Queer Progress? Queered Marxism and the Making of the Neo-Liberal Queer Review Essays, # 2.
Tim McCaskell, Queer Progress, From Homophobia to Homonationalism Toronto: Between the Lines, 2016.
By Gary Kinsman
This is the second in a series of review essays on historical materialist queer writing that I am engaging with as part of my longer term work on the Making and Unmaking of the Neoliberal Queer. For those interested three preliminary chapters in this project on the 1970s and the 1980s and on the regulation of queer refugees have now been published and are listed in the references below (Kinsman, 2016; Kinsman, 2017; Kinsman, 2018). I welcome suggestions and critiques.
I examine queered Marxist work both for insights and limitations in undertaking work for this investigation and for it being related to class and social struggles. In my view only an expanded and transformed historical materialism has the capacity to grasp the dynamics of capitalist social relations, the mediation with other forms of social oppression, and to be able to map the social relations of struggle we find ourselves engaged in.
But the question is what kind of Marxism — or historical materialism — is useful to this project? In my view this Marxism not only needs to be a queered Marxism defined by learning from anti-racist and feminist organizing but also one that is non-reductionist, non-economistic, that is anti-colonial, anti-Eurocentric, anti-Orientalist and recognizes the specificity of anti-Black racism. It emphasizes the self-organization of the oppressed and exploited and critiques reification and fetishism through making as visible as possible the social practices of people. This approach puts the emphasis on class and social struggles as I draw inspiration from currents influenced by autonomist Marxism (Kinsman, 2005; 2017b).
I have known Tim McCaskell, the author of Queer Progress, From Homophobia to Homonationalism, since 1974 when I remember seeing him at the August Pride march in Allan Gardens in Toronto. Tim was active in a number of movements and struggles in the 1970s and I used to joke that he was ‘a miniature vanguard party.’ As left queer activists in Toronto our paths crossed in many groups and struggles including the Gay Marxist Study Group in the mid-70s, the Right to Privacy Committee (RTPC) which organized resistance to the bath raids in the early 1980s, in the Simon Nkoli Anti-Apartheid Committee (SNAAC) in the 1980s, in AIDS ACTION NOW! (AAN!) in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as a supporter of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) from 2009-2015, and most recently as part of a support group for Black Lives Matter -Toronto regarding Toronto Pride. I have learned a great deal from Tim over the years and my name appears a number of times in Queer Progress.
Queer Progress like the book Warped which was the topic of my first review essay in this series, is an important contribution to the critical analysis of the emergence of the neoliberal queer. This time the contribution is rather different as the entry point into investigation is through the life and history of gay organizing in the city of Toronto from 1974 until 2014 in part through Tim’s auto-biographical memory work. When Tim was challenged at a workshop at the Toronto Historical Materialism conference in 2014 about how an investigation of developments in one city could be useful in bringing these broader relations into view I responded that this was a valuable entry point into how these broader relations emerged in a specific setting connecting local with more global social relations. Given space limitations I am assuming a certain knowledge of the gay movement in ‘Canada’ and Toronto. I contextualize and unpack where I can.
Through the narratives Tim collects – including quite centrally his own personal auto-biographical reflections — he brings into view a vivid sense of gay organizing and how it has shifted over the years as well as a number of the social processes leading to the emergence of the neoliberal queer. Given the rich material that Tim draws together I spend a fair amount of time on these empirical matters in this review essay. These are important building blocs for my own work on the making/unmaking of the neoliberal queer. This is why this review essay is longer (perhaps too long!). Perhaps this is more notes for the making and unmaking of the neoliberal queer based on my reading of Tim’s book, but I hope these are still of interest to readers.
Queer Progress is an important contribution to our historical memories. In this extended review essay I expand on many of the insights of the book as well as exposing some of its contradictions and limitations. I hope to push forward its insights making this a more vital resource to the project of the making/unmaking the neoliberal queer. In the first part of this essay, I outline and summarize Tim’s arguments in order to show its major contributions, in the second part I critically engage with the limitations of the book.
Tim’s writing in Queer Progress is very accessible, at times almost journalistic in character. He relies until the later 80s on The Body Politic (TBP) which was a noted gay publication he was involved in from 1975 until 1986. For many of these years he was the international news editor for the publication, a resource he often draws upon. Later he draws on Xtra!, which started as the local Toronto publication of Pink Triangle Press which published TBP, and to a much lesser extent Rites magazine for lesbian and gay liberation which I was involved in in the 1980s. More generally there is too much reliance on TBP as the ‘truth’ until its demise in 1987. He therefore often misses other accounts and perspectives, especially regarding lesbian feminism. There were few women ever on the TBP collective and many encountered sexism and an indifference to working together (115).
At times his reliance on accounts from TBP and other sources combined with an almost day to day chronology can produce a snippet approach to telling history and perhaps too much fragmentation as information on The Body Politic Free the Press Fund (formed following police raids and charges against TBP) or SNAAC, or QuAIA are scattered through sections in the book and not always brought into relation to each other for readers.
Queer Progress includes many delightful stories which on their own are well worth the cost of the book. One of my favourites is my PhD thesis supervisor Dorothy Smith’s (author of The Everyday World as Problematic, Texts, Facts and Femininity, Writing the Social and more) response to a question as a defence witness at one of the many trials against TBP where she was testifying how the publication was not porn. She is in her sixties at this time and Tim writes “She looked for all the world like an English schoolmarm.” In response to a question from the prosecutor on what she meant by pornographic voice Tim describes that she “looked down her nose at him and said dryly, ‘He thrust his throbbing dick into my hungry cunt, for example.’ The Crown prosecutor blanched. The court stenographer froze, and the packed courtroom and the judge did their best to stifle titters” (180-181). There are many such delights.
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1) Learnings for the Making and Unmaking of the Neoliberal Queer
Memory Work and the contradictory impact of right struggles
Tim’s personal narrative begins with important memory work. He remembers his anxiety regarding “sissies” and how Louis the ‘sissy’ at school “threw like a girl” (14). He describes how “Sissy was a dangerous word. It could be contagious” (14) as he makes clear how routes to masculinities impacted his life. But young Tim did not like hockey and he mentions how “I was suspect as a boy, but not hopeless” (14). He describes the policing of masculinities and how he worked hard at not being a sissy. Tim could have gone further here regarding the social making of his own masculinity but this is an important beginning.
Tim starts the book raising vital questions regarding the contradictory impact of gay rights struggles. While queers have made major progress he reminds us that this has not affected all of us in the same way as our movements moved from a politics of social transformation to a politics of inclusion while many remain disenfranchised. He points out that “In terms of the rights struggle, Canada has consistently surpassed the United States in our gains in an imagined liberal and tolerant nation. But in doing so we also strengthened that bright image that hides the reality of the lives of Aboriginal, racialized and marginalized people regardless of their sexual orientation” (1-2). While I would add class and poverty more centrally to this list he goes on to point to how our rights are now used to portray the tar sands (a major oil development in northern Alberta) as “ethical oil” as opposed to an Islamophobic construction of oil from Arab countries as “unethical” and how “Inclusion comes with consequences”( 2).
Introducing Puar’s critical analysis of homonationalism and the integration of gay rights into western nation states he points out how now for some moral conservative and nationalist social forces in the global south “To resist the empire has often become to resist its acceptance of homosexuality”( 2). Queer Progress as Tim describes it is a “looking back … structured around a personal narrative” of how Canada moved from being a homophobic nation to homonationalism ( 3). He stresses that this is only one story of this process of transformation and notes he is a white, cis man (3).
One of his contributions regarding this transformation is to point out that while gay liberation emerged in the context of Keynesianism (social programs and the ‘welfare-state’) the shift to neoliberalism (cuts to social programs, attacks on workers and people living in poverty) has had a major impact on gay organizing and communities. This emphasis on the influence of these broader social forces is an important contribution of the book. I come back to this later but in my view Tim’s portrayal of Keynesianism is too rosy suggesting that class and social struggles mostly disappeared during these years and that workers rights were mostly being respected ( 8). At the same time he is quite right to point out that the social safety net often provided a cushion for early lesbian and gay activists (8). He suggests that gay liberation started in national contexts but this is now global (3). In my view it was already more global but further waves have taken place in this direction as capitalist globalization is central to neoliberal capitalism.
Values and Liberalism
Tim stresses the struggle over values and points out that liberalism (which he tends to link to freedom and the free individual) opened up space for anti-feudal and anti-‘traditional’ struggles and that workers and others were able to use liberalism to expose contradictions between liberal ideology and the actuality of exploitation, oppression and lack of democracy in capitalism to push forward their more collective struggles. According to Tim in liberalism the body becomes private property freed from collectivities (6) as he largely associates the Stonewall riots and early gay liberation with “the liberal notion that sexuality should be an individual expression and not a social obligation”( 9). He writes that sexuality was the property of the individual (35). Here he misses out on the social character of sexualities and on social individuals, social solidarity and also connections with other social movements. At the same time he also notes the synergy between different movements, for instance, that “Black is beautiful would be the template for Gay is Good”(9). He provides useful descriptions of the 60s and 70s struggles for social transformation, although he largely misses out on the working class insurgencies during these years.
