'Acceptance' Is A Defeat for Queer Justice
The right-wing gay media, right-wing gay organizations like Human Rights Campaign Fund and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in the U.S., and most heterosexuals are pushing the idea that 'acceptance' into society is good for L.G.B.T.Q. persons and that it is something that we as queer persons want. That our enemies and those who have oppressed us and commit treason against us now want this for us should be a first warning that there may be danger here, and indeed there is grave danger in this valuation of acceptance as a goal for queer persons.
How preposterous a question acceptance is for LGBT persons is evidenced by the reversing of the question: Should we accept heterosexuals? This reversal points up the absurdity of non-revolutionary expressions. The point about acceptance is really something quite different.
When something (e.g. a social group) is accepted, that something is accepted both as something by something else and, when one is talking about a social group such as the queer community, the something accepted is accepted into that something else. But, in order to present oneself for acceptance, one has to value the opinion of the person or society to whom one presents oneself. Any valuation of the heterosexual regime is inauthentic in that it is forced, and comes from desperation and low self-esteem brought about by that very regime. Thus, the regime of heterosexuality manufactures the idea that LGBT persons should be "accepted".
The point that queer leaders should be stressing is that we should NOT accept the heterosexual political regime.
There is no such thing, currently, as a gay person or as a heterosexual person who exists outside the hegemony of the heterosexual political regime. The two always go together. Yet it is essential for queer persons to reject this regime at all events, at all turns. We do not want acceptance into something false, malignant, delusional, boring, and narrow. The end of the heterosexual political regime is what we want, an end which will liberate all non-delusional, intelligent, honest heterosexual persons as well.
We do not want this regime of fraud, ignorance, slavery, delusion, abuse, attack, and fear. We don't want family, family values, marriage, privatized sexuality, Judaic religion, or creepy chauvinism, and we are disgusted by men and women who expect everyone to be a plaything for their tedious and slave-class heterosexual desires.
Asking to be accepted is like asking to be allowed to be a slave. The owners of heterosexual society manufacture desires by force and fraud, and many queer persons have not been allowed the education, freedom, camaraderie, communities, and power which can surmount these manufactured desires, these things that heterosexuals want us to want. They want us not only to be slaves, but to beg to be allowed to be slaves. If there were such a thing as a natural order, a hierarchy in which queer persons were slaves and heteronormatives the masters would seem to be the opposite of it, yet that is exactly what we have right now. But you can refuse to tell their lies. As queer persons, we must believe in our own world, even though the cheerleaders for heterosexuality are loud and desperate and want so badly for us to believe that they have something valuable. We know that existence on this heterosexual plantation is something we will never truly want. If one wants to keep the idea of acceptance but turn it into something that makes sense, one could ask, "Why can't heterosexuals just accept that we don't want and will never want what they are offering?"
The right-wing gay media, right-wing gay organizations like Human Rights Campaign Fund and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in the U.S., and most heterosexuals are pushing the idea that 'acceptance' into society is good for L.G.B.T.Q. persons and that it is something that we as queer persons want. That our enemies and those who have oppressed us and commit treason against us now want this for us should be a first warning that there may be danger here, and indeed there is grave danger in this valuation of acceptance as a goal for queer persons.
How preposterous a question acceptance is for LGBT persons is evidenced by the reversing of the question: Should we accept heterosexuals? This reversal points up the absurdity of non-revolutionary expressions. The point about acceptance is really something quite different.
When something (e.g. a social group) is accepted, that something is accepted both as something by something else and, when one is talking about a social group such as the queer community, the something accepted is accepted into that something else. But, in order to present oneself for acceptance, one has to value the opinion of the person or society to whom one presents oneself. Any valuation of the heterosexual regime is inauthentic in that it is forced, and comes from desperation and low self-esteem brought about by that very regime. Thus, the regime of heterosexuality manufactures the idea that LGBT persons should be "accepted".
The point that queer leaders should be stressing is that we should NOT accept the heterosexual political regime.
There is no such thing, currently, as a gay person or as a heterosexual person who exists outside the hegemony of the heterosexual political regime. The two always go together. Yet it is essential for queer persons to reject this regime at all events, at all turns. We do not want acceptance into something false, malignant, delusional, boring, and narrow. The end of the heterosexual political regime is what we want, an end which will liberate all non-delusional, intelligent, honest heterosexual persons as well.
We do not want this regime of fraud, ignorance, slavery, delusion, abuse, attack, and fear. We don't want family, family values, marriage, privatized sexuality, Judaic religion, or creepy chauvinism, and we are disgusted by men and women who expect everyone to be a plaything for their tedious and slave-class heterosexual desires.
Asking to be accepted is like asking to be allowed to be a slave. The owners of heterosexual society manufacture desires by force and fraud, and many queer persons have not been allowed the education, freedom, camaraderie, communities, and power which can surmount these manufactured desires, these things that heterosexuals want us to want. They want us not only to be slaves, but to beg to be allowed to be slaves. If there were such a thing as a natural order, a hierarchy in which queer persons were slaves and heteronormatives the masters would seem to be the opposite of it, yet that is exactly what we have right now. But you can refuse to tell their lies. As queer persons, we must believe in our own world, even though the cheerleaders for heterosexuality are loud and desperate and want so badly for us to believe that they have something valuable. We know that existence on this heterosexual plantation is something we will never truly want. If one wants to keep the idea of acceptance but turn it into something that makes sense, one could ask, "Why can't heterosexuals just accept that we don't want and will never want what they are offering?"
