HOMONORMATIVITY AND QUEER RESISTANCE:

LGBT ACTIVISTS' MARRIAGE DISCOURSES

By

Shannon Michele Post

Submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

In

Sociology

Chair:

Salvador Vidal-Ortiz

Christina B. Hanhardt

Dean of the College

Date

2010

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by

Shannon Michele Post

2010

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED HOMONORMATIVITY AND QUEER RESISTANCE:

LGBT ACTIVISTS' MARRIAGE DISCOURSES

BY

Shannon Michele Post

ABSTRACT Through interviews with LGBT and queer-identified activists in Washington, DC, this study explores the localized meanings of marriage as both a movement and personal goal in relation to activists' strategic, ideological and identity-based support or opposition. DC-based activists justified their beliefs about the movement agenda of marriage equality by engaging ideas about the local and national. Influenced by their social locations and personal identities, some activists (re)created narratives of being 'normal' and deserving the 'rights and responsibilities' of legal same-sex marriage. On the other hand, many interviewees deployed notions of privilege, oppression and the language of 'intersectionality' to resist the marriage agenda and the institution of marriage itself, yet overwhelmingly supported it as a 'practical' personal choice and ultimate movement goal. These findings contribute to the LGBT social movement literature and inform further empirical research on homonormativity and intersectionality

in the activist setting.

ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to the wonderful people of American University's Department of Sociology and Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program for their guidance and encouragement. Special thanks to Sandy Linden and Gay Young for their support. I would also like to thank Larry Van Sickle and Ed Royce, who set me on the path to graduate work and social justice activism. I am grateful to my dear colleagues, family and friends, especially Sarah Bruce Bernal for providing thorough editing and constructive criticism and Evan Mascagni for keeping me grounded and inspired. It is with the utmost appreciation that I thank my thesis committee: Christina B. Hanhardt and Salvador Vidal-Ortiz. Christina, I am so grateful to you for working with me from afar and for providing such detailed and thought-provoking feedback. Salvador, I cannot thank you enough for mentoring me through this process. Your patience, flexibility, generosity, and high standards truly made this work possible. Thank you both for your confidence in my abilities and for making me a better scholar.

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT » ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i"

LISTOFTABLES v

Chapter !.INTRODUCTION 1 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 7 3. METHODS 18 4. FINDINGS 22 Questionnaire Data 23 Interview Data 29 5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS 58 Discussion 58 Conclusions 66 APPENDICES 67 REFERENCES 73

IV LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 : Summary of Interviewee Demographics 25 Table 2: Importance of Movement Goals to Activists 26 Table 3: Activists' Perceptions of Movement Goals (I=MoSt Important) 27 Table 4: Activists' Views of Marriage 28

? CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION Since the first National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1979, ten years after the infamous Stonewall riots, gay and lesbian activists have worked within a national spotlight to build affirmative identities and communities and to fight for social and legal change1 (Ghaziani 2005). This unprecedented effort at mass political organizing and visibility in the nation's capital signaled the emergence of what is now the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) movement—also sometimes called LGBTQ, referring to the additional presence of queer2 activists (Eaklor 2008). Neither the coming together of lesbians and gays nor the eventual inclusion3 of bisexual and transgender activists were the result of natural or easy alliances, but instead the national movement is perhaps better understood as a continuous process of organizing on the basis of a

1 Since the 1940' s homophile groups had been engaged in (gay) identity-based political organizing, preceding the more visible communities and activisms of the 60' s and national movement building of the 70' s. 2 Although 'queer' and 'LGBT' are often used interchangeably, as I will discuss, queer has unique political and theoretical connotations that do distinguish it from a simple identity category. 3 The inclusion of bisexuals (either invisible or viewed as an identity in transition to either straight or gay/lesbian) and transgender people (an umbrella term for those whose assigned gender identity at birth deviates from one's chosen gender or non-gender) is still a point of contention within the movement. Indeed, the word inclusion itself is problematic in political organizing in which minority groups, in this case sexual and gender 'deviants' from the dominant society, are added to an existing model of identity politics. 1 2 presumed shared marginalized status, sometimes framed as a pseudo-ethnic minority group status (Epstein 1999; Armstrong 2002). The national movement has sought legitimation through socio-legal, institutional change, producing tension with multi-issue gay liberation and sexual liberation politics, particularly in more Leftist San Francisco organizing (Armstrong 2002). This single-identity or single-issue versus liberation politics conflict is one central division among many since the beginning of the movement, including quarrels over bisexual and transgender exclusion (Davidson 2007), internal challenges posed by lesbian feminism, and sadism/masochism (S/M)4 to the movement's reinforcement of dominant male/female and homo/hetero binaries, as well as the narrow construction of identity and desire in terms of sexual object choice (Seidman 2001a). Moreover, by the mid-1980's, the movement had established an "institutionally elaborated subculture" (Seidman 2001a: 181), formalizing the normative 'gay identity' as white, male and middle class—a cultural construct that reflected the institutional stakeholders of the movement and against which intra-movement critiques had been levied since the beginning (Armstrong 2002). Such ideological and strategic divisions among activists shape the movement, which should not be misconstrued as a seamless or monolithic whole. In his research on the four lesbian and gay (and later bisexual and transgender) marches on Washington (in 1 979, 1987, 1993, and 2000), sociologist Amin Ghaziani (2008) argues that for activists negotiating a conflict of politics and culture centered on contested meanings of strategy

4 S/M is a sexual practice of dominance and submissions that forms in some areas the basis for a sexual community or subculture, which, like other 'lifestyles,' lie at the bottom of the sexual hierarchy that values heterosexual, two-partner, marital (and monogamous, by extension), procreative sex (Rubin 1993). 3 and identity such internal dissent can be productive and generative for their practical organizing. Yet a clash between political strategies and cultural processes—i.e. who are 'we' and what are Our' values?—within the movement is arguably less visible to the broader public than the so-called 'culture wars' between the LGBT movement and the Religious Right, which brought the politically divisive issue of same-sex marriage to the forefront of national, electoral politics (Eaklor 2008). The counter-movement forces from the Right have been more prominent in the public imaginary as LGBT rights debates, especially over same-sex marriage, are polarized as morality (values-based) versus identity (status-based) politics (Miceli 2005). Indeed, social conservatives have constituted a strong political opposition to the LGBT movement, often setting the 'culture war' agenda and defining the strategies of LGBT activists to counter the framing of LGBT rights as a threat to morality and 'family values' (Ibid). As a result, the LGBT movement may seem uniform to outsiders in part because US federal legislative change arguably requires strategic unification for majority electoral and policy victories in a two- party system. Yet, the fact that there are inner-movement debates over strategies and goals can easily be overlooked because of the visibility (i.e. in the media and Congress) of LGBT versus anti-LGBT exchanges. The historical achievements of the movement in opposition to a well-funded and powerful anti-gay movement cannot be understated, as LGBT activists have slowly influenced public opinion5 (Hicks and Lee 2006), changed policies and passed legislation

Numerous survey results have found that public acceptance of homosexuals has increased in the last few decades, and explanations include the public visibility, the advancement of civil rights, and that less people believe homosexuality is a choice, 4 from the repeal of discriminatory anti-sodomy laws, to a federal hate crime bill, to the legalization of same-sex marriage in some states (Eaklor 2008). As of March 3, 2010, same-sex marriage applications6 have been granted in Washington, DC, where the national movement first marched for rights and recognition just over thirty years before, while the adjacent state of Maryland began to recognize out-of-state same-sex marriage licenses a week prior. As the nation's capital, DC is an important site for national LGBT movement organizing, and many of the nation's LGBT policy and advocacy institution headquarters, like the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), are located just steps away from Capitol Hill. Although well-funded (largely by wealthy individual donors) and politically influential institutions (i.e. in terms of lobbying and federal legislation) typically take center stage, DC is also home to local activism, like grassroots organizing and advocacy around issues like LGBT health (including HIV/AIDS), hate crime victimization, queer youth homelessness, and sex worker's rights7. These local forms of activism are easily rendered invisible because of the federal and institutional focus in DC, as well as the fact that DC lacks sovereignty. Congress must approve legislation in the nation's capital, which also suffers from a lack of city funding for social services, many of which are provided by the Catholic Church—a fact although interestingly respondents are not asked about heterosexuality or sexuality in general (Hicks and Lee 2006). 6 The DC marriage application reads 'spouse' instead of 'husband' and 'wife' for all partners. The District joins five US states (at the time of this writing) in this historical legal change. 7 Discriminatory policing of and brutality against queer and trans sex workers in the District has led local organizations to fight back (Alliance for a Safe and Diverse DC 2008). 5 that proved influential in the debate over legal same-sex marriage in the District. That the federal government, both in terms of LGBT activism and local politics, dominates DC poses a compelling challenge to research on political activism and social movements more generally. Although voting rights are a popular issue (DC Vote 2010), DC does have the notable drawback of non-statehood affecting the local political dynamics. However, given the unique juxtaposition of mainstream institutions and local, more invisible activism, as well as the very recent legalization of same-sex marriage, DC is nonetheless a unique site for the localized examination of the LGBT movement, its activists and their conflicts, and its competing agendas and strategies on national and

local levels. Through interviews with DC metropolitan-area activists, defined as those members (either employees or volunteers) of groups or organizations8 with a broad mission of LGBT and/or queer acceptance, equality and/or justice, this study examines the activism(s) and views of movement goals in the context of the prominent national agenda of same-sex marriage (SSM) and its recent legalization in the District9. The visibility of same-sex marriage as a national and local issue makes it central to recent ideological and political-strategic debates among LGBT and queer activists who range in their beliefs and

8 Examples of organizations include HRC, NGLTF, Full Equality Now DC (FENDC), and The DC Center—some of which may advocate for or against SSM, but do not have to be necessarily involved directly in marriage politics. Non-advocacy organizations, including social service, media and community organizations are also included. 9 Although the relationships of all people to legalization are not the same, many diverse LGBTQ activists are strategically aligned (though not without difficulty) in the fight for SSM (Coombs 2001), while others are ideologically and tactically united against it. 6 strategies for or against SSM10. Further, this research explores how DC-area activists (at the national and local levels, or both simultaneously) engage in, negotiate, and/or resist the 'mainstreaming', or what queer studies scholar Lisa Duggan (2003) calls the "new homonormativity", of LGBT politics. In sum, the main research question is: what does same-sex marriage mean to DC-area activists in the LGBT movement, in relation to their strategic, ideological, and/or identity-based support or opposition? Whether they support, oppose, or hold nuanced views about the goal of marriage equality, how do activists justify their beliefs, forms of activism, and continued participation in the movement at local and national levels?

This research is relevant to sociological, LGBT and queer scholarship and the study of social movements. Framed by the existing theories and literatures in these fields, particularly work on the contemporary LGBT movement, this study of DC-area activism is intended to enhance current understandings of the mutual relationship of social movement actors and organizational and movement discourses and strategies through the issue of marriage. This research will explore LGBT activisms and identities as they inform and are informed by the same-sex marriage debate, making it important not only to academics, but also to the LGBT social movement itself. It thus can potentially provide insight into mobilization, identity-work, and agenda setting.

