From: jf@threel.co.uk (John Fisher)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Diversity of Various Kinds
Date: 2 Sep 92 14:26:17 GMT
Organization: 3L Ltd, 86/92 Causewayside, Edinburgh EH9 1PY, UK


A couple of people asked me to post this here.  It was
originally posted to uk-motss as part of a discussion
there about tactics in demonstrations, whether demonstrations
had any value and so on.

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Date: Fri, 28 Aug 92 14:15:28 BST

There seems to be a number of ideas going around and
getting fairly mixed up.  Somebody e-mailed me asking why I
wasn't getting into this thing, and apart from the usual
work panic, I suppose the answer is that when several
things are going on at once, you either have to post a
boring article making distinctions or you risk being
misunderstood.

Oh well.

First thing: about diversity.  I think we have to recognise
that acknowledging our diversity and accepting it are not
optional extras.  If we can't or won't accept our own
diversity, why should heterosexuals accept us?  The notion
of diversity of desire and expression is the basis of our
claim to exist.

That doesn't mean that you have to be a drag queen or a
leather person or wear this or that style of clothes in
order to be a Real Queer, whatever that is.  Still less that
you have to like gay pubs 'n clubs or want to live in a
ghetto.  Nor does it mean that you shouldn't, of course. 
But I feel that someone who won't accept the diversity of
our folk has a hard time justifying who he or she is.

Of course, that's a different thing from what happens on
demonstrations.  That's a matter of tactics.  There are all
sorts of demonstrations, and different presentations are
appropriate for different purposes.  I'm quite promiscuous
when it comes to tactics;  I'd use anything, including even
a business suit, if I thought it would get anywhere. 
That's just common sense.  But this can't be done at the
expense of denying our diversity, because that is central. 
Acceptance of LGB people *means* acceptance of diversity.

In any case, you never get anywhere in the long run by lying
to people.  What's the point in putting forward an image of
being extremely ordinary, conventional, unremarkable folk?
Anyone can see, if they look into it, that it's not true.

I think that <x> is wrong, by the way, in thinking that
drag is notably difficult for straight people to cope with.
On the contrary, there's a long tradition of drag, both
straight and gay, in this country, and people understand it
better than you think.  In any case, I think most people,
whether gay or straight, would pay attention to something
funny much sooner than they would listen to another tedious
speech.

But as well as different kinds of demonstration, we need
whole different areas of work.  As several people have
said, we need the besuited lobbyists and the street
activists.  We also need people to work in AIDS service
organisations, and switchboards and Friend groups, to
publish magazines, to run centres, to organise Crusaid
runs, to do any of a hundred and one things;  even to run
gay bars and clubs.  I work for a switchboard.  Last Friday
evening I was on the phones;  Wednesday and Thursday this
week I was out counselling people.  Tonight as a
switchboard rep I'm meeting a couple of reps from the local
TV/TS group to talk about this and that.  After that, I
have a meeting with our coordinator coz he's going on
holiday tomorrow and I shall be standing in for him. 
Monday I'm on the phones again.  That stuff to me is
political.  It's political because it asserts the right of
LGB people to be dealt with for what they are, because it
acknowledges them as diverse people, and because it's us
looking out for ourselves.

But there isn't much point in asking what's the good of any
particular thing I do, as nothing happens in a vacuum. 
Anything we apparently achieve depends on the complementary
activities of all sorts of people, now and in the past,
including the thousands upon thousands who simply assert
their own right to their own diversity in their own way. 
You can't ask in isolation what street activism has
achieved, or switchboard work, or Stonewall or whatever.

You're never going to get everyone to agree on what is the
most important and effective thing to do.  Let's try to
make a virtue of this.  Rather than endlessly attacking
people for being too conventional, too bizarre, too
reformist, too activist, too ghettoised, too integrated,
too butch, too nelly, too leathery, too draggish or
whatever, may I suggest that people should work out what
*they* want to do, get off their arses and *do* it?

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Glossary:

   Friend:     a national network of counselling
               organisations for LGB people.
   Crusaid:    an HIV/AIDS-related fundraising organisation
   Stonewall:  a corridors-of-power lobbying organisation

--John