A member of the tribe - last word - Brief Article

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people are archaeologists of obituaries, skilled at digging out hidden histories. AIDS gave my generation a lot of experience in reading between the lines: single man, loved opera, close to his mother, volunteered to feed the homeless. Single woman, loved women's basketball and Melissa concerts, worked construction.

After September 11 we once again had to read closely. A coalition of national and local groups based in New York held a memorial service at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center to honor all the GLBT people who lost their lives or loved ones in the terrorist attacks. My initial reaction was, Why? Throughout New York, every firehouse had become a public memorial. The park at Union Square was a gorgeous temple of thousands of candles, mementos, pictures, and music; strangers bonded through mourning. Why did we need to do this separately?

Maybe my resistance was itself avoidance: The mass murder brought up old feelings of helplessness and anger at the massive loss of life.

At the memorial service, thousands of people jammed into the center, filling every floor as music and remembrance were broadcast via closed-circuit TV. The roll call of names known highlighted the absence of all the names we did not know: lives hidden in the closet, lives like bodies in the wreckage waiting to be unearthed.

As we grieved, my resistance melted away, and I appreciated the space New York's GLBT leadership had created to comprehend this tragedy through the prism of GLBT life. Such a perspective on the events of 9-11 underscores the urgency of the gay rights movement. Consider Bill Randolph, the gay man whose lover worked security at the World Trade Center. The New York Times reported that although he lost his partner of 26 years, he will likely receive little, if any, of the benefits available to surviving heterosexual spouses. He has no legal status. There can be no stronger argument for equal rights for same-sex relationships than the experience of the surviving spouses of GLBT people killed in September's terrorist attacks.

And there are many more points to consider. What about the surviving coparent of a child who lives in a state that does not recognize second-parent adoption? Their right to continue as a parent depends on the goodwill of the deceased partner's family and the bias of local courts. What of the immigrant here on a temporary visa, rounded up and detained for months with no due process under new, invasive immigrant detention provisions? What about the freedom to dissent and offer criticism in this moment of national unity? What of the lesbian soldier serving under the newly suspended but still-in-place "don't ask, don't tell" policy? At the end of the crisis, will it be discrimination as usual?

These and other scenarios complicated by the interaction of sexuality with class and race reveal the unfinished agenda of GLBT politics. Even though gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Americans face enormous human tragedy and rise to its challenge like all other Americans--die heroically, serve our country bravely--we lack full legal or cultural equality. The old power hierarchies remain legally and culturally in place--against us and many others in this country.

But is there new hope in this rare moment of national kindness? Differences--of race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, political ideology--that were so important yesterday seem suddenly shallow, insignificant placed next to our common humanity. I walk down the street and the American flags everywhere no longer seem alienating symbols of all I oppose but now symbolize so much I am proud to claim as an affiliation. It is a disorienting moment for someone like me, who has spent so much time bridging inside and outside, to suddenly seem to be a part of the tribe. Perhaps this new national rhetoric of tolerance will be not a fleeting illusion but a real opening, through which GLBT people can enter a new age that goes beyond mourning.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Liberation Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group