He describes that “our movement became the cutting edge of the ongoing corrosion of the power of traditional, pre-liberal, pre-capitalist institutions and the values they promoted”(9). In his view gay liberation mostly ended up challenging conservative institutions and values that had been accommodated within liberal capitalism. It is as if gay liberation was one of the leading fronts of the anti-feudal and anti-traditional revolution. He links this to the later impact of a neoliberal economy which “cultivated a gay market in order to spur lagging consumption” and “deployed sex as a marketing tool” even as the Keynesian welfare state was ripped apart (9). I come back to the limitations of this approach but these positions allow Tim to hold his investigation together revealing major insights.
Tim captures aspects of the debates raging in the 1970s on the source of queer oppression. Many on the left who were supportive of queer liberation (especially those influenced by Trotskyism) focused on the family as the source of women’s, gay and lesbian oppression. This was basically the perspective of the Revolutionary Marxist Group which as a member I put forward until the late 70s. This as Tim and George Smith (93) correctly pointed out was not an adequate grounding for a queer left politics. I learned a lot from them about how this position was in part an ideological perspective that was ungrounded from the actual social relations organizing queer oppression (94) that also include state relations, the criminal code, and the police. I learned that we needed concrete analysis of concrete situations (94).
Organizing Histories
It is impossible to capture the detail and complexity of Tim’s accounts of organizing and struggle from 1974 to 2014 which is a major contribution of the book so I just mention a few areas here. These include the major battles TBP had to wage against state censorship; the resistance to the 1981 raids on the gay baths and the mass arrests; the organizing of SNAAC in support of South Afican Black gay anti-Apartheid activist Nkoli, both in opposition to South African apartheid and in undertaking anti-heterosexist work in the anti-apartheid movement; the struggle for treatment access in the context of AIDS in part drawing on Tim’s experiences in AIDS ACTION NOW! (AAN!) and as HIV+; and queer organizing against Israeli Apartheid in QuAIA. He also addresses the continuing struggles against the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure by AAN! and other groups. For non-disclosure of their HIV status people living with AIDS/HIV have been charged with various offences including ‘aggravated sexual assault’ (398). A disproportionate number of racialized people have been charged and the “Neoliberal focus on individual responsibility fed the conservative tough on crime response” (400). This involved a working over of safer sex as a community responsibility since “In a neoliberal world where there was no society, only individuals, no one wanted to hear about social impact” (401).
There is also good material in Queer Progress on the early self-organization of queers of colour, including the formation of Gays Asians of Toronto (110) and the importance of Zami and the centre the house on Dewsen Street provided for Black and Caribbean lesbians and gay men (216). There is now more extensive documentation of these and other experiences in the important work of the Marvellous Grounds group (see reference list at the end). Tim’s epiphany regarding the KKK’s racism and hostility to queers is described since white gays and lesbians are “race traitors” given our sexualities are not focused on reproduction (152) and we are therefore betraying the white race. — “In a flash the connections between racism, the sexist notion of women as only useful for child rearing and the contempt of gay men and lesbians became clear. There was an underlying logic to their madness”(152).
Tim also worked for many years doing education around equity issues for the Toronto Board and this also informs the book. He has a perceptive analysis of the limitations of anti-bullying campaigns (442) which shifts from a broader understanding of harassment to a narrower focus on bullying (443). As he puts it: they “saw bullying as bad individual behaviour, unmoored from broader social inequalities. Its focus was not on empowering victims but on punishing wrongdoers” (444).
Partial Decrminalization and the Police.
Tim is good at describing the 1969 reform leading to the very partial decriminalization of ‘gross indecency’ and ‘buggery’ as not being the legalization of ‘homosexuality’ that some argued it was (99). Although he is critical of this approach he does not centrally engage with the liberal strategy of sexual regulation – public/private and adult/youth regulation — which provided the liberal legal social form articulated in the 1957 English Wolfenden report. This report covered ‘male’ homosexual acts and ‘female’ sex work with its balancing of competing public and private rights. This approach informed the 69 criminal code reform. At the same time later Tim points out that “The law enforced the social contract of the closet. Keep it hidden and we won’t come after you”(33 ).With the Barracks bath raid in 1978 he writes that this “social contract of the closet was broken” (145). But he also misses that it was the 69 reform itself that directed the police to go after homo sex in the broad ‘public’ realm.
He is also very strong on the police not being our friends referring to queer people being beaten up at Cherry Beach (32) (at that time an isolated waterfront area in Toronto) in what was sometimes referred to as “The Cherry Beach Express.” He mentions the police rape of lesbians that took place there (33).
Later he details conflicts related to various attempts to form liaison committees and collaboration with the police, including that suggested in the Bruner Report, an official investigation of the 1981 Toronto bath raids (153). He quotes a Vancouver activist where dialogue committees started in the mid-70s as stating that “The single and dubious accomplishment of the Vancouver Gay-Police Dialogue could simply be the transformation of gay representatives into willing accomplices in the policing and social control of their own community”(157). Later in Calgary a liaison committee with the police was seen by many in the community as a place for the police to collect information on places to raid (204-5). Later he details how disputes over liaison with the police were central to the undermining of the Toronto Gay Community Council formed after the mass resistance to the bath raids in 1981 (205). In my view these liaison committees with the police were one of the fulcrums through which neoliberal queer politics emerged.
Gay Capitalism, class tensions, and vertical alliances.
Tim notes that by the mid to later 1970s a new class of gay entrepreneurs was emerging to service a growing gay market (91). As in other areas in this book this is more descriptive than analytical. For instance the gay bars Buddy’s and the Barn and the Lambda Business Council were formed in 1978 ( 91). There are some suggestions of class conflicts as the Community Homophile Association of Toronto (CHAT), the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) and key business leaders felt alienated by TBP’s more radical postures (45) and a rupture takes place between CHAT and TBP. Peter Maloney the owner of the Club baths withdrew his ads from TBP and refused to allow the magazine to be distributed at the Club Baths – and other baths followed (46). Three issues of Esprit, a glossy business oriented and respectable gay publication, were produced in the mid 1970s. This can be seen as a very early prefiguration of the neo-liberal queer. Ken Waxman also wrote about “The Rise of Gay Capitalism,” in Toronto Life in 1976 (65).
But given that the book largely starts in 1974 Tim misses putting this experience of class tensions and struggles into a longer historical context. For instance in Jim Egan’s description of class tensions where “gay life in Toronto in the 1950 and 1960s was on a series of levels, with your opera queens and the highly educated at the top, and the ribbon clerks at the bottom” or Maurice Leznoff’s descriptions of largely class tensions between ‘overt’ and ‘covert’ homosexuals in 1950s Montreal. What began to shift in the 1970s as a result of movement organizing and community formation was that it became possible to be ‘out’ and also to be part of the middle class.
In an article on Columbia’s gay scene Tim developed a useful theoretical perspective related to class. He argued that ‘The greater the class inequality, the harder it was for the glue of sexual orientation to hold community together … Class disparities corroded the possibility of gay solidarity … For me, that meant that gay people had a direct interest in fighting for a society that minimized class disparities” (p. 160).
Later Tim reports that some members of the MCC found the first Toronto Pride march at the end of June in 1981 as “too leftist and too radical” (156). I also remember the red-baiting of GLARE (Gay Liberation Against the Right Everywhere) who initiated the 1981 Pride organizing as “commies” by some business interests which members of the RTPC had to address. With the raid on the Barracks and other baths and bars (in Montreal), and common organizing efforts, the distances between activists and business owners narrowed — at least for a period of time ( 98).
A new business class emerged. The Fraternity was formed in 1989 (286). As Tim describes it “The Fraternity was a place for a new, upwardly mobile strata of professional gay men who were materially benefiting from the neoliberal shift in society” (286). Now they could be out based on the struggles and organizing — like that against the bath raids — that they benefited from. But rather than a broader liberation they just wanted integration as out gay men into the white hetero middle class. Often badly needed skills were concentrated in the social locations of this new largely white and male professional and business strata (289).
As part of this class shift vertical alliances with those in power which led in a more conservative direction came to overshadow the previous horizontal ones with other oppressed groups and unions. Tim notes in the TBP court cases and appeals this shift from horizontal to vertical alliances was “imposed by the realities of having to deal with the courts,” and that vertical alliances benefit most those with class privilege (462). In one of the earliest human rights struggles for John Damien who was fired for being gay once the case was entangled in a legal battle “activists were outgunned” (53). This campaign raised broader concerns over problems with the legal terrain and also about dependence on mainstream media coverage.
Tim writes that rights demands facilitated vertical alliances with those in power versus horizontal alliances (40) although some of this organizing combined both horizontal and vertical forms of organizing making them harder to distinguish. In part this depends on how rights are fought for, but there are also limitations in the formal character of many rights approaches. George Smith’s approach of ‘documents and demonstrations’ bridges this divide pointing to the need to always be grounded in demonstrations and political confrontation with ruling regimes that leads to analysis of how problems are socially organized while also stressing the importance of credible documents demanding change from ruling institutions.
