Homonormativity

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonormativity

Homormativity is the privileging of heteronormative ideals and constructs onto LGBT culture and identity. It is predicated on the assumption that the norms and values of heterosexuality should be replicated and performed among homosexual people. Homonormativity selectively privileges cisgendered homosexuality (that is coupled and monogamous) as worthy of social acceptance.

Origin

The term "homonormativity" was popularized by Lisa Duggan in her 2003 critique of contemporary democracy, equality, and LGBT discourse. Duggan draws from heteronormativity, popularized by Michael Warner in 1991, and concepts rooted in Gayle Rubin's notion of the "sex/gender system" and Adrienne Rich's notion of compulsory heterosexuality.

Duggan writes, "homonormativity is a politics that does not contest dominant heteronormativity assumptions and institutions but upholds and sustains them while promising the possibility of a demobilised gay culture anchored in domesticity and consumption.” Catherine Connell says homonormativity "emphasises commonality with the norms of heterosexual culture, including marriage, monogamy, procreation, and productivity." Queer theorist David M. Halperin sees the values of heteronormativity replicated and privileged as LGBT visibility and civil rights become normalized, writing “the keynote of gay politics ceases to be resistance to heterosexual oppression and becomes, instead, assimilation…the drive to social acceptance and integration into society as a whole.”

Halperin says that the urbanization, gentrification and recapitalization of inner city queer areas and gay-ghettos contribute to the prevalence and privileging of established heterosexual norms. Halperin has linked the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the advent of online dating as contributing to the displacement of LGBT people. He also attributes the shift in political rhetoric, discourse, and attitude from liberation to assimilation as a further reinforcement of a homonormative binary.

Gayle Rubin's notion of "sex hierarchy" - that sees Western heteronormative society graduate sexual practices from morally "good sex" to "bad sex" - delineates the forms of homosexual behaviour that engenders conditional acceptance. She writes, "Stable, long-term lesbian and gay male couples are verging on respectability [...] if it is coupled and monogamous, the society is beginning to recognize that it includes the full range of human interaction." Rubin writes that these poles of acceptability and deviancy see a homonormative privileging of long-term gay couples over the bodies of transgender, non-binary, and promiscuous members of these groups, and that "Individuals whose behaviour stands high in this hierarchy are regarded with certified mental health, respectability, legality, social and physical mobility, institutional support and material benefits."

Discrimination

Homonormative discrimination is deployed similarly to heteronormativity. Social institutions and policies reinforce the presumption that people are heterosexual and that gender and sex are natural binaries. However, Rubin writes that homonormativity functions to displace the exclusive hold heterosexuality has over normative behavior, instead selectively privileging cisgendered homosexuality (that is coupled and monogamous) as worthy of social acceptance.

Transgender people

Main article: Transgender inequality

Among transgender people, Gerdes argues that homonormativity functions to selectively relegate identities and behaviors into sanctioned acts and ideals. Rubin states that the replication of heterosexual norms - monogamy, white-privilege, gender binary - contribute to the stigmatization and marginalization of perceived deviant forms of sexuality and gender. In the 1990s, transgender activists deployed the term "homonormative" in reference to intracommunity discrimination that saw an imposition of gay and lesbian norms over the concerns of transgender people. During the AIDS epidemic in the United States, transgender people were often excluded from the gay and lesbian demonstrations held in the capitol and denied access to the healthcare initiatives and programs established to combat the crisis.

Transgender activist Sylvia Rivera spoke of her experiences campaigning for gay and trans liberation in the 70s and 80s, only to be stonewalled and ignored by the those same people once their needs were met. In a 1989 interview she said:

And the gay rights bill, as far as I’m concerned, you know, to me, the gay rights bill and the people that I worked with on the gay rights bill and when I did all the petitioning and whatnot, when the bill was passed… That bill was mine as far as I’m concerned.  I helped word it and I worked very hard for it. And that’s why I get upset when I give interviews and whatever, because the fucking community has no respect for the people that really did it.  Drag queens did it.  We did it, we did it for our own brothers and sisters.  But, damn it, don’t keep shoving us in the fuckin’ back and stabbing us in the back and that’s…  And that’s what really hurts.  And it is very upsetting [...] And when we asked the community to help us, there was nobody to help us. We were nothing. We were nothing!

