The problem is that in order to be post-gay, lesbians and gay men have to shut down their anger and be "nice."
Post-gay reasoning goes something like this: Now that lesbians and gay men have achieved some rights and visibility, we should try to define ourselves by more than our sexuality.
There should be an end to the insularity of gay culture and a more organic melding of lesbians and gay men with the rest of society. Post-gay advocates also want to see more self-criticism taking place on issues like gay male preoccupation with gym bodies.
Most of these individual points are hardly new. Almost 10 years ago at OutWrite, the national lesbian and gay writers' conference, keynote speaker Edward Albee enraged his audience by branding contemporary gay literature as artistically confining. Almost 20 years ago in "Faggots", Larry Kramer blasted gay men for their alleged obsession with sex and appearance.
And many lesbian feminists of the 1970's and 1980's critiqued what they saw as the one-note politics of gay men and built their own movement based not solely on sexuality but on a range of progressive issues.
If post-gay meant a broadening of lesbian and gay activisim beyond gay civil rights, I'd be on the bandwagon in a minute. I'd love to be part of a post-gay movement that forms coalitions with labor, people of color, and women's groups in order to achieve sweeping social change.
But that's not what the post-gay crowd has in mind. They propose becoming less angry about gay issues instead of becoming more angry about a host of issues.
James Collard, the editor in cheif of "OUT" magazine, wrote in "Newsweek" that an army of angry queers brought the AIDS crisis to national attention. But, he added, it's time to put anger aside, because it "weakens [our] fighting strength by excluding the many gay people who no longer see their lives solely in terms of struggle."
When someone tells me I shouldn't get angry, I tend to get even angrier. Not long ago, when I wrote in my latest book that lesbian and gay men had often been "vilified" by heterosexuals, especially the Christian Right, one of my editors, a lesbian, sent me an e-mail warning me that I was "way too angry."
Her point was that it was ineffective and divisive to get mad at straight people, even those who actively work against lesbians and gay men.
This notion that lesbians and gay men are too angry and too focused on struggling reminds me of the criticism that post-feminist "feminists" starting hurling at the women's movement several years back. According to post- feminists, because women have achieved a certain degree of equality, they should stop being angry, particulary at men.
Christina Hoff Sommers, Kate Roiphe, Camille Paglia and many others made (and continue to make) money and names for themselves deriding feminism as a "victim" mentality. Many young women have latched on to these ideas.
One 20-something wrote in "Esquire" that she and other women just want to "make out with our boyfriends and not worry about oppression"--unaware, it seems, that their sexual freedom was won by angry feminists.
Like post-feminism, post-gay thinking is insular and privileged, an historical, in-crowd dialogue to engage in over cappucino.
What about the lesbians and gay men who are already leading what would technically qualify as post-gay lives? They don't have much connection with gay culture, can't afford or don't want to live in gentrified gay neighborhoods, or don't even know many gay people.
The problem is that many of these people can't come out, for reasons of jobs, family or housing. Their lives aren't post-gay; they're confined by homophobia and discrimination.
Ultimately, you have to have choices in order to choose to be "post" -anything. The fact that so many lesbians and gay men men have to remain in the closet makes me angry. And it's one big reason that a true post-gay era is a long way off.
by Paula Martinac
San Diego Lesbian and Gay Times.