White gay men were already present inside the state apparatus and professions and now some of them could be ‘out’ (308). Tim reports that in this context “Our community became a niche market. Its professional/managerial sectors are especially coveted because of their disposable income. Corporations fall over themselves to demonstrate they are gay friendly, empowering homonationalist voices” (462). This had an important impact on the movement and our communities — “When those higher up the social ladder came out, their resources, skills, and connections allowed their investment in the status quo and the nation to dominate the movement” (463). Tim argues that “Gay rights had no discernable effect on the corporate bottom line; and lesbian and gays, especially the marrying kind, had been admitted to full citizenship in the nation. Gay rights had become a marker of civilization, that even conservative politicians could deploy” (419-420).
Tim notes important problems including that “Our successful struggle against the repressive state was accompanied by the dismantling of protective state institutions. As a result our legal equality has come hand in hand with substantive inequality that, in turn, cuts across and divides our community. The dominant voices in our communities, revelling in their new acceptance, now echo the dominant voices in our society” (456).
Tim elaborates that “Like most model minorities, our leadership is made up of those most successful by the standards of the wider society. They speak for us, manage our community affairs, and discipline those whose behaviour is unacceptable. In return they derive status as our leaders, represent us in elite gatherings, market us to large corporations and deploy us as a political constituency” (464). When liberal rationalism he writes “is stripped of empathy, success can only be measured by dollars accumulated” (465). And “For white professionals, LGBTQ identity was the ticket to the party [while] others still find themselves carded at the door” (466).
Later on he reports that the Occupy movement was successful in drawing attention to growing inequality but also that no major lesbian or gay organization supported it as ‘gay’ politics was no longer associated with fights against social and economic inequality (438).
Kyle Rae: From gay left activist to neoliberal queer
Tim provides the basis for tracking out the trajectory of Kyle Rae, as an important gay figure in Toronto. Rae started off as a member of Gay Liberation Against the Right Everywhere (GLARE), a left activist anti-right wing gay group that I was also involved with which Tim refers to on a few occasions, and a founding member with other members of GLARE of the Lesbian and Gay Pride Day Committee. He then becomes the director of the 519 Church Street Community Centre and uses this as a stepping off place for becoming a City Councillor. He moved from being associated with the New Democratic Party (Canada’s former social democratic party) in a more neoliberal direction eventually opposing the homeless, poor people and sex workers. After retirement he became a consultant for the development and building industry.
Rae’s time as a City councillor was marked by a growing social inequality and gentrification that included the rapid development of condos and higher rents in downtown areas and the ‘gay village’ (the Church-Wellesley area) but also by more homeless people and panhandlers – including homeless youth (365). Richard Florida a guru of neoliberal urban development referred to the importance of “the creative class”(415). Upwardly mobile and gentrifying gays were defined as a key part of this ‘class.’ The led to discussions of a gay index and particular constructions of gay as white and middle class. As Tim points out “Gay tolerance was used to brand Toronto as a modern, progressive place with the hope of political and economic gain” (416).
Shortly after Rae was elected as a city councillor in 1991 a community liaison police committee was formed (308) which established the police foot patrol for the Church-Wellesley area. This was a foot patrol that had a visible presence and could demand information from “undesireables” in the area. This included men having sex in the park beside the 519 (365). A few years later the Steps where people used to congregate on Church Street were closed down “to discourage the wrong kind of people from loitering” (365). The Church Wellesley Police Advisory Committee reflected the concerns of those who could afford to live or own property in the Village. Tim is describing what I see as the real estate construction of class in relation to these police liaison committees. Rae stated that “the protection of the residential neighborhood comes first” (366) with his defence of real estate interests and values.
The police raided The Bijou club in 1999 leading to the formation of the June 13th Committee to protest the raid and to defend those arrested. Rae broke with the June 13th committee stating “the world isn’t 1981 anymore, but there’s a bunch of dinosaurs who can only react one way”( 346). Brent Hawkes, of MCC, adopted a similar position. As Tim points out “Rae and Hawkes tended to downplay the seriousness of police actions” (366). With the Pussy Palace police raid in 2000 on a lesbian bath house Rae was humiliated and furious (367).
Rae was initially supportive of QuAIA’s participation in the Toronto Pride parade. He later changed his position and came to support a ban on QuAIA’s participation when some City politicians threatened Pride funding if QuAIA participated (422).
TBP Struggles — sexual libertarianism, racism and the death of TBP
As noted Tim was centrally involved in TBP and his reflections on this involvement are an important part of the book. Tim approvingly quotes TBP collective member Ken Popert’s insightful analogy that “bars and baths are to the gay movement what factories are for the labour movement” (161). Although an important insight the working class is not only organized in factories – central have also been community-based struggles and struggles over social reproduction, including gender and sexual struggles. For queers bars and baths are crucial gathering places for mobilization but what about the streets which have been central in Stonewall and the resistance to the bath raids and the extensive organizing by queer and trans workers in waged workplaces and unions. Also while workers try to seize the means of production/reproduction in factories and other work places queers cannot simply seize control over bars and baths. Queer and worker struggles can come together in struggles to transform workplaces, communities and in the eroticization of everyday life.
There were suggestions at times in TBP that the baths are a form of sexual communism, including in some of Tim’s own writing. Tim referred to “the baths as the highest stage of sex under capitalism” and he responded to critiques writing that “Many people thought I was being a gay chauvinist and missed the reference to Lenin” (160) This was a reference to Lenin’s Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Tim in an important self-criticism writes “it would take awhile before I figured out that this ‘sexual communism’ also had its own economy. Not all signs of social difference could be discarded with one’s clothes, and social differences also marked differences in sexual ‘value’” (148). Later he tells us that “Stripping down to a towel might temporarily occlude class, and sexual attraction might transcend age in the baths. But such factors were no less constitutive of the identities of gay men than they were anyone else’s”( 164).
Underestimation of relations of social power led to rather libertarian approaches in the pages of TBP. In the 1980s major struggles broke out in relation to TBP regarding sexual libertarianism, feminism and racism. Sexual libertarianism is an approach that simply wants to free sexual desire from external constraint. The growing sexual libertarianism in TBP generated a series of problems.
TBP published an ad for Red Hot Video in 1983 at the very same time it was the target of a major feminist campaign against violence against women in hetero porn. I helped to draw together a feminist and queer activist protest letter in response. The Gays of Ottawa (GO) Centre stopped carrying TBP as a result (188). Tim writes that the earlier distinctions between libertarian and liberating politics were left behind in discussions within the collective. The publication of the ad heightened the polarization and tension within our communities (183).
This also led up to the publication of the racist classified ad for a black houseboy in 1985 which was denounced by queers of colour and many others. Tim critiques Ken Popert’s position that “desire is inviolable” as “narrow and short-sighted libertarianism.” He reports that Chris Bearchell, also a member of the collective, characterized this position as a denial of social power (219). In my view TBP was unable to recover from this decision and the impasse sexual libertarianism led it into.
In Oct. 1986 Tim left the collective. The next year a small group decided to close TBP. Tim was justifiably angry since the paper was not simply the collective’s property. In my view TBP died from class, race and gender conflicts as well as financial difficulties and running out of steam. As Tim writes “While such radical liberal politics had always been part of the message, forgotten was analysis. Power, gender, and race. The role of capitalism. How social structures and sexuality interact to support each other. The gay movement as part of a broader struggle for social justice. Such insights had always been part of the paper’s early pages” (237). This was precisely because of the paper’s gay liberationist roots. Tim’s critique of sexual libertarianism is very important but could go deeper and further. I return to this later.
EGALE and the Charter.
The Charter, and especially its equality rights section, marked an important shift in Canadian state and legal formation. Laws could be challenged if they seemed to violate equality rights (Section 15) for various groups – although at first not for LGBT people. Tim details some of the impact of the Charter on shifting relations in organizing. EGALE (initially Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere) was formed in 1986. with a lobbying and legal focus after section 15 of the Charter came into effect (234). The Court Challenges Program provided funding for equality rights cases — “The turn to the courts reflected impatience with the slow rate of political change, and the perception that the Charter opened a window of opportunity” (253).
This legal strategy also shifted the character of organizing “But if going to the courts seemed the path of least resistance, it also shifted the leadership of the rights movement. There was less need to mobilize people to put pressure on governments.. Professionals would do the job in the courts. … the 1990s would learn to value legal opinions and those who could donate money to pay legal fees” (272). As Tim describes in the 1990s there was a “re-assertion of liberal individualist values as the battles of the 1980s receded into history” (334). There was an increasing focus on the courts and the Court Challenges program helped to support this — “But the parameters of their arguments were bounded by the logic of the courts. They could argue for equal benefits, but they could not argue for a different kind of benefits regime to overcome social inequality … it was hard to dispute the logic of litigation and the demand for equality” (348). This was an important part of the transition toward the neoliberal queer.