However, as queer scholar Michael Warner (2003) argues, activists who oppose SSM, either for ideological or strategic reasons, are often silenced and invisible given the agenda setting of mainstream institutions. This research is unique because it examines the range of meanings and how activists within the movement negotiate these differing views. CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW This study of DC area activists employs a queer11 theoretical framework to explore activists' identities, strategies, and views of marriage in the social movement context. The political task of queer theory is to disrupt and denaturalize normative 'regimes' of sexuality that serve to discipline and reward based on a moral hierarchy (Hidalgo et al. 2009; Prasad 2009; Seidman 2001b; Sullivan 2003), making marriage and other normative and state-regulated institutions (the nuclear family) a logical target. With heterosexual, monogamous, reproductive marriage privileged as the normative ideal, other bodies, sexualities and practices are marginalized and regulated, particularly by the state (Rubin 1993; Foucault 1990). This study extends limited research on social movements from a queer perspective to examine in part the role of identities, personal and collective, in shaping activist ideologies and strategies for and against same-sex marriage as part of the intra-movement assimilation vs. queer liberation debate. I will first give a brief overview of this social movement literature, followed by that on the

LvJD i movement SpeCiilCany, ¿mu win cuu wiui a uiScuaaiuii wi 4u^ei iiuciSv/vuvsnaniy (Ward 2008a) and homonormativity (Duggan 2003) which together provide a critical theoretical framework with which to examine activists' talk about their political

11 The term "queer" is used here to denote a particular theoretical framework rather than a political sexual and/or gender identity category, as it can be used by activists in their daily lives. 7 8 strategies and attitudes toward marriage. US social movement scholarship provides a basis for understanding many forms of contemporary activism, with sociologists on one end of the continuum emphasizing the importance of social structure, and on the other, speaking of the power of human agency (Valocchi 2010). Developed in the 1950's, the strain theory of collective behavior highlights how large-scale social change, like industrialization, negatively affects individuals and groups, who respond to an event to resolve alienation (Ibid). A more popular theory in the sociology of social movements, resource mobilization theory, focuses on human agency and the conditions that motivate people to collectively display that agency to challenge institutional norms—the 'how' of collective action or the process of mobilization (Malesh and Stevens 2009). Finding predominance in the 1970's, resource mobilization theorists sought to understand how grievances (especially that of inequality) translate into collective action by examining "the concepts of resource aggregation, organizational structure, and the relationship between the organization and its environment as key to social movement success" (Valocchi 2010:18). While resource mobilization theorists view actors as instrumental and self- interested, in the I960' s and 70' s 'new social movement' scholars studying the civil rights and feminist movements began to recognize the role of non-cognitive, social- psychological and cultural factors involved social movement emergence and mobilization (Malesh and Stevens 2009). This broad cultural framework examines "the ways movements help construct identities or how an individual's identity or biography gives shape to social movements" (Valocchi 2010:24). The key concept of collective identity, defined as "an individual's cognitive, moral, and emotional connection with a broader 9 community, category, practice, or institution" (Polletta and Jasper 2001:285), highlights the complex cultural and structural processes that shape the relations among interest, identity, strategy, and politics in social movements. Accordingly, the decision-making processes and debates over goals and strategies are not only instrumental but also expressive in nature—"a function of resources and opportunities but also of group understandings and how those understandings affect decision-making, strategy, goals, etc." (Valocchi 2010:26). Focusing on the 1960s Student Nonviolent Coordinating

Committee (SNCC) in particular, Belinda Robnett (2005) has further approached the importance of identity work in social movements as multi-dimensional, involving degrees of (in)congruence among personal (biographical), collective identity (ascribed, i.e. race, gender), and movement (defined by social movement organizations (SMOs)) identities that requires justification work by activists. Thus, strategic choices by social movement actors and organizations are thus influenced by actively and continually constructed multi-dimensional identities, while as a result social movements have cultural effects beyond institutional and policy change. Such scholarship on the salience of identities and culture in contemporary social movements is important for research on the US LGBT movement where sexual identities play a central role in the fight for change and where debates over the theory and practice of such 'identity politics' feature prominently among scholars and activists. Because of its desire to destabilize and disrupt identity categories like gender and sexuality commonly taken for granted as natural and fixed, a queer lens is useful for exploring how identities are used by activists to talk about their beliefs about marriage, their activist strategies and to explain their mobilization. As Joshua Gamson (1997:391) argues, 10 queemess "calls for a more developed theory of collective identity formation and its relationship to both institutions and meanings, an understanding that includes the impulse to take apart that identityfrom within" (emphasis in original). Gamson's (1995, 1997) theoretical and empirical work on the movement further raises questions about the meaning of sexuality-based political identities and their practicality. For example, his research on the exclusion of the National Man/Boy Love Association from the International Lesbian and Gay Association and of transsexuals from the Michigan

Womyn's Music Festival underscores the role of internal conflict in the making of collective identities—a process involving ongoing boundary negotiation advantageous for the 'in-group' at both the expressive and strategic levels. Indeed, boundary setting benefits the social movement by building solidarity12 and gaining rights in a political system "that distribute[s] rights and resources to groups with discernible boundaries"

(Gamson 1997:179). Minority rights-based claims are thus the foundation of an LGBT identity politics that seeks cultural and political change. Yet the exclusion that has resulted, first (and still) of transgender people and bisexuals has since the 1990s been the focus of an internal debate informed by the queer political drive to destabilize "fixed identity categories [which] are both the basis for oppression and the basis for political power" (Gamson 1995:390). However, the subsequent infighting among activists influenced by queer theory and politics, to be discussed in detail shortly, is largely absent from sociological research on the US LGBT movement. Also notably invisible in the

12 In fact, a crucial mobilizing factor for the early movement relied on essentialized notions of a shamed gay or lesbian identity, which SMOs used to mobilize people on the basis of presumably shared experiences of and anger about their sexual and gender marginalization followed by feelings of pride still celebrated today (Britt & Heise 2000). 11 sociological literature on the LGBT movement and social movements generally is the idea of a local and national tension that shapes this study of Washington, DC. Studies of the contemporary LGBT movement have largely examined it rhetorically in relation to the Christian Right counter-movement, for example, exploring the discursive practices of the movement in contention with the religious right (Broad, Crawley, and Foley 2004) and the identity politics framing of LGBT activists versus the right's 'morality politics' frame (Miceli 2005). Through content analysis both studies critically demonstrate the power of the Right to shape and ultimately limit (in terms of vision) LGBT social movement narratives. Interdisciplinary research (i.e. in sociology, as well as communication and media studies) on media framing and representation—both mainstream and LGBT media—also contributes to this theoretical framework while introducing the media as a key player in modern social movements and in the 'family values/culture wars' movement from the Right and LGBT camps (i.e. Gray 2009). Other studies have examined the construction of measurable 'queer realities' through social scientific, policy-oriented research (Grundy and Smith 2007), highlighting the politics of knowledge production within the movement itself, where so-called 'expert' discourses are privileged. These areas of inquiry focus on issues of discourse and power, but instead of juxtaposing the LGBT movement as a homogenous whole in opposition to a religious right movement, they importantly reveal intra-movement political tensions and power relations in addition to the few studies on exclusion, culture and conflict (i.e. Ghaziani 2008; Ghaziani and Fine 2008). For example, although her work is based on experience as opposed to the empirical foundation of my research, former director of the prominent 12

National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), Urvashi Vaid (1995), argues that the major dispute central to queer politics is a resistance/accommodation dichotomy. Activists informed by an analysis of race, class, gender and sexuality as interconnected structures of power call for resistance to inclusion into mainstream institutions like marriage while the latter group of 'assimilationists' instead argue for assimilation and mainstreaming into 'normal' society, broadly speaking. Such conceptual, theoretical and empirical moves toward a focus on intra-movement critiques are informed in part by the feminist framework of intersectionality (Crenshaw 2000; Collins 2009), which locates individual subjectivities and experiences within the intersecting, hierarchical systems of domination and subordination (i.e. white supremacy and heterosexism). Influenced by the politics of difference and power, scholars and activists have levied critiques at LGBT identity politics as promoting a false homogeneity (a strategically essentialized 'sameness') that is exclusionary because it promotes a white, upper/middle-class male subject as the norm (Seidman 2001b). The resulting political strategies and goals of the movement are then reinforced by the institutional power of white gay men in comparison to other structurally marginalized LGBT people. The hybrid academic-activist concept of intersectionality has a rich history in feminist activism, particularly by feminists of color addressing their subordination within systems of oppression (i.e. race and gender) that operate in and through one another, rather than independently13. However, the term can be utilized by movement leaders in

The term's coinage is attributed to Kimberlé Crenshaw, who rejected an additive model of black women's oppression (as the sum of their race and gender) that ignored their unique experiences, but intersectionality is also rooted in prior activisms like that of the black lesbian feminist organization, the Combahee River Collective (1977). 13 ways that veil privilege instead of functioning (as intended) as a practice and political intervention to dismantle interconnected structures of oppression, like white supremacy and patriarchy (Luft and Ward 2009). In her book Respectably Queer: Diversity in LGBT Activist Organizations, Ward (2008a) examines LGBT activism in a social movement organizational context and reveals the co-optation of multicultural, diversity discourses that removes the radical-social justice aims of an intersectional lens. Ward develops the concept 'queer intersectionality', joining queer and feminist intersectional theories, to re- theorize the political practice and performance of difference in ways that disrupt the co- optation of diversity discourses to serve normative ends. Her empirical work contributes to the sociological literature on intersectionality and multi-identity activism by exploring case studies of activist strategies of resistance to 'diversity culture'14 in LGBT movement organizations and suggesting a method for appraising an intersectionality-informed politics. She illustrates that critiques by queer women and people of color are negotiated and resisted15 at the micro, interactional level but can also be de-politicized and commodified to reinforce and (re)produce what Lisa Duggan (2003) calls the "new homonormativity" of the LGBT movement.

their unique experiences, but intersectionality is also rooted in prior activisms like that of the black lesbian feminist organization, the Combahee River Collective (1977). 14 Diversity politics (not unique to the LGBT movement) celebrates difference that allegedly "is, or should be, the foundation of unity and collective identity" (Ward 2008:8), striving for 'inclusion' and 'equality' but ultimately supporting a neoliberal economic order and entrenched socioeconomic inequalities. 15 Highlighting the relationship between "intersectionality and normalization" (Ward 2008:144), Ward pinpoints three principal modes of resistance: antiprofessionalism, antidiscursivity and anticommodification. 14

Also vocal critic of the politics of 'multicultural' diversity, inclusion and equality, Duggan reconfigures contemporary sexual politics by drawing from feminist, queer and social justice scholarship. In a case study of neoliberal "equality politics" drawn from the lesbian and gay rights movement (notably, she does not use LGBT), Duggan (2003) examines the 'official', institutional discourses (including visions and strategies) of organizations abandoning a progressive-left alignment. She calls the sexual politics of contemporary 'gay' organizations, like the Independent Gay Forum (IGF), 'new homonormativity'—"a politics that does not contest dominant heteronormative assumptions and institutions, but upholds and sustains them, while promising the possibility of a demobilized gay constituency and a privatized, depoliticized gay culture anchored in domesticity and consumption" (Duggan 2003:50). From the important premise that marriage is a heteronormative institution, Duggan criticizes the political focus on marriage equality and argues that progressive social movements, including but not limited to the LGBT movement, need a more sophisticated understanding of neoliberalism as a "complex, contradictory cultural and political project created within specific institutions" that must be analyzed "in relation to coexisting, conflicting, shifting relations of power along multiple lines of difference and hierarchy" (Duggan 2003:70). A logical application of her theoretical irarneworrc wouiu ue to examine now movements on both the local and national levels work with often contradicting projects

