Brody's Scribbles... Gay Liberation Front: Manifesto. Have We Made Progress Since 1971? (Part 14)

By Tim Trent (Dartmouth, England) MAR 18 | Was I a bit dismissive in Part 13? Well, I looked at five paragraphs of the Gay Liberation Front Manifesto from 1971, and I discarded four of them because they contained pointless posturing and no substance. Today's article handles the introduction to the final set of segments.

Verbatim, as usual:

A NEW LIFE-STYLE

In the final section we shall outline some of the practical steps gay liberation will take to make this revolution. But linked with this struggle to change society there is an important aspect of gay liberation that we can begin to build here and now- a NEW, LIBERATED LIFE-STYLE which will anticipate, as far as possible, the free society of the future.

Gay shows the way. In some ways we are already more advanced than straight people. We are already outside the family and we have already, in part at least, rejected the 'masculine' or 'feminine' roles society has designed for us. In a society dominated by the sexist culture it is very difficult, if not impossible, for heterosexual men and women to escape their rigid gender-role structuring and the roles of oppressor and oppressed. But gay men don't need to oppress women in order to fulfill their own psycho-sexual needs, and gay women don't have to relate sexually to the male oppressor, so that at this moment in time, the freest and most equal relationships are most likely to be between homosexuals.

But because the sexist culture has oppressed us and distorted our lives too, this is not always achieved. In our mistaken, placating efforts to be accepted and tolerated, we've too often submitted to the pressures to conform to the straightjacket of society's rules and hang ups about sex.

Particularly oppressive aspects of gay society are the Youth Cult, Butch and Femme role-playing, and Compulsive Monogamy.

I'm depressed. This wasn't even particularly revolutionary at the time. It seems to be trying to ride on the back of the second wave of the feminist movement by hijacking a few buzzwords. And it tries to create a slogan, but half heartedly. 'Gay Shows The Way' is never going to catch on, though. It doesn't. We LGBT folk are a minority in society. We show the way in very few things.

Looking at the second paragraph it isn't the Gay Liberation Front that's made progress, but society itself. Not true in Japan and similar nations where there is a real ceiling above which the female workforce cannot go, and only increasingly true in the UK and the USA where the ceiling is glass, but the glass is breaking. And LGBT folk are promotable, and are hireable. I work at present for the UK's 2011 Census. I declared I am gay on the application form. It is part of our monitoring that discrimination does not take place. Not so in the USA, of course, but we're growing to expect that. It'll join the civilised nations one day.

I really got hung up on this sentence: 'But gay men don't need to oppress women in order to fulfill their own psycho-sexual needs, and gay women don't have to relate sexually to the male oppressor, so that at this moment in time, the freest and most equal relationships are most likely to be between homosexuals.' It must be me, but I see this as either filler of the 'what shall we write here?' variety, or just background noise. And yes I know that this was 1971, but, dammit, I lived in 1971 and I could spot bovine scatology then, too.

I'm looking forward to dissecting Youth Cult, Butch and Femme role-playing, and Compulsive Monogamy. I'm not reading ahead. In Part 15 they will come as a pleasant surprise to me. Well, I hope so. The last couple of parts have been reading risible revolutionary zeal and shredding it. I'm displeased because I feel let down by the people who set themselves up to liberate me.

I've think done a better job myself. I know you have.