challengingpride

[challengingpride]

Asexual Heteroromantics in LGBTQ Spaces

     A current argument that is prevalent on Tumblr right now is the discourse surrounding heteroromantic asexuals. There is much discussion on whether or not heteroromantic asexuals belong or have a place in LGBTQ spaces. It is an interesting discourse as the A in LGBTQIA+ doesn’t always stand for “Ally”; asexuals are obviously lumped in with the LGBTQ community. It comes down to what the purpose of LGBTQIA+ spaces are. Is it exclusively a place for marginalized sexual identities? Or is it a place for people whose sexual identity has caused them to be oppressed or put them at a consistent systematic and even social disadvantage? I hope to offer clarity on how this is a matter of bias within the LGBTQ community and offer context within the Tumblr community. As it is a very nuanced issue, I hope the reader takes my writing with the best intentions and with the understanding that this is in ways a matter of ethics and there is no true right answer (asexualeducation.tumblr.com). And I challenge the reader to look at this discourse objectively in what it truly is about and their feelings in regards to that. 

     As I am writing this, I feel very conflicted. I don’t want to come across as someone who thinks that others should be excluded because of their identity, because that certainly isn’t the case. I identify as a demisexual lesbian. I identify as a member of the LGBTQ community and as a member of the asexual community. To look at the goals of this class, I worry that I am enacting one of the five points of bias. However, I would clarify that I am not doing this, by offering context into Tumblr. Tumblr is a place of hard rights and hard wrongs, there is rarely anything in the center. Many equate the discussion of the place of heteroromantic asexuals in LGBTQ spaces as aphobic- and I’m sure many arguments have escalated to aphobia, as the experience of one blogger (bpdkentparson.tumblr.com), but the argument itself isn’t inherently aphobic. As stated above, it is going into the definition of what it means to be considered straight and the defining factors of an LGBTQ space. Many would argue that “straight” is defined by the adherence to heteronormative gender roles and expectation. Others would define it by either exclusive romantic or sexual attraction to the opposite sex. Assuming the second definition, heteroromantic asexuals wouldn’t necessarily have a place in the LGBTQ community. 

     To further prove the nuanced, hypothetical nature of my point of bias within the LGBTQ community, I will now look at what defines the LGBTQ community. Is it those whose letters are found in the acronym? Is it all the people that come to a pride march? And better yet, is it a collective community? While there may be solidarity, there are going to be experiences and similarities are not shared-- between gay men and bisexual men, between lesbians and bisexual women, between cisgender individuals and trans individuals. I digress, I am of the belief that while there is overlap for the asexual community, there isn’t necessarily that overlap for heteroromantic asexuals within the LGBTQ bubble. 

     As someone who identifies strongly with the LGBTQ community as well as the asexual community, this is an interesting argument all together for me. I don’t want people to feel left out from a community. However, I don’t think that heteroromantic asexuals have a specific place in the LGBTQ community. That isn’t to say that asexuals don’t have a place in the LGBTQ community; asexuals with attraction to the same-gender, or multiple genders are welcome. I believe that heteroromantic asexuals do deserve a place, but not necessarily within the LGBTQ community. I believe that much like the kink community, that the heteroromantic asexual community can stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ community. That is not to say that all asexuals deserve to be isolated from the LGBTQ community. There is always room for multiple identities-- especially as someone who identifies within both. I just think that those heteroromantic asexuals should recognize their privileges as someone who hasn’t had their rights taken away, or not had rights at all because of who they love, how they express, or how they identify . Not every identity is going to overlap in the community as the community itself isn’t strictly defined. However, this isn’t an issue that should be used to divide us, as there is already a system in place to divide us otherwise. 

