During the 1993 gay March on Washington, I was just finishing high school and knew I was queer but was years away from coming out. My history class had a trip to DC immediately after the march and I remember stealing furtive glances at all the queers who were still lingering around town. My class went to observe congress and I set off the metal detector with my steel toe boots. Jesse Helms was on the floor of the Senate and I already despised him, for his contempt for people with AIDS and for generally being a racist shit. At the time, it seemed like more than half of everything in the media about queer people were quotes from Jesse Helms, railing against Robert Mapplethorpe and fighting against funding for AIDS research. Those are the two things I remember from my high school class trip to DC, Jesse Helms and homos.
When the 2000 March came around, I was out of the closet and living in a queer household in Philly, preparing to move to NYC with my two girlfriends. The “Millennium March” was organized top-down by the conservative and assimilationist Human Rights Campaign. It was lacking a clear political agenda and had corporate sponsors out the ass. Notice how even the name “Millennium March” describes neither the people marching nor the reason for the march. The main event was a huge concert to raise money for HRC. There was no question in my mind that I would not be in attendance. I wrote and circulated a zine criticizing the whole thing as a distraction from our real movement, our local work, and the connections and intersections between queers and other marginalized people.
And now 2009, another gay Equality March on DC. HRC was just one of many participating group this year, so I briefly considered going. I even felt kind of guilty about not going. Maybe I missed something historic. From what I read in advance about the National Equality March there was a lot going on and even though HRC was present, lots of smaller groups were also hosting workshops and many individuals were scheduled to speak. The platform included multiple issues, and activists I respect were involved. So I felt favorably about the March, at least more than I had in 2000. Maybe it would have been inspirational and refreshing to see committed activists from around the country.
Then I saw seven pictures from the March featured in the NY Times. Two of them really hit me hard. The first shows marchers with home made signs bearing the message: “Just like you! Equality Now!” This depresses me because sameness should never be the qualifying factor for being considered equal. Equal does not mean identical. “We worship and parent. Just like you!” What if we don’t? I do not worship and I do not parent. “Just like you” is an inherently unfair and dehumanizing measure, like “normal” or “regular.” And who exactly is the “you” here? The “you” is some imaginary idealized person living in a fictional family structure that is a reality for only a tiny minority of people in this country, gay, straight or otherwise. The “you” is some person who only exists on TV, but hardly even there anymore. Liberals talk about valuing diversity, a word boils that down to diverse, as in diverge, as in differ, as in different as in NOT just like you. Respect for differences... A revised sign: Nothing like you! Equality now!
A second picture from the NY Times featured a guy with a sign that read “Obama- Where’s MY change?” This guy snapped me out of my anger at the people in the pictures and made me realize I was actually angry at the newspaper itself. The Times must have been searching for the single most asinine message at the March. When they found this guy, they took his picture and featured it as one of just seven images selected to represent the day. The Times has an enormous power in choosing which images are seen and thereby influencing how we are represented and perceived. They first chose a message of assimilation and followed it with a message of self-centered entitlement. The accompanying article was no better, quoting a few folks from the crowd, failing to mention the many workshops, caucuses and speakers at the event. I was taken in at first, falling into my routine critique of the mainstream LGBT movement for aiming low, for mistaking marriage for progress, for being exclusionary, self-centered, entitled.... Until I saw this picture and became severely pissed off by the media representation of my people! This time I am not buying it, I do not believe the closeted/apologist “Just like you” and I do not believe the narcissist “Where’s My Change” dude. Sure these folks are real, but the NY Times trivializes our larger struggle by spotlighting only the most superficial messages. The editors show queers their opinion of us through what they select and what they exclude from being fit to print, and we should hold them accountable for the absence of substance in their coverage of our movement.
Imagine that the Times had quoted Urvashi Vaid’s speech as the message of the March.Imagine that instead of the where’s-my-change guy, the Times used Urvashi’s words to represent us. Here is the movement I know and love: “I'm not just here to stand up as a lesbian. I'm here as a woman. I'm here as an immigrant. I'm here against racism. I'm here for health care for all. I'm here for freedom of expression. I'm here to change the status quo."