However, as Tim also points out that “for those not in a similar situation, without benefits to share, or whose relationships were not sufficiently similar to straight ones to benefit from equality, progress remained symbolic”(348). Some people were left behind in the acceptance of these social forms. There was a queer critique of these limitations by historian Steven Maynard and others (368) but this was unable to dislodge the legal equality approach. Tim writes that “Though the legal approach won benefits for normative same-sex couples, it was less affective in dealing with other queer issues” (368), such as sexual policing and Canada Customs censorship of queer materials.
Relationship Recognition, Spousal Benefits and “throwing the poor under the bus”
After winning basic human rights protection on the provincial level activists and lawyers moved to a focus for spousal benefits and relationship recognition before the focus on marriage. Regarding Karen Andrews, who waged one of the first of these legal battles Tim points out that “Growing material inequality increased pressure for relationship equality” (234).
The Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario (CLGRO) which was (one of the last surviving liberationist inflected rights groups from the 1970s) organized a potentially transgressive conference called On Our Own Terms in 1989 (268). As Tim describes it this was an attempt to adopt a middle course in these debates but this was superseded by legal responses. There was an influx of lawyers, civil servants and other professionals into CLGRO who were committed to relationship recognition but not to liberation politics or sexual liberation (285). CLGRO’s relationships working group split off to form the Campaign for Equal Families. Liberationists were outnumbered in this campaign. The Campaign rejected CLGRO’s “initial demand that people be able to opt out of relationship categories that they rejected”(324). Instead these relationship categories would be imposed on us.
AAN! was concerned that “it would mean that if two people were deemed to be in a relationship and one was on social assistance in order to get a drug card, that person might lose benefits and as a couple, their joint income had to be considered”(324). This had major class and poverty implications. Tim quotes an insightful critique by Patricia Lefebre who pointed out that “for those whose main source of income is social assistance, the recognition of same sex spouses will represent a reduction in benefits received” (325). Tim points out that “The extension of benefits meant little to those who had no benefits at all. For very poor queers on social assistance, the ultimate recognition of gay and lesbian relationships was actually economically detriminental” and “Gay rights became about each individuals right to pursue happiness within existing social arrangements” (460). Tim correctly notes that “In the scramble for equality the poor were being thrown under the bus”(325). He notes that “None of this was the concern of the Campaign for Equal Families. The sole focus of the new professional class was to see the legislation passed” (325).
This also helped to construct the stereotype that gays were all privileged white men who had access to benefit plans (325). With the defeat of the family and spousal legislation (Bill 167) “The message the new professional leadership of the movement took from the defeat was clear – community mobilization to influence political action was a dead end” (326). As Tim points out too fatalistically “From then on our fate was in the hands of lawyers “(326).
Marriage Struggles
After the basis for sexual orientation protection was set, and the spousal and family recognition struggles had been engaged EGALE turned to marriage as the central issue and was mostly absent from the raising of the age of consent and censorship struggles (372) including the fight against the youth porn law which was used against artists, hustlers and young queers. They worried that resistance to the youth porn law could undermine struggles for spousal rights, relationship recognition (319) and marriage. EGALE and the associated Canadians for Equal Marriage (CEM) (they had interlocking boards) both put forward liberalism in terms of equality as well as regarding ‘Canadians.’ “ For them ’Equal’ signalled that Canada was a liberal nation.” (382).
Alex Munter of CEM had a patriotic response to the legalization of same-sex marriage arguing that “This is a proud and exciting time to be Canadian. … Today, we affirmed once again our world-wide reputation as a country that is open, inclusive and welcoming”(387) But as Tim points out “in this world of equality, inequality was deepening” (387).
Once same-sex marriage rights were won EGALE tried to figure out what to focus on next. The Tory Harper government cut the Courts Challenges Program (394) bringing to an end a certain era in equality rights legal challenges.
Doug Elliot, a lawyer associated with EGALE organized a $100 a plate soiree in 2007 in honour of retiring chief justice Roy McMurtry (394) who had overseen both the bath raids and charges against The Body Politic. As Tim puts it “But in 2007 all was forgiven, or rather, forgotten” (394). Elliot stated the event was about “truth and reconciliation,” but Tim reports that former TBP collective member Gerald Hannon who had been charged was hoping for a little truth (395). In 2014 EGALE became a trust able to spend only 10% of its funding on political advocacy (449) in a restriction on its political advocacy activities.
James Watt, a key architect in the Tory Mike Harris first election victory and attacks on welfare mothers and people living in poverty, argued within Tory circles that they could not leave same-sex spousal benefits to the actvist left and instead they had to make it a matter of “Canadian values” (364). EGALE decided to give an award to Watt in June 2009. John Baird, a cabinet minister in the Harper government was also a guest at the gala (405). But despite his attacks on our allies and on poor queer people “for EGALE having such a well connected, wealthy and influential friend was what mattered” (405). As Tim points out vertical alliances were taking over the mainstream movement (405).
Referring to Liberal ex-cabinet minister George Smitherman and Kathleen Wynne who became Premier of Ontario in 2013 Tim describes how “Some of ‘our’ people were finally in positions of power … Now we were becoming those in power” (383). Although we very much need to ask which ‘our’ is this there was clearly now a small rich and powerful group of white gay men and some lesbians at the top (383).
Tim describes the impact of neoliberalism on women including the demise of the feminist publication Broadside. He points out how more privileged women were breaking through but many other women were left behind (267).
Early homonationalism
Tim provides some keen observations on the early emergence of tendencies leading towards homonationalism. In 1984 there was a controversy over the film Improper Conduct and its focus on repression of gays by the Cuban government. As Tim puts it “This was something quite new for the gay liberation project. We were being deployed in a Cold War battle to discredit America’s enemies” (214) as a “Strange mixture of American patriotism and gayness was in the air” (214). In 1985 the TWA plane hijacking by a Lebanese militia and the holding of more than 100 people including two gay men as hostages led to a patriotic anti-Muslim response among some gays in the USA (214). Following 9/11 even among conservatives gays were seen as less dangerous than Muslims (377). As Tim writes white lesbians and gay men belonged to McWorld and in the ‘war on terror’ “liberals embraced gays into the nation”(377).
Later Tim mentions the Campaign against ‘murder music’ and Jamaica. Here he points to a certain racist approach that singled out Jamaica and reggae as ‘homophobic’(395). He points out that the campaign became very EGALE focussed, a largely white and middle class oriented group. Tim points out that this was not only about homophobia but also racism and colonialism. There are major problems with ‘white’ countries imposing on ‘black’ ‘backward’ countries (398). And this also meant avoiding continuing ‘homophobia’ within Canada.
AIDS and a new professional class
Regarding AIDS organizing and the production of new professional elites, Tim self-critically notes that while he noted race and gender he tended to not take class and poverty into account. (277). He cites George Smith’s previously mentioned documents and demonstrations approach, but inflects this more in the direction of documents and policy develpment. He points out that “Such skills tended to concentrate among those with professional and management training, who in turn tended to be those with more class privilege. That had racial implications, too. So although AAN! was a volunteer-run organization, we still felt pressure to select a more ‘professional’ leadership”(277).
Tim remembers the discussions regarding the proposed merger of the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) and the PWA Foundation from people living with AIDS/HIV. While funding concerns were raised the discussion was about class – “The arguments against merger were all about class. ACT was seen as serving the white, middle class gay population, but Toronto PWA members were largely drawn from the new urban poor including more racialized people” (388). Tim points out that the myth of a common HIV identity had hit underlying class disparities (388).
Tim argues that the AIDS crisis reinforced the need for vertical alliances with the medical profession and state agencies for funding (465). But here he misses out on the anger and rage expressed in groups like the AIDS Coalitions to Unleash Power (ACT UP) groups and early on in AAN! But Tim is right to point out that “The professional class in AIDS and other community institutions became a bridge between the community and power” (463). Tim also reminds us that AIDS wiped out a generation and social memory (463).
In this context “A professional class began to assume leadership” affecting even activist groups like AAN! (459). This was even more the case with more established gay men and lesbians in the Campaign for Equal Families (459). The courts and legal actions helped to cement this influence and as Tim points out “In the process of transforming laws, we transformed ourselves” (460).
Pride and the QuAIA wars.
Despite its political roots in Toronto in the resistance to the bath raids Pride Toronto also went through a neoliberal transformation. By the 1990s community and activist groups were priced out of participation in the parade as “Forging vertical alliances with business was the solution.” (361) put forward to funding problems. While there were previous forms of government funding the first major government funding came in 2003. But as one Pride board member remembers “But getting grants meant we started changing the structure to fit the grants … and at the same time staff started making decisions rather than the board” (380).
These pressures led to a shift in composition of the Pride Board with more people added with management and consulting backgrounds (430). The task became “delivering LGBT bodies to corporate branding and advertising and helping the city market itself as a queer-friendly tourist destination” (431). Pride had become a site of homonationalist performance.