- Ivy

Sources:

 http://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/122518-heteroromantic-asexuals-are-they-straight/ 

http://bpdkentparson.tumblr.com/post/158234676813/not-tryna-start-discourse-but-why-do-you-t hink 

http://asexualeducation.tumblr.com/post/30289205341/do-i-count-as-straight-im-a-heteroromantic

[challengingpride]

Rural Gaze and Rural Gays

     I grew up in a small, southern town of roughly 3,300 people. Mostly white, mostly conservative, mostly Christian, and mostly straight It was really easy to forget that gay people existed. There weren’t many outward expressions of hate towards gay people, but there were many microaggressions and comments. Walking through my high school, one could hear many comments covertly slighting gay people (granted, as someone who grew up there, it was hard to recognize a lot of these behaviors/comments as homophobic, but in retrospect they are very clear)-- “if his butt twitches when he walks, he’s gay”; “don’t talk to him he’s gay”, and in regards to men getting their ears pierced “Left is right, right is wrong”. Surrounded by people that are all taught in the same Sunday Schools, it is easy to assume that homosexuality is a sin. Sins are punished by God, but many took that as their personal job to also punish the gays. But again, it was easy to forget that gay people existed. They were too scared of persecution to exist. That being established, I did not come out until college. I questioned my sexuality for the first time my freshmen year of high school. Assuming there is no way I could be gay, I put it out of my mind until later in my high school career. By that point, it began to eat me up, consuming every thought. So, I decided to come out in college. Was the prospect of the accepting peoples of urban area part of why I was looking forward to college? Perhaps. Yes. But I would technically be a “rural gay”. I paint the picture of my hometown experience to show the reader the difficulties that do exist in being gay in a rural area. However, some people stay. 

     I am gay. I am from a rural area. I follow the “rural gay moves to a city and finds fellow gays” narrative. However, I have seen members of my graduating class come out, and they did not leave my small town. They exist in a world full of back roads, agriculture, and saying hi to your neighbor. I exist in a world with access to resources, understanding, acceptance, a queer family, clubs, celebrations, and support that I could not get from my hometown. I cannot imagine living a happy and fulfilled life in an area without those things and urban areas seem to be the only place I can get those things. When I think of my time in my small town, I think of bigotry, close mindedness, and republicans. I cannot imagine a member of the LGBTQ community living there happily. However, it happens. And according to a study by sociologists Chris Wienke and Gretchen J Hill, there is actually no difference in the actual happiness of urban gays and rural gays (Wienke, “Journal of Homosexuality”). There is a general idea both inside and outside of the community that there are no gays (or at least happy gays) in rural areas because there are no resources. However, this statement/belief is problematic. The assumption that there are no gays/happy gays in rural areas breeds the idea that there should not be any resources in rural areas because there is no one that needs them. This is the very type of erasure that the bigots and homophobes in my hometown enact, yet here members of the community do it as well. This kind of thinking leaves many people who either chose to stay in rural towns or those that are unable to leave at a loss for support-- whether legal or emotional. Urban Bias is the assumption that members of the LGBTQ community and other minorities are automatically going to move around cities and this simply isn’t true. Many are not able to move because of money, but also why can’t gays enjoy living in rural areas? While there may be an equal amount of happy gays in rural areas as compared to urban areas, there are significantly less resources allowed to them. It is rumored that there is a secret gay club 30 minutes from my house. Googling the nearest LGBTQ organzation to me (which again is 30 minutes away) is just three churches in Lynchburg that are in support of members of the LGBTQ community (Equality Virginia, Faith Community). Looking further into the Equality Virginia website, if I were to click on the “need support” tab, I would see a list of major cities in Virginia, the closest to me being Roanoke, 60 miles away (Equality Virginia, Faith community). If I were to need legal advice in specific regards to my sexuality, I would need to drive to either Roanoke (a major city 60 miles from me), and if I had a car that couldn’t make it through the winding roads to Roanoke, I would have to drive 130 miles to Richmond (Equality Virginia, Legal Advice).This is a matter of bias as it is not only a rural/urban bias, but also of classism. All of the organizations that offer LGBTQ support are literally all away from my southern, rural town. I am lucky to be able to drive to these places and to be able to go to college outside of my area. It is not fair, and frankly classist that there are no available resources in these rural areas. 

