Stances range from abolishing all gender distinctions to restructuring the current bipolar gender order. None uphold the status quo yet one's current location within it impinges upon the desirability of radical change and vision of its possibility. Staging queer theory making as a species of separatism, salvaging positive aspects from the queer nation experience, inscribing queer culture as insurrection against hetero-domination, some of us come together to make a clearing in the world, steal space so that we may gather. Not sanctuary or safe space. Necessary work space.
Separatism is a particular instance of skill- sharing.
Skill-sharing, separatist or open, challenges minority analogies. It enacts recruitment. The proliferation of queers just might put to rest the one in ten claim. It's an imperative consonant with Adrienne Rich's restatement a decade later of the woman-identified woman position in Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence . But it is a precarious shelter which can be demolished at any time, for it is easy to show that gays are not just another tile in the multicultural mosaic.