16 As a fundamental organizing principle in society, heteronormativity renders heterosexual identities and behaviors as natural and normal in opposition to homosexuality, which is always marked as 'different'. It is taken for granted in a heteronormative society that male and female genitals correspond to masculine and feminine gender presentations, respectively, and a heterosexual attraction to the opposite sex (Jackson 2006). 15 and agendas to help redistribute a range of social and material resources upwards and support the privatization of social welfare costs—a move legitimated by a range of racialized and sexualized ideologies about individual choice and personal responsibility, consuming citizenship, and marriage and family. The privatization of public benefits by a neoliberal state and of 'gay' politics and culture for a neoliberal global system is central to Duggan's critique of marriage both as an institution and a movement focus. She recognizes radical social movements (like queer activists and organizations) that seek to reinvent the state, the economy, civil society and the family and resist neoliberal privatization. Thus, Duggan's analysis of neoliberal 'equality' movement politics and Ward's micro-level, sociological focus on activist strategies together inform a queer theoretical framework useful for a study of activists, marriage, and homonormativity and resistance. The critiques of Jane Ward, Lisa Duggan, and other feminist and queer scholars are connected to scholarly work on the institution of marriage and same-sex marriage more specifically, which emerged at the intersections of feminist, LGBT, and later queer theories and social movements. Important to a range of feminist critiques of gender and sexuality are the theoretical examinations of marriage as a patriarchal institution (i.e. Rich 1993)—in other words, one rooted in unequal relations between gen^ereu rnaies anu females. Contemporary feminist academics like Stevi Jackson (2006) and Robin West (2007) have scrutinized both the institutions of marriage and monogamy more generally as they relate to the material and sexual oppression of women. Jackson and Scott (2004), among others, have approached the topic of marriage resistance and consensual nonmonogamy as liberating feminist praxis in resistance to the hetero-patriarchal. Many 16 within the both LGBT and feminist movements have also been critical of marriage "for the ways in which it contributes to a devaluing of other ways of being sexual, loving, and nurturing" (Walters 2001 :348), for example, non-kin families of choice. As a result, the legalization of same-sex marriage must be understood in terms of "both sexual exclusion and gender domination" (Walters 2001:348). Moreover, queer critiques of same-sex marriage reject the institution for reproducing the ethos of the contemporary sexual regime that naturalizes the male/female binary and corresponding hetero/homo binary— heteronormativity (Prasad 2009). However, it should also be noted that there is also a body of work by feminist and queer scholars that sustains the critique of the institution of marriage while supporting same-sex marriage. Civil rights or equality-based claims in support for same-sex marriage are articulated in national, public discourses on the issue and need not be explored in depth here. Perhaps in response to inter-movement queer critiques of same- sex marriage, researchers have examined the meanings and lived experiences of marriage among couples (i.e. Lannutti 2009) to explore resistance to normativity and the disruptive potential of same-sex marriage to radically reconfigure the (then not necessarily hetero- patriarchal) institution of marriage, and by extension, family. Yet what is noticeably aosent rrom me literature is iiciu icseaiun un me cApcucu^s m auuvwo "'""«"»"'¦ While quantitative research on attitudes (i.e. Galupo and Pearl 2009) and qualitative work on same-gender couples in various stages of legal partnerships (i.e. Lewin 2001) are both plentiful, there is a dearth of research about LGBT and queer activists and their conflicts and negotiations in the marriage equality movement. 17

This project aims to understand what same-sex marriage means to activists in Washington, DC, where it was most recently legalized in the United States. More broadly, this research seeks to understand activists' attitudes toward marriage in relation to their strategies, ideologies and identities. Through qualitative interviews, this study explores the complex ways activists account for their beliefs, forms of activism and participation in the LGBT movement at both local and national levels. As a result, this research will advance sociological knowledge about social movements, specifically how activists deploy identities and strategies to negotiate conflicts and account for their mobilization. It will also contribute to LGBT movement knowledge by exploring activists' views of marriage, an area that has yet to be researched, as well as revealing the complex connections among identities, ideologies and strategies in relation to this important movement goal that affects activists' participation. The hope of this exploratory study is that can be of use to movement leaders and agenda-setters and that it can serve as a valuable resource for future sociological research on LGBT activists and

on marriage in the LGBT movement. CHAPTER 3

METHODS This qualitative, field research is composed of semi-structured, in-depth interviews and surveys of LGBT and queer (self-identified) activists who work and/or live in Washington, DC. The target sample size was 15, although a total of 12 people participated after self-selecting through snowball sampling, fliers at an area activist conference, and announcements (See Appendix A for Research Recruitment Flier) on local LGBT organizational and professional or social networking list-serves (throughout August and September of 2010). Respondents first contacted me via email, through which we arranged a meeting place and time based on their convenience and comfort level. As a result, interviews took place at or near their workplaces in DC and were

audio-recorded with a handheld device. Following the Institution Review Board (IRB) protocol of American University, participants completed informed consent paperwork (See Appendix B), given the option to sign with their name or not. They then completed a 2-page questionnaire with a series

ot open-ended, ranking anu i^ikcu a^mc qucsuum «w« uiuivmwn g^a^, u*w* ,^. .^ ~± marriage, and personal background information (See Appendix C). To protect the confidentiality of participants, consent forms, questionnaires and audio-recordings were kept in a secure location between the interview and

17 See Appendix A for interview questions. 18 19 transcription dates (roughly 4-7 days) and I destroyed the questionnaires and erased recordings immediately after I personally transcribed them. I also scrubbed the transcripts of personal descriptors (i.e. organization name, job title) and replaced names with pseudonyms to ensure the anonymity of the research participants. The first interview took place in August and the last one concluded at the end of September. Although the transcription of interviews began before the period of data collection had ended, coding or analysis did not start until the eighth interview—the point at which there was a relatively substantial body of data. Influenced by feminist methodology, I built rapport with interviewees and used a conversational style to solicit responses that mirror genuine interaction as much as possible, given the artificial research context (O'Connell Davidson and Layder 1994). Although the interview was semi-structured and followed an interview guide, the order of questions was not strict, as sometimes interviewees raised topics before I did and the sequence consequently had to be adjusted. During the data analysis process, I searched for patterns in the transcribed interview texts—observing then conceptualizing. Utilizing the interpretive framework of grounded theory, my approach was loosely structured to allow ideas and themes to emerge from the field in the course of the research. Thus, the transcribed data from interviews was coded and analyzed through a data-driven approach that did not rely on a priori conceptual categories. Instead, the themes for analysis arose from the questionnaires and interviewees themselves. I used open coding to identify key concepts and organize them into categories, followed by axial coding to identify links among categories and identify themes (Strauss and Corbin 1998). 20

There are a number of limitations to this study's methods. First, snowball sampling can be subject to biases, as subjects recruited future interviewees through their existing activist networks. This sampling method can lead to a more homogenous group than a random sample of the population. The fact that participants were also recruited at a conference of professional activists focused on marriage equality and through DC-area LGBT email list-serves (i.e. of college students, staffers on Capitol Hill, social groups) also limits my sample to those associated with the specific, often professional networks, to be explored in the following chapter. In addition to the limits of these recruitment strategies, there are also limitations to the interviews themselves, including the fact that they took place at work or in public spaces like coffee shops (albeit by the interviewee's choice), which can constrain the dialogue, especially that which is critical. Further, my position as a white, middle-class and highly educated woman could have influenced the responses of interviewees, depending on their social location. Although I deferred specific questions about my research until after the interview was completed to avoid biasing responses, my status as a queer activist was sometimes revealed to build rapport with those who were skeptical about my motives. Such a revelation to establish a sense of commonality and trust could have impacted the interview in a variety of ways, like prompting socially desirable answers, ? et Suareu identity categories and some potentially shared experiences as a result can affect the power dynamics of social research in positive ways, helping in the establishment of rapport. As a qualitative researcher conducting interviews, my "mere presence becomes part of the research process itself (Vidal-Ortiz 2002:196), and critical reflexivity was 21 important to account for the influence of my identity, social location, and interaction style on the data. Even the nature of the research question itself, given that I investigated personal issues, may have prompted more critical responses than is otherwise the case in activists' daily lives. Thus, I cannot treat interview data as ultimate, ahistorical, and de- contextualized 'Truth' emanating from fixed, fully agentic subjects. My research is grounded in the epistemological assumption that there is neither a so-called 'true self nor an 'authentic experience' that can be unearthed through interviews, surveys or

observation. Moreover, the sample is not intended to be generalizable to the entire LGBT activist population, but this research instead provides a localized analysis of meanings and experiences limited to this nonrandomized group of research subjects. The geographic location of Washington, DC, is particularly important because, as the nation's capital, there is not only much political work occurring in the area, but much of it is within the institutional, establishment framework of policy think-tanks and non-profit advocacy organizations. However, DC does have grassroots LGBT activism, making this site unique in the power and prominence of the LGBT establishment with various forms of activism from the ground-up as well. The tension among various local, national, mainstream and competing discourses may be more salient in DC than in other areas like San Francisco or New York, which have been the site of much research on sexual identities, communities and movement organizing. CHAPTER 4

FINDINGS

In this chapter I will examine the survey and interview findings of my research. The mixed methodology in this study, comprised of written, pre-interview questionnaires and in-person, in-depth interviews with a total of 12 participants, generated a wealth of data from which several noticeable patterns and key themes emerged. The questionnaire revealed a correspondence between interviewees' social locations and identities and support or opposition to marriage. Throughout the interviews four key patterns arose in activists' discussions of marriage at both the movement and personal levels: the local as national and the local versus national; homonormative support for marriage; resistance through talk about privilege and intersectionality; and marriage as a practical choice and ultimate goal. This sample of interviewees was selected non-randomly through snowball sampling and is not intended to be generalizable to or representative of the entire activist population in DC. I contacted known activists and organizations, who then distributed my research flyer electronically to their activist networks, and sent it to activist list-serves in the DC area. My call for interviews was also handed out at local community events and an activist conference. Participants self-selected for the study based on the flier's request for "English-speaking adults (ages 18 and over) who are involved through paid or unpaid work with LGBT groups and organizations, including policy, non-profit, social service,

22 23 media and advocacy institutions" (See Appendix A for attached research flier). All but two interviewees self-identified as 'activists', yet every participant described their involvement with various forms of activism and the LGBT or queer movement in DC. Moreover, almost everyone noted that his/her/hir18 willingness to participate in my research was due not only to interest in the topic but also expressed empathy as recent students themselves, perhaps partially explaining the sample's age range of 22 to a mere

30 years old.

Questionnaire Data My sample consisted of participants who came from a variety of backgrounds and voiced a range of identities (Table 1). However, each person had earned at least a Bachelor's degree19, had been involved in the movement for at least several years, and was not originally from Washington, DC. David and Bryan are the only two participants who exclusively identified as gay males (Rupert indicated that he is "Gay/Queer"), while Leah was the only self-identified lesbian in this sample (at the time of the interview). A total of 8 participants identified as queer, while one participant, Erik, identified as pansexual and verbally expressed that he chose that identity in order "to have a conversation [with those unfamiliar with the term] around breaking down gender

18 1 use the gender pronouns of preference for interviewees, including the gender neutral "hir(s)/ze". 19 Although I did not ask them to identify their class status, the fact that all participants were relatively educated, at least at the college level (Bryan mentioned having a Master's degree, while Carmen and Leah were pursuing post baccalaureate education) suggests some privilege, which was also a theme in many of the activists' narratives to be explored further. 24 binaries," similar to some of the queer-identified activists. There were four females/women, four males/men, and four genderqueers/transgenders20 who participated in the study. Interviewees included current and former Capitol Hill staffers (Leah and Bryan), writers in LGBT media (Ash and Jaime), and part- or full-time staff or board members of non-profits (David, Dylan, Jaime, Kendall, Lin, Pierce and Rupert), both exclusively LGBT-oriented and 'progressive' multi-issue institutions. They ranged in their participation in the movement, although everyone, regardless of their titles, was involved with DC-area groups or organizations in some capacity and expressed that their activism infused their daily lives. There were also interviewees involved primarily through work they acknowledged others might not typically associate with activism, like Carmen, currently a community organizer focused on the wellness (i.e. spiritual) of the LGBT activist community, and Erik, an LGBT student service provider and educator at a local college. Overall, this sample is not only highly educated but also overwhelmingly professionalized, with all interviewees holding professional jobs at the time of the interview, with the exception of Carmen, a full-time student but former professional at an LGBT organization. Moreover, every interviewee but Ash was involved with national LGBT social movement organizations at the time of the interview or within the past ±ew years.

20 While the gender identities 'genderqueer' and 'transgender' wouldn't necessarily be grouped together or hypenated, Carmen explained that she identified as genderqueer— outside of the gender binary—but used transgender as the "umbrella" term while distancing herself specifically from transgender men who undergo bodily modification procedures 25

Table 1: Summary of Interviewee Demographics21 Pseudonym Gender Identity Sexual Identity Race/Ethnicity Age Ash Female Queer Caucasian 26

Bryan Male Gay White 25

Carmen Queer Queer Black 25

David Male Gay European 23

Dylan Genderqueer Queer Mixed Latino 24

Erik Man Pansexual White 30

Jaime Transgender, Queer White 27 Genderqueer Kendall Female Queer White/Caucasian 27

Leah Female Lesbian Caucasian 22

Lin Woman Queer Asian American/ 24 Chinese American Pierce Genderqueer Queer Biracial 25

Rupert Male Gay/Queer Asian/Filipino 23

In addition to gathering personal and activist background information, the written questionnaire asked interviewees to rank issues on two separate scales—first indicating their personal priorities for the movement (Table 2), followed by what they perceived as important issues to the movement as a whole (Table 3). The rankings of personal goals clearly range among the participants, although the their top two goals overall reflect their current activism within the movement, which is to say their activism overwhelmingly takes forms that reflect their top two priorities for the movement. Interestingly, those who

21 Participants were given a questionnaire ending with open-ended demographic questions, and their responses are presented as written. 26 specified a personal goal in the 'other' category either ranked it as the least important issue for the movement overall or didn't rank it all, showing personal goals are not perceived to be important to or even on the radar of the movement (Table 3). Activists' perceptions of movement priorities show a clear pattern, with Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) and marriage equality roughly tied as the top goal. Health issues22 and immigration rounded out the bottom of the rankings (excluding the 'other' goals).

