around and informed the police, "No we're not getting arrested... where were you - we've been waiting for you, what the hells going on... you've shown up for fifteen years...? Can't you talk to someone and fix this? They were dumbfounded... Hucklefaery would confess. I haven't truly figured out who I was channeling... Yet, there was a method. [I]t was pleading, but also a bit bossy and... compliant as long as you did what I asked... I guess that makes me a power bottom... Bottoms rule. 18 Looking around the police saw hundreds and hundreds of drag queens dressed to the nines filling the streets on a weekend celebrating a riot. And, the police gave in. [T]hey asked were we wanted to go and said they'd get us to Broadway - then we'd have to deal with another precinct ... who also came around to get us to stonewall. I felt like a pro, Hucklefaery noted. I really think those first cops were just so overwhelmed at they didn't know what to do... but they warmed quickly, he explained. [T]hey were even encouraging... do what you gotta do, they told me when they handed us off to the other cops... By this point, Hucklefaery was bantering with many of the police. I felt like they had joined us... the second group was a little more ridged, but their community outreach people showed up at Stonewall and apologized profusely. They police explained they had had a group at Tompkins earlier ready to escort the drag march, but didn't wait long enough and left. I told them we were drag queens and were always late. They said they loved doing it and they were all really bummed to have missed it. Hucklefaery thanked the Church Ladies for helping infuse the action with cornerstones of queer political performance and protest. These elements included: challenging fear, standing up and standing strong, and, for lifting me up to new heights of realization and ACTION! Here, Hucklefaery alludes to a tradition of queer activism informed by principles of direct action, yet aimed highlighting a specter of difference. I think it's a strength that we raise different energies in different ways and by different means, Hucklefaery insisted, but by making room for both all and more, by making room for difference, we are so encompassing, we just swallow ya up... we are a vast and varied lot ... Most importantly, queer direct action is informed by a bountiful energy of play. I loved killing the cops with kindness, while you told 'em to fuck off, Hucklefaery noted, in a nod to the disarming paradoxical effort. [I]t is where the colors clash that they truly accentuate each 19 others' strengths and uniqueness... But it is by coming together we create promise... The ludic quality of the march opened up any number of liminal spaces for activism, pleasure, and blurred identity. The note ended with a confession: It was my favorite Drag March Ever!
Conclusions Actions speak louder than words. This not a new saying. Yet, this old activist expression speaks to the divide between the theory and application of a queer approach to living. Through the intersection between theory and case exemplars, the essay aims to bridge the gap between abstract theory and activist practice. Each action a battle over reproductive rights/autonomy of the body, a discursive battle over the meanings of public space and democratic political participation, and struggles for freedom of assembly and by extension civil liberties highlights a theoretically and historically informed approach to queer activism. Each is informed by a subversive aim to describe, defend, and substantiate a queer world making project. In the first case, we see a defense of non-procreative (code non-productive) sexuality; the second, a discursive debate over public spaces; and the third, a debate over public assembly followed by the ludic defense of public space. Throughout the case examples, a queer approach to activism is linked with a theoretical rejection of prohibitive politics which informs queer theory. To stay vital, such theory and action must be able to play, intermingle, and feel embodied. Each case example is informed by a distinctly anti-capitalist framework for social relations. This is part of why opposition remains formidable. Such rebellion against repressive policies is anything but 20 simple to achieve, yet we see each taking a shape through their interplay between theory and action. For it to remain vital, queer theory and activism must continue to be informed by a boisterous praxis. Such theoretically informed action is most effective when linking its analysis with a bigger, brighter approach to queer community building. More than analyze, such a theory must inform struggles to create change. Herein queers link an identity bending universalizing discourse, which embraces outsider status, with a struggle for a richer more expansive democratizing experience of self, community, and citizenship. References The author would like to thank Jay Blotcher for his edits and friendship. Benderston, Bruce. 2007. Sex and Isolation. Madison, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press. Berman, Marshall. 1999. Adventures in Marxism. New York: Verso. Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble. London: Routledge. Church Ladies Song Book. Undated. http://www.churchladies.org/ Accessed 1 December, 2005. Crimp, Douglas. 2002. Melancholia and Moralism. Boston, MA: MIT Press. D'Emilio, John. 1993. Capitalism and Gay Identity in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader ed. by Henry Abelove, Michele Aina Barale, and David M. Halperin. New York: Routledge. Gilfoyle, Timothy. 1992. City of Eros: New York City. New York: WW Norton. Goldstein, Richard. 1997. Its Here, Its Queer! Its Too Hot for Yale. Village Voice, (29 July): 38 -40. Hall, Donald. 2003. Queer Theories Palgrave Macmillan. New York Holtzman, Benjamin; Hughes, Craig; and Van Meter, Kevin. 2007. Do It Yourself.... Radical Society. 29 (1) (2002 April) 7-20 Jargose, Annamarie. 1996. Queer Theory. New York: New York University Press. 21 Kendrick, Walter. 1996. The Secret Museum. University of California Press. Marcuse, Herbert. 1955. Eros and Civilization New York: A Vintage Book. Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich. 1976. Collected Works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. International Publishers. Mattilda aka Matt Bernstein Sycamore. 2004. Gay Shame. Accessed 20 December, 2008 from http://www.gayshamesf.org/slingshotgayshame.html Mitchell, Don. 2003. The Right to the City. New York: Guilford Press. Ollman, Bertell. 1971. Alienation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schram, Sanford. 2002. Praxis for the Poor. New York: NY Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. 1994. Tendencies. New York: Routledge. Shepard, B. (2009) Queer Political Performance and Protest: Play, Pleasure, and Social Movement. New York: Routledge. Takemoto, Tina. 2003. Interview with Douglas Crimp. Art Journal.Winter. Tent, Pam. 2004. Midnight at the Palace. Los Angeles: Alyson Books. Warner, Michael. 1993. Introduction, Fear of a Queer Planet. Edited by M. Warner. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Zinn, Howard. 2004. The People Speak. New York: Harper Collins.