This set the state for the wars waged over the participation of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) in Pride Toronto. As Tim points out ”To expose Canada’s strategic ally as an apartheid state was unsetting to the power structure in which Pride wanted to be included and on which it depended for financial survival” (431). The Pride Committee worked to construct Pride as based on high income consumers, bound together by class (431). In response to the attempts to ban QuAIA from Pride the satirical but bitingly political group the Lesbian Billionaries – chanted “Whose Pride? TD [Toronto Dominion Bank] Pride.” They handed out monopoly money asking “Can we buy your Pride? (432).
World Pride was held in Toronto in 2014. This coincided with a police cleanup of poor people and people of colour to create ‘safety’ for white middle class queer people. As Tim put it “World Pride is an inclusive project resting on exclusive material foundations” (452).
As Tim puts it “we have struck a Faustian bargain. The state defends our rights, and the tolerance we experience is deployed as proof that Canada is the liberal country it imagines itself to be. We have become complicit in the nation’s forgetting and the ongoing damage it causes” (456). We need to question who this ‘we’ and ‘us’ are but we also need to resist this social organization of forgetting.
Class, Queer and the Mirage of Community
The rhetoric of ‘community’ hid major differences and struggles within our communities: At one point Tim asserts that the community was becoming institutionally complete (63) which was a particular sociological formulation, but he does not note the critiques of this including that the specificities of our sexual oppression were not addressed in this conceptualization. He suggests that “we were a minority community was just common-sense”(124). This mirage of a common community hides class, race, gender and other divisions. Later as Tim points out “The new leadership was a propertied class, seeking state protection. Those without significant property and with little market value became more alienated” as the politics of ‘community’ obscured class differences (461). Tim traces out how some of this took place — “With the bath raids, both radicals and the petite bourgeoisie were subsumed into the umbrella of community. But gradually, a professional/managerial class became dominant. Without a language to talk about class, it was almost impossible to talk about this process, and the upward class shift that eventually produced homonationalism went largely unnoticed” (461). Although some of us felt there were problems, and felt alienated from the organizing we used to be part of, our critical analysis of this was slow to develop.
Tim correctly points out that queer has an eclectic class basis (469) (but also see Peter Drucker on this). Queer theory and perspectives have provided no unifying theory of a new kind of society. Tim has a good critique of the academic character of much queer theory work and the retreat to the ivory towers (469). As Tim puts it “Queer is also rife with contradictions. It is an anti-identity that simultaneously rejects and reifies identity” (469). He suggests queer has often been shaped by an individualist neo-liberal ethos (469), that among other things displaces class relations and struggles. Tim writes “Queer represents a rejection of the status quo, but has so far been unable to imagine a solution … and its politics tend to be ones of gestures rather than organizing towards concrete goals” (469). While too harsh it also has some accuracy.
Current Dangers
At the end of the book Tim is also quite prophetic about the dangers of moral conservative responses in the years of Trump, Doug Ford in Ontario and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Our rights and gains are not won forever, and can be taken away. Vigilance is always necessary. Tim points out that anti-elite sentiment has been and can be turned against ‘us.’ In contrast to Tom Warner’s title Never Going Back he suggests that “Capitalist rationality will always sacrifice a niche market in order to save itself. A traditionally homophobic social conservatism waits in the wings. What are the conditions that could once gain propel it into power? Are we who surfed so long on the wave of liberalism now in danger of being caught in its dangerous undertow?” (468). These are important questions although this formulation minimizes the significance of our own movements and struggles. Did we simply surf along on a wave of liberalism or did our struggles and the alliances we built participate in making these victories.
Tim also raises important questions regarding capacity – “The problem is not so much homonationalism as it is the lack of capacity of the queer left” (470). At the same time making visible and critically analyzing homonationalism can be an important part of building capacities for queer leftists.
While as I have shown there are major contributions in this book there are also important limitations. This is what I examine in the second part of this essay.
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2) Contradictions and Limitations
In my view many of the limitations in the book are related to the theoretical frameworks Tim draws upon. Unfortunately, these theoretical frameworks are not always made explicit. I start with his approach towards values and liberalism.
Values, Liberalism and Neo-Liberalism.
In my view Tim’s analysis places an overemphasis on values. This leads to rather simplistic counterpositions like ‘traditional’ or ‘conservative’ versus ‘liberal.’ Liberalism for Tim is based on the free individual (5). He views liberalism as a revolutionary philosophy but only up to a point. At the same time he does not fully recognize that the free individual of liberalism is based on white male private property ownership, generally tending to miss out on the class dimension of liberalism. The historical and social basis for liberalism included the slave trade, racism, colonialism and patriarchal relations. While Tim points out that the capitalist west benefited from colonialism he does not really flesh out how liberalism was historically bound up with colonialism and imperialism.
While Tim associates liberalism with freedom, he is less clear on what kind of freedom this is According to Marx workers are freely compelled to sell their capacity to labour (5) given they are also separated from the land and the means of production and there is often a very coercive dimension to capitalist ‘freedom.’ Capitalism, for instance, is never simply freedom from state interference – it has never simply been laissez faire. As Corrigan and Sayer in their powerful argument for capitalist state formation as cultural revolution, along with many others, demonstrate legal/state intervention creates the very basis for capitalist social relations. Rather than seeing liberalism as racist and sexist or ‘homophobic’ Tim views liberalism as being forced to accommodate itself with racism (6) and sexism as if it really didn’t want to. He tends to postulate an abstract capitalism (that does not require women’s oppression or racism) rather than a concrete historical capitalism which so far has. He views workers, women and gays and others using liberalism to push forward democratic struggles and moves towards more social justice but he does not see that some of these struggles burst the boundaries of the social form of liberalism. In my view Tim gets lost at times and can get trapped in liberal ideology when he needs to be more critical. He has a rather ideological view of liberalism, where it is removed from the historical and social conditions that bring it into existence. The book would have been stronger with a more critical analysis of the limitations of liberalism.
These are also related to Tim’s reliance on homophobia as the description of queer oppression. Homophobia was at the time (late 60s, early 70s) a very creative reversal of individual/psychological approaches that argued that we were mentally ill. We reversed their attempts to define us a mentally ill arguing that it was “their phobia not ours.” But at the same time this conceptualization carried with it an individualist and psychological focus when it became the theoretical explanation for queer oppression This approach also remains trapped within liberalism while formulations like institutionalized heterosexuality, heterosexism or heterosexual hegemony more clearly get at the social and institutional character of our oppressions.
Tim also needed to go further in disentangling liberalism and neoliberalism. He often tends to conflate them together or to reduce neoliberalism too much to liberalism. Instead neoliberalism is a historical synthesis of conservative and liberal approaches in support of capitalist social relations attempting to restore corporate profit rates and capitalist class power in response to the global cycle of struggles coming out of the 1960s that challenged capitalist profitability and social relations. At the same time he does point out that Pinochet’s terror in Chile was the first great experiment in neoliberalism” (340). He also points out in a comment referring to South Africa but more generally applicable that “with one hand neoliberalism offered individual rights; with the other it took away most people’s ability to enjoy them” (346). Here Tim shows insight into the distinction between formal rights which neoliberal capitalism can sometimes grant and the substantive rights which are actually denied to people.
While Tim places an emphasis on materialism this is for him more about where people’s ideas come from (4) rather than on how people make/produce the social world which is crucial to Marx’s approach. In my view he also has an inadequate analysis of capitalism which he largely views as simply ‘the economy.’ He largely draws on political economy readings of capitalism even though Marx developed a critique of political economy. This unfortunately means that Tim often does not view capitalism as a social relation, based on class relations and struggles — that is made by people, including through our struggles and resistance against capital.
Related to this Tim also has an inadequate analysis of essentialism, the view that in this case sexuality is biological or innate in character as opposed to the social and historical making of sexuality approach that I support. Essentialism was buttressed Tim suggests when the “the notion of gay people as a stable minority had become widely accepted” (125). Tim suggests that “This was a variation on a yet older debate about whether nature or nurture was primarily responsible for human behaviour” (125). To see these debates as simply replays of a nature/nurture clash is not to see how feminist biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling and others point out how the physiological is transformed socially and historically. This breaks down the rigid boundaries between ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ allowing us to see how the physiological provides a basis for the social and historical and how the social and historical transforms the physiological. Tim does note that essentialism often informs more assimilationist approaches. Perceptively he points out that identity needed to be learned (29), which could have provided a good basis for a critique of essentialism that he does not really engage in.
Socialism And Maoism
Tim’s description of socialism is rather weak. He suggests socialism accepted liberalism but is also more than liberalism in a hurry (7). Socialism took liberalism further to pose not simply formal but substantial social equality including extending democracy into the realm of the ‘economy’( 6). This is similar to feminism which he sees as also extending to substantive equality. He does not detail the different currents within socialism and anti-capitalist organizing but does refer to the ‘socialist bloc’(7) of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China.