Table 2: Importance of Movement Goals to Activists (l=Most Important) ______DADT Marriage Health Immig. Youth ENDA Other Ash 2 5 7 6 3 1 4 - Trans Inclusion Bryan 4 2 16 3 5 Carmen 6 7 5 2 3 4 1 - Spirit. Wellness David 2 1 7 3 4 5 6 - Religion23

Dylan 7 6 2 12 1 „ 1 - Anti-. 24 Oppression Erik 7 4 5 6 2 1 3 - Bullying Jaime 6 5 4 2 3 1 Kendall 6 5 4 3 12 Leah 4 3 16 2 5 Lin 7 6 4 235 1- Grassroots Pierce 6 7 2 3 1 5 4 - Trans Advocacy Rupert 6 __5 4 3 1 2 :

22 'Health Issues' was left open on the questionnaire, but if participants asked for clarification I gave the examples of community access to services, lesbian cancer, and HIV/AIDS—the latter an admittedly 'mainstream' topic that could have affected some responses when not paired with the other examples. 23 'Religion' is shorthand for David's goal of "persuading religious denominations to take pro-LGBT stances". 24 Dylan's goal of primary importance is "anti-oppressive revolution of the queer movement - address racism, classism, etc. among queers". Lin's personal priority is "grassroots intersectional organizing". 27

Table 3: Activists' Perceptions of Movement Goals (I=MoSt Important) ______DADT Marriage Health Immig. Youth ENDA Other Ash 2 1 5 6 4 3 7- Trans Inclusion Bryan 2 14 6 5 3 Carmen 2 1 6 4 5 3 7 - LGBT Poverty David 1 3 4 5 6 2 7 - Religion26 Dylan 116 7 5 4 Erik 1 2 6 4 5 3 Jaime 2 1 6 5 4 3- Kendall 2 14 6 5 3 Leah 12 3 6 5 4 Lin 2 1 6 5 4 3 P¡erce 2 1 4 6 5 3 7 - Trans Advocacy Rupert 2 1 6 5 4 3 : This disconnect between activists' personal goals and those they perceived as important to the movement is striking, and most participants, with the exception of David and Bryan, commented that the questionnaire was challenging for them in that they had to separate their views from the movement's and systematically document their unaligned priorities. Notably, one activist, Dylan, ranked three issues as number one, two as her second priority, and left a gap between those issues of key importance and marriage and DADT, ranked six and seven, respectively. Following their rankings of personal and movement goals, participants then indicated their opinions of marriage as a major movement goal and as part of their personal life, from "strongly support" to "strongly oppose" (Table 4). Almost 60% of respondents (a total of 7) supported marriage as a movement goal, with three interviewees voicing strong support and four simply supporting it. One person expressed a neutral opinion, neither supporting nor opposing the movement goal. Thus, one-third of

26 'Religion' is shorthand for David's goal of "persuading religious denominations to take pro-LGBT stances". 28 the sample indicated opposition to marriage, with two respondents opposing and one strongly opposing it as a movement goal. The three activists who strongly supported marriage as a movement goal also indicated strong support for marriage in their personal lives. Erik, who was in the midst of planning his wedding at the time of the interview, did not strongly support marriage as a movement goal but was the only other activist who strongly supports it in his personal life. Six interviewees also voiced support for marriage on a personal level, making the total number of respondents who personally approve of marriage just over 80% of the sample. On the other hand, one person indicated opposition and another voiced strong opposition to marriage in their personal lives.

Table 4: Activists' Views of Marriage

As a Movement Goal In Personal Life Ash 2 - Support 2 - Support Bryan 1 - Strongly Support 1 - Strongly Support Carmen 4 - Oppose 2 - Support David 1- Strongly Support 1 - Strongly Support Dylan 4 - Oppose 2 - Support Erik 2 - Support 1 - Strongly Support Jaime 2 - Support 2 - Support Kendall 5 - Strongly Oppose 5 - Strongly Oppose Leah 1 - Strongly Support 1 - Strongly Support Lin 3 - Neither Support/Oppose 2 - Support Pierce 5 - Strongly Oppose 4 - Oppose Rupert 2 - Support 2 - Support

Thus, a clear majority of activists (10 total) either expressed a desire for marriage in their future or were open to the idea. Slightly less (7) voiced a degree of support for marriage as a movement goal, although during the interviews some of those participants 29 simultaneously echoed similar critiques as the three activists opposed to marriage. As the interviews illustrated, numerical rankings cannot capture the ambivalence many of the participants felt toward marriage. For example, the strongest critic of marriage on both a movement and personal level, Kendall, expressed that she and her partner would get married for "practical" reasons, which would be "an unfortunate but pragmatic choice." Such equivocations will be explored in more depth shortly. Following the questionnaire, I conducted in-depth interviews with each interviewee, consisting of open-ended questions on the topics of identities, activisms, marriage, and the relationships among the three. My deliberate focus on marriage in the questionnaire may have influenced the fact that many interviewees interwove the topic throughout the interview, even before marriage-specific questions were asked. However, as the participants all indicated, marriage is a top issue for the movement, and I began my research with that assumption, centering my questions on the issue to examine activists' anti-/homonormative discourses27. My use of the acronym 'LGBT' may have also made the participants more inclined to use the term in their responses, although many variations

were used.

Interview Data This section will explore the themes that arose during my twelve interviews. I will explore activists' understandings of the local and national movement(s) before examining the ways that activists speak about marriage. How interviewees articulated their support

27 1 use the term discourse to refer to the system of language and representations through which actors talk about a particular topic at a given socio-historical moment. 30 and/or opposition to marriage as a movement goal and a personal desire involved important complexities and contradictions. Moreover, activists both (re)produced and resisted homonormativity in unique ways that offer important insights about academic conceptualizations of a dichotomy of 'radical queer' versus 'mainstream assimilationist' activisms in the LGBT movement.

Local is National versus Local and National Because it focuses on the specific geopolitical context of Washington, DC, the home of federal politics and legislation as well as local activism, this study proves to be both challenging and compelling. How the activists conceptualized the movement is significant to their written responses on the questionnaire and resulted in almost unanimous agreement on the top goals of the movement. Activists overwhelmingly professed the dominance of national LGBT equality discourse on the issues of marriage and DADT-top priorities perceived (critically or uncritically) to take place at a small number of large, national LGBT rights organizations that functioned as a 'voice' of the movement (often through the media). Almost every interviewee asked for clarification of the local, suggesting that their overwhelming involvement with national LGBT organizations shapes their constructions of 'the movement' in DC. By first asking interviewees to discuss the local movement in relation to their priorities, I may have created a dichotomy that wouldn't have necessarily been there naturally for some interviewees. Activists either responded to my question about the local movement in strictly federal terms or constructed two distinct movements—one dominant, nationally oriented movement of large non-profit institutions 31 focused largely on national legislation and one composed of smaller non-profits and grassroots organizations providing community advocacy and services, playing an important role in DC, however overshadowed and seemingly invisible it may be in comparison with the other. Three activists responded to my prompts about national and local movement strategies in the same way—by speaking about federal, legislative change guided by large national non-profits. As Leah put it: A lot of people associate the movement with [large national organization] first, and I'm someone who does also, urn, because those. . .that's the forefront of the movement, and [they are] the people who are really lobbying and making things happen in that way. In response to my question about the local movement, Leah claims that "a lot of people" associate this predominant national organization with "the movement," in general terms, but her perception of other activists is presumably shaped by her networks with this same organization about which she speaks, her work on Capitol Hill, and her studies at a professional, policy-oriented graduate program. "Making things happen" in the movement thus takes the form of lobbying and policy advocacy—strategies of the national movement that Leah collapses into the local. Furthermore, according to David: Washington, DC, is a unique place because it does not have the same local focus that I imagine the LGBT movement in, say, Wichita, would have, or even San Francisco, in that it seeks to create change for an area much, much wider than itself, mostly through the federal government ... So I think that the strategies of the movement locally are to positively impact the movement nationally and internationally by taking advantage of the area's unique qualities. 32

Speaking of other cities in the U.S. as having a "local focus", David imagines DC as a unique site for the movement focused on national, as opposed to local, issues. For him, the local strategies are to "positively impact" the national movement, partly through federal initiatives. David also imagines the local movement as shaping the movement "internationally"—an interesting move that constructs a monolithic local-national- international LGBT movement with the same priorities of marriage, DADT and ENDA (what he perceives as the top three goals) across the globe. David also juxtaposes DC against the examples of Wichita, representing the rural U.S., and San Francisco, a quintessential progressive city with a rich history of LGBT politics. Such a rural/urban dichotomy was also present in Bryan's interview, in which responding to my question about the local movement he discussed "big cities" versus

"smaller towns": [The local movement] depends on where you live, without a doubt. I think [in] the big cities, I mean you can't go a day without at least one of those issues [marriage and DADT] coming up ... I think it's very, it's very close to where you live, and if you choose a big city, then, yes those issues . . . [are] completely taboo in small-town America. Although DC is presumably a big city about which he speaks, Bryan does not discuss it specifically in relation to the local movement as though the local and national are one in the same. He instead pictures local movements in cities and towns elsewhere, perhaps due to his involvement with state branches of a national organization. Further, he discusses "small-town America" as different, namely not focused on the "taboo" issues of marriage and DADT. He constructs big cities (like the unnamed DC) as places in which the top LGBT issues are less "taboo", suggesting rather stereotypically that they are more progressive and accepting places. 33

Moreover, these three interviewees imagine DCs local LGBT movement in strictly national terms and effectively erase struggles at the city level, like violence, hate crimes, poverty and homelessness. David may imagine the "unique qualities" of the nation's capital as the presence of the federal government and a concentration of non- governmental organizations (NGO's), but DC is also unique because of its local struggles that are rendered invisible by nationally (and internationally?) oriented people like him. These particular interviewees are also young, white, highly educated professionals working on the Hill who are affiliated with the large LGBT rights organizations, perhaps influencing their impulse to imagine the local as national and reconstruct national organizational narratives about LGBT rights by speaking about marriage equality, in addition to DADT and ENDA. Conversely, the other nine interviewees spoke about a distinct local movement centered on grassroots organizing within the DC community, in contrast to and in clear tension with the national movement. In discussing the local and national, interviewees noted the predominance of the federal-legislative priorities of national non-profit organizations lamentably usurping those more important in DC. Erik commented: I think, since locally for me is in DC and a lot of local things that happen in DC are really national things, urn, they don't really mimic the things that I would like to be on the forefront. Like I said beiore, ? mean ? reany tuinK ENDA is so, so crucial and there's just not as big of a push and there's not as much attention being paid to it and then one of the things that is happening locally that I think is really important is, urn, stuff around AIDS because DC is one of the highest populations [with HIV/AIDS] in the country. Erik acknowledges the dominance of national issues in DC, where local forms of activism can often be oriented toward national legislation. He first discusses ENDA in the context of the local movement, suggesting that for Erik his involvement with primarily 34 national organizations and college student activism shapes his perception of the local in primarily national-issue-oriented terms. Yet unlike the interviewees who collapsed DCs local and national movements into one, Erik also distinguishes between national legislative priorities and the local activism around HIV/AIDS. Given the epidemic-level rates of infection in the city, HIV/AIDS is an issue consistently referenced by interviewees as an important priority for the local movement, whereas on a national level they consistently rank "health issues" as an issue of low importance. Dylan also similarly noted, "I think locally on queer issues it's very focused on ... talking about HIV, um, talking about, like, homelessness and services, and so that's really good," and continued by juxtaposing this DC-community-oriented work against that of

the national movement: I think locally there's a lot more work going on for, like, real issues that affect people on the ground and then, and then there's this abstract 'we wanna get married and we wanna fight in the war' kind ofthing that's like totally disconnected. Like, nobody is bringing the local organizations into this national conversation of what's going on. But it's also like the locals are like, "I don't wanna talk about that, like, these young people can't get a good education because they live in DC, like we can't talk about marriage right now." For Dylan, "locals" who are "on the ground" dealing with "real issues" and community services are in tension with the "national conversation" about "abstract" issues of marriage and DADT. For hir, such national priorities are disconnected from community struggles for services like health, housing and education. The 'local' became synonymous with a somewhat romanticized notion of 'real' or authentically issues of "locals"—others with whom Dylan nonetheless aligns and from which ze distances hirself. Having a unique positionality as a national organization leader who works with community youth 35 organizations, Dylan is critical of the "abstractness" of the national movement, specifically its marriage focus, and clearly favors a more "real" version of community activism that ze does not fully claim but to which ze professes allegiance as a marriage critic. Kendall also invokes a notion of community when explaining the local movement in