      The best example I have of a rural gay is a classmate from high school who we will call Cary. Cary came out after high school, but from what I have heard, she had been dating women since before she graduated. She would meet her partners online or by dating the other out gays in the area (they were few and far between, but they were there). Despite Cary’s ability to find partners, I knew from being from the same town, that there were not many resources beyond online dating. There were few opportunities for her to meet up with other members of the LGBTQ community, and more importantly, few places for her to talk about her experiences and her concerns in being a small town, rural gay. Having had been able to be my full authentic self in college, I dread going back to my hometown full of unknowing homophobes. I don’t think i’ll ever be a full fledged rural gay ever again. I enjoy nature and I enjoy the friendliness, but to me, going back home is going back in the closet and back to a place where I am judged and shamed for loving who I love. In conclusion, being a rural gay is very much a matter of preference; rural and urban gays are no more or less happy than one another. However, the assumption that the urban gays deserve more resources than the rural gays because there is less need is truly detrimental to the individual and to the community. Cary doesn’t have legal or organizational support and that is where the problem within that lies within the bias against rural gays. 

- Ivy

Sources: 

http://www.equalityvirginia.org/resources/political-social-organizations/ http://www.equalityvirginia.org/resources/faith-communities/ http://www.equalityvirginia.org/resources/legal-resources/

[challengingpride]

Lesbian Separatists, Radfems, and TERFS

     In the 1970s, there was a group of lesbian identified women that established a commune to separate themselves from the homophobic, patriarchal, heterosexual, male society that existed. They argued that true equality was impossible in society as it currently stands and that the only option was the establishment of said communes. They rejected anything to do with men or masculinity, and even excluded heterosexual women. They began a type of thinking that was generally very DFAB exclusive and stated that womanhood was directly connected to genitalia. This gender-essentialism and general transphobia existed in the 1970s, but only escalated as time went on. I theorize that the lesbian separatist movement, while generally, good intentioned in dismantling a misogynistic society, ended with the establishment of a mentality that currently manifests itself in the Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist movement. 

     The lesbian separatist movement began in the 1970s and mainly manifests itself in failed communes and political lesbianism. Political lesbianism is the feminist action of being a lesbian to be “truly against the patriarchy”, despite not feeling romantic or sexual attraction -- which as a lesbian, doesn’t really sit well with me. This lesbian separatism also created the “womyn” movement and notoriously gender essentialist and transphobic Michigan Womyn’s festival. These communes generally failed, but the ideology continued. The gender essentialism of a stark, strict definition of womanhood, also continues in the radical feminist movement of today. 

     Looking into this I found many articles written by TERFs, which were very insulting for a variety of reasons. The title alone shows the ugly content of the article-- “Maybe what feminism needs is separatism, not inclusion”. The article discusses the original lesbian separatist movement and how it had the “right idea” for women to exist outside of the patriarchy. For me personally, it was hard for me to see past the blatant transphobia and offensive nature of the article. It used the writing of second wave feminist and lesbian separatist, Marilyn Frye, to argue its point. Phrases that are common between Marilyn Frye and the author of this article are things like “woman-born-woman” and the “attack of men” on women’s spaces, specifically referring to trans women. This TERF-y nature was only shown more in the comment section. The most overtly transphobic comment began “The only woman is one born female, went through girlhood and made it to womanhood, that is it, no compromise...” (Feminist Current) and it was so offensive that I don’t feel comfortable sourcing the rest of the comment. These TERF-s are using the works of the (hopefully) unintentionally problematic lesbian sepratist to intintially problematic and outright offensive TERFS 

There is hope! Not all lesbians have their heads up their gender essentialist assholes! “Many millennial lesbians, myself included, find ourselves in a strange historical moment: The heyday of radical lesbianism is behind us, and a seemingly label-free, sexually fluid future lies ahead. We’re grappling with how to preserve the best parts of cultural lesbian identity — centering and celebrating women; political organizing; reclaiming harsh, loud, fuck-you words like “dyke” and “queer”; in-jokes and lesbian signifiers and literature and art — without replicating some of lesbian history’s very real shortcomings.” Most lesbians are working to let people identify however they want!!!! AHHHH! Sources: 

- Ivy

Sources:

http://www.feministcurrent.com/2015/11/30/18995/ https://www.buzzfeed.com/shannonkeating/can-lesbian-identity-survive-the-gender-revolution?u tm_term=.kxDrvgRe7g#.ftvyDP2OEP

[challengingpride]

