No Amount of "We're Just Like You" Will Protect Us

​Please note: I'm hella heated and may continue to tinker with my language here and there, but my general controlling idea will remain the same.

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Aunt Maries Are Not The Way. Today, I'm skipping the regular Current Curiosities to dive directly into Matthew Vines' wildly offensive opinion essay "I'm Gay, Not Queer. It Matters." published in this morning's ​New York Times. Happy last day of Pride Month, I guess.  

Like the titular Uncle Tom, Vines as Aunt Mary seeks to align himself with moderate and conservative Christian and white cisgender heterosexual systems of power by claiming (in the same misguided vein as the Human Rights Campaign) that we are just like you. That gay people, but not queer people, are deserving of equal rights.

But as we've learned, no amount of we're just like you will protect queer and trans communities from cishet bigotry and violence. We are always already other. And what Vines is actually saying is I am not like those other queers; rather I, a white cisgender gay man, am just like y'all white cisgender heterosexuals with all the power and protections that I covet - but only for myself.

Imagine hating yourself so deeply that you would willingly choose to aid your oppressor as your own community is targeted and harassed, as your oppressor finds new and well-worn ways of stripping your community of its rights to life and liberty. Again and again history and literature show us that the Aunt Maries, the Uncle Toms, the bootlickers themselves meet the same end as the communities they betray. No amount of we're just like you​ will protect you, will protect us. 

Vines represents a problematic and dangerous sect of white gays. That is to say, Vines' white and cisgender identities and his proximity to white cisgender heterosexual power overrides his solidarity with broader LGBTQ+ communities - particularly queer and trans communities of color. He seeks rights for himself and those who look like and act like him at the expense of equal rights for folks locating themselves (via sexual and romantic orientations, gender identities and expressions, etc.) under the broader queer umbrella. 

Queer is an identity. Queer is a call to action. Queer is a movement. Queer is a political statement. Queer is otherness and that is power. 

​Queer challenges oppressive heterosexual and white supremacist systems. (Vines should take a note.) Queer reclaims the slur that was hurled at us (and still is, though fagot seems to be more en vogue these days) on the playground, on the street, in schools and offices and churches. 

Queer is collective. Queer is our ability to work across our in-community differences in identity and gender and ethnicity and class. Queer confronts white cisgender heterosexual power, but not in the us/them binary Vines asserts. Rather, queer dismantles the systems upholding white cisgender heterosexual power.

​Queer is emancipatory. Queer is liberatory. Queer is our survival.

​And no amount of Vines' rejection of queerness or his we're just like you will protect him or any other queer or trans person from the bigotry and violence of white cisgender heterosexual power.

Thank you very much for your time. If you have recommendations or curiosities, please fill out this nifty contact form.

Sending y’all supportive, well-caffeinated vibes,

Creighton 

Today’s Pen(cil): Sharpie Mini Caddy Limited Edition

P.S. This is why I've never been a supporter of Secretary Mayor Pete. 

P.P.S. Am I in my Magneto era???