This reminds me of what Tim used to tell me in the 1970s in response to questions about Stalinism (Stalin was a ruling figure in the USSR from the 1920s until the 1950s). He would use Mao’s quote that Stalin “was 70% good and 30% bad.” I was never sure he was being entirely serious. In my view the USSR and China both became bureaucratic class societies of a new kind in which the Communist Parties used Marxism-Leninism as an ideology to rule over workers and peasants. Tim also tells us that in the USSR there were contradictory responses to homosexuality. In 1917 homosexual practices were decriminalized but they were recriminalized in the 1930s when more traditional, nationalist values came to the fore (7). He misses Stalinism as a counterrevolutionary response here which mobilized these traditional, nationalist values.
Tim later writes that “Socialism collapsed” (468). By this he means that the ‘socialist bloc’ collapsed – what I would see as the bureaucratic class societies. He views the world as now divided between authoritarian versions of capitalism (including China) with repressive power and less authoritarian ones like Canada which enforce compliance through consumer goods (468). Here he limits the possible horizons of social transformation. There no longer seems to be any real beyond to capitalist relations. But in my view there are always alternatives that can provide us with more hope in our struggles.
Tim draws much of his analytical insight from his reading of Maoism – especially the centrality of primary and secondary contradictions and right and left opportunism (58). He took most of the theoretical justification for this out in the final version of the book. Primary and secondary contradictions are not very dialectical, and can be rather mechanical. This can lead to a focus on what is seen as the primacy contradiction and the minimization of these secondary contradictions. In the Chinese experience this led at times to the subordination of the class struggle to the national liberation struggle. This kind of usage seeps through in in a number of places in the book leading to the subordination of class and class struggle at times. In other contexts this same approach has led parts of the left to simply focus on class subordinating other forms of oppression to narrow notions of class.
In Queer Progress this also leads to viewing the queer struggle as one for democratic rights uniting different class forces and separating this from broader class struggles as in Tim’s account of some of the discussions within the Gay Marxist Study Group. The study group was involved in mobilizing support for U of T library workers when they fought for sexual orientation protection in the mdi-70s (55). The Revolutionary Marxist Group pushed for an action orientation on the part of the group that moved beyond human rights. Tim argues that “The rest of us argued for a clear distinction between struggles for democratic rights [ie in this view what the gay struggle was all about] … and revolutionary struggles”(57). My memory is that a number of people in the group adopted an intermediate positon not clearly taking up either of these sides. In my view this position that the gay struggle was only about democratic rights also could help to facilitate the emergence of the neoliberal queer implying that since there is nothing anti-capitalist about the gay struggle we could accommodate ourselves with capitalist relations.
Tim also misuses opportunism at times He describes not only social democracy and the NDP (281) but also the Advocate (65) (a moderate USA gay publication) as right opportunist. But how can this be right opportunism when this is the social and class interests of these groups? He uses left opportunism to critique groups that he feels are too left. For instance at the June 20th 1981demonstation against the continuing bath raids those organizing a sit in at Yonge and Bloor and trying to overturn a police vehicle included marshals (many associated with GLARE) and this was “left opportunism of the worst sort” according to Tim (150) rather than viewing it as the marshals expressing the anger and energy of the action. This also relates to debates over marshalling tactics within the RTPC where Bob Gallagher and others felt that marshals should be keeping the demo together and safe but also expressing or animating the energy and will of the action. This was very different from a more external notion of marshalling as almost a form of ‘policing’ the demonstration.
Later in AAN! Tim reports on how attempts to address the specific needs of women and people of colour regarding AIDS, and to adopt a more general meeting as opposed to steering committee based group was “similar to the left opportunist Trotskyist tactics of the early 1980s”(271). There is a certain false counterpositon here of the needs of people living with AIDS/HIV for treatment access and the abstraction of this away from class, race, gender and other social relations. Later AAN! would more seriously address many of these questions.
Early Gay Liberation and the Human Right Strategy
Tim skips important experiences by largely starting in 1974 when he comes out. The portrayal of early gay liberation in the book is a rather disparaging caricature. Queer Progress “tries to understand how broader social forces selected particular strategies from the confused primeval muck (my emphasis added) that was gay liberation and reshaped the character and significance of LGBT communities”(9). Later he writes that “The revolutionary phase of gay liberation turned out to be a kind of Higgs boson created after the initial big bang of Stonewall, essential to what was to come later, but too ephemeral and unstable to last for more than a flash”(27). Not only is this dismissive of early gay liberation but he also uses the language of broader social forces selecting out from gay liberation what was significant. This structuralist sounding language seems to be outside of our movements/communities gesturing towards external social forces making decisions about our lives. Questions are raised for me here about agency and resistance and also about who does this selecting? The social mediations linking local and broader social relations are not fully fleshed in, and social struggles that are very apparent in Tim’s day to day accounts tend to disappear in his writing on broader social forces and determinations.
Tim does not note that this early gay liberation wave was part of the broader cycle of struggles growing out of the 1960s and into the early 1970s.—including anti-colonial, anti-war, youth, student, and Black movements, working class insurgencies and the feminist and gay revolts — that burst the boundaries of Keynesianism provoking the neo-liberal capitalist response. When this cycle of struggle started to decompose this left gay liberation isolated undermining the basis for its politics. As Tim suggests “But the revolution never came” (456). He suggests that “even by 1974 they [the demands of gay liberation] were beginning to seem utopian and naïve” and by this year Gay Liberation Fronts had “given way to more practical forms of organizing” (27). Here he does not fully see that this wave of gay liberation laid the basis for what was to come later. He even argues that “Despite its radical claims gay liberation was grounded in liberal values” (35). Gay liberation was never monolithic and contained a number of different currents but it included currents who actively supported the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam (from where the GLF name was derived) and the Black Panther Party. Tim does note that gay liberation did link ‘homophobia’ to capitalism (7).
Gay liberation combined more individual and collective currents, including those more interested in social support and initial social services. As Tim suggests there were important tensions between gay liberation and the broader gay community (35). But he also argues that “The revolutionary rhetoric of early gay liberation didn’t actually give you much to do, except to recite it as a kind of catechism” (38). Where exactly this comes from is not entirely clear since this misses much of the actual activities of gay liberation. Early gay liberationists engaged in zaps of heterosexual events, organized gay contingents in anti-Vietnam war demonstrations, engaged in gender fuck, organized dances and other social activities, and set up coming out groups and phone lines. Sometimes these groups tried to use the feminist method that the personal is political moving from personal experiences to analyze broader social relations.
One of the major areas of focus of early gay liberation was to challenge psychiatric and psychological definitions of our lives which at this time were a major means of regulation. The first major success of gay liberation was in getting the American Psychiatric Association following a series of zaps and disruptions to change its position on homosexuality as a mental illness in 1973. Tim tends to underestimate the significance of psychiatric and psychological regulation, and the shift that was going on in the context of the 1969 reform from criminal to psychiatric/psychological forms of regulation where ‘private’ homosexuality was transferred to these forms of medical and professional regulation. Tim seems to assume that these professions are liberal in character since they focus on the individual but at the time these were central forms of oppression. In more limited ways this continues with the resistance to conversion therapy directed at queer and trans youth.
Sometimes Tim notes the influence of gay liberation but not analytically. For instance, he characterizes Carl Whitman’s early manifesto based on gay liberation being part of and in alliance with other social transformation struggles as foreshadowing ‘intersectionality’ rather than as being rooted in gay liberation politics (26). He also views abolishing the sexual age of consent laws which is rooted in early gay liberation politics as beyond the liberal appeal to equality (51). But early gay liberationists pointed to problems with protective legislation including through the construction of exclusions and incapacities for young people and were clear in their defence of the sexual rights of young people. Instead Tim seems rather confused by this as some sort of anomaly. He argues that “Civil rights was taking off. Abolition of the age of consent was an outlier to the logic of equality”(52). The continuing presence of abolishing the age of consent laws can instead be seen as a residue of earlier liberationist politics which had not yet entirely disappeared.
Regarding the 1971 We Demand demonstration on Parliament Hill which was initiated by Toronto Gay Action, a group informed by gay liberation politics, Tim suggests they used civil rights as default (38-39). Certainly the demands raised for the federal state were about the repeal of repressive laws and to some extent civil rights but the demands were also directed against the national security purge campaigns of thousands from the public service and military and more centrally the limitations of the liberal 1969 criminal code reform. The cover letter for the demands included regarding the 69 reform that “In fact, this amendment was merely recognition of the non-enforceable nature of the Criminal Code as it existed, Consequently, its effects have done but little to alleviate the oppression of homosexual men and women … in our daily lives we re still confronted with discrimination, police harassment, exploitation and pressures to conform which deny our sexuality.” Tim argues that “This was a call for equality, not revolution, a demand that liberal rather than conservative principles organize the logic of sexual regulation” (39). While there is some accuracy to this it was also opposed to the liberal strategy of sexual regulation/policing. In my view Tim’s overemphasis on the character of ideas leads him to not see how this was opposed in practice to the liberal sexual regulatory strategy of Wolfenden and 69 and why therefore this protest on national security grounds was under RCMP surveillance.