— Eric Marcus, Making Gay History: Interview with Sylvia Rivera, December 9th, 1989

Holly Lewis states that continued pressure for non-normative individuals "to conform to traditional, oppositional sexist understandings of gender" has resulted in homonormativity permeating the behaviors and identities of the LGBT community, while replacing the radical past politics of the Gay Liberation Movement with goals of marriage equality and adoption. These are seen as conservative when framed against 70s/80s/90s LGBT activism. Homonormativity is perceived to stymie diversity and authenticity, with queer subcultures becoming commercialized and mainstreamed and political discourses structured around assimilation and normalization.

This aspect of homonormativity has been called transnormativity. Evan Vipond describes transnormativity as "the normalization of trans bodies and identities through the adoption of cisgender institutions by trans persons," such that transgender identity upholds the sex and gender binary. Transnormativity encompasses transmedicalism, basing transgender identity on the medicalized transition from one side of the gender binary to the other, de-legitimizing non-binary identity and transgender people without gender dysphoria.

Politics

See also: Same-sex marriage

Politics and International Relations Lecturer Penny Griffin says that politically, rather than critiquing neoliberal values of monogamy, procreation and binary gender roles, homonormativity has been found to uphold values regarded as inherently heterosexist and racist. Griffin sees homonormative behavior intertwined with capitalistic world systems, with consumer culture and materialism functioning at its core. Duggan asserts that homonormativity fragments LGBT communities into hierarchies of worthiness, and that LGBT people who come the closest to mimicking heteronormative standards of gender identity are deemed most worthy of receiving rights. She also writes that LGBT people at the bottom of this hierarchy (e.g. bisexual people, trans people, non-binary people, people of non-Western genders, intersex people, queers of color, queer sex workers) are seen as an impediment to this class of homonormative people realizing their rights.

Media

See also: Media portrayal of LGBT people

Andre Cavalcante says that as homosexuality becomes socially tolerated, representations of LGBT characters in film and television have come to reinforce strictures of cisgender, white, and binary authority. Gay writer and director Ryan Murphy's sitcom The New Normal has been critiqued for its of homonormative portrayal of queer culture and deemed “more damaging than entertaining.” Homonormative media representations are seen only as mimetic of heterosexual normality, reinforcing gay caricatures and "palatable adherents to cherished societal norms and dominant ideologies." Such representations, it is argued, omit the queer realities of non-white, non-binary LGBT people, papering over the lived experiences of variant identities and enforcing a "hierarchy by which individuals are expected to conform and are punished if they do not.”

While studies show having LGBT characters appearing in the media decreases prejudice among viewers, many network, cable and streaming services still lack diversity or cross-"community" representation when portraying queer characters. A 2015 GLAAD report profiling LGBT media representation found gay men (41%) still overwhelmingly featured as primary queer characters, despite increases in LGBT representation across a variety of sexual and gender identities. More LGBT content was produced in the media in 2018. According to GLAAD’S Annual Where We Are on TV Report, which records LGBTQ+ representation on television, the number of queer characters on TV shows rose 8.8%. Queer people of color also saw an increase in screen time; they outnumbered white queer people on television for the first time in the report's history. 1% of the population is intersex, so intersex people are almost completely omitted in the media, with discourses of binary gender identity largely excluding and displacing those who do not fall into the two categories of sex and gender.

Rainbow capitalism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_capitalism

Queer bloc protesting against rainbow capitalism during Dublin Pride 2016

Rainbow capitalism (also called pink capitalism, homocapitalism or gay capitalism) is the involvement of capitalism and consumerism in the LGBT movement. It developed in the 20th and 21st centuries as the LGBT community became more accepted in society and developed sufficient purchasing power, known as pink money. Early rainbow capitalism was limited to gay bars and gay bathhouses, though it expanded to most industries by the early-21st century.

Marketing to the LGBT community has played a major role in promoting social acceptance of LGBT people, including increased LGBT representation in media and advertising, though it has also perpetuated stereotypes of gay men. LGBT people are often poorer than heterosexual people when adjusting for other factors and often have more difficulty finding and securing work, though increased protections for LGBT individuals work to counteract this in some countries. Some governments and politicians use LGBT rights to support their foreign policy, either by supporting pressure on other countries to adopt LGBT protections or by opposing immigration from these countries.

