This is not to imply that we are winning these battles,
actually, in many instances, the backlash has become stronger. Soul-numbing
slights have been an expected occurrence for queers for centuries. But it takes
public validation for many heterosexuals to be able to see the forest through
the trees. And, as in the Black civil rights struggle, people are coming of
the woodwork claiming they supported us all along. Well, they say that
hindsight is 20/20 and that is definitely preferable to total blindness.
In the bad old days, as an inveterate leftist, mostly what
our community faced was invisibility. Bringing up the subject of our oppression
would sometimes elicit accusations of “bourgeois decadence” or in some way
imply that we were diverting attention from class and racial struggles as
though we didn’t occupy places in all other groups.
When a brave non-queer stood up for us, more often than not
the comment would have been preceded by an “I’m straight but…” disclaimer. Even
in the early gay pride parades straight folks could, more safely, employ the
option of marching together as “straights for gay rights.”
But we have persisted and in the geological timeframe of
historical change. Will we eventually see full equal rights in this country and
perhaps even in this world? I can only live in hope. Still, we have to brace
ourselves for the end game struggle. The laps directly before the finish line
tend to be the most draining and exhausting of the entire race.
