Activist/author Sherry Wolf unabashed
One has to wonder if Sherry Wolf’s first words were delivered into a megaphone. And ended with the word "now." The Chicago-based activist and author has been no stranger to social struggle from an early age, participating in rallies, sit-ins and protests since she was a teenager, and writing for a variety of publications including MRZine and Counterpunch.
The self-identified Socialist has now entered the public debate on LGBT civil rights at this most pivotal of times with the release of her work Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics and Theory of LGBT Liberation through Haymarket Books earlier this year. Wolf describes the work as "a left-wing, unabashed Marxist take on the history" of the LGBT movement.
As the story unfolds - from the historic roots of gay identity through to the modern-day cultural wars - Wolf is not afraid to name names when identifying the forces she considers to be hindering the movement’s progress. In an exclusive interview with EDGE, she further outlined her criticisms of the movement’s current leaders and what she envisions for the future’s emerging crop of new leaders.
Movement’s direction
EDGE: Thanks for taking the time to speak with me. First of all, your description of the book as "unabashed" is certainly accurate and you make a number of interesting points in contention with the aims of certain groups. Tell me a bit about the direction of the LGBT movement you consider yourself a part of and how is it different from the direction groups like HRC, for example, are advocating?
Sherry Wolf: The most prominent difference is obvious. The Gay, Inc. that HRC is very much a part of, and probably at the helm of, has looked toward an incrementalist strategy for LGBT civil rights. They’ve seen these rights as something that would come separately from other economic and social struggles. As a socialist, I’ve always looked at the fight for LGBT civil rights and gay liberation as part of a larger social and economic struggle, it’s a class struggle.
The March on Washington having support from [NAACP Board Chairman] Julian Bond and many union leaders is a clear expression of the change taking place in this country and the direction our fight needs to take. We need to form clear alliances with the struggles happening around us because an injury to one is an injury to us all.
EDGE: Tell me more about the role straight allies play into those alliances with other struggles? How do you see these alliances be fostered?
SW: I think we need to reject what has been put forward as a false dichotomy between heteronormative, dull straight people and the utterly fabulous LGBT community. These norms in our society that have been pounded into our heads are in the interest of a rather tiny elite that’s not exclusively but largely straight, wealthy, white and male.
We don’t live in a different species - not just gay and straight - but there is a fluidity between and among people. People sometimes identify as straight, gay, lesbian or bisexual at different times in their lives. I think we need to examine what all these things mean and whose interest it is in that gender and sexuality norms are imposed on all of us. Face it, even as a straight white male in our society, we’re given rather narrow confines within which to exist.
EDGE: The movement that you describe as emerging in your work indeed seems to have a very different face than the current one. Could you tell me more about that different face and why you think this change is an important and notable one?
SW: We need to realize that LGBT politics don’t exist within a vacuum. This fight is happening within a larger context of a deteriorating international economy, the bankruptcy of neo-liberal privatization and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that have had a devastating impact both there and on millions of Americans. There is a radicalization happening in the U.S. and the LGBT is a startling example of what can happen when people go into motion independently of the Democratic Party when that party refuses to represent the interests of the people within that constituency.
The current movement is anti-corporate, suspicious of the Democratic Party and quite multiracial and working class, as is much of the country. This tells you that the emerging LGBT movement is finding a way to express its demands for civil rights without accepting the very confining logic that has dominated the movement to this point ... It’s not just incrementalist and corporate-driven, for example, "this Pride March is sponsored by Miller!" They’ve fought to argue that by electing certain individuals we would get what we want. We did that [by electing Obama], but without pushing him and creating massive pressure, we won’t see the sort of civil rights that we demand.
About the DC March
EDGE: Speaking of the National Equality March, why do you think this is the right time for such a large statement from the LGBT community? What do you see as the main goals or opportunities of the march? What message will it send?
SW: The march on October 11 in some ways captures a fierce hunger in this country for civil rights for LGBT people. According to a Harris poll, 76 percent of Americans today have a family member, co-worker or dear friend is LGBT. It is simply unsustainable for us to continue to be discriminated against in the workplace and by the federal government. It’s unsustainable in modern society. To be blunt, too many of us have come out and many more people are learning that they might explore their sexuality from what they once were. There is a definite shift in opinion happening, especially as people realize things like it is perfectly legal to be fired or not hired because you are LGBT in most states in this country. Many people are horrified and shocked when they learn this is the law.
The march is saying we are tired of waiting. We have waited 35 years in this country for equal employment legislation to be passed and decades to have our relationships honored and we’re not going to continue to wait. We want to be added to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and have full equality in all matters of law. We have no illusions that homophobia and transphobia will disappear any more than racism has disappeared, but we can no longer allow federal and state law to discriminate in the way that persists in our lives.
EDGE: You’ve described your work as an LGBT activist’s manual of sorts. What would you identify as its main take-home message?
SW: That we have power. And by we, I don’t just mean LGBT people. I mean ordinary people who may not have the bank or media access that others have. What we do have, however, is the potential in the long term to build power through solidarity to go up against the priorities of this system and fundamentally change things.
We have to realize that the things we do can change the way the world works. The biggest danger I see right now is that people get sucked into the notion that if you just wait it out, inevitably the Obama administration and Congress, or just time itself, will make things happen on their own. That’s not the history of our struggle as LGBT people nor for African Americans or others who have fought these battles. Without the conscious organization of a force, things do not change. They don’t change automatically and there is no linear progress. In fact, in many ways, we are looking at instances of social retrograde currently with, for example, abortion rights and women taking control of their bodies.
Sherry Wolf’s Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics and Theory of LGBT Liberation is available for purchase from Haymarket Books. The International Socialist Organization is hosting a discussion of the book Sat., Sept. 19 at Logan Square Public Library, 3030 W. Fullerton at 2 p.m. For more information on the meeting, email isc.uic@gmail.com or call 773-616-0940.
