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A Queer Liberation Movement? a Qualitative Content Analysis of Queer Liberation Organizations, Investigating Whether They Are Building a Separate Social Movement

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A Queer Liberation Movement? a Qualitative Content Analysis of Queer Liberation Organizations, Investigating Whether They Are Building a Separate Social Movement Portland State University PDXScholar Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses Summer 8-13-2015 A Queer Liberation Movement? A Qualitative Content Analysis of Queer Liberation Organizations, Investigating Whether They are Building a Separate Social Movement Joseph Nicholas DeFilippis Portland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, and the Social Work Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation DeFilippis, Joseph Nicholas, "A Queer Liberation Movement? A Qualitative Content Analysis of Queer Liberation Organizations, Investigating Whether They are Building a Separate Social Movement" (2015). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 2466. https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.2464 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. A Queer Liberation Movement? A Qualitative Content Analysis of Queer Liberation Organizations, Investigating Whether They are Building a Separate Social Movement by Joseph Nicholas DeFilippis A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Social Work and Social Research Dissertation Committee: Ben Anderson-Nathe, Chair Laura Nissen Stephanie Wahab Sally McWilliams Portland State University 2015 © 2015 Joseph Nicholas DeFilippis i Abstract In the last forty years, U.S. national and statewide LGBT organizations, in pursuit of “equality” through a limited and focused agenda, have made remarkably swift progress moving that agenda forward. However, their agenda has been frequently criticized as prioritizing the interests of White, middle-class gay men and lesbians and ignoring the needs of other LGBT people. In their shadows have emerged numerous grassroots organizations led by queer people of color, transgender people, and low-income LGBT people. These “queer liberation” groups have often been viewed as the left wing of the GRM, but have not been extensively studied. My research investigated how these grassroots liberation organizations can be understood in relation to the equality movement, and whether they actually comprise a separate movement operating alongside, but in tension with, the mainstream gay rights movement. This research used a qualitative content analysis, grounded in black feminism’s framework of intersectionality, queer theory, and social movement theories, to examine eight queer liberation organizations. Data streams included interviews with staff at each organization, organizational videos from each group, and the organizations’ mission statements. The study used deductive content analysis, informed by a predetermined categorization matrix drawn from social movement theories, and also featured inductive analysis to expand those categories throughout the analysis. This study’s findings indicate that a new social movement – distinct from the mainstream equality organizations – does exist. Using criteria informed by leading social movement theories, findings demonstrate that these organizations cannot be understood ii as part of the mainstream equality movement but must be considered a separate social movement. This “queer liberation movement” has constituents, goals, strategies, and structures that differ sharply from the mainstream equality organizations. This new movement prioritizes queer people in multiple subordinated identity categories, is concerned with rebuilding institutions and structures, rather than with achieving access to them, and is grounded more in “liberation” or “justice” frameworks than “equality.” This new movement does not share the equality organizations’ priorities (e.g., marriage) and, instead, pursues a different agenda, include challenging the criminal justice and immigration systems, and strengthening the social safety net. Additionally, the study found that this new movement complicates existing social movement theory. For decades, social movement scholars have documented how the redistributive agenda of the early 20th century class-based social movements has been replaced by the demands for access and recognition put forward by the identity-based movements of the 1960s New Left. While the mainstream equality movement can clearly be characterized as an identity-based social movement, the same is not true of the groups in this study. This queer liberation movement, although centered on identity claims, has goals that are redistributive as well as recognition-based. While the emergence of this distinct social movement is significant on its own, of equal significance is the fact that it represents a new post-structuralist model of social movement. This study presents a “four-domain” framework to explain how this movement exists simultaneously inside and outside of other social movements, as a bridge between them, and as its own movement. Implications for research, practice, and policy in social work and allied fields are presented. iii Dedication For my parents, Dr. Daisy Cocco DeFilippis and Nunzio DeFilippis, who have always shown me the importance of thinking critically but giving generously, and for Jay Toole, whose life and work changed mine forever. iv Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful for the many people who went on this journey with me. This project is the product of the activism, thinking, support, guidance, love, and scholarship of many people. I want to acknowledge all of the activists that generously donated their time for this project. My research focused on the work of eight amazing organizations: Affinity Community Services, allgo, the Audre Lorde Project, Center for Artistic Revolution, the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance, Queers for Economic Justice, Southerners on New Ground, and Sylvia Rivera Law Project. For years, the activists at these organizations have been doing some of the most inspiring work in the country. My interviews with staff members Ben deGuzman, Kenyon Farrow, Reina Gossett, Paulina Helm-Hernandez, Kim L. Hunt, Cara Page, Rose Pulliam, and Randi Romo provided the foundation of this project and taught me so much. My interviews with Katherine Acey, Terry Boggis, Bishop Tonyia Rawls, and Lisa Emina Weiner-Mahfuz informed my thinking a great deal even though much of those interviews ended up not fitting into the parameters of this project. In addition, I drew heavily from the words of other activists at these organizations, notably Caitlin Breedlove, Trishala Deb, Amber Hollibaugh, and Dean Spade. The wisdom and insights I gained from these sixteen activists during this research was invaluable, and it has been a gift to be able to spend the past year thinking about their words. It is not hyperbole to say that the world is a much better place because of them. Thank you to my dissertation committee: Dr. Ben Anderson-Nathe, Dr. Laura Nissen, Dr. Stephanie Wahab, and Dr. Sally McWilliams. Their feedback and guidance v made this work much better than it would otherwise have been, and their curiousity and excitement often kept me going, even when they did not necessarily know I needed that motivation. I started this doctoral program with an attitude towards research that was, at best, skeptical and, at worst, disdainful. It is because of this committee that I can imagine myself as a researcher. My committee chair, Ben, in particular, deserves special thanks for the countless versions of each chapter he read and for which he provided feedback. In addition, he has spent hundreds of hours in meetings with me over the past several years, offering suggestions and guidance, and letting me fight with him about each of them. I will be eternally grateful for his patience and generousity. I am grateful to the CSWE Minority Fellows Program for providing me with tremendous financial support and professional development. I must also thank Portland State University’s School of Social Work for its financial support and for providing me with the opportunity to teach hundreds of interesting, dedicated, and irrepressible students. I am blessed to have a Portland community to whom I am endebted forever: the Anderson-Nathe family (Ben, Margaret, Michael, and Sophie), Abby Bandurraga, Kevin Cherry, the Cunningham family (Greg, Josh, Kim, Merrit, and Miranda), Thuan Duong (and her wonderful children Pippin & Gus Houser), T.J. Ford, Roberta Hunte, Sandy Leotti, and Gitarani Mehrotra. They are my Portland family and they have fed me emotionally and intellectually. (And they have also fed me literally – providing me with countless homemade dinners, take-out meals, drinks, and pies.) I am so very grateful for how they opened their homes and hearts to me these past five years, and how supportive they have been about my dissertation, providing me with ideas, feedback, advice, vi transcription, editing, logistical support, encouragement, and forgiveness when I disappeared for months at a time. I love them all. I am also grateful to my QEJ family. Queers for Economic Justice was a magical organization, and the hundreds of brilliant people who worked there over the years as staff, board members, volunteers, consultants, and interns have indelibly shaped my politics and my life. From them I learned how to pursue a long-term vision of radical transformation even while engaging in
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