Capalisms and Gay Inti Towards a Capalist Theory of Social Movements on JSTOR

Contents:

• CAPALISM MA GAY INTY POSSIBLE. NOW WE MT DTROY CAPALISM.
• CAPALISM AND GAY INTY
• CAPALISM AND GAY INTY BY D’E AND BEBE
• D’E – “CAPALISM AND GAY INTY”
• CAPALISMS AND GAY INTI
• CAPALISM AND GAY INTY
• GLOW UP: ON QUEER EYE, CAPALISM AND GAY INTY

CAPALISM MA GAY INTY POSSIBLE. NOW WE MT DTROY CAPALISM.

Specifilly, different kds of palism yield different domant unrstandgs of gay inty held by the movement over s 70-year history: reform palism created a psychiatric gay inty; social ntract palism created an “out” mory gay inty; palism--crisis created a centered and ntted gay inty; and neoliberal palism created a domtited and nsumerist gay inty. Rather than viewg gay inty and the movement through the prism of rourc, opportuni, social works, and social nstctn, the article argu that the procs are bt subsumed unr the broar bric of palist polil artículo revisa una doctra central en la vtigación sobre la intidad gay: ncretamente, aquel que dice que el palismo dtrial “creó” la intidad gay y tableció las bas para el movimiento gays y lbianas en los Estados Unidos. Específimente, las diferent clas palismo produjeron terpretacn diferent la intidad gay mantenidas por su movimiento a lo largo s setenta años historia: el palismo reforma creó una intidad gay psiquiátri; el palismo ntrato social creó una intidad gay “anómala” moraria; el “palismo-en-crisis” creó una intidad gay scentrada y nflictiva; y el palismo neoliberal creó una intidad gay domtida y nsumista.

Más que ver la intidad gay y su movimiento a través l prisma recursos, las oportunidas, las res social y la nstcción social, el artículo argumenta que tos procos mejor englobarlos bajo un más ampl apartado la enomía políti palista. Gay activists diligently studyg Marx’s Capal together has not necsarily been a equent occurrence throughout Amerin history, but phenomena of this type did occur more equently durg a few years the seventi, when activists briefly unrstood anti-palism to be a self-evint ponent of gay liberatn.

Jab’s Meagan Day spoke to D’E about the parallel histori of palism and gay inty — wh a foc on homosexualy, though the nversatn do touch on transgenr issu — and why even though palism has generated new possibili for sexual exprsn, we mt enavor to transcend . Alongsi that, you have this other moral panic that gets scribed by historians now as the Lavenr Sre, which the opprsn of gay people sudnly be much more overt and tensified, wh the police and the FBI actively gog after people, creatg lists, raidg bars, and so on.

CAPALISM AND GAY INTY

But here is another parallel: jt as the Civil Rights Movement generated “massive ristance” om whe racists, the emergence of gay polics sparked an tense backlash, one that was more popular-facg and many ways more vilent than the Lavenr Sre. ” He asserts the importance of “a new, more accurate theory of gay history” as part of this project, particular overg the vented mythology of “silence, visibily, and isolatn” and the nsequent “overreliance on a strategy of g out. Their emergence is associated wh the relatns of palism; has been the historil velopment of palism – more specifilly, s ee labor system – that has allowed large numbers of men and women the late twentieth century to ll themselv gay, to see themselv as part of a muny of siar men and women, and to anize polilly on the basis of that inty.

1) “we are not a fixed social mory posed for all time of a certa percentage of the populatn… Capalism has created the material ndns for homosexual sire to exprs self as a central ponent of some dividuals’ liv; now, our polil movements are changg nscns, creatg the iologil ndns that make easier for people to make that choice. Although Red Butterfly supports Whman for generally lkg the dividual effects of gay opprsn to “the social and enomic facts which are at once the e and effects of this suatn, ” they note the tensn his manifto between personal eedom and the need for llective actn, and they crique Whman’s promotn of “g out” as an aquate strategy for social change self bee n so easily separate personal liberatn om changg the social ndns that foster gay opprsn.

Comprised of a loose work of llectiv, journals, newsletters, study groups, nferenc, and actns whose most tensive activy lasted only until the mid-seventi, the Gay Left reprented a short-lived but val willgns to make e of Marxism as a cril amework to lk sexual opprsn to global palism. Nohels, the fact that a broad sector of the disurse of gay liberatn was at least spir directed toward nnectg sexual opprsn to the history of palism ma this one of the most excg flash pots the historil velopment of a cril and materialist unrstandg of sexualy.

CAPALISM AND GAY INTY BY D’E AND BEBE

Among the llectiv that very potedly did set out to velop a Marxist or socialist analysis of sexualy as a basis for actn were the Los Angel Rearch Group, the Lavenr and Red Unn (Los Angel), Red Butterfly (New York), the Gay Left Collective (UK), and the Gay Socialist Actn Project (New York Cy).

As the Collective Statement for the Brish socialist journal Gay Left announced 1975, the aims of the Gay Left were to “ntribute towards a Marxist analysis of homosexual opprsn… and enurage the gay movement an unrstandg of the lks between the stggle agast sexual opprsn and the stggle for socialism. ” Like many socialist gay anizatns formg at the time, the Brish Gay Left Collective brought together men who benefed om and were volved the gay liberatn movement’s dramatic terptn of the negative value attached to homosexualy.

