Thus far this semester, discussion of how the LGBT community and the white working-class community intersect has been limited. For the most part, in class and in the media, LGBT issues are treated as unimportant (or, at best, peripheral) to the white working-class. They are seen as distractions from key economic concerns, or as wedge issues that alienate homophobic/transphobic (or, to be more charitable, religious conservative) white working-class individuals from a Democratic Party that has, at least traditionally, better represented its economic interests. Pundit Mark Lilla has called Hillary Clinton's explicit LGBT outreach a "strategic mistake." Professor Joan Williams referred to "sexualities" as an elite interest. Lilla and Williams, like many other commentators, seem to agree that to focus on LGBT issues such as gay marriage and transgender bathroom access is to engage in "identity politics" - a tenuous strategy that led to Democratic electoral defeat among white working-class voters in 2016.
I concede that perceived "niche" LGBT issues are unlikely to garner overwhelming support from working-class whites. However, as a member of the LGBT community, I am not about to ask my queer peers to take a backseat in the political dialogue. Perhaps one way working-class whites and the LGBT community can find common ground is through renewed focus on their shared economic concerns. In particular, I think it worthwhile to highlight that a large number of LGBT people are working-class (and white!) and struggling for economic survival.
Popular culture paints gays and lesbians - and even certain transgender people like Caitlyn Jenner- as well-off, financially secure, and politically powerful. Some academics and journalists have referred to this stereotype as the "myth of gay affluence;" and even well-educated Supreme Court Justices aren't immune to the stereotype. In Romer v. Evans, an important Supreme Court gay rights case, Justice Antonin Scalia commented that “[t]hose who engage in homosexual conduct tend to reside in disproportionate numbers in certain communities" (read: urban elite enclaves) and that gays and lesbians have "high disposable income." He went on to say that gays and lesbians "possess political power much greater than their numbers" and that they use this power to advocate for "not merely a grudging social toleration, but full social acceptance, of homosexuality."
The misconception that LGBT people are riding high on the hog obscures a less fabulous reality. As a 2016 piece in The Advocate succinctly states: "poverty is an LGBT issue." Due to a number of factors - including employment/housing discrimination, school harassment, lack of family support, and insufficient/inconsistent legal protection for LGBT individuals and families - LGBT men and women have lower average incomes and suffer from disproportionately high poverty rates when compared to their straight counterparts. For LGBT men and women who are employed, the jobs are often "working class." For example, gay men are more likely than straight men to be pushed into working class jobs like teaching, secretarial work, and nursing. Additionally, there is a long history of working-class lesbians and transmen engaging in traditionally "masculine" blue-collar professions like industrial/factory labor and construction work (For a seminal semi-autobiographical LGBT novel on the intersection of blue collar work and lesbians/transmen, I strongly recommend reading Leslie Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues. Feinberg defined hirself as "an anti-racist white, working-class, secular Jewish, transgender, lesbian, female, revolutionary communist," and her work reflects all of these identities. The entire book is available free online and it's excellent!).
The white working-class might be forgiven for not realizing that LGBT folks can be working-class and have working-class economic concerns. Many young and/or "elite" LGBT people might not even realize it themselves. LGBT interest groups and figureheads do not frequently focus on class and economic issues in their high-profile fundraising campaigns and press releases. Some have even argued that in recent years, the LGBT community has "turned its head and looked the other way" in regards to the working-class and labor rights. However, this perceived gap between the interests of the white working-class and the LGBT community hasn't always existed. Historically (since at least the 1930's) the LGBT and working-class communities have been strong allies. One of the first gay rights organizations in the U.S., the Mattachine Society, was founded by a longshoreman and union member. Gay icon Harvey Milk allied with Teamsters to successfully organize a national boycott of Coors, a partnership that aided Milk's election as San Francisco Supervisor. Labor unions and the LGBT community worked together to defeat the Briggs Initiative (meant to bar gay teachers from public schools) in California. Finally, many union contracts with anti-discrimination provisions have historically protected gay, lesbian, and trans workers where federal and state laws have not.
If Step #1 of reconciling the white working class and the LGBT community is demonstrating their history of collaboration and common cause, then Step #2 is finding a practical and actionable way to bridge the cultural gap that has grown between the two groups in recent years. Luckily, this is already being done by LGBT organizers and politicians in working-class communities around the country, not just in urban elite ones!
If Step #1 of reconciling the white working class and the LGBT community is demonstrating their history of collaboration and common cause, then Step #2 is finding a practical and actionable way to bridge the cultural gap that has grown between the two groups in recent years. Luckily, this is already being done by LGBT organizers and politicians in working-class communities around the country, not just in urban elite ones!
Danica Roem is one such example. In 2017, Roem became the first openly transgender person elected to serve as a state legislator. She was elected to represent Virginia's 13th House of Delegates District, which consists largely of Manassas Park, a "working-class commuter city" where many of the city's 16,000 residents are service workers who "juggle long work hours and lengthy commutes." She defeated a 13-term Republican incumbent, self-proclaimed "homophobe in chief" Bob Marshall. While Roem didn't shy away from her transgender identity, she focused her campaign primarily on local issues like traffic, jobs, and schools. She was also endorsed by working-class darling Joe Biden. By comparison, her opponent Marshall was accused of focusing more on divisive identity politics and conservative "values" than local issues that truly affected working voters in the district.
Roem illustrates that when LGBT politicians highlight commonalities, rather than differences, inroads can be made. Her campaign also suggests that LGBT individuals can appeal to working-class communities without sacrificing or hiding their sexual orientation or gender identity. Finally, her campaign shows that identity politics aren't just a Democrat failing, but can backfire for Republicans courting the white working-class as well.
