A. M. Sorensen & C. Siemsen / Californian Journal of Health Promotion 2006, Volume 4, Issue 4, 41-51 Identity Radicalization, Fragmentation and Re-assimilation: An Analysis of the GLBTQ Movement Anna M. Sorensen and Cynthia Siemsen California State University, Chico Abstract An examination of social movements shows that they change in structure over time, not remaining one stable and static identity politic. This is obvious within the structure of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender movement. Each change has come with dissent from both within and without the homosexual community, and yet the end result is the inclusion of said groups. Current social movement theory’s explanations of this change have centered on concepts of identity politics. We seek to answer the question of how social movements in general, and the GLBTQ movement in particular, structure and restructure themselves throughout time. To do so, we move John Kitsuse’s (1980) sociological theory of tertiary deviance from the level of the individual to the collective. Using historical analysis, we apply this theory to the GLBTQ timeline and conclude that among other things, each restructuring is vital to the sustainability of the movement. We further conclude that queer theory is the natural progression of the movement. © 2006 Californian Journal of Health Promotion. All rights reserved. Keywords: GLBTQ, social movements, tertiary deviance, homosexuality Introduction After extensive “discussion” within the gay and When people in contemporary society think of lesbian community/movement, bisexuals, with the gay rights movement, they likely think of their identity validated, rejoined the movement. ballot measures and constitutional amendments. The transgender movement during the nineties They might think of their next-door neighbor, a illustrates this process of a collective co-worker, or Will and Jack from Will and fragmentation from the larger movement and Grace. What they probably will not consider is then eventual re-assimilation. We see the same the contentious history of the gay rights process continuing today with the rise of the movement. While they may understand to some queer movement (Gamson, 1996). extent the difficulties of homosexual people existing in a hetero-normative culture, they It is commonsense that with the formation of the probably have no idea of the difficulties and original movement, there was safety and power divisions within the homosexual community/ in numbers under the gay and lesbian movement itself. “umbrella.” As the gay and lesbian movement became more mainstream, people who did not The composition of the social movement known identify as gay or lesbian, but not as today as the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, heterosexual either, felt free, and justified, to and queer (GLBTQ) movement has changed define themselves in other ways and to demand since its inception during the 1950s (Seidman, that their identities be recognized and validated, 2001). Gay men and lesbian women, originally resulting in separation from the larger dichotomous groups, joined forces to form the movement. Eventually, however, the “splinter” gay and lesbian movement. Over the following group was re-integrated back into the larger decades, people who identified as bisexual stood movement. The gay and lesbian movement was apart from the collective because their needs originally (and still to a large extent is) about were not being met within the larger movement. fighting the oppression of hetero-normative 41 A. M. Sorensen & C. Siemsen / Californian Journal of Health Promotion 2006, Volume 4, Issue 4, 41-51 culture and gaining the legal and economic continue, there must be a continuous rights automatically assumed by heterosexuals. radicalization. While those rights are not universally attainable as of yet, homosexuality is becoming more In what follows, we will examine these ideas normative within society. through the lens of different sociological theories including tertiary deviance, identity Yet, while many within the GLBT movement politics, and queer theory. Then, we will briefly were/are satisfied with the composition and historically analyze and sociologically map the goals of the movement, we see it being more and formation and reformations of the GLBTQ more frequently referred to as the GLBTQ movement through a review of literature that has movement, denoting the addition of queer- already been offered on this topic. Finally, we identified individuals. Queer theory suggests will consider our findings within the presented that no identity should become normalized theoretical frameworks and in light of the (Seidman, 2001), a more radical idea even than proposed research questions. the original concepts of equal rights and opportunity for all that were the impetus and Theoretical Perspectives justification of the original movement. There is Identity Politics/Queer Theory considerable disquiet within the community/ Steven Seidman (2001) maps the transition from movement in response to queer politics and identity politics to queer theory, looking at the theory – not unlike the dissention and discussion responses of the homosexual community to a surrounding the re-assimilation of increasingly heteronormative culture and the resultant transgressive groups. We see a continual normalization of society as well as queer politics radicalization of the movement as groups of and its influence in the movement. In essence, individuals identify (re-identify) themselves Seidman “argues that there is occurring in the differently over time, even to the point of United States something of a shift from identity demanding no identity. Still the movement to queer politics, which is paralleled by changes continues, sometimes more visibly active, in the social patterns of normative sometimes less. heterosexuality” (p. 321). Thesis and Framework In the 1950s, homosexuality was seen as a Our research is driven by the larger question of “deviant minority identity” (Seidman, 2001, p. how and why small groups fragment away from 322) and governmental institutions actively a social movement in order to establish their oppressed homosexuals. The homosexual was separate, distinct identities, and then re- excluded, publicly separated from the rest of assimilate back into the collective. In particular, society by being denied civil rights and political we are interested in this process as it unfolded in representation. Any visible homosexual presence the GLBTQ movement as described above. Is was policed and punished. Shamed, the the process about sexual identity, the existence individual self-enforced a public invisibility. of social movements as an institution, or is it a This created the “closet,” the place where the combination of the two? In what follows, we individual hides his or her homosexuality in will show that the GLBTQ movement, as we order to “project a public heterosexual” (p. 322) know it today, is the result of a combination of and can thereby exist semi-peaceably within the sexual identity politics and the necessity of society. At the same time the gay identity continual radicalization in order to sustain social movements responded to oppression by movement and change. Queer theory, is the advocating for equal rights and civic inclusion. logical next step in the radicalization of the As people who want to be full citizens of a given movement, and yet we cannot discount the nation must exhibit the values and ideology of importance and necessity of political identity that nation, gay identity movements reify the formation and sustenance. Furthermore, it is American ideology of individualism by likely that in order for the movement to asserting, “homosexuality is “irrelevant to national citizenship” (Seidman, 2001, p. 323). 42 A. M. Sorensen & C. Siemsen / Californian Journal of Health Promotion 2006, Volume 4, Issue 4, 41-51 politics” (p. 321). Queer politics is not about “Differences between citizens based on say race normalizing an identity, but about releasing or gender or sexuality are defined as private or sexuality from normative constraints. With this without juridical or necessary political ideal, sexual practices are not situated within a significance” (p. 323); the gay individual’s legal hierarchy and sexual citizenship would not rights and privileges should not be attached to matter. his/her identity as a homosexual. New sexual identity movements have formed in Gay identity politics has been successful. The response to normalization based on claims that outright oppression of the ‘50s no longer exists; group members (those who participate in certain many civic rights have been achieved; and gays other sexual practices) are “victims of repressive and lesbians co-exist in the modern world, practices” (Seidman, 2001, p. 326). Their claims “indicating a blurring of the boundary between are made against both the heterosexual the heterosexual and the homosexual and community and the mainstream gay and lesbian accordingly a weakening of a repressive community. These groups include the bisexual heteronormative logic” (Seidman, 2001, p. 323). movement and the S/M movement, who, like the However, as Seidman argues, normative original gay and lesbian movement(s), assert heterosexuality is still the dominant institution their rights to sexual citizenship by “claiming a socially maintained by the recognition of the gay distinct identity, by countering polluting with identity as “normal,” so long as the proper normalizing representations, and by aspiring to behaviors