No Pride in Apartheid: Pinkwashing in Israel

           Swarms of muscled, care-free, white men revel on the white beaches of Tel Aviv, a paradise for rich, white, gay men to vacation. With the rich blue sea, stunning natural landscapes, and modern cities, one almost forgets the coexisting ethnic cleansing project happening in Israel alongside this homoerotic beach party. This is what I gather from the television spots developed by Brand Israel in an attempt to engage in pinkwashing. Pinkwashing refers to the homonationalist efforts of governments to focus international attention of their progressive LGBTQ+ rights record (though more often than not, this is just a pseudonym for gay rights), in order to draw attention away from their human rights violations. In this case, these violations encompass the existing state of Apartheid within Israel in which Palestinians are designated second-class citizens. Meanwhile, Israel continues their settler-colonial project to appropriate ever-dwindling Palestinian land, engages in bombing campaigns against Palestinian civilians, and exploits Palestinian labor.

         Brand Israel is a multi-million dollar marketing campaign developed in 2005 between the Israeli government and American corporate marketing executives (Schulman). This propaganda campaign was focused on shifting the then-dismal and accurate public perception of Israel as a conflict-ridden settler-colonial state, and works to maintain an image of Israel as a modern, progressive, and legitimate state. Brand Israel further promotes Israel as a refuge for persecuted Palestinians, when in fact, the Israeli Apartheid severely restricts the movement of Palestinians, and queer Palestinians taking refuge from homophobia in Israel are “often detained and sent back to the West Bank or Gaze where they face the same abuse they fled from.” Queer Palestinian refugees (queer activist groups reject the LGBT acronym and labels as a Western influence) often live in severely marginalized conditions to avoid detainment, despite the fact that their deportation as LGBTQ+ refugees violates Israel’s accord with international humanitarian law (Feng).

           To be clear, Palestine is by no means queer-friendly. Homosexuality is illegal in the Gaza Strip, but has been decriminalized in the West Bank since the 1950s “when anti-sodomy laws imposed under British colonial influence were removed from the Jordanian penal code, which Palestinians [must] follow” (Schulman). Queer Palestinians can potentially face both extreme interpersonal and state violence, including “beatings, stabbings, burnings, prolonged immersion in sewage water, and forced starvation” (Feng). Queer Palestinians do not have specifically outlined rights within the law. However, the definition of queerness as Other, and thus, the need for laws to protect queer Palestinians, is the result of the importation of homophobia from British colonialism. Further, the propagation of Israel’s LGBT rights is demonstrably a tool for rebranding, not done out of concern for queer Palestinians. Beyond the fact that Israel legally does not accept queer Palestinian immigrants, Brand Israel coordinates its pinkwashing with StandWithUs, an Israeli government-funded lobby group with ties to right-wing anti-LGBTQ+ activists such as John Hagee of Christians United for Israel (Barrows-Friedman). “The rise of the gay equality agenda in Israel is concomitant with the increasing repression of the Israeli state towards Palestinians,” explains anthropologist Rebecca L. Stein.

           It’s important to distinguish between LGBTQ+ rights not as something gifted from the West to non-Western nations, but to reframe LGBTQ+ rights as something necessitated by the homophobia enhanced, imported, and imposed by Western colonialism. It must also be acknowledged that the representation of the non-white immigrant (especially Muslim immigrants) as intensely homophobic “opportunistically ignores the existence of Muslim gays and their allies within their communities. They also render invisible the role that fundamentalist Christians, the Roman Catholic Church, and Orthodox Jews play in perpetuating fear and even hatred of gays.” This narrative has been transposed from its origins as a European xenophobic tool to a facilitator of the Israeli apartheid. Puar clarifies that homonationalism in Israel is not “a reflection of any exceptionalist activity,” but is merely an iteration of a traditional colonialist tactic, which weaponizes the treatment of marginalized groups “to justify imperialist violence” (Jasbir 283). Classic examples include the British-Consul General Lord Cromer, head of the colonial Egyptian government, supposed supporter of the liberation of Egyptian women, despite restricting their education, and founder and president of the Britain-based Men’s League For Opposing Women’s Suffrage.