Capitalism incentivizes corporations to promote LGBT rights to increase worker satisfaction, expand the consumer base, and maintain a positive public image. Many CEOs of corporations support LGBT rights through personal belief. Some companies in the United States have been criticized for expressing nominal support for the LGBT community while also supporting anti-LGBT politicians. LGBT people can also be victims of gentrification.

Opponents of corporate pride include right-wing and left-wing activists, who believe that corporate support for LGBT rights goes too far or not far enough, respectively. 76% of LGBT Americans support corporate presence in Pride parades.

Historical context

See also: LGBT history and Timeline of LGBT history

 

LGBT Club Eldorado in Berlin during the 1920s

According to some authors, the global evolution of "pink capitalism" has been parallel to the development of modern capitalism in the West. Although historical evidence shows that diversity of sexualities has always existed, different periods in businesses' development targeted at the LGBT community which have contributed to the construction of diverse sexual identities, can be distinguished. The creation of businesses that catered to the LGBT community corresponded to the beginning of the first drive for LGBT rights. This first LGBT movement was attacked between the First and Second World Wars, during the rise of fascism in Europe.

After the Second World War, Western culture was influenced by the homophobia of fascism. Although LGBT consumption remained marginal, during this time various homophile associations were created to seek positive assessment of homosexuality by society through meetings, publications, or charity parties. These associations opposed behaviors associated with homosexuals deemed marginal and perverted, such as promiscuity, cruising, prostitution, saunas and erotic magazines.

In the United States, marketing toward gay Americans began in "underground" gay communities in the late-19th century, occurring after urbanization allowed these communities to come together. Sellers were often unaware that a community they serviced was associated with the gay movement, though many bathhouses, brothels, and bars were sometimes operated for the gay community. The relocation of enlisted men during and after World War II allowed gay neighborhoods to form, LGBT periodicals emerged, and the 1958 Supreme Court decision One, Inc. v. Olesen legalized materials featuring discussion of homosexuality. The Stonewall riots shifted perceptions of the gay community in 1969, and the gay community was recognized as a legitimate economic market in the 1970s. Marketing to the gay community was complicated by the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, but it also further elevated awareness of the gay community.

The gay movement resulted in a negative social response, in part driven by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which in turn led to the development of the LGBT movement by discriminated gay groups. During the 1990s, the discrimination of the LGBT community diminished, broadening LGBT people's access to formerly heteronormative jobs. This resulted in increased purchasing power for the LGBT community, or the creation of "pink money". Homosexuals in particular represented a large portion of this purchasing power. The trend is closely related to that of DINKs, couples with two incomes and no children.

Mechanisms

Social acceptance

Capitalist accommodation of the LGBT community has caused a significant increase in social tolerance for the community, contributing to the expansion civil and political rights for LGBT people. Public image of the LGBT community has been affected by the increasing acceptance of gay men in advertising, entertainment, fashion trends. In these formats, the LGBT community is primarily represented by younger white gay men, and LGBT representation is often not representative of the community as a whole. Television shows such as Queer Eye portrayed a specific identity of the gay community. These perceptions may also be shared by members of the LGBT community:

In the pre-gay period, youth is worth of sexual exchange, but the elderly homosexuals were not stigmatized. With the extension of gay model and institutionalization that this entails, a sex market is formed where one of the most appreciated goods for sexual intercourse, as well as virility, is youth. The overvaluation of youth imposed by the gay style involves an underestimation of the mature adult male.

— Pink Society, p. 93

The quantity of LGBT-friendly advertising and LGBT representation in marketing increased in the early 2010s through the use of human interest advertisement, but this increase has focused on specific intersections of sexuality, class, age, and race, while most remain underrepresented. In the 1990s and 2000s, the term "metrosexual" was often used to market traditionally LGBT trends to heterosexual men. These concepts are considered to have significantly benefited the LGBT community through increased acceptance in society and breaking down of gender norms while also contributing to the perpetuation of LGBT stereotypes.