Out of the breakup of gay liberation emerges the human rights strategy that focuses on getting sexual orientation protection put into human rights legislation. This strategy was put forward by Brian Waite (39) who was involved in Toronto Gay Action, TBP and the League for Socialist Action (LSA) (40). In doing this Brian Waite was applying to the gay question the LSA single issue mass action strategy, which believed that a low level of political demands tied to a mass action approach would serve to mobilize and radicalize people. Tim suggests that by the mid -1970s the civil rights strategy was just ‘common-sense”(39). He basically asserts the the gay struggle is a struggle against discrimination which can fit within liberal capitalism (94). While this is accurate to an extent the queer struggle can raise much more than this including through challenging central aspects of state, legal, familial, gender and sexual regulation.
The breakup of early gay liberation also saw the emergence of lesbian feminism in response to sexism from gay men and heterosexism from straight women.
Lesbians and Lesbian Feminism
A central weakness of the book is its inability to fully engage with lesbian oppression and experience and with lesbian feminist politics. While there are valuable attempts to include these there are also major difficulties with lesbian and feminist organizing and experience. Here Tim is clearly an outsider and he uses a different voice when addressing these experiences. I urged Tim to say the focus was on gay, queer men. He notes that lesbian politics came from a different place (31) but is unable to fully paint this into his analysis. He writes about how experiences of sexism are quite different (66). He also misses how despite its limitations lesbian feminism was a block to neoliberal ‘penetration’of lesbian/gay community formation and how opposition to institutionalized heterosexuality was central to lesbian feminism. He mentions the incomprehension of women’s issues by the majority of gay men, and how the right to have sex is different from the right to have abortions and birth control and not to be sex objects (67). This means that the right to control our bodies is meant differently.
I provide a few examples here. At the 1976 Toronto conference there were discussions on womens and gay liberation. My ‘rambling’ motion which Tim mentions was actually about support by the National Gay Rights Coalition (NGRC, the cross country gay and lesbian rights coalition) for the demands of the feminist movement (71) and not just for lesbian struggles and autonomy. These demands were pretty clear and well established by the feminist movement by this time. Tim argues that the Revolutionary Marxist Group (RMG) intervention was ‘left opportunist.’ Perhaps, and I have my own critiques of what we did, but in relying on TBP coverage he denies the role of other lesbians, especially those from The Other Woman (a Toronto based feminist publication in which a number of lesbians were active) in the protest of the defeat of this motion. He reports that “RMG members had already stormed out of the plenary, they soon returned with a group of angry women who had been told that the conference had refused to endorse lesbian issues” (22). But the women who left the plenary were not only members of the RMG.
While there is some discussion of lesbian autonomy (68) there are only two references to the important 1970s struggle over 50% lesbian control of decision making. Tim writes that “It came in the context of yet another battle around lesbian participation when a motion calling for a prorating of lesbian votes to fifty per cent was defeated. No consensus was possible on how to balance the unequal numbers and interests of lesbians and gay men” (90). But this motion had been passed the year before at the conference in Saskatoon and was the basis for organizing in Saskatoon and Saskatchewan. Later he notes that Prairie groups left the NGRC/CLGRC over the question of lesbian participation (107).
At times Tim also overemphasizes the impact of anti-porn feminism. It seems at times as if almost all feminists were anti-porn and pro-state censorship when positions were actually more diverse than this. In the feminist sex wars there was a strong ‘pro-sex’ feminism that was often more socialist feminist in character. But instead of allying with these feminists many gay men built alliances with gay business interests (127).
Demographic stats?
There is a certain reliance on demographic stats in Queer Progress in addressing questions of racialization and class. Tim’s first reference reports that in 1971 96% of greater Toronto was of European ancestry and that the majority were ‘middle-income” (middle class?) (21). While useful the implications seems to be that in the early 70s racism was not a major issue given the lack of people of colour in Toronto at that time. I disagree with the possible suggestion that racism is only a problem when people of colour or Indigenous people are present especially given the white settler colonial character of Canadian state formation — which Tim notes later – and the pervasive social making of whiteness at the centre of Canadian society.
During the early and mid-1970s there was organizing going on in Toronto in support of Indigenous people including opposition to the mercury poisoning of people in Grassy Narrows (still continuing), opposition to the deportation of American Indian Movement member Leonard Peltier (1976) and to the deportation of Rosie Douglas in 1976 who was active in the Black Workers Alliance.
Also class here seems to be based on income levels and not in a relation to production and reproduction. This is not a Marxist class analysis. Later he reports that “The city’s demography had changed. By the early 1980s the ‘visible minority’ population had already increased to more than 12 per cent. Yet the police force was still lily white” (151). Was the problem simply that it was not representative? The problems with the police were broader than this. Later he reports that ‘visible minorities’ at the end of the 80s were 25%.of the population (267), and even later that there were more people of colour and more precarious employment (389).
Keynesianism and Identity Politics
Regarding Keynesianism as mentioned earlier Tim paints too rosy an analysis somewhat similar to those parts of the moderate and social democratic left who long for a return to Keynesianism. He tends to view it as a capitalist accommodation to socialism where class disparities decreased (8), leaning towards Keynesian theories of the convergence of socialism and capitalism. But Keynesianism was a pro-capitalist response to a mass wave of struggles for workers needs and rights and against poverty and was also built on exclusions and partial inclusions including of immigrants, migrants, people of colour, Indigenous people, people living in poverty, women, and queers. As one indication of this he sings the praises of the Rand formula for union recognition and dues payments but he does not detail the significant worker and union struggles that led up to this (21-22). These regulations also placed restrictions on union and working class struggles, that young workers in the late 60 and early 70s rebelled against.
Tim also suggests that in “a society where class disparities decreased identity politics emerged.” (8). Instead this can be seen as other aspects of class oppression/exploitation becoming more visible in these contexts, especially those aspects of class experience that were excluded from recognition within the Keynesian ‘welfare state.’ And these aspects of class experience like race and gender oppression were not always articulated to class in any narrow sense. But these ‘identity-based politics’ did not disappear with neoliberalism but continued and intensified under neo-liberalism as they were often entirely separated from class relations as with the generation of white middle class layers of women or middle class white gay men who came to define certain versions of feminist and gay politics.
Sexual Libertarianism: Needing to go further with the critique
At one point Tim argues that “As society became more equal, recreational sex and emotional attachment were becoming independent, and capital was flowing in to meet and amplify the former … Because gay men were not divided by gender inequality, our male income privilege put us at the forefront of this development”(160). A series of questions can be raised here about class, race and gender forms of inequality and the social making of sexualities as well as the relation of this to the emergence of the neoliberal queer.
In response to the porn wars there is as mentioned earlier the development of a sexual libertarian perspective. Tim writes that Gerald Hannon of TBP in debates on porn “opted for the liberal free market and political discussion to shape consumption patterns” and more generally that “gay men’s alliance with those suspicious of the state pulled us in more liberal and libertarian directions” (90). This led to the defence of business interests and opposition to state interference. This position also constructed feminists as supporting state intervention (162). This position is related to some of the political problems with TBP including sexual libertarianism and the publishing of the Red Hot Video ad and the racist houseboy ad mentioned earlier. In my view Tim does not fully see the relation between these developments. Sexual libertarianism can also facilitate the making of the neoliberal queer through eclipsing mediations with other forms of oppression and relations of social power leading in an anti-feminist and racist direction.
As Tim points out the ‘sexual turn’ that focused on the importance of individual desire had a number of impacts (185).While it helped overcome differences with gay business this approach became less sensitive to women and alliances with other oppressed people and “elevating sexual desire to the centre of community formation potentially alienated those who found themselves excluded from these circuits, since it appeared to put sexual desire above criticism” (185). Here he begins to critique Ken Popert’s argument that “Gay liberation before anything else stands for the integrity and inviolability of sexual desire”(186). Beyond its sexual libertarianism this is also an essentialist approach to sexual desire. It is also based on a social determinism with Popert’s argument that “Racism will go out of our sexuality when racism goes out of our society” (186). Denying the feminist method that the personal is political this postpones the struggle against racism in personal social relations until broader social changes have taken place and does not see these as inter-related fronts of the same struggle. Tim suggests that while Popert made “thoughtful points” (186) he was also inflammatory, implying that nothing needed to be done about racism right now and denying personal responsibility (187). Tim notes that “For most white Canadians, however, it was still possible to live in completely white environments” (188). But what does this excuse about the social making of whiteness and white hegemony and hide about the different social standpoints of queer and trans people of colour and two-spirit people? Tim concludes that he agreed with Popert on challenging institutional discrimination “But that didn’t mean that we could ignore the impact of racialized sexuality on individuals and on the community we were trying to build” (189). Tim also notes that “Our whiteness, once invisible, was ever more apparent.” (198). But again who has it been invisible to and what social standpoint is taken up here?
Related to this are questions of gender and ‘masculinization.’ While Tim notes the new clone look including moustaches and the more masculine dress and gender performance of the late 1970s (76) he does not investigate what this ‘masculinization’ entailed for gay men’s relation to gender and to the feminist movement. His reliance on TBP leads in part to displacing a critical gender analysis, and a certain reconciliation with forms of hegemonic masculinities. This can lead to an abandonment of critical gender critique and feminism. But it also moves away from accepting trans experiences in gay men’s community formation (aside from drag as entertainment) as gender became more essentialized. There is a shift here from a critical gender analysis to a focus on individual rights and desire.