           The discussion of pinkwashing consistently refers to the weaponization of “LGBT” rights, and yet, Israel’s gay-targeted marketing agenda and even outside pinkwashing activism, ambiguously situate trans people within their frames. Saffo Papantonopoulou terms this “trans-homonationalism” (because transnationalism was “already taken”). Papantonopoulou describes a “Zionist economy of gratitude” that inserts transgender people in Israel into “a cycle of debt...[in which the transgender subject is perpetually indebted to capitalism and the West for allowing her to exist” (281). Thus, although trans people targeted by pinkwashing in implicit terms only, as Brand Israel’s marketing describe an LGBT haven, but shows only (mostly white) gay men. Israel’s trans rights are relatively underdeveloped for a nation that seeks to align itself with Western models of modernity – specifically, it is very difficult for trans people in Israel to transition under the age of 18, and a significant number are turned away because of strict definitions of gender dysphoria diagnoses. Trans people may serve in the military, although the right to enforce the Israeli settler-colonial project should not correlate with progressivism. For example, Israel has recently promoted its first transgender military officer, Shachar Erez. Erez’s tour is, consequently, presented by StandWithUs. Israel’s neoliberal idea of progressivism once again situates itself in such a way as to distract from the state’s human rights abuses, in such a blatant way that it nearly satirizes itself. Luckily, Nora Barrows-Friedman can do that on her own, covering Erez’s tour with the Onion-worthy headline: “Israel’s First Trans Officers Helps With Ethnic Cleansing.”

           Like homonationalism, pinkwashing insidiously appropriates the struggles of queer people to the detriment of others; in this case, it is those within our own community who suffer. Israeli Apartheid and the decolonization of Palestine is an LGBTQ+ issue. LGBTQ+ organizing against Israeli Apartheid is developing throughout the United States and beyond. We must give our support and deference to queer Palestinian liberation groups like Aswat, Al-Qaws, and Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. We cannot allow apolitical Israeli or pro-Israeli events to take place in LGBTQ+ spaces. Not in our name.

Free Palestine.

- Emily

CITATION

Barrows-Friedman, Nora. "Israel’s First Trans Officer Helps with Ethnic Cleansing." The Electronic Intifada, 12 Apr. 2017.

Feng, Josh. "A Selective Sanctuary: "Pinkwashing" and Gay Palestinian Asylum-Seekers in Israel." The Yale Review of International Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1, Oct. 2014.

Papantonopoulou, Saffo. "“Even a Freak Like You Would Be Safe in Tel Aviv”: Transgender Subjects, Wounded Attachments, and the Zionist Economy of Gratitude." WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly, vol. 42, no. 1-2, 2014, pp. 278-293.

Puar, Jasbir. "Citation and Censorship: The Politics of Talking About the Sexual Politics of Israel." Feminist Legal Studies, vol. 19, no. 2, 2011, pp. 133-142.

Schulman, Sarah. "Israel and 'Pinkwashing'." The New York Times, 22 Nov. 2011.

[challengingpride]

Homonationalism, Pulse, and Islamophobia in Queer Spaces

     Twenty men dressed in black line the walls of an unused warehouse in Luton, England, their faces covered from the camera. One man sets fire to a Nazi flag, while a narrator declares this to be proof that the English Defense League is not racist, right-wing hate group. Instead, they announce, the EDL formed to “‘contest your kind, as our forefathers did, relentlessly pursuing you in our quest to see all shari’a banished from our great democratic country.’” Although the threats to ‘you’ and ‘your kind’ are addressed to Muslims, the September 2009 video is anxious to assure that the English Defense League is not a hate group, as the camera purposely pans over hands of different skin colors, a few stars of David peeking from the balaclavas covering the men’s faces. And some of the men, peering out at the camera, are identified as part of the EDL’s LGBT division (Kundnani Ch.8).

     The gay men of the English Defense League’s LGBT division, a subset of an organization that has carried out arsons and bomb attacks against mosques in England, are neither the first, nor the most recent examples of homonationalism and Islamophobia among queer communities. Homonationalism was initially coined by Jasbir K. Puar to refer to the ways in which nationalist rhetoric appropriates the cause of LGBTQ+ rights in order to defend racist of xenophobic views, largely towards Muslims, who are perceived as homophobic (83). Take as an example, Donald Trump’s tweet two days after the Pulse shooting which read, “Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs,” referring to Muslim Syrian refugees. The idea that Middle Eastern culture and Islam is more homophobic than Western culture or Christianity is rooted in imperialist ideas of the Middle East being ‘backwards’ or ‘less developed’, especially as a good LGBTQ+ human rights record is swiftly becoming an international symbol of modernity. However, “developing” Muslim-majority countries have been shown to be no more homophobic than “developing” Christian-majority nations. Further, the mobilization of homonationalism to justify Islamophobia severs Muslims from LGBTQ+ identity