Social marketing is the intentional use of marketing to achieve social tolerance and social acceptance. Businesses often have the advantage of needing to appease only their target market rather than a majority of the public at large, as is the case in politics. LGBT individuals are also more likely to be early adopters of new products. This has caused businesses to be more likely to accept LGBT individuals and communities before the general public and legal protections. The majority of Fortune 500 companies established nondiscrimination policies by the 2010s and guaranteed equal benefits to same-sex couples.

Politics and the LGBT movement

Historical views

The first modern political movements advocating sexual freedoms and sexual rights date back to the Age of Enlightenment in Europe, during which many traditional ideas of medievalism and feudalism were challenged. According to Michel Foucault, this period saw a movement away from religious connotations of sex to views of "unnaturalness".

The role of sexuality was debated by writers and philosophers of the era. Plays during this time would transgress gender norms, though LGBT themes were often implicit, and Libertine and Gothic writers sometimes experimented with representation of homosexual activity. Liberal philosophers such as Montesquieu and Cesare Beccaria advocated the rights of due process for those accused of sodomy, and Marquis de Sade adapted the arguments of John Locke to support sexual expression as amoral. Conservative commentators viewed these developments as having a "corrupt impact" on women. The earliest organized LGBT movements formed in the late-19th and early-20th centuries from the communities centered around specific industries that catered to LGBT groups, such as gay bars.

Economic aspects

According to the 2000 census, lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals and couples in the United States are equally as likely to be poor as heterosexual individual couples. 7% of same-sex female couples were in poverty, 4% of same-sex male couples were in poverty, and 5% of heterosexual couples were in poverty. After adjusting for various family characteristics, LGBT families are more likely to be poor than heterosexual families. Several studies conducted in the 1980s and 1990s found that the number of LGBT Americans that experienced employment discrimination ranged between 16% and 68%. Gay men were also found to earn 10% to 32% less than similarly qualified heterosexual men. Transgender people were found to have high unemployment, and those who were employed received low earnings.

In the 21st century, the gay rights movement has produced greater protections for LGBT people as workers and as consumers. In the United States, accommodation of the LGBT community through capitalist mechanisms has resulted in economic and societal protections for the LGBT community greater than those prescribed under the law. Under the American economic system, employers are incentivized to support the workforce to achieve greater efficiency. This cooperation has resulted in the creation of employee resource groups that allow for organization improvement of LGBT employment. Corporations that support workplace diversity are more likely to protect LGBT employees and executives beyond what is required by the law. Capitalism also incentivizes corporations to incorporate workplace equality policies to achieve greater customer satisfaction. Corporations with LGBT workplace equality policies are viewed more favorably by customers, employees, and partners. Corporations that implement these policies see benefits in marketing capability and overall improvement in performance.

Diplomatic aspects

The concept of "homocapitalism" is the application of gay rights issues and involvement of LGBT communities in international trade and foreign aid. In most African countries, same-sex marriage is seen as "ungodly, un-African, homonegative, unnatural and unacceptable", often invoking religious ideas of Christianity, Islam, or traditional African religions. Western nations, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, apply political and financial pressure for these countries to adopt legal protections for LGBT people. Countries that refuse to provide these protections are sometimes boycotted by governments and private donors. This is in contrast with predominantly Buddhist and Hindu countries, where homosexual activity is typically not prohibited on religious grounds.

Far-right politicians, such as British MP David Coburn, have also used LGBT issues and the persecution of LGBT minorities in other countries to advocate homonationalism. Homonationalism, a term coined by queer theorist Jasbir Puar, refers to the growing acceptance of LGBT rights by Western nations coupled with the complicity of LGBT individuals and organizations involved in nationalist politics. This ideology first arose within the context of the War on Terror, as the United States positioned itself as LGBT-friendly in opposition to the seemingly homophobic Muslim world. It has also been used by the Israeli government to justify its position in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict by comparing its stronger protections of LGBT rights to those of Palestine.

LGBT people involved in the American anti-war movement criticize the broader LGBT community for its tolerance of military activity and military enlistment. When military whistleblower Chelsea Manning’s nomination to the board of San Francisco Pride was rescinded in 2013, local LGBT groups organized and distributed petitions, claiming that the rescindment was politically motivated. Anti-war activists have also criticized weapons manufacturers such as Axon Enterprise and Raytheon Technologies for participating in Pride Month.

