Queers Unite for Radical Action

by Michael J. Bayly, QURA

Queers United for Radical Action (QURA) is a fledgling network of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) people working on diverse issues of justice, peace, and liberation. We are united in our efforts at making the connection between our seemingly separate areas of activism and the root causes of the social and environmental problems that motivate such activism. This connection-making and the action it inspires reflect the true meaning of the word radical: "arising from or going to a root or source."

Accordingly, one of QURA's fundamental aims is to inform ourselves and the wider GLBT community about the threats to democracy, human life, and the environment posed by the nexus of corporate globalization, militarism, and environmental degradation.

For many GLBT folks, the articulation and pursuit of such an aim is mystifying, primarily because it is perceived to be unrelated to GLBT-specific issues. Questioning, challenging, and working to dismantle the corporate paradigm that many view as increasingly welcoming and accepting of GLBT people and culture, is truly a radical action.

Recently, three queer individuals dedicated to just such an aim joined me at a Minneapolis coffee shop to discuss issues and share insights. This informal gathering included David Strand (organizer of the Lavender Greens and of Marriage Equality Minnesota), Lydia Howell (longtime activist and journalist and co-founder of Communities United Against Police Brutality), and Freeman Wicklund (vegan animal rights activist, humane educator with Bridges of Respect, and executive director of Compassionate Action for Animals).

One of the first topics of discussion revolved around the question: "How do we respond to fellow GLBT people who maintain that issues like militarism, patriarchy, corporate globalization, or animal liberation, are not GLBT-specific and therefore are not worthy of their time and energy?"

All present found the posing of such a question perplexing, especially in light of the diversity of the GLBT movement. "Think of a line and we cross it--all races, all genders, all socioeconomic [classes]," noted Lydia. "In a way, our community encompasses everybody, and that could be our greatest strength. Yet the leadership in gay political life is virtually all white. A great deal of the time it's male and class-privileged . . . The gay community [through] its more public, political face, seems to say that we want to be liberated from homophobic societal oppression and in order to do so we're willing to replicate the structural norms of the wider society."

Freeman agrees, noting his experience of protesting a gay rodeo with other members of Compassionate Action for Animals. "The gay organization that put on this event tried to co-opt animals' rights, handing out flyers saying how they were the most 'humane' rodeo." Yet ultimately, says Freeman, the event was an example of how, while seeking our own liberation as GLBT people, "we [end up] trampling on the rights of other species . . . I get worried when I see GLBT people comfortable in [an] exploiter position."

Lydia adds: "There's a nexus of consciousness around race, class, and sexism. And the GLBT community doesn't necessarily get it on all those issues. Which means we have our work cut out for us as radicals. It's weird: We span all the lines, and having been so despised and invisible, you'd think we wouldn't be afraid to question it all. Especially [since] for many of us, it's increasingly safer to be out."

The inability of the GLBT community to "make the connections," or to reflect its intrinsic diversity through its more public persona, has led to the depletion of much of its vitality and creativity.

"A lot of GLBT people who aren't male, white, and/or class-privileged are deciding to do other kinds of work," observes Lydia. "If they are a person of color, I think they're working a lot more for their liberation as a person of color; if they're a woman, they're doing a lot more feminist work . . . A lot of the most conscious people in the community [end up putting] their energies elsewhere, not in 'gay rights,' because so much of it seems like, frankly, bullshit . . . It doesn't get to the heart of the matter."

David agrees and suggests that part of the reason stems from the fact that GLBT people have offered little resistance to assimilation into the mainstream. Accordingly, there is not the same kind of outlandish freedom that comes along with being outside the mainstream, not that sense of freedom to be radical and to question and challenge the system that in many ways continues to oppress us and others.

By way of example, he questions the corporate sponsorship of the annual Twin Cities GLBT Pride Parade and Festival: "I don't understand why Budweiser is an official co-sponsor of Pride when there's a much higher level of alcohol abuse in the GLBT community than in the community at large," he says. [The Budweiser corporation's sponsorship] is just as offensive as intensive alcohol advertising aimed at the Native American community, where there's also a high rate of alcoholism. I don't know why the GLBT community doesn't take some umbrage at the idea of wholly being treated as a market."

"I think part of the reason," suggests Lydia, "is that we're still so accustomed to being invisible and there's a part of us that doesn't question, but just says, 'We're just so glad to be included! We're so glad to be noticed!' On a psychological level, [GLBT] people are impacted [by ads that target them], which is why advertisers do it. They're more savvy about our psychology than we are.

"In my opinion, " Lydia continues, "the same thing that has happened to the GLBT movement, happened to the women's movement. The corporate, mainstream, 'make-it-palatable' people won. Both movements had enormous transformative potential. Yet both were co-opted."

The question then is obvious: How can we challenge and reverse such co-opting?

"Destroy corporate culture," Freeman declares. We all laugh yet at the same time recognize the fundamental truth of his words. He goes on: "What scares me about the younger generation of queers, especially young queer men, is that they just accept as their values the Hollywood values they see in the media . . . It's all about fashion and getting drunk and having lots of sex with different anonymous partners. It's like their values have been taken away and not necessarily replaced with anything of substance. And they're looking for that substance."

"And the values that are being pushed by aspects of our society," notes David, "make profit off people being addicted to substances and/or consumerism. There's the oppression piece [in accounting for such addictions] but there's also the extreme heavy marketing for buying into a 'gay image.' This even extends to pornography. General Electric and General Dynamics--two of the country's largest defense contractors--were heavily invested in the gay pornography industry. One of the reasons that these same industries did not support equal rights for GLBT people, in my opinion, was that they were invested in keeping gay sexuality as something obscene. There's more profit in obscenity than in [encouraging and reflecting] good, strong, healthy, spiritually fulfilled gay relationships."

This year at Pride, QURA will have a booth where we will display and distribute literature relevant to various social justice causes and organizations. QURA serves more as a network than an organization; it is an umbrella for queer activists already working on different justice and peace issues.

"The strength of QURA," says David, "is that it makes the connection between GLBT issues and all the other issues that are part of the same struggle." It's a struggle against systems of oppression and dominion, be they economic, religious, or cultural.

If money can be raised, QURA plans to run ad-buster-type advertisements in the Lavender Pride Guide--advertisements that challenge the corporatist/consumerist dimension of the GLBT movement/community. We are also planning some other creative and "radical" actions for the weekend of Pride (June 23-24). We look forward to seeing you at Loring Park for Queer Pride 2001!

Queer Resources
Queers United for Radical Action (QURA) is a network of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) activists involved in a diverse range of social justice issues.
QURA is dedicated to the following aims:
1. To inform ourselves and the wider GLBT community on the threats to democracy, human life, and the environment posed by corporate globalization, militarism, and environmental degradation.
2. To establish working connections with other justice, peace, labor, and environmental organizations within the Twin Cities.
3. To organize and participate in educational and nonviolent direct-action events in order to facilitate positive and radical social and economic change.
4. To facilitate and share a uniquely queer spirit of resistance to all forms of oppression--believing that the oppression of one is the oppression of all.
To contact QURA, use the contact information listed below.

WAMM Action!
Interested in pulling together your social justice and GLBT activism? Help WAMM or QURA staff their booths at the Twin Cities GLBT Pride Festival:
Queers United for Radical Action (QURA)
612-724-2891 (phone)
QURA-subscribe@yahoogroups.com (list serve)
QURA@circlevision.org
www.circlevision.org/qura.html

Women Against Military Madness (WAMM)
310 E. 38th Street, Suite 225
Minneapolis, MN 55409
612-827-5364 (phone)
612-827-6433 (fax)
wamm@mtn.org