     As illustrated by the EDL’s LGBT division, homonationalism can be appropriated by governments, groups, and individuals. The German Gay and Lesbian Federation has openly stated that Muslims are “the enemies of gay people” (Schulman).  In the early 2000s, gay Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn and his “[defense] of liberal values from Islamification” were increasing in political influence prior to Fortuyn’s assassination. Milo Yiannopoulos, the once-relevant gay face of the alt-Right, has said that he “disapproves of all Muslims – except his boyfriend of 10 years” (Stein). While I would be rhetorically unsound to equate the views of an individual LGBTQ+ person with the views of the larger community, Fortuyn and Yiannopolous were individuals in the public eye and attracted followers within the LGBTQ+ community

     LGBTQ+ Muslim identities are made unintelligible by imperialist ideas about Islam and the Middle East, which heterosexualize and victimize queer Muslims. Despite early groups for queer Muslims, like the Lavender Crescent in the 1970’s, further racism and Islamophobia in Western LGBTQ+ communities compound their exclusion. In the wake of Pulse, increasing Islamophobia has become the American LGBTQ+ community’s dirty little secret. In the days following the shooting, Omair Paul, UN Representative for Muslims for Progressive Values, predicted, “There’s going to be this rampant Islamophobia within the LGBTQ community, as if there wasn’t already” (Graham). There are no formal studies yet to prove whether or not Paul is correct, but the combination of homonationalist rhetoric, imperialist ideas about the Middle East, and falsely-justified Islamophobia in the wake of the Pulse shooting has given tangible rise to anti-Muslim sentiment within the LGBTQ+ community.

     Magazine and newspaper headlines dated in the days following the Pulse shooting begged for solidarity among LGBTQ+ people and Muslims, or pre-emptively spoke out against Islamophobia. Despite this, a queer Middle Eastern friend recently spoke at an LGBTQ+ event, pleading for us to recognize the growing Islamophobia in queer spaces. When your reality is invisible to others, having to explain it to others is painful. I don’t intend to write this post to speak for or over them, but there are no other available resources for me to further cite something I know to be the truth. It is the responsibility of the LGBTQ+ community to stand up for our Muslim siblings, and to show up for all Muslims. We will not allow our struggle to be appropriated by organizations, politicians, or nations to justify Islamophobia.

An Islamophobic poster put up by an unknown artist in West L.A. in the wake of the Pulse shootings.

- Emily

CITATION

Graham, David A. "The Complicated Pain of America's Queer Muslims." The Atlantic, 14 June 2016.

Kundnani, Arun. The Muslims Are Coming!: Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror. Verso, 2015.

Puar, Jasbir K. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Duke University Press, 2007.

Schulman, Sarah. "Israel and 'Pinkwashing'." The New York Times, 22 Nov. 2011.

Stein, Joel. "Milo Yiannopoulos is the Pretty, Monstrous Face of the Alt-Right." Bloomberg Businessweek, 19 Sept. 2016.

[challengingpride]

Remembering Sylvia

The Metropolitan Community Church of New York City founded Sylvia’s Place in 2003 to coordinate homeless services and a shelter for LGBTQ+ youth. Named for the LGBTQ+-inclusive church’s most famous congregant, Sylvia’s Place is one of the only shelters in New York City that will take in homeless youth without a referral. (Metropolitan). However, a 2011 New York Times article investigated the conditions of Sylvia’s Place with disturbing results. Youth who had stayed at the shelter described twenty to thirty people regularly cramming in to sleep in a space designed to sleep five or six. They described the conditions as unsanitary, with most occupants sleeping on the concrete floors with boxes and trash. Those interviewed expressed elation when they could sleep in chairs, or would sneak away to sleep in adult community centers where LGBTQ+ youth are at a greater risk of violence. The space is not certified for occupancy as a shelter, does not pass fire inspection, and the windowless space has been described as “‘a disaster waiting to happen’” (Thrasher).