Corporate involvement in LGBT Pride

Major corporations have become more active in LGBT Pride events in the early-21st century. Many corporations celebrate Pride Month by incorporating it into marketing and publicly expressing support for the LGBT community. In the United States, some of these corporations have been criticized for making campaign donations to legislators that oppose LGBT rights. Other corporations are praised for providing material support to the LGBT community during Pride Month. Kellogg's has been praised for celebrating Pride Month by donating to GLAAD and featuring content about preferred gender pronouns. Many corporations release pride themed products during Pride Month, and contribute to LGBT nonprofit groups using the proceeds. Adidas, Apple, Disney, Nike, Peloton, and other major brands donated to The Trevor Project and other LGBT nonprofit organizations in 2020.

Many factors may affect whether a corporation takes a stance on LGBT issues. Protection of LGBT workers results in higher job satisfaction and increased performance. Support for LGBT rights is also associated with seeking a positive public image, particularly for corporations that have high brand-awareness. LGBT people within the company may also influence the behavior of a corporation. The presence of openly LGBT employees in a workforce correlates with corporate support for LGBT rights, and employee resource groups for LGBT workers are sometimes supported by corporations, giving these groups involvement in decisions regarding LGBT issues. Such involvement was a factor in the partial repeal of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in Indiana and the bathroom bill in North Carolina. Many CEOs and corporate executives also personally support LGBT rights and seek to direct their companies in line with their personal beliefs.

Neighborhoods

These processes are especially evident in the dynamics of gay neighborhoods, which attracted LGBT people with their affordability and the social security provided by living with other sexual minorities. These neighborhoods, after decreasing social stigma made them "trendy", then gradually underwent the gentrification process. Rising prices expelled the LGBT population that could not afford the new expenses. An increasingly specialized market developed around the LGBT community in parallel with these other events. This market specifically developed around the needs of the LGBT community, selling services and products exclusively designed to meet their needs. Different companies and firms in turn began incorporating the defense of LGBT rights into their company policies and codes of conduct, and even financing LGBT events.

This kind of sociosexual relations appraisement is characteristic of gay modelling, which has its origin in the companies' new formation of a concentrated sexual market through rainbow capitalism:

In Spain, neither virile redefinition of homosexuality, nor gay model spreading, were made from the active homosexual movement of the time. [...] The penetration of the new model is carried out through private channels: by entrepreneurs who mimetically reproduce gay institutions already present in other countries".

— Pink Society, p. 82–84

Response

Politicians

In the United States, Republican politicians have criticized corporations for taking stances in favor of LGBT rights. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and other Republicans criticized Disney for being "woke" after it challenged the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act in 2022.

Protest

See also: Against Equality, Gay Shame, Night pride, Queeruption, and Queer Liberation March

 

"Queer Liberation, Not Rainbow Capitalism", a sign held at the Queer Liberation March in 2019

Many groups protest corporate involvement and support of LGBT Pride. When Pride Glasgow started charging an attendance fee in 2015, a group of activists organised Free Pride Glasgow to be held on the same day, and on the day of Pride Glasgow every year since, as a free alternative that features protest rather than celebration. During the 2020 George Floyd protests in the United States, some groups like The Okra Project criticized LGBT Pride celebrations as overlooking the issues faced by the African-American LGBT community.

Critical Pride 2015 (Orgullo Crítico 2015) arriving at Puerta del Sol in Madrid, Spain

Following the passage of gay marriage in Spain, members of the LGBT community felt the Pride Parade was no longer protest demonstration and instead becoming a tourist business. Since 2006, several demonstrations against LGBT commodification have been held annually in suburbs of Madrid, called Alternative Pride or Critical Pride (Orgullo Alternativo or Orgullo Crítico). The first Indignant Pride (Orgullo Indignado) parade was held, calling for a different sexuality regardless of economic performance which should take into account gender, ethnicity, age and social class intersectionalities besides other non-normative corporalities. Later, the event retrieved the name Critical Pride (Orgullo Crítico), based on in part on objections to pink capitalism.