D’E – “CAPALISM AND GAY INTY”

They acknowledged that “there has not… been a properly Marxist unrstandg of sexual opprsn, ” an unrstandg that, they suggted, would lie “ graspg the relatnship between the enomy, iology, and culture and the sights supplied by recent velopments the study of sexualy” (Gay Left Collective, 9).

But ntendg that is at the iologil level that most of our opprsn as gays is exprsed (10), they ran the danger of separatg iology om palism’s base and openg the door to an exclive foc on iologil and polil practic that would ultimately domate the New Left. The New York Cy-based Gay Socialist Actn Project (which clud among s members Jonathan Katz and John D’E) formed on September 14, 1975, as a gay men’s Marxist study group whose one ntug activy was regular weekly readgs and discsns. After begng wh the work of Marx — (cludg six months voted to readg volume 1 of Capal) — they went on to read Eli Zaretsky’s Capalism, the Fay, and Personal Life, Gayle Rub’s “The Traffic Women, ” Harry Braverman’s Labor and Monopoly Capal, and the wrgs of Trotsky, Len, and Mao.

They argued that bee is bound up wh the genred divisn of labor, sexual opprsn probably wouldn’t be elimated unr palism; nsequently, is sential for gay people to relate their opprsn to the wir system of exploatn and opprsn that palism operat (Gay Left Collective 2). The anizg efforts of the Gay Left prsured socialist anizatns to addrs qutns of sexualy and sexual inty, and some of them — like the Spartacist League — did, although they did not all velop or even promote the systematic analys of sexualy of the sort lled for by the Gay Left. While I am strsg the value of analysis that would quire to the ways the lol histori of sexualy were shaped by the changg relatns of productn global palism, I also do not want to mimize the acplishments of the gay liberatn movement.

CAPALISMS AND GAY INTI

” It is important to remember that even the mid-1970s homosexualy was illegal over half of the fifty Uned Stat, and stat where was legal there were no provisns for gay fai; next-of-k privileg were refed homosexuals hospals; ctody and adoptn rights were routely whheld om gay parents; gay men and lbians were nied employment feral ernment jobs; there were no laws to make discrimatn nonernment jobs illegal; and landlords uld also legally discrimate agast gay people. By the end of the seventi the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn had removed homosexualy om s list of disorrs; about half of the stat had removed their sodomy laws; the Civil Service Commissn elimated s ban on employment of lbians and gay men; and dozens of municipali had passed antidiscrimatn statut.

One of the glarg problems om the outset both gay liberatn and wh the gay Marxist left was the abily to velop a polics and theori that aquately addrsed the particulary of lbian opprsn and the polil ntributns of women to the movement. Many gay socialists fally found themselv exhsted and alienated om long and uls stggl party anizatns; some redirected their energi to work wh tonomo gay groups and foced their scholarship on a cultural rather than historil materialism (Weeks 1979, 235).

CAPALISM AND GAY INTY

It is also worth notg here that the group that sparked the homophile movement the Uned Stat was the Mattache Society, whose founr, Henry Hay, was a member of the Communist Party and voted his energi to the party om 1933 through 1948. We won repeal of sodomy laws half the stat, a partial liftg of the excln of lbians and gay men om feral employment, civil rights protectn a few dozen ci, the cln of gay rights the platform of the Democratic Party, and the elimatn of homosexualy om the psychiatric profsn’s list of mental illns. In some parts of the lbian and gay male muny, a feelg of doom is growg: analogi wh McCarthy’s Ameri, when “sexual perverts” were a special target of the Right, and wh Nazi Germany, where gays were shipped to ncentratn mps, surface wh creasg equency.

GLOW UP: ON QUEER EYE, CAPALISM AND GAY INTY

Moreover, bee we faced so many opprsive laws, public polici, and cultural beliefs, we projected this to an image of the abysmal past: until gay liberatn, lbians and gay men were always the victims of systematic, undifferentiated, terrible opprsn.

They have ntributed, for stance, to an overreliance on a strategy of g out — if every gay man and lbian Ameri me out, gay opprsn would end — and have allowed to ignore the stutnalized ways which homophobia and heterosexism are reproduced. Their emergence is associated wh the relatns of palism — more specifilly, s ee labor system — that has allowed large numbers of men and women the late twentieth century to ll themselv gay, to see themselv as part of a muny of siar men and women, and to anize polilly on the basis of that inty. Only when dividuals began to make their livg through wage labor, stead of as parts of an terpennt fay un, was possible for homosexual sire to alce to a personal inty — an inty based on the abily to rema outsi the heterosexual fay and to nstct a personal life based on attractn to one’s own sex.

The early gay liv me om a wi social spectm: civil servants and bs executiv, partment store clerks and llege profsors, factory operativ, misters, lawyers, oks, domtics, hobo, and the idle rich: men and women, black and whe, immigrant and native born. The Ksey studi of the 1940s and 1950s found signifintly more men than women wh predomantly homosexual histori, a suatn ed, I would argue, by the fact that palism had drawn far more men than women to the labor force, and at higher wag.