The myth of the gay agenda

LGBT people are typically depicted as affluent consumers with high the myth of the gay agenda incomes, yet the myth of the gay agenda is hardly the norm. It renders queer class and race issues invisible or nonexistent in the movements in which we participate, leaving us more vulnerable in our jobs and workplaces, apartments, shelters, streets, and neighborhoods, targeted by homophobia and transphobia as it weaves throughout our lives.

This myth allows both the LGBT and the labor movements to overlook the rising queer precariat. Queer precarity is a reality. Economic precarity has necessitated new forms of labor organizing, including worker centers and union—community partnerships. But the particular struggles of queer and gender non-conforming people remain sidelined, both in scholarly work and in the LGBT and labor movements themselves.

Class, race, the erotic, gender identity, sexuality, desire: how are these issues intertwined and interlocked in our analysis and in our organizing? Rather than perpetuating the myth of LGBT affluence by painting LGBT people as discerning consumers or a new market niche, and rather than simply celebrating the recent Supreme Court decision around same-sex marriage as a political victory, this essay connects economic justice issues to LGBT issues to forefront the particular vulnerabilities of LGBT, queer, and gender nonconforming people to the current economic transformations.

It is when the other people with whom we work look embarrassed or remain silent. It means that, every day, we are queer workers, whether we claim that as our identity or not. But whatever happens, every day is dangerous. Fifty-two percent of LGBT people live in states that do not prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

This information is not new. But old-style identity politics are not adequate to understand how the complex multiplicities of gender, race, sexuality, and class interlock and play out,changing the ways that queer people can move in the world or are vulnerable to attack.

Differences like gay, lesbian, queer, black, female, transgender, or immigrant cannot simply be named or added to existing organizing strategies. Organizations need to learn the realities of these differences and how to speak to queer people through those differences. Research from at least the mids shows that queer and gender non-conforming people are more vulnerable to poverty than their straight and traditionally gendered male or female counterparts.

Queer, trans, and gender non-conforming youth face discrimination and violence in families and schools; they are bullied and harassed, subject to violence and sexual abuse, and denied gender expression. A report shows that 80 percent of gay and transgender students of color have been verbally harassed, while 33 to 54 percent of LGBT students of color report physical violence.

Bisexuals, lesbians, and gay men all experience higher rates of poverty than heterosexuals. We know that queer and trans people face discrimination at work. Between 16 and 18 percent of gay men and lesbians report being fired or denied employment because of their sexual orientation; close to 40 percent report other forms of harassment and discrimination on the job.

Gay and bisexual men experience a clear wage penalty, earning between 10 and 32 percent less than heterosexual men. All women continue to earn less than men. LGBT people, especially LGBT people of color, are more likely to be unemployed than heterosexual people; trans unemployment rates are particularly high.

These are the statistics of queer precarity. Yet because of histories of discrimination and criminalization, many queer and trans people are funneled into low-wage jobs, or seek them out as sites where gender expression and sexuality will not be disciplined in the same ways as in professional jobs.

Research shows that lesbian, gay, and bisexual people have a higher prevalence of disability than their heterosexual counterparts, due, presumably, to ongoing economic and health disparities and the lifelong toll oppression takes. Many queer and trans people turn to cash or alternative economies: exchanging sex or drugs for resources, even as they are often working full-time in low-wage jobs.

A study found that 60 percent of transgender youth of color had engaged in sexual exchange for money or other resources, such as food or clothing—increasing their chances of run-ins with criminal justice systems. Yet the alternatives—underpaid, temporary, at-will employment where queer and trans workers face discrimination and harassment—are not necessarily better options.

As Alan Sears argues.

LZ Granderson

LGBT people are only visible in the marketplace; meanwhile, non-white, non-middle-class, nongender-normative queer and trans people are invisible as good gay citizens and consumers. As Cathy Cohen argues, LGBT movements emphasize structural assimilation and an end to state discrimination same-sex marriage, for examplerather than social or economic transformation.

As long as the LGBT movement responds primarily to the needs and desires of wealthy, traditionally gendered, white gay men and lesbians, it cannot serve as a social movement for broadbased social or economic change.