Support

Advocates of greater corporate involvement in LGBT Pride say that corporate support for the LGBT community can influence legislation, increase access for LGBT people, and reinforce broad support for acceptance of LGBT people in society. In 2020, The Trevor Project found that a majority of underage LGBT Americans felt more positively about their sexual identity because of brands that support the LGBT community. 76% of LGBT Americans supported corporate participation in Pride Month events, in contrast with organizers of many Pride events.

Gay Shame

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Queer anarchism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_anarchism

 

A diagonally bisected pink and black flag, similar to other anarchist symbolism, is often associated with queer anarchism.

Queer anarchism, or anarcha-queer, is an anarchist school of thought that advocates anarchism and social revolution as a means of queer liberation and abolition of hierarchies such as homophobia, lesbophobia, transmisogyny, biphobia, transphobia, heteronormativity, patriarchy, and the gender binary. People who campaigned for LGBT rights both outside and inside the anarchist and LGBT movements include John Henry Mackay, Lucía Sánchez Saornil, Adolf Brand and Daniel Guérin. Individualist anarchist Adolf Brand published Der Eigene from 1896 to 1932 in Berlin, the first sustained journal dedicated to gay issues.

History

Early history

John Henry Mackay, German individualist anarchist advocate of LGBT rights

Anarchism's foregrounding of individual freedoms made for a natural defense of homosexuality in the eyes of many, both inside and outside of the anarchist movement. In Das Kuriositäten-Kabinett (1923), Emil Szittya wrote about homosexuality that "very many anarchists have this tendency. Thus I found in Paris a Hungarian anarchist, Alexander Sommi, who founded a homosexual anarchist group on the basis of this idea". His view is confirmed by Magnus Hirschfeld in his 1914 book Die Homosexualität des Mannes und des Weibes: "In the ranks of a relatively small party, the anarchist, it seemed to me as if proportionately more homosexuals and effeminates are found than in others".

Adolf Brand, early German anarchist activist for the rights of male homosexuals

Anarcho-syndicalist writer Ulrich Linse wrote about "a sharply outlined figure of the Berlin individualist anarchist cultural scene around 1900", the "precocious Johannes Holzmann" (known as Senna Hoy): "an adherent of free love, [Hoy] celebrated homosexuality as a 'champion of culture' and engaged in the struggle against Paragraph 175". The young Hoy (born 1882) published these views in his weekly magazine Kampf (Struggle) from 1904, which reached a circulation of 10,000 the following year. He decided to devote himself entirely to writing and political activism from an anarchist standpoint. In 1904, he published the booklet "Das dritte Geschlecht" ("The Third Gender"). In it, he attacked homophobia, laying most of the blame on religion. Above all, the text was intended to be educational and covered evolution, biology and issues facing homosexuals at the time. From 1904 to 1905, Holzmann edited the journal Der Kampf: Zeitschrift für gesunden Menschenverstand (The Struggle: Journal for Common Sense). Though it was not published by any particular organization, the journal was anarchist in outlook. In addition to fictional stories, Der Kampf published articles on various topics, including many about homosexuality. Among its writers were Else Lasker-Schüler, Peter Hille, and Erich Mühsam and, at its best, it had a circulation of up to 10,000. During this time, Holzmann wrote the article "Die Homosexualität als Kulturbewegung" ("Homosexuality as a Cultural Movement"). He argued that the right to privacy entailed that "no one has the right to intrude in the private matters of another, to meddle in another's personal views and orientations, and that ultimately it is no one's business what two freely consenting adults do in their homes." He attacked Paragraph 175 of the German criminal code which criminalized homosexual acts.

German anarchist psychotherapist Otto Gross also wrote extensively about same-sex sexuality in both men and women and argued against its discrimination.

John Henry Mackay was an individualist anarchist known in the anarchist movement as an important early follower and propagandizer of the philosophy of Max Stirner. Alongside this, Mackay was also an early signer of Magnus Hirschfeld's "Petition to the Legislative Bodies of the German Empire" for "a revision of the anti-homosexual paragraph 175 (his name appeared in the first list published in 1899)". He also kept a special interest about Oscar Wilde and was outraged at his imprisonment for homosexual activity. Nevertheless, Mackay entered into conflict with Hirschfeld and his organization the Scientific Humanitarian Committee.