This sexual libertarianism also has very contemporary political impacts.
The Ghost of The Body Politic meets the spirit of Black Lives Matter
A symposium was held on the history of The Body Politic in Toronto in 2016. This included scholars and activists and a number of sessions. Panelists Rinaldo Walcott, Lali Mohamed and Syrus Marcus Ware, informed by the emergence of Black Lives Matter, critiqued the racist houseboy ad as well as the white character of TBP. This opened up an explosive discussion on racism in the history of gay and queer organizing but also the racialized and gendered silences at the heart of TBP and much white oriented gay organizing and institution building including archive and history making. At the end of the day a series of challenges and unresolved contradictions remained.
Different kinds of Neoliberalism – Is there a ‘mature’ neoliberalism?
Tim tends to portray transitions in capitalism as relatively smooth. For instance he writes that “Capitalism is flexible. Markets adapt to prevailing conditions like water seeking its level … the shift from Keynesianism to neoliberalism was relatively smooth” (462). Here Tim tends to make the resistance to this shift disappear and there were many forms of active resistance. While Tim tends to focus on non-moral conservative forms of neoliberalism there is also the moral conservative form of neoliberalism. Tim tends to not really see this form as neoliberalism but just as a temporary tactical accommodation of neoliberal forces with conservative and moral conservative forces. He writes that in the late 70s/early 80s “the new right dovetailed perfectly with the small government, free enterprise, anti-union message central to the neo-liberal economic turn” (122).
At the same time he points out how neoliberal capitalist marketing and consumer capitalism can undermine moral conservative pro-family positions (122). This is an important contradiction but this moral conservatism was also a central vehicle for discipline and a focus on law and order which is central to all forms of neoliberalism. He argues that “While at first neoliberalism needed a populist social conservatism to displace the old Keynesian order once in power, a more mature neoliberalism could dispense with such embarrassing bedfellows” (465). He suggests that “Much of the corporate world, once synonymous with racism and homophobia, now calculated that inclusion was more rational and profitable” (451) and that in neoliberalism “People were to be judged by capacity to produce or consume, not by extraneous factors such as race, gender or sexual orientation” (465). But neoliberalism has so far always been a gendered and racialized politics and race, gender and sexuality are never simply extraneous to actually existing capitalism. Tim also does not raise the problems with ‘inclusion’ here especially on whose terms but he does realize that capital wants more ‘productive’ (for them) workers, even if they are women, queer or trans.
He writes that as neoliberalism developed “neoliberalisms alliance with social conservatives was less necessary and at times downright embarrassing. In many cases, social conservatives and right wing positions seemed so extreme and out of touch with consolidating liberal values that they became a liability. Social conservatives were relegated to an opposition role” (282). He even argues that “on a political level, neoliberalism was the wave that carried forward our push for our rights” (465) and “An international rift was widening between social conservative repression and neoliberal inclusion of homosexuality” (420). This underestimates the importance of our own struggles and instead agency is transferred to this neoliberal wave and how moral conservative neoliberalism actively impeded progress for queer and trans people is minimized.
Tim reports John Baird’s comment as a Conservative cabinet minister regarding anti-homosexual legislation in Uganda in 2009 that “It offends Canadian values. It offends decency” (419), reporting that “neoliberal policies again trumped social conservatism” (419). But even socially conservative forms of neoliberalism are shaped by homonationalism and we need to ask whether this ‘inclusion’ is ever enough? While Tim often notes the impacts of our struggles in his general or overall analysis struggle and resistance tends to disappear in his portrayal of broader social forces like neoliberalism. This is an important difference in our analysis. In my view class and social struggles are at the heart of these broader social forces which are based in social relations and struggles between people.
Neoliberalism was never simply about consolidating liberalism and again my sense is that Tim gets taken in too much by the ideology of neoliberalism which he identifies with liberalism. There are not only different forms of neoliberalism but our struggles have an impact on them. Feminist and queer resistance to moral conservative neo-liberalism helped to open up the social space for non moral conservative forms. Tim develops an almost evolutionary theory that while immature neoliberalism was moral conservative that its mature form is no longer as gendered and racialized. But as mentioned neoliberalism, so far anyway, is always gendered and racialized. And now we see the resurgence globally of more moral-conservative forms of neoliberalism in the USA, Russia, Brazil and Ontario. Tim does note some of this: “As mature neoliberalism exploited sexual choice in the West, its authoritarian Russian version hearkened back to the Reagan strategy, using homosexuality as a scapegoat for broader social problems” (447). But now we have these ‘mature’ forms of neoliberialism being replaced by moral conservative and more repressive forms.
Different Homonatonalisms and the QuAIA wars.
Tim correctly points out that homonationalism in Canada is far from homogeneous (466) and that homonationalism requires complicating and social and historical grounding. He argues that we must distinguish between the homonationalism of Tory John Baird and NDPer Libby Davies. Clearly there are major differences here but there are also some common elements. Don’t these common elements of constructing ‘Canada’ as more ‘civilized’ than countries in the global south need to be challenged?
Tim even argues that “We are all complicit in homonationalism. Even the most non-normative queer would not advocate return to an officially homophobic nation … “ (466). Of course, but what Tim misses is that the victories we have won — distorted and limited as they are – are not simply the result of homonationalism but of our own struggles and resistance. Otherwise any victory in our struggles is simply homonationalist in character. While our victories have been shaped by homonationalism and neoliberalism they cannot simply be reduced to them. Often we have struggled in non-homonationalist and non-neo-liberal ways for meeting our needs and desires.
Tim even raises the question that “If we understand that there are different homonationalisms, under what circumstances might it be useful to unite with some against others?” (467). Later he asks “In Canada, should we be organizing to challenge the homonationalist leadership? Or, given that all nationalisms are not the same, negotiate alliances in the face of the possibility of authoritarianism and resurgent homophobia? On what basis can we organize people to have a coherent voice either to break with or negotiate with the homonationalist leadership?” (473). This seems to suggest that sometimes we may need to ally with more ‘liberal’ forms of neoliberalism against moral conservative forms. While we need to take advantage of these contradictions and conflicts we also need autonomy from neoliberalism through opposing both its more ‘liberal’ and moral conservative forms. If we don’t we will simply be used to advance the agenda of the more ‘liberal’ neoliberal forces. And this is what has often been taking place. Currently we see how EGALE which has expressed these kinds of tendencies for decades has allied with the Liberal government around the apology to the LGBTQ2S+ communities, going so far as to give Prime Minister Justin Trudeau its leadership award in 2018 for saying he was sorry decades late. This leads to our communities being used to facilitate the power of Liberal Party homonationalism which does nothing to advance the important struggles of these of us left out of the rights revolution.
Tim refers more specifically to competing homonationalisms in the QuAIA wars within Pride Toronto. He portrays the conflict as between an authoritarian conservative nationalism versus a liberal nationalism defending free speech (466) as politicians and the mainstream media tried to exclude QuAIA from Toronto Pride parades. He suggests that “The community could not be divided into a reactionary homonationalist versus a progressive anti-homonationalist bloc” (437). Instead “The Pride Coalition for Free Speech had a vision of a tolerant nation where the right to free expression was sacrosanct … to defend liberal values… to celebrate Canada as a model for gay inclusion”(437) in what Tim suggests was a ‘liberal’ mobilization of homonationalism. But those opposing QuAIA’s participation were also often mobilizing a homonationalism that celebrated the ‘queer-friendly’ Israeli state that the Canadian ‘queer-friendly’ state supports in opposition to the supposedly ‘homophobic’ and ‘backward’ Palestinians. Unfortunately some in the Pride Coalition who supported QuAIA on ‘free speech’ grounds bought into aspects of this more mainstream pro-Israeli state homonatonalism or at least did not want to support the Palestinian struggle against Israeli Apartheid. As Tim himself points out QuAIA was forced to mobilize free speech arguments to win the fight against being banned (427-428). He points out that “QuAIA’s participation had become normalized .. we had once again found ourselves appealing to the Charter” (439-440). But, however necessary this was, it led to this becoming the central focus for QuAIA’s energies and this led away in practice from gaining more support within the queer and trans communities for support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israeli apartheid.
Conclusions: A must read that needs to be actively read and extended.
There are major insights and limitations in Queer Progress. It is a must read but we must also read beyond its theoretical and political limitations. These limitations include major problems with the language of broader social forces selecting and determining what was to happen to gay liberation; the limited critique of liberalism; and the inability to fully learn from lesbian experience among others. Instead we need an active reading to overcome/push beyond these limitations. These active readings can build on the wonderful concluding quote where Tim writes “channeling Simon Nkodi … in the end, history will judge our communities not by how many friends we had in high places, but by what we did to support social justice for all” (473).
Thanks to Gökbörü Sarp Tanyıldız for his helpful comments.
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