I think a lot of the strategies employed locally around, like, community mobilization—and when I say community mobilization, I mean an organization that has certain beliefs, and certain resources, and space, like being able to provide support and leadership opportunities and engagement opportunities with the people who the community is looking to serve, and actually activating those folks in a grassroots way to become educated on issues that are affecting them, to become activists and advocates and witnesses to their own experiences, and actually do something about it. So that it's not just the folks working at some organization having these beliefs about what they think that the community that they're serving—LGBT people living in DC—there's a difference between that organization having beliefs about what they think their community needs, and just doing them, trying to make those things happen and actually activating those people themselves to rally for themselves and for their peers and for their community, and I think that there are a lot of organizations that are doing that locally in DC . . . And so from a local perspective, those strategies I think I align myself with. Kendall speaks of the local movement strategies as involving organizations providing opportunities for "the people who the community is looking to serve"—seemingly supporting a top-down model of movement organizing while simultaneously invoking the grassroots, a bottom-up process. The "community" is taken-for-granted as existing and having needs that organizations are to then assess and serve, rather than the LGBT forming community or communities through issues and thus creating groups and/or organizations led by those people in the process. For Kendall, local communities and organizations are separate, and the role of local organizations is to "activate" the 36 community to "become educated ... to become activists and advocates and witnesses to their own experiences, and actually do something about it" by mobilizing people who presumably would otherwise not be educated self-conscious actors informed by their own experiences. While she aligns herself with local, grassroots strategies, she envisions these within a top-down model, perhaps due to her professional leadership position at a national organization connected to local organizations and communities to which she is

an outsider. Being non-native to DC (from largely middle- and upper-class backgrounds) and being affiliated with national organizations makes this imaginary of the local movement among interviewees particularly interesting for the ways it is used to strategically distance oneself from the national and marriage while ignoring one's institutional role in recreating hierarchies of movement organizing in DC. Indeed, their dialogue about the local movement suggests that they are not really able to locate the local, which instead exists largely as a rhetorical imaginary. As I will explore, these discourses of the local and national also functioned to challenge the perceived homonormativity of the national movement, while also (re)producing homonormativity in complex and unacknowledged

ways.

"Just Being a Normal Person...": Homonormative Discourses of Marriage Support Those activists who supported marriage as a movement goal justified their beliefs in ways that (re)produced notions of the normative gay or lesbian neoliberal citizen (Duggan 2003). While Bryan admitted being "greedy" for supporting marriage as a top 37 movement priority as "the thing that would affect [him] the most," he and many others spoke of equality and civil rights, reflecting a dominant narrative of the movement. In describing her activism and support for marriage, Leah remarked: . . .just equality, equality, equality, being open, being honest and just being a normal person who just happens to date women changes people's minds, and I think that marriage is that same idea of even something as publicized as Ellen [Degeneres] and Portia's [DeRossi, now Degeneres] wedding, it helps, because it's someone who, a face that everyone knows and loves, and kinda says well, she got married and the world didn't end. Her marriage [wedding ceremony] was very traditional, there weren't purple goats there, and like, I guess it's fine that, you know, if they can do it too, and things like that, urn, I think it's showing that a lot of us, although some people don't believe in marriage, hate that concept and would never want a traditional marriage, and that's fine too, but at the end of the day it's about revenue for the state, marriage licenses cost money. . .it's about supporting local businesses, a photographer, a caterer, a location for wedding, urn, and a honeymoon, all of these things just build up the economy. A number of significant discourses are woven throughout her explanation. Important to the homonormative narrative is her idea of "just being a normal person who just happens to date women"; that lesbians (in her case) are non-threatening to the status quo. By entering the institution of marriage they can change peoples' minds and show just how 'normal' they are. Leah invokes notions of a traditional wedding, one without "purple goats", but rather a presumably white wedding that does not disrupt the ideology of romantic, albeit non-heterosexual, stable, cohabitating and dyadic love. Interestingly, her example of a publicized, 'traditional' wedding of two celebrities supports the idea that same-sex marriage is about love and lifelong commitment that can change peoples' minds about gays and lesbians, but Leah immediately follows this image with economic justifications for legality. She juxtaposes a culturally emotive and powerful image against a very rational-economic argument that essentially same-sex marriage is "about revenue 38 for the state . . . [and] supporting local businesses", a political-strategic maneuver of an entirely different nature that constructs the gay/lesbian subject as a worthy consumer of goods and services28. Not only is this non-threatening lifestyle choice apparently more palpable to the dominant culture, but it is also one that is actually economically beneficial in ways more subtle than Leah acknowledges—through the privatization of social welfare costs in support of a neoliberal agenda beyond simply supporting local governments and businesses with meager sources of revenue (Duggan 2003). These narratives are not entirely separable from those of the national LGBT rights organization with whom Leah is affiliated and suggest a sharing of political language between activists and policymakers (Richardson 2005). This activist's engagement with homonormative discourses appears to be both a strategic and personal commitment to the politics of normalization. On the other hand, David, a "general lover of equality", articulates his civil libertarian support for marriage as an issue of equal rights while simultaneously constructing a normative version of sexuality through the culturally powerful civil institution of marriage: Although it may be largely symbolic in terms of achieving marriage equality in those states that already provide rights under civil unions that are all but identical in name, it is a supremely important symbol because it relates to an issue of homosexuality and bisexuality that is very, that is integral to the detiriitlOIl Ol UClllg UlSCAUiU ailU UUllluatAuai, mai io, vvcUimig IW uw iix «* relationship with a person of the same sex. David's support for marriage, like Leah's, is rooted in marriage's power to change peoples' minds about same-sex couples as 'normal' and (sexually) non-threatening. He

28 The adherence to dominant cultural norms and the economic participation of gays and lesbians as normative, consumer citizens has been the topic of much scholarship on homonormativity (Chasin 2000; Duggan 2003; Bell and Binnie 2004). 39 also directly links the institution's symbolic function to normalize the apparent 'deviance' of same-sex couples and the idea that being a homosexual or bisexual means simply wanting a relationship. Marriage further removes the threat of sexuality by integrating same-sex couples into a normative model of stable coupling and romantic love. It is a "supremely important symbol" to David because at the cultural-symbolic level marriage promotes a de-sexualized image of lesbian, gay and bisexual people as merely individuals in same-sex relationships. He imagines marriage equality as a symbolic struggle rather than one based on legal or civil rights, as he (erroneously ) understands civil unions to be identical to marriage, differing only in name, and it is this focus on marriage's symbolic power that supports a homonormative ideal of LGB(T) identities and relationships (constructed as one in the same by David). Furthermore, these interviewees expressed their support for marriage as a movement goal because of its supposed ability to promote the social acceptance of LGBT people. By integrating same-sex couples into the normative model of civil registration and self- regulation with a stable, domestic and procreative family trajectory that is good for the economy, marriage to these activists makes LGBT people more acceptable and thus 30 makes other LGBT issues of secondary importance more easily passable in Congress .

David, for example, spOKe aooui ine iegaiiz,auun ?? sïuik-sca mainagt m lj^ ? au example for the rest of the country in ways that not only erase LGBT relationships

29 The difference between a civil union and a marriage is defined at the state-level and thus varies, but there are more than 1,138 federal rights that accompany civil marriage (Kotulski 2004). 30 As discussed, their views of change were directed at the national, federal- legislative level. This national focus is linked to their personal and political commitments to a homonormative project. 40 outside the normative model but also connect LGBT legal rights to a narrative of economic progress: I think that, in addition to giving however many people that live in the District of Columbia the right to marry whomever they choose, which is a worthy goal in and of itself, it's important because legislators from all over the country and citizens from all over the country come to Washington, DC, all the time. . . . and if they come and see that gay and lesbian people are happily married here and the city is not falling apart and is, in fact, in a state of revitalization compared to what it was ten or twenty years ago, I think that would provide a powerful message. . .that is a powerful message. And I think they will remember that and may be more receptive to the concept of supporting marriage equality in their own states. By invoking happy marriages and a still-functioning city, David frames his support in contrast to anti-SSM arguments advanced by the Right that link the legalization of same- sex marriage to moral decline (Miceli 2005). However, David suggests that assimilation neither threatens the moral nor economic order, and same-sex marriage may in fact help both. David cites the economic "revitalization" in Washington, DC, as a case in point, making a subliminal reference to the role of gay men in particular in the gentrification of urban spaces, including DC and other cities like San Francisco, New York and Chicago with 'gayborhoods' or 'gay villages' across the U.S (see Bell and Binnie 2004). Through these homonormative discourses LGBT people are constructed as consumer citizens providing economic benefits through legal marriage and their assumed role in neoliberal urban economic 'development' also plays a role in making same-sex marriage more appealing to mainstream society. As Bell and Binnie (2004) argue, "sexual Others' are

31 The white, upper-middle class (dual-income) gay couple is the ideal domestic consumer citizen in this case, illustrating the "class-inflected nature" of the gay and lesbian collective identity that during the 1990s was transformed by consumer capitalism from a political category into a distinctly lifestyle-based one (Valocchi 1999). 41 among the groups seen in this formulation as marking cities as 'desirable'—a paradoxical rebranding for groups more used to being labelled [sic] as 'undesirables'." Both the granting of marriage rights to same-sex couples and the "revitalization" of cities are part of neoliberal economics that seek to privatize the costs of social welfare and create safe areas of middle-class consumption of (unsubsidized) housing and services, all in the name of equality and 'progress'.

Resisting Homonormativity: Activist Discourses of Privilege and Intersectionality Articulating notions of sameness and equality is a clear rhetorical strategy of activists who support same-sex marriage as a movement goal. On the other hand, those interviewees who were critical of marriage as a top movement priority challenged such homonormative discourses and the vision of what they perceived to be the national movement. Most of the interviewees who opposed marriage as a movement goal referred to large organizations whose priority is marriage equality because of the privilege of their members and leaders. They spoke of activists who support marriage equality as privileged and thus blinded to other issues. As Carmen noted when reflecting on her experiences with activists in a marriage-equality oriented organization, "they tend to be pretty well-off people whose sole concern is marriage". The focus on marriage equality is directly associated with an absence of (perceived or real) oppressions in other realms of

those activists' lives.