Roem illustrates that when LGBT politicians highlight commonalities, rather than differences, inroads can be made. Her campaign also suggests that LGBT individuals can appeal to working-class communities without sacrificing or hiding their sexual orientation or gender identity. Finally, her campaign shows that identity politics aren't just a Democrat failing, but can backfire for Republicans courting the white working-class as well.
I wonder why it is that LGBT interest groups do not focus heavily on class or economic issues. Perhaps the feeling is that its better to appear elite in order to appear to have more in common with the elites that are in power. Or perhaps LGBT interest groups have also fallen victim to "forgetting" about the working class - or believe its a better strategy to pretend they have also forgotten about them until they make more progress. Maybe the strategy is to deal with one "problem " at a time - tackle LGBT issues and then tack on working-class economic issues? Whatever the reason, it is unfortunate that LGBT issues and working class issues are not as yet reconciled. I do hope that Roem's election is a sign of things to come.
ReplyDeleteI think you make a lot of good arguments in your piece. The stats you cited certainly suggest that there is a popular misconception in elite conservative circles that the LGBT community is generally wealthy and concentrated in urban enclaves. I also agree with your point that LGBT politicians can succeed by discussing commonalities rather than differences. It makes sense that if you are straight, and a LGBT candidate spoke primarily about LGBT issues, that you might not connect with their message as much as if they are focusing on economic issues that directly effect you as well.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think that one issue that the LGBT community faces is the “T.” I think the “T” issue is particularly divisive and unpopular compared to the “LGBs.” For example, a 2017 Gallup poll found that 51% of Americans believed that American needed a new civil rights law to protect the LGBT community. However, only 45% of Americans believe that transgender individuals should be able to use bathrooms corresponding to their desired gender identity. 48% of respondents believed that transgender individuals should be required to use public restrooms corresponding to their birth gender. To see the poll click this link: http://news.gallup.com/poll/210887/americans-split-new-lgbt-protections-restroom-policies.aspx.
Considering those numbers, I would not be surprised if the support for a civil rights bill for “LGBs” surpassed 60%. Part of the issue is the, in my opinion, often insanely ridiculous advocacy for transgenderism by its most ardent supporters. I would never tell an adult that they cannot switch their gender. Anyone can get any surgery they want as far as I am concerned.
At the same time, it does not make a straight man a bigot to say that he is not sexually attracted to transgender women. Straight men are also not sexually attracted to other men. That doesn’t him a homophobe, just like a gay guy not finding women sexually attractive does not make him heterophobic. Yet according to some trans activists, if straight men are not attracted to trans women, they are transphobic. For an example of a trans woman angrily spewing against straight men who do not find her attractive click this link: https://medium.com/@QSE/when-you-say-i-would-never-date-a-trans-person-its-transphobic-here-s-why-aa6fdcf59aca.
Saying that someone is a bigot because they do not find you attractive is one of the most insane things I have ever heard. If a trans woman cannot control her gender identity, how does it follow that a straight man has control over who he is attracted to? This is thought police of the highest order. It is hard for me to support a community that has members who support Gestapo like policies to shame those whose sexual interests do not align with their preferred norms.
Further, trans activists are trying to push young kids down a path from which there is no return. Remember tom boys? Well, if you have a parent that subscribes to trans orthodoxy, you might not get the chance to grow into a woman. Instead, you will receive male hormones before entering puberty. The same goes for boys who like dolls. How can a child make a decision to block puberty? They can’t vote, buy a gun, a beer, or cigarettes. Yet they can elect to alter their entire biology?
If you are old enough to go to war you should be old enough to change your gender. However, if you are 18 or you are 80, you have no right to tell someone else who they should be attracted to. Moreover, we shouldn’t entrust children with the right to inalterably change their lives when we don’t even trust them to drive a car.
The thought police featured in 1984 are not suddenly a positive force because they are policing sexual attraction, and enhancing trans sexual esteem, rather than enforcing communism. Likewise, pigeonholing children, like in The Giver, is never a good thing. It should not matter whether or not the child makes the election to be pigeonholed. We should never let our nation embrace the tropes of dystopian fiction.
Awesome post! I completely agree: queer issues are working class issues because queer people are predominantly working class or poor. It's a shame there's widespread misconception—really a stereotype—of queer people being affluent and cultured. I wonder if part of the problem is that people don't see class as an identity issue, even though it is.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of "identity issues," I think of those issues that may be culled from peoples' answers to the question "how do you identify?" Surely people could answer gay, black, female, abled, etc. But they could also answer poor, rich, working class, middle class, affluent, etc. Thus, it's problematic that people don't consider class to be an identity politics issue when it is. Indeed, like other identities, "wage labor provides a basis for the expression of a very different politics." [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/18/class-and-identity-politics-are-not-mutually-exclusive-the-left-should-use-this-to-its-benefit ] So why, then, are people hesitant to label, say, tax reform as an identity politics issue that targets class identity?
It seems that what falls under "identity politics" in Trump's America includes every other issue that is not a class-based issue. And Trumpists, in relegating "identity issues" to the background while foregrounding class identity, are, ironically, engaging in Marxist praxis. Thus, it's not surprising that some unions have made advances after striking despite Trump's laisez faire approach to the market.
Though some would argue that "identity politics ... drove a wedge between white working class people and people of color by making the latter the bearers of white privilege," perhaps "identity politics," instead, jolted some out of a false class consciousness. [https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tax-class-and-the-limits-of-identity-politics_us_5a3923b1e4b0578d1beb7306] And Trumpist (really unwitting Marxists) should rejoice that more people are now conscious of the way class oppression operates even if their president hasn't.