The individualist anarchist Adolf Brand was originally a member of Hirschfeld's Scientific Humanitarian Committee, but formed a break-away group. Brand and his colleagues, known as the Gemeinschaft der Eigenen ("Community of Self-owners"), were also heavily influenced by the writings of Stirner.

Der Eigene, stirnerist pioneer gay activist publication

They were opposed to Hirschfeld's medical characterization of homosexuality as the domain of an "intermediate sex". Ewald Tschek, another homosexual anarchist writer of the era, regularly contributed to Adolf Brand's journal Der Eigene and wrote in 1925 that Hirschfeld's Scientific Humanitarian Committee was a danger to the German people, caricaturing Hirschfeld as "Dr. Feldhirsch". Although Mackay was closer in views to Brand and his "Community of Self-owners" in some respects as compared to Hirschfeld's Scientific Humanitarian Committee, nevertheless he did not agree with Brand's antifeminism and almost misogynistic views believing his "anarchist principle of equal freedom to all certainly applied to women as well as men".

The Ukrainian anarchist military leader Nestor Makhno was known to employ disguises as part of his guerilla tactics. His most commonly assumed disguise involved putting on makeup and dressing as a woman, so that he could survey enemy positions without detection.

The prominent American anarchist Emma Goldman was also an outspoken critic of prejudice against homosexuals. Her belief that social liberation should extend to gay men and lesbians was virtually unheard of at the time, even among anarchists. As Magnus Hirschfeld wrote, "she was the first and only woman, indeed the first and only American, to take up the defense of homosexual love before the general public". In numerous speeches and letters, she defended the right of gay men and lesbians to love as they pleased and condemned the fear and stigma associated with homosexuality. As Goldman wrote in a letter to Hirschfeld: "It is a tragedy, I feel, that people of a different sexual type are caught in a world which shows so little understanding for homosexuals and is so crassly indifferent to the various gradations and variations of gender and their great significance in life".

Despite these supportive stances, the anarchist movement of the time certainly was not free of homophobia and an editorial in an influential Spanish anarchist journal from 1935 argued that an anarchist should not even associate with homosexuals, let alone be one: "If you are an anarchist, that means that you are more morally upright and physically strong than the average man. And he who likes inverts is no real man, and is therefore no real anarchist".

Lucía Sánchez Saornil was a main founder of the Spanish anarcha-feminist federation Mujeres Libres who was open about being a lesbian. At a young age, she began writing poetry and associated herself with the emerging Ultraist literary movement. By 1919, she had been published in a variety of journals, including Los Quijotes, Tableros, Plural, Manantial and La Gaceta Literaria. Working under a male pen name, she was able to explore lesbian themes

The writings of the French bisexual anarchist Daniel Guérin offer an insight into the tension sexual minorities among the left have often felt. He was a leading figure in the French left from the 1930s until his death in 1988. After coming out in 1965, he spoke about the extreme hostility toward homosexuality that permeated the left throughout much of the 20th century. "Not so many years ago, to declare oneself a revolutionary and to confess to being homosexual were incompatible", Guérin wrote in 1975.

In 1954, Guérin was widely attacked for his study of the Kinsey Reports in which he also detailed the oppression of homosexuals in France: "The harshest [criticisms] came from Marxists, who tend seriously to underestimate the form of oppression which is antisexual terrorism. I expected it, of course, and I knew that in publishing my book I was running the risk of being attacked by those to whom I feel closest on a political level". After coming out publicly in 1965, Guérin was abandoned by the left and his papers on sexual liberation were censored or refused publication in left-wing journals.

Queer anarchist bloc with banner reading "remember Stonewall"

Guérin moved away from Marxism–Leninism and toward a synthesis of anarchism and Marxism close to platformism, which allowed for individualism while rejecting capitalism, who would eventually embrace anarcho-communism. Guérin was involved in the uprising of May 1968 and was a part of the French gay liberation movement that emerged after the events. Decades later, Frédéric Martel described Guérin as the "grandfather of the French homosexual movement".