32 Richard Florida's (2002) controversial "Gay Index" directly links the concentration of gay men to urban development as part of the "rise of the creative class". 42

Activists used the idea of marriage being a white, upper- or middle-class, gay, cisgender male issue throughout the interviews to position themselves against or critical of the national movement, which became a symbol for speaking of and challenging homonormativity as they were imagined as one in the same. Jaime spoke of privilege that influences the institutional structure of the (national) movement and the failure of those privileged leaders to take into account other, non-privileged perspectives: The people that have the time and energy to work on campaigns traditionally were white folks, who had the privilege . . . [and] you have a movement that really became public through the funding and through the visibility of white people. That's not true to the movement at all, because I think, you know, "who was at Stonewall?" but queer, trans, people of color—huge spectrum— like that's who the movement is, but who the faces are that get lifted up . . . But there's certainly tension within people who operate from a privileged frame, no matter what that privilege is, and fail to understand and recognize and incorporate and listen to people who are coming from a different perspective. Speaking of the history of the contemporary LGBT movement, Jaime points to the structural privilege of white people with privilege, presumably both racial and economic and most often male, who were able to assume leadership positions within emerging LGBT organizations. Although Jaime asserts that the movement really is composed of a "huge spectrum" of people, the white faces "get lifted up" and made public, rather than Stonewall's queer, trans, people of color33 who actually sparked the contemporary movement. This white visibility is connected to funding, suggesting both that white people had the resources to fund organizations and that a white (gay) identity is more marketable than the other faces of the movement. Moreover, Jaime echoes claims that

33 Although these identifiers were not used at the time of Stonewall, Jaime's use of the terms suggests a (re-)claiming of this important historical event for those who are still invisible in the institutional positions of the movement. 43 privilege blinds certain activists like white leaders to other issues, thus shaping the organizational priorities like marriage that currently dominant national discourse. For these interviewees, marriage equality is both by the privileged, for the privileged. Rupert expresses resentment and bitterness because of the amount of resources devoted to the issue of marriage equality, specifically the [failed] anti- Proposition 8 campaign in California (recognizing marriage between a man and a woman only): A part of me still feels a little bit resentful, a little bit bitter about, like, [the anti-Prop. 8 campaign's] access to all these resources . . . [I]t's just a really hard reality to know that there are people in our community who are struggling, who, like, don't have a place to sleep—literally don't have a place to sleep—and then there's [sic] other people in our community who want marriage to establish and further their privilege, and it's hard. Those movement leaders with access to resources are able to prioritize the issue of marriage while other issues, like poverty and homelessness within the community, are neglected. Rupert's focus on the resources of this particular marriage equality campaign is a strategic critique, as there are problems experienced by the non-privileged members of the community that need and arguably deserve those funds instead. He constructs marriage supporters as focusing valuable resources on marriage equality to "establish and further their privilege", as marriage is not only a priority for the privileged (at the expense of those "struggling") but also as an institution that rewards privilege. Similarly, Lin "acknowledge^] that marriage is inherently patriarchal, capitalist, classisi, all these things that are oppressive. . .and that marriage tends to privilege queer folks who already have privilege." She argues that marriage is an institution that rewards existing gender and class privilege, rather than functioning to ameliorate oppressions. 44

However, neither Rupert nor Lin mention white privilege, but instead only highlight the significance of class and (in only Lin's case) gender to the institution of marriage, the material benefits of which have also "been historically produced as privileges of a racially stratified welfare state" (Kandaswamay 2008:721). Kendall mentions race and continues the theme of privilege when discussing her opposition to marriage as a movement goal: I cannot understand why two random, relatively privileged people—privileged from a race, class perspective, like primarily, if they're middle-class, upper- middle class, wealthy, white or not but have grown up with privilege or have privilege at that moment—I can't understand, there's nothing in my head that says those peoples' rights to have a marriage certificate and, you know, have the happiness that people who get married get to have and get to have a wedding album and go on a honeymoon and get to have a marriage certificate just so they get some tax benefits. . . Associating race and class privilege as shaping activists' focus on and desire for marriage, Kendall constructs marriage as an institution accessible and desired by privileged members of society for apparently superficial reasons. She articulates her critical position in opposition to what she imagines to be the reasons of pro-marriage activists—getting a certificate or an official title, securing a romantic fantasy of happiness, having an album-worthy ceremony and honeymoon, and gaining tax breaks (for a presumably middle-class couple). She rhetorically positions marriage as an issue of privilege and its advocates as having insincere or empty motives (presumably because of their privilege) in order to distance herself from and to criticize homonormativity in the movement. Kendall also highlights the symbolic function that certificates, weddings and honeymoons—the marriage process—have as a right of passage in the social legitimation of a married couple, who then enter (or as a same-sex couple get as close to) the 45 privileged realm of Rubin's (1984) inner "Charmed Circle" of state-legitimated and culturally idealized married life.

Overall in their critiques of the marriage agenda these activists speak of privilege to challenge the homonormativity of other activists and a national movement from which they distance themselves, while also questioning the privileging function of the institution itself. Discourses of multiple oppressions and 'intersectionality' were central to these arguments against the strategic focus on marriage equality in the national movement. Their ideologies and activisms shaped by the feminist and queer theories learned in academia, these interviewees use the idea of intersectionality to deconstruct dominant narratives of the movement and resist the homonormative impulse to erase differences. For those critical activists, the interrelated forms of oppression among LGBT people were cited as the reason they supported other priorities within the (mainly local) movement.

Describing his frustration that the national movement does not do racial justice work, Rupert uses the term intersectionality to name the movement he would rather have:

I don't think a lot of national organizations really take to heart, urn, intersectional work the way that I think they should, but it comes to, like, stupid things, right? ... I was in this meeting with a funder from [a foundation that funds non-profit LGBT projects], and I was in this room with a few other [people], mostly other LGBT people of color, and the program officer she asked us what we think LGBT organizations could do differently. And I was like, "well, I think it would be really awesome if folks like [the foundation] could support, urn, a more intersectional approach in LGBT organizing". And she was like, "yeah, I get that, but the challenge is like [the foundation's] funders are like "no, I pay you to do LGBT work. If I wanted to support racial justice work then I would go give money to that cause." So, you know, it's this tension between the labels that individuals subscribe to and how that limits the growth of organizations themselves, um, because they don't feel like they can do work that exists outside of themselves. And, it's kind of like, well you guys [national organizations] talk about it all the time, you guys talk 46

about how there's LGBT immigrants, how there's low-income LGBT folks, so we should be out there supporting those causes as well. I would like to see funders do more to support intersectional LGBT activism. In his critique Rupert links the funding structure and national organizational power within the movement to a lack of work that focuses on issues of racial justice, immigration and class issues. As an activist of color among other activists of color confronting a large funder the narrow focus of the national movement, Rupert recounts his ability to use the term 'intersectionality' as shorthand for an array of issues and receive not only an acknowledgement of those issues but a recognition that funders are supporting "LGBT work" as categorically different from "racial justice work". In an activist setting the academic jargon of intersectionality is commonly understood (even by national funders who are allegedly not doing that type of work) and is used strategically to levy critiques against the national movement's narrow focus on issues affecting only LGBT people of privilege. Such language can also be adopted or institutionalized by the movement to celebrate 'diversity' and preclude a structural and institutional analysis of inequality (Ward 2008b; Luft and Ward 2009)—as the ease with which even mainstream leaders deal with the theoretical term. Furthermore, Rupert wants to "see funders do more to support intersectional LGBT activism", as dealing with issues like immigration, race and poverty within the LGBT community, but simultaneously notes that the "labels that individuals subscribe to", or the identities of the (privileged) funders, shape and thus limit the scope of the organizations themselves. While recognizing a structural problem, he nonetheless poses the solution as having those same actors expand their work (seemingly due to the calls of activists of color like himself that are so blithely dismissed). 47

Jaime similarly uses the term intersectionality to speak about multiple oppressions related to LGBT issues. In speaking of the importance of immigration reform as related to the LGBT movement and then continuing to speak about multiple oppressions, Jaime

explains: . . .even if I myself am not a recent immigrant, urn, seeing those lenses of oppression and the intersectionality of it, it has really informed the causes that, you know, get me out of bed and into the streets . . . And my activism was started as, as someone who identifies with women and the struggles that people, that, you know, just come from being female-bodied. Um, so that was really my first, like, view of the world, is, like, understanding that complicated picture, so that really informed my activism and really was the first place I took on, like, seeing the world through a lens of oppression, understanding what that might feel like, for not just women, people of color, and then, having come out, really understanding that in another nuanced way. . . Learning to see through "lenses of oppression" took place for Jaime and all of these activists through their personal experiences as marginalized individuals, and actually comes to inform their activisms. Jaime describes coming to see the "complicated picture" of oppressions through hir own experiences that shape hir activism for issues not directly experienced but with which ze can empathize as an oppressed person. Yet Jaime also uses the term intersectionality to name experiences not organically formulated from those very experiences but is instead specific to academic contexts. While Rupert spoke about intersectional work, Jaime describes intersectional experiences, of "seeing" issues through "lenses of oppression"—a phrase used in standpoint feminism to describe the situational and relational experiences of people within the 'matrix of domination' (Collins 2004). The recognition that there is no single universal experience of being an LGBT person (or woman, etc.) is important, yet Jamie uses intersectionality to speak only of individual positionality in a liberal-humanist sense of understanding and empathizing 48 with the diversity of experiences, rather than the mutually constituting nature of systems of power—the categories of race, gender, class and sexuality that operate in and through one another. Likewise, Lin uses the academic language of intersectionality to describe her own activism: ...my activism is about bridging identities, intersectionality, creating spaces for people to be whole, and making sure that whatever the gay agenda is that it actually benefits people like [herself] who occupy those identities or who may be marginalized in multiple ways. She later uses the term to describe her vision for activists to recognize the multiply privileged and marginalized positions of people within the community:

I think my vision is that we really start—I think we've been moving in this direction for a while— but really incorporating other movements and seeing the intersectionality in our lives. And so not just thinking about gay rights, which tends to mean, you know, rights for middle-class white gay folks who are not trans. I think hopefully as a movement we start really lifting up the voices of those most marginalized within our community—low income queer folks, queer folks of color, queer folks with disabilities, queer trans folks— and that together we're able to build a vision and build a world together that really addresses all of these experiences of oppression at once and creates a world where people are safe to be all of their identities, you know, at one time. The "gay agenda" of privileged activists at the national level is constructed in opposition to intersectional forms of activism. Lin uses intersectionality to identify a multiplicity of oppressions within the community and to express her resistance to the national movement. A term popularized by feminists of color to highlight the multiple and interconnecting experiences of oppression, intersectionality is used in this instance to name activism that "bridges identities" and benefits those who "occupy" multiply marginalized identities. This language promotes a vision of inequality in a static system 49 of multiple identity hierarchies. The movement thus becomes about creating space for everyone to "be all of their identities" at once—a narrative of celebrating diversity easily co-opted by neoliberal strategies of social movement organizations (Ward 2008a). Moreover, through discourses of privilege and intersectionality activists construct two polarizing figures—a multiply privileged white, middle-class gay and the a multiply disadvantaged queer person of color. While marriage equality is the issue by and for the privileged, the person of color in contrast does not benefit from the national movement's focus on marriage equality and thus justifies interviewees' ideological opposition to marriage and activism in other areas (but never, notably, against marriage equality). For example, Kendall argues: . . .there's no world in which that issue [marriage] would be more important than, urn, you know, some young person of color who's been kicked out and is homeless and is engaging in transactional sex because they have no way of getting along and they've considered or tried ending their life ... I don't believe it's important to, like, the most disenfranchised communities of the LGBT movement; I think it's important to people who have power within the movement. But the people who aren't reflected in any part of the LGBT movement at all—which are young people, people of color, young people of color—? don't think it's important to them that DC has marriage now. She exemplifies the efforts of queer-identified activists to deconstruct privilege and multiple forms of oppression within the LGBT movement. Her constructions of people of color as having a as a "disenfranchised" community with more important issues in order to articulate opposition to marriage and, by extension, normative politics, centers her queer politics on a figure of a multiply marginalized subject to argue for inclusion of those diverse voices in the agenda. Yet Kendall speaks to these issues while also speaking for those people not reflected or included in the movement in which she is a (white) leader. While making a critique of power and privilege in the movement, Kendall 50 speaks with authority on what is important to the people over whom she, too, has power and privilege. By identifying the 'most' marginalized members of the community she and other activists objectify this imagined group as the ideal focus of 'intersectional' activism in a way that allows privileged leaders like Kendall speak for them paternalistically as a population seemingly needing to be 'saved' by the movement. Moreover, by focusing on the privilege of white, upper-class gays and the oppressions of (young) people of color, she removes her positionality from critical examination and exempts herself from the structure of intersecting privileges and oppressions in which she is also implicated. While challenging the mainstream conversation to recognize people who face multiple oppressions and thus the issues beyond marriage that will benefit them, these activists reproduce limited, essentialist notions of identity, particularly racial identities, albeit while dis-identifying from normative categories of sexuality through the term 'queer'. Discourses of intersectionality become an anti-exclusion tool that justifies the re- prioritization of movement goals toward bringing the voices and experiences of liminality to bear on movement decision-making and cross-movement coalition building. However, while using the term queer to strategically critique homonormativity, these activists nonetheless use the academic language of intersectionality to promote a discourse that does not destabilize or deconstruct naturalized identities and binaries. Race, ior exarnpie, is reified or essentialized through the contrasting figures of whiteness and of color, and the latter becomes a means of illustrating that LGBT identities and issues are not exclusive to white people even though the national movement priorities reflect racial privilege. However, the issue of white privilege is relevant not only, as the activists articulate, to funding and privileged agenda-setting—such a link may even collapse race 51 and class as synonymous rather than mutually constitutive—but also to the way in which white privilege has historically been reinforced through normative and state-regulated forms of sexual citizenship (Kandaswamy 2008). These discourses allow for the many equivocations among activists who oppose marriage as a movement strategy but do not extend their critiques to the personal realm.