This post is not meant as an indictment of Sylvia’s Place, as well-deserved as that may be. By assuming to represent the legacy of Sylvia Rivera, the shelter must also assume her personal values. Sylvia’s Place has ejected young trans women of color from their shelter for possession of marijuana, when its namesake struggled with addiction throughout her life. Sylvia and Marsha hustled to take care of the queer youth in S.T.A.R. House and create and improve a home for them to the best of their means. Sylvia’s Place is eligible for up to $400,000 in grants, but will not seek certification as a shelter or to remedy its fire and sanitation violations (Thrasher). The hypocrisy of Sylvia’s Place is mirrored in other projects which seek to profit from the monumental legacy of Sylvia Rivera, channeling her spirit in name alone.

Sylvia Rivera’s iconic 1973 speech “Y’all Better Listen Up” was an indictment of the mainstream gay rights movement, whose agenda was consistently for the benefit of white, cis, middle-class gay white people. Prior to speech, Sylvia was beaten by lesbian TERFs who saw her femininity as an insult to their own. The assimilative focus of the gay rights movement, and gender essentialism (read: transphobia) that soaked second wave feminism in the 1970s can be misunderstood today as a symptom of an intolerant past. In reality, the same people and ideologies continued to harass Rivera until quite literally the end of her life. On her deathbed at St. Vincent’s, she met with a delegation representing Empire State Pride Agenda (ESPA) to defend inclusion of trans rights in New York’s Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act bill. Interestingly, once a New York state non-discrimination bill was extended to transgender people in 2015, ESPA disbanded “citing the fulfillment of a 25-year campaign for equality” (McKinley). Even though homophobia is apparently over, you can still head on over to the Manhattan LGBT Community Center, which has dedicated a room in Sylvia Rivera’s name. Jokes aside, the dedication is absurdly hypocritical to the point of insult, considering the fact that Rivera was banned from the Center for years in the 90’s for urging them to take in homeless queer youth overnight (Bronski). A building that banned a woman who was periodically homeless and refused to house women like her, dedicates a room in her name after her death, when she will never be able to stand in it. If you’re interested in reserving the room, you can check out the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center’s website, thegaycenter.org.

In my experience, Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson are consistently referred to, if they are referred to, as trans women of color. It is essential to declare that Sylvia River and Marsha P. Johnson were trans women of color because of the ways in which trans women of color are marginalized, and the ways in which queer and non-white histories are erased. However, I have seen far fewer sources that refer to Marsha P. Johnson explicitly as a black trans woman, and even fewer that refer to Sylvia Rivera as Latina. I suspect the latter hesitation is due to transphobia and the gendering of “Latina.” Thus, in order to celebrate Sylvia Rivera’s entire legacy, we must celebrate her as a Latina: a daughter of Venezuelan and Puerto Rican roots, a member of the Young Lords, and a fierce advocate for racial justice, not just trans and gay rights.

To say that the hatred and pushback Sylvia Rivera received from the gay community was a product of its time prevents a necessary conversation by relegating the gay community’s transphobia, transmisogyny, classism, and racism to the past. Even as Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson’s names acquire more cultural capital and their stories are told, we must remember that these stories are alive and fresh and relevant, and that many of the people Sylvia fought against are rich, living LGBT community leaders in New York, who continue to exact the same violence against trans women of color and other people who are marginalized within the LGBTQ+ community. I wouldn’t want to end this post without recognizing the positive expressions of Sylvia Rivera’s legacy, such as the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, the manifestation of Sylvia’s dreams of becoming a lawyer, which provides legal aid to trans and gender-nonconforming people in New York City, and her portrait in the National Gallery in D.C., the first depicting a trans person.

(Pictured from left to right: Christina Hayworth, Sylvia Rivera, and Julia Murray. Photo credit to Luis Carle)

 - Emily

Sources:

Bronski, Michael. "Hell hath no fury like a drag queen scorned." Z Magazine, Apr. 2002.

McKinley, Jesse. "Empire State Pride Agenda to Disband, Citing Fulfillment of Its Mission." The New York Times, 12 Dec. 2015,

Metropolitan Community Church New York City. "Homeless Youth Services." MCCNY Charities, www.mccnycharities.org/hys.html.

Thrasher, Steven W. "A Church. A Shelter. Is It Safe?" The New York Times, 4 Oct. 2011.