In the United States, the influential anarchist thinker Paul Goodman came out late in his career as bisexual. The freedom with which he revealed in print and in public his romantic and sexual relations with men (notably in a late essay, "Being Queer"),

Contemporary history

Anarchist and queer symbolism

The early gay liberation movement shared many theoretical foundations and philosophies with anarchist movements in the mid twentieth century. Chants such as "2-4-6-8, smash the church, smash the state!" were popular around the time of the Stonewall riots, setting the tone for a queer rights movement grounded in anarchist thought. The two campaigns both focus on rejecting normative thinking and the state in favor of personal liberty and pleasure.

Anarchism and queer theory both reject paternalistic state structures that depend on capitalism and the nuclear family. Instead, both favor forms of self-determination and the reordering of society. An example of anarchism and queerness intersecting can be found in those who engage in non-monogamous relationships, these are inherently anarchical, as they are rejecting traditional power structures that shape the nuclear family. This concept has been coined Relationship Anarchism.

Anarcha-queer originated during the second half of the 20th century among anarchists involved in the gay liberation movement, who viewed anarchism as the road to harmony between heterosexual/cis people and LGBT people. Anarcha-queer has its roots deep in queercore, a form of punk rock that portrays homosexuality in a positive manner. Like most forms of punk rock, queercore attracts a large anarchist crowd. Anarchists are prominent in queercore zines. Queer Fist appeared in New York City and identifies itself as "an anti-assimilationist, anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian street action group, came together to provide direct action and a radical queer and trans-identified voice at the Republican National Convention (RNC) protests".

Activism

Queer anarchist banner at Christopher Street Day parade, Berlin, 2020

Queer anarchists have been active in protesting and activism, using direct action against what is seen as homonormative consumerism and pink capitalism. Queer anarchists have set up squats and autonomous zones as well as urban communities for the queer and LGBT community. Rural communities often rely on social media to grow anarchist movements and networks, due to these communities being geographically isolated from urban centers. Social networking sites facilitate knowledge transmission that provides alternative ideals to people in rural populations that were previously only available to urban dwellers.

Many queer anarchists embrace the notion of radical individualism, influenced by individual philosophers like Max Stirner. Organizations like ACT-Up a punk anti-racist, anti-fascist organization and supported and composed of queer anarchists organization that has supported queer radicals and direct action. Later during the WTO protests queer anarchists played a vital role in organizing the mass protests, the protests would lead to the explosion of the anti-globalization movement.

In popular culture

Queer anarchists in Denmark with banner reading "Queer solidarity"

"Be gay, do crime" is a slogan popular in contemporary Pride parades, LGBT-related protests, and graffiti. In 2018, it was popularised on Twitter by a meme created by Io Ascarium of the ABO Comix collective, which sells comics made by other abled LGBTQ+ prisoners. Ascarium describes the phrase as coming "from the communal grab-bag of anti-assimilationist queer slogans. Like 'ACAB' or 'Stonewall was a Riot' it was pulled from the chaotic ether, originated nowhere and belongs to nobody," though Google Trends suggests interest has existed since at least 2011. The "memeification" of the "be gay do crime" slogan is an example of increased accessibility into anarchist schools of thought.

The slogan "Be gay, do crime" is an anti-capitalistic and anti-authoritarian statement, implying that crime and incivility may be necessary to earn equal rights given the criminalization of homosexuality around the world and that the Stonewall uprising was a riot. Within the anarchist space, the Mary Nardini Gang reflected on their manifesto Toward the Queerest Insurrection with the book Be Gay Do Crime, where they affirm "the reality and the continuity of a culture and a history of experiencing outlawness, illegality, and lack of citizenship". Mark Bieschke, a curator at the GLBT History Museum, claimed that the slogan is meant to stand against the "polished, corporate narrative of Pride".

American cartooning publication The Nib compiled Be Gay, Do Comics, an anthology of short comics "featuring queer history, memoir, and satire", launched on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter in November 2019, and later published for mainstream distribution in September 2020. In the book's foreword, Nib co-editor Matt Lubchansky explained the title as an homage to Ascarium's meme, interpreting it as a reminder that "Queerness has always been transgressive, regardless of its legal status."