Homonormative Equivocations: Marriage as a Personal, Practical Choice and Ultimate Movement Goal

While many interviewees spoke of privilege and oppression to justify their opposition to marriage as a movement goal, they simultaneously spoke of the "practical" reasons that they passively supported marriage as a personal choice. They expressed clear ambivalences about marriage throughout the interviews, as even those who indicated opposition to marriage as a personal goal on the questionnaire were inconsistent in their discussion of the issue. The "practicality" of marriage was framed in both explicitly homonormative terms and in ways that attempted but failed to challenge the normative discourse of marriage. Rupert uses the movement discourse of "rights and responsibilities" to describe his support for legal same-sex marriage: Definitely I support the ability for same-sex couples to have access to the rights and responsibilities associated with marriage, absolutely. Um, it is a fundamental, you know, inequality to say that straight couples have access to urn, you know, inheritance and wills when gay couples don't. You know. . .you can break down all the like, you know, like policies at some point yourself. But to me it just, like, make sense. It's just plain common sense for, for this to happen. 52

Although he is critical of marriage equality as a goal, he constructs the illegality of same- marriage as a "fundamental inequality" in access to rights—a civil rights framing of identity politics frequently used by social movement organizations (Miceli 2005). Rupert

identifies inheritance and wills as tangible policy benefits of marriage, echoing the (neoliberal) economic justifications of his pro-marriage-equality counterparts. Moreover, by invoking "common sense" he perpetuates the type of thinking that is intrinsically opposed to queer efforts to destabilized the taken for granted and naturalized (including marriage).

Further, as an institution that provides real, tangible economic benefits to people, Lin

supports LGBT couples' access to marriage because: . . .it would provide benefits to people who are in long-term relationships, monogamous, and want each others' health insurance or want to be able to inherit things when the other person dies . . . very concrete. So in that way I do support it and think that we should have access to those institutions. While marriage equality is constructed as an abstract and problematic movement goal, the institution of marriage itself is difficult to oppose because of the "concrete" benefits Lin and other people do or hope to enjoy—benefits that support a model of citizenship in which healthcare is privatized and wealth inherited rather than socially redistributed (i.e. through estate taxes). This justification for marriage as having tangible rights also contrasts with the discourses of realness surrounding local movements and the imagined priorities of multiply oppressed people. The same language is used to challenge marriage as a goal but support it as a personal choice for those who seek those real benefits. Moreover, interviewees—even those who at another point in the interview articulate a strong resistance to the normativity and privilege of marriage—often reference such 53 legal benefits to justify their own personal choices to marry in the near or distant future. For example, Kendall justifies marriage as a possible personal choice for her because of the benefits she would receive as a partner in a binational relationship: I think that if we're addressing a lot of other things that [marriage] could be something good and I think that for some people marriage is a really huge necessity from, a binational couples' perspective . . .So it's like the marriage out of necessity for, like, economic benefit, but from a, like, not economic benefit where I get to, like, have taxes with you, not that, but from a that's the only way that I could get a job, that's the only way that I could adopt your kid, then I would say that it would be a goal . . . because in my personal life I am in a same-sex relationship that could potentially benefit from there being federal marriage equality, you know, the overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act, I suppose, and there are tangible benefits—it's not like I would just never get married because I have this girlfriend who's from, like, Minnesota, or something—it's possible that if there was full marriage equality, which is obviously what the goal is, then we would get married here in DC if there were really big benefits to us because she's from another country... Kendal explicitly resists the privileged notion that marriage is about superficial economic benefits like tax breaks and instead argues that the economic (read: citizenship) benefits of marriage make it a potentially desirable option for her. Interestingly, as a white, self- proclaimed privileged queer person, Kendall uses her partnership with a non-U.S. citizen to position herself as an exception to the rule—she is not supporting homonormativity because she does not simply have a girlfriend from Minnesota, thus making the benefits of marriage more real. Her hypothetical choice to marry would consequently be more justifiable than those couples who are not seeking the benefits of citizenship— immigrants are, after all, members of the multiply marginalized community whose interests justify her activism. Overall, by constructing marriage as a choice to be made for concrete benefits, she and other activists (re)create homonormative discourses of 54 marriage and the neoliberal narrative of citizenship and individual choice that renders marriage's regulatory power invisible. When arguing against marriage as a movement goal, ideas of race, class, and gender privilege and oppression are used to deconstruct homonormativity within the movement. However, this analysis of multiple oppressions also sustains limited notions of identities and oppression and leads many activists to ambivalently support marriage as a personal choice for what they justify as practical reasons. Imagining privilege and oppression as white upper-/middle-class gay and poor queer of color respectively allows these activists to exempt their role in sustaining systems of domination by participating in the institution of marriage. In ways that seem particularly tied to their location in Washington, DC, activists also articulate a vision of queer 'liberation' and social change that ultimately reproduces a homonormative agenda. There is, however, one notable exception to these patterns. Pierce is vocal about his criticisms of the national movement's focus on marriage equality and of normativity that both visually and strategically shapes the institutional face of the LGBT movement in DC. As someone who recently relocated to the capital to work for a national organization, admittedly "joining the ranks" of the normative professionals whom he lambasts, Pierce employs performative strategies to "queer" the movement: I feel like a lot of strategy goes into the way I do my work. I also feel like presentation is a big deal, and plays a lot into how I view the work and how I feel like I'm making my work, whether it be my workplace or my facilitations, into what I want it to be. Because I feel like people draw a lot from facilitators, even in their appearance, so the fact that I'm refusing to do certain things, I feel like feels really important into how people perceive an LGBT movement. 55

Placing emphasis on the visual impression that people get from a movement, Pierce uses his deliberately political genderqueer performance (described as "fun" or "glamorous") to disrupt facilitations that occur within a national organizational context. This "refusal" to conform to gender norms or rules of professionalism within this particular movement context is informed by his queer perspective and resistance to the marriage agenda: I'd also like to see change happening not on the backs of heternormativity; I don't wanna see change happening because "we're just like you" . . . lot's of people don't wanna get married, it's a social norm and a social expectation. So I'd like to see the queering of culture, I guess I'd like to see the LGBT movement queering things and not things being squared, like not things being made stuffy and things not being made tight-lipped ... So when I think about queer ... [it means] something being weird, or strange, or off-putting, or different-than I think of queering as taking something that is a norm, like a socially-accepted norm, and changing it... 'Queering' the movement itself through gender performativity and refusing to participate in or support the institution of marriage are Pierce's means of challenging the normativity of the movement. The movement embodied (literally and figuratively, as Pierce describes both the normative physical appearance and strategies in this geopolitical context) by the DC-based LGBT movement is "stuffy" and "tight-lipped", and Pierce deploys a queer identity that transcends discourses of marriage as practical to focus on the cultural realm of social and political change. The potential of this type of cultural resistance to affect the movement within this national organizational context has yet to be expioreu, anu there may be specific structural and institutional constraints unique to DC that limit this 'queer'

strategy. Moreover, unlike Pierce, those activists who opposed marriage as a movement goal revealed ultimate support for it as a practical institution, albeit after an undefined point at which their personal priorities were met. This passive acquiescence to the marriage 56 agenda through narratives of "practicality" is the fundamental issue, as these activists articulate feminist- and queer-influenced visions for the movement but are not invested in a Leftist movement. Whether or not these interviewees are complicit in oppressive systems like patriarchy and white supremacy through their desire to marry is a debate beyond the scope of this paper. Rather, the most significant aspect of their fundamental support for marriage is the fact that these activists are not working to dismantle the institution about which they are critical. This lack of commitment to a Leftist movement suggests the limits of marriage-centric and representational politics in the DC-based movement (and perhaps elsewhere). In sum, this chapter has explored the patterns in the questionnaires and the themes that arose during interviews with DC-area activists. While most interviewees were professionals involved with national organizations, all queer-identified activists opposed marriage as a movement goal but many showed ambivalences when it came to their personal lives. In discussing marriage interviewees either collapsed the local and national movements or distinguished between the national-institutional and (invisible) local- grassroots and the tension between the two. The gay and lesbian interviewees who erased the local movement were also personally and committed to homonormativity in their language of "just being normal". To challenge the perceived homonormativity of the national movement, queer activists spoke about privilege limiting the strategies (including marriage) and many offered the academic term intersectionality to explain their perspective on multiple oppressions within the community in ways that ultimately shaped their ability to support marriage as a personal, practical choice and ultimate goal. These findings inform understandings of homonormativity and resistance within the 57 context of Washington, DC, as well as the use of intersectionality in this activist setting, and point to areas of further research. CHAPTER 5

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with twelve activists in DC, this research explores the meanings of marriage in the social movement context, as both a political and personal issue. Four key themes arose throughout activists' justifications of their beliefs about marriage and activism in relation to this major movement goal: local as national and local versus national; homonormative support for marriage; resistance through privilege and intersectionality; and approval of marriage as 'practical'. The ways interviewees spoke about marriage was clearly informed by their social locations and personal identities, with white, gay- or lesbian-identified professionals involved on the Hill and with national organizations articulating a personal and political investment in a homonormative project of marriage equality. In contrast, queer-identified activists strategically distanced themselves from the homonormativity of gay and lesbian identity labels on a personal level while also using the term to critique the (national) movement goal of marriage, as an issue that ignores and erases queer marginality rooted specifically

111 JL»v^.

Discussion

The tension between the local and national movements in the context of Washington, DC, is salient throughout discussions of marriage, movements, and

58 59 activisms, as understandings of these sites informed how interviewees talked about marriage. The unique context of the nation's capital creates both a physical movement division—between activists and organizations oriented toward the Hill versus local neighborhoods—as well as an ideological and strategic split among activists within an LGBT movement. One group of activists perceives the issues and resources of the national movement to overshadow and neglect the local, while the local is equated with the national for the other. As a result, marriage equality—the epitome of a homonormative national movement for the queer activists—is constructed as usurping local issues and draining movement resources, perhaps due in part to DCs non-statehood and focus on federal policy. Yet at the same time activists are not fully able to locate the 'local', which was the idealized site of the allegedly non-homonormative in their

narratives. Moreover, while broader forces shape and constrain the DC movement, queer- identified interviewees negotiated the strategic and ideological tension between the local and national by invoking ideas of privilege as national and intersectionality as local. Critiques of marriage, often invoking the opposing figures of the gay white male and the queer person of color—the former acting at the national level and the latter existing at the local level (being advocated for rather than acting)—were methods of resistance to tue perceived homonormativity of the movement. This normativity is primarily described as the privileged and privileging focus on the legalization of same-sex marriage. Through discourses of privilege and intersectionality many queer activists, including those who indicated opposition to marriage as a personal goal, engaged in a strategic 60 resistance to marriage as a white, gay, upper/middle-class and thus national movement priority overshadowing the "real" issues of struggling queer people of color (multiply disadvantaged like homeless youth). This attention to privilege and marginality within the LGBT and queer communities34 is important given the history of exclusion and racism, classism and sexism among activists and movement leaders. However, the ways many interviewees used opposing figures of race, class, gender and sexuality allowed them to construct a conflict of essentially different identities positioned at poles of the movement rather than viewing mutually constituting systems of power in which everyone is located and implicated. Thus, these activists offered solutions to the perceived need to re- prioritize movement goals that focused on creating spaces to explore identities and educate activists working solely toward marriage equality—both arguably productive approaches for addressing intra-movement conflicts—rather than coalition-building across movements based on issues and not identities . This strategic resistance was also saturated with contradictions about the meaning of marriage, as all but one activist articulated a narrative of the institution as practical. Such equivocations about the meaning of marriage illustrate the salience of marriage equality as a central movement issue that, while it only mobilized and informed the activism of three interviewees, clearly permeates the discourses of LGBT activists. With the

34 Some activists used LGBT and queer interchangeably to describe the movement and/or community, while others exclusively used one or the other. The deployment of either term often mirrored their rhetorical maneuverings regarding marriage with queer signaling resistance to the normative LGBT. 35 See the conceptual work of Elizabeth R. Cole (2008), who uses activist narratives to theorize intersectionality as a tool for illuminating not only difference but also similarities for effective feminist coalition building. 61 exception of Pierce, who rejected marriage in his personal life as a homonormative institution, the activists critical of the time, energy, resources and publicity devoted to marriage equality nonetheless justified marriage as a personal choice and ultimately an important goal36 because of its practical benefits. The language of marriage's "rights and responsibilities" and tangible benefits infuses activists' narratives regardless of their investment in the issue itself. This finding suggests that marriage equality is the central issue of the contemporary movement that mobilizes people to become active or activists, shapes their activisms and strategies, and informs their relation to and negotiations within the broad movement. Perhaps parallels may be drawn between this issue and the role of HIV/AIDS in social movement organizing the 1980's (i.e. Armstrong 2002). Further research could investigate the role of marriage in the formation of activist identities, oppositional consciousnesses and strategies, as Kendall, for example, suggested that becoming active during marriage equality campaigns in college influenced her queer identification and politics. While there is conflict among activists around the specific issue of marriage that highlights the (arguably oversimplified) assimilation/liberation movement fracturing (Vaid 1996; Epstein 1999), it may play a role in the consciousness formation and mobilization for many activists in both camps, which has yet to be explored. Moreover, this study illuminates how the academic term of intersectionality is accessed within the activist setting, in this case to criticize marriage as both an institution

36 The legalization of same-sex marriage was viewed as an important goal (albeit with modifications to include recognition of and benefits to multiple partner and other (co)dependent relationship forms) in the undefined future, presumably once other issues were re-prioritized. 62 and a major movement focus. Interviewees reified socially constructed identities that are complex, multiple and shifting as two competing, fixed and unitary figures with classifiable experiences (of privilege versus marginality). Framing difference and privilege/oppression in identity-political terms to account for issues eclipsed by marriage may be a rhetorical strategy to be read by the national movement, or perhaps as players within those organizations they simply operate within and thus employ that discourse less strategically. Further research in social movement organizational settings in DC may illuminate exactly how such activists strategically use intersectionality to resist and challenge normativity and how that language may lead toward the commodification of difference and celebration of diversity (Ward 2008a). This study contributes to Ward's work by exploring the limits and potential of activists' deployment of intersectionality in the social movement setting while highlighting the particularity of place in this phenomenon. However, Pierce provides an illustrative exception to this theme by strategically confronting homonormativity within the professional national organization setting via non-normative and campy gender performances, for example. The potential of this type of intersectional practice, which rejects mainstream discourses of oppression and difference, to disrupt and reinvent the homonormative space of DCs national movement has yet to be explored. These findings overall contribute to the exploratory work of Rachel E. Luft and Jane Ward (2009) to illuminate the function of intersectionality in the social movement context and shed light on anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-classist social justice strategies on the ground. 63

This research also makes an empirical contribution to Lisa Duggan's (2003) analysis of 'new homonormativity' in the contemporary movement. Discourses of homornormativity were (re)produced throughout interviewees' talk about marriage and the movement in the same ways Duggan examines at the organizational level—for example, through narratives of being "normal", sexually non-threatening and consuming neoliberal citizens largely via marriage. Yet interviewees also promote a normative and neoliberal model of a 'queer' social movement. Activists express their critiques of marriage as an issue of misguided prioritizing of time and resources, and while they used queer- and feminist-influenced discourses to challenge marriage, ultimately their visions for the movement boiled down to resources rather than a coalitional commitment to

Leftist politics. A focus on services and re-prioritizing funds maintains a vision of social movement change rooted in the non-profit industrial complex—a term popularized by radical feminists of color to describe the surveillance and management of grassroots social movements for social justice through the 501(c)(3)37 model (INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence 2009). These activists' formulations of queer politics may be partly structured by their location in networks of non-profit organizations in Washington's particular geopolitical landscape. Although they are not personally committed to a homonormative project, their vision and strategies are nonetheless implicated in a neoliberal agenda of regulating social change work through a system of non-profit

37 This section of the Internal Revenue Service (1RS) code grants not-for-profit organizations tax-exempt status by adding a system of bureaucratic requirements and monitoring by the state. 64 funding, through which 'responsible' citizens are paid to organize social movements. Through this model of activism an ultimately normative, fundable and institutionalized social movement is contained and regulated, while its activists' strategies of resistance are largely limited to re-prioritizing existing (donor) resources rather than organizing outside ofthat model. Furthermore, this so-called 'shadow-state apparatus' of non-profit organizations plays a role in the neoliberal restructuring and diverting of social welfare services from the public and to the increasingly state-regulated voluntary sector (Andrucki and Elder 2007), making activists' priorities of more funds for homeless queer youth services, for example, antithetical to a truly holistic queer- and intersectionality- influenced social justice movement. Overall, these findings give insight into the movement dynamics of a place that is surprisingly absent from the existing literature on the LGBT social movement, perhaps because of its geopolitical singularity as the nation's capital. My exploratory study does not claim to draw conclusions about LGBT movement building or conflicts among activists in general, but instead offers a localized and contextualized examination of activist discourses. The features of this particular place—where federal policy is made and local residents are denied the rights of statehood—arguably creates a tension between the local and national that is not found elsewhere. However, this research is limited by its convenience and snowball sampling, which resulted in a less diverse sample than desired, particularly in terms of its national movement bias. My interview sample was relatively narrow in that many participants were employees of national LGBT organizations headquartered in DC, while others were 65 involved in some current or recent capacity at the national level, which may have resulted in a national bias in conceptualizations of and talk about the movement. Further, as most interviewees were working full-time at activist organizations, on the Hill or with private contractors with the federal government, the overwhelming professionalism of this group suggests that these findings may not be replicable with another group of, say, employees of local social service organizations. These interviewees were also largely transient young professionals without a rootedness in place—a fact that may partly explain the absence of talk about DC statehood in relation to the local movement. Replicating the study with interviewees born and raised and planning to live in the District may reveal different understandings of the local and national and even of the idea of movement(s) and community(ies). Although this research was guided by two main research questions—how activists' support or opposition to marriage was related to their strategies, identities, and ideologies and how they justified these beliefs, activisms, and participation in the movement—it was unable to fully address the continued mobilization of activists in light of intra-movement conflicts over marriage. In retrospect it is evident that the interview questions did not address this issue explicitly. Moreover, participant explanations of their path to becoming an activist as a naturai prouuci m men cuimug uui piu^caa auggwi meu m^n ¡«11^11«^.. is taken for granted as part of their identities—like the feminist mantra, "the personal is political". Thus, a discussion of conflicts in the movement would not necessarily lead interviewees to justify or explain their sustained activism and solidarity, even in the face 66 of fundamental conflict between personal and movement, local and national, or queer and mainstream goals.

Conclusions This study makes important contributions to the literature on the sociology of social movements, LGBT and queer studies, and research on identity politics and intersectionality in practice. It provides an exploratory basis for future investigations on the DC-based LGBT movement and points to key areas of further research. The local- national tension is a largely unexplored territory—its relation to strategies, identities and political ideologies in this unique context—that can illuminate how space and place shape and constrain social movement development, organizing and engagement with certain issues. Future studies can also explore the discourses and practice of queerness and intersectionality in the social movement context, particularly how it links, effectively or not, local and national movement strategies. What a 'queer intersectional' practice looks like (if it is even sustainable in this context) and how or whether it can create meso- and structural-level change in DC (and elsewhere) is yet to be adequately explored. Finally, this study points to the central role of marriage in the contemporary movement and suggests that the issue plays a significant role in activists' oppositional consciousnesses, identities, political ideologies and personal lives beyond as a nucleus of conflict and homonormativity which can be the focus of further study. APPENDIX A

RESEARCH FLIER

American University Volunteers Wanted for a Research Study This study will examine the meanings of marriage among LGBT and queer activists in the DC-area through in-person, one-on-one interviews. Eligible participants include English-speaking adults (ages 18 and over) who are involved through paid or unpaid work with LGBT organizations, including non-profit, social service providers, media and advocacy institutions. Participants will not be compensated. To learn more about this research contact ***.***.**** or sp*****@student.american.edu. This research is conducted under the direction of Shannon Post, Department of Sociology, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20016.

67 APPENDIX B

PRE-INTERVIEW QUESTIONNAIRE Thank you for participating in this research study by Shannon Post, MA candidate from American University. This is a pre-interview questionnaire that will ask you about your activism, which can take many forms. These questions are intended to gather information about your background and attitudes, which will be explored in more detail and complexity during the interview. You may withdraw at any time and refuse to answer any question. Pre-interview Questionnaire: 1 . How long have you considered(weeks/months/years)yourself to be an activist?

2. Do you volunteer or work for one or more DC-area LGBT organizations?

_____ yes no If yes, please specify organization and types of paid/volunteer work:

3 . Which of the following do you personally think are important LGBT movement goals? Please rank from 1 to 7, with 1 representing the most important goal to you personally. _____ Ending "Don't Ask Don't Tell" (DADT) _____ Marriage Equality _____ Health Issues _____ Immigration Reform _____ Advocating for Youth _____ Passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) 68 Other (please specify): 4. Which of the following do you perceive are important LGBT movement goals? Please rank from 1 to 7, with 1 representing the most important goal of the movement as a whole. Ending "Don't Ask Don't Tell" (DADT)

Marriage Equality

Health Issues

Immigration Reform Advocating for Youth Passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) Other (please specify): 5. Do you support or oppose marriage equality as a major movement goal? 1 2 3 4 5 strongly support neither support oppose strongly support nor oppose oppose 6. Do you support or oppose marriage in your personal life?

2

?????? etrT\«rvKr strongly SUppOi ? 11V1111V1 buppv/ii support nor oppose oppose

Demographic Questions: 7. What is your gender identity?

8. What is your age? years

69 9. What is your race and/or ethnicity? __^_ 10. What is your sexual orientation/identity? 11. What is your relationship status (i.e. single, widowed, partnered, married) and style (i.e. emotional/sexual non/monogamy)?

70 APPENDIX C

INTERVIEW GUIDE 1 . Why or how did you become an activist? What does activism mean to you? 2. How are you involved in the LGBT movement? 3 . What is your vision for the future of the movement? 4. What are the current strategies of the movement locally? a. Do the current strategies on a local level reflect your personal goals for the LGBT movement? 5 . What are the current strategies of the national movement? a. Do the current strategies on a national level reflect your personal goals for the LGBT movement? 6. Do you or do you not perceive any conflicts among activists in the movement? In what areas or around what issues? 7. Why do you support or oppose marriage as a movement goal? 8. What activities reflect this support or opposition? 9. How is or isn't your activism reflected in the movement goal of marriage equality? 10. Why do you support or oppose rnarnage in your personal iue: 11. How is or isn't your personal life reflected in the movement goal of marriage equality? 12. Do you view the recent legalization of same-sex marriage in DC as important or unimportant? Why?

71 13. How does your identity shape your political activism, and vice versa? 14. Has or hasn't the issue of marriage equality shaped your daily life? How so? 15. Has or hasn't the issue of marriage equality shaped your identity? How so?

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