 The AE logo is a riff on the HRC logo signifying a greater than. | |
| Formation | October 2009 |
|---|---|
| Website | www |
Founded in 2009, Against Equality (AE) is an online archive of writings and arts, and a series of books, by queer and trans writers that critique mainstream LGBT politics. [1] AE has focused on issues regarding the institution of marriage, [2] the U.S. military, [3] and the prison-industrial complex via hate crime law [ citation needed ].
Against Equality is an anti-capitalist collective of radical queer and trans writers, thinkers, and artists. [4] [5] AE maintains an online archive of written work and cultural references. AE has also self-published three anthologies that highlight work from the three sections of their online archive. [6] These three anthologies were combined into a single book and was published by AK Press in April 2014. [7]
AE published its first book in the fall of 2010. Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage contains essays and op-ed pieces by prominent queer thinkers, including Kate Bornstein, Eric A. Stanley, Dean Spade, Craig Willse, Kenyon Farrow, Kate Raphael, Deeg, John D'Emilio, Ryan Conrad, Yasmin Nair, MJ Kaufman, Katie Miles, and Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore. [8] Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage ranked sixth on AK Press Distribution's Top 10 of 2010 list. [9]
A.E published the second book, Against Equality: Don’t Ask to Fight Their Wars, in the fall of 2011 and contains a collection of essays and illustrations critiquing the mainstream gay and lesbian politics and its uncritical approach to Don't ask, don't tell. [10] Contributors include Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Kenyon Farrow, Cecilia Cissell Lucas, Yasmin Nair, Erica Meiners, Therese Quinn, Tamara K. Nopper, Larry Goldsmith, Jamal Rashad Jones, Bill Andriette, and illustrator Mr. Fish. [11]
AE published the third and final book in its trilogy, Against Equality: Prisons Will Not Protect You, in the fall of 2012. This book focuses on hate crime law and the prison industrial complex. [12] Contributors include Dean Spade, Jason Lydon, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, Liliana Segura, Jack Aponte, Yasmin Nair, Imani Keith Henry, Sébastien Barraud, Erica Meiners, Liam Michaud, Josh Pavan, and Bridget Simpson. [13]
AK Press released a three-in-one anthology titled Against Equality: Queer Revolution, Not Mere Inclusion in March 2014 that combines the collective's previous three anthologies and includes a new introduction from the collective. [14]
Members of the Against Equality collective have also traveled extensively to speak at bookstores, community spaces, colleges, and universities across the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. [15]
Queer is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender. Originally meaning 'strange' or 'peculiar', queer came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the late 1980s, queer activists, such as the members of Queer Nation, began to reclaim the word as a deliberately provocative and politically radical alternative to the more assimilationist branches of the LGBT community.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is an American LGBTQ advocacy group. It is the largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization within the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the organization focuses on protecting and expanding rights for LGBTQ individuals, most notably advocating for same-sex marriage, anti-discrimination and hate crimes legislation, and HIV/AIDS advocacy. The organization has a number of legislative initiatives as well as supporting resources for LGBTQ individuals.
The Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) is an organization affiliated with the Republican Party which advocates for equal rights for LGBT+ Americans.
LGBT culture is a culture shared by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals. It is sometimes referred to as queer culture, while the term gay culture may be used to mean either "LGBT culture" or homosexual culture specifically.
Gay Shame is a movement from within the queer communities described as a radical alternative to gay mainstreaming. The movement directly posits an alternative view of gay pride events and activities which have become increasingly commercialized with corporate sponsors as well as the adoption of more sanitized, mainstream agendas to avoid offending supporters and sponsors. The Gay Shame movement has grown to embrace radical expression, counter-cultural ideologies, and avant-garde arts and artists.
LGBT slogans are catchphrases or slogans which express support for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities and LGBT rights.
Bash Back! was a network of queer, insurrectionary anarchist cells active in the United States between 2007 and 2011.
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is an American author and activist. She is the author of two memoirs and three novels, and the editor of six nonfiction anthologies.
GetEQUAL was, from 2010 to 2018, an American non-profit organization and advocacy group which advocates for LGBT social and political equality through confrontational but non-violent direct action.
LGBT history in the United States spans the contributions and struggles of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, as well as the LGBT social movements they have built.
Joseph DeFilippis is an American gay-rights and anti-poverty activist, who has served as executive director of two non-profit organizations and worked as a teacher, community organizer and public speaker. He is best known as the founder of Queers for Economic Justice.
Homotopia is an international LGBTQ+ arts festival held annually in Liverpool, England. The festival takes place in late-October and throughout November every year and features a mixture of theatre, dance, film, photography, art, cabaret and debate at numerous venues across Liverpool.
Yasmin Nair is a writer and activist based in Chicago. She is also a co-founder, with Ryan Conrad, of Against Equality.
Karma R. Chávez is a rhetorical critic who utilizes textual and field-based methods and studies the rhetorical practices of people marginalized within existing power structures. She has published numerous scholarly articles and books, including Queer Migration Politics: Activist Rhetoric and Coalitional Possibilities, as well as co-founding the Queer Migration Research Network. She works with social justice organizations and her scholarship is informed by queer of color theory, women of color feminism, poststructuralism, and cultural studies.
Homonationalism is often seen as the favorable association between a nationalist ideology and LGBT people or their rights, but is further described as a systematic oppression of queer, racialized, and sexualized groups in an attempt to support neoliberal structures and ideals. The term was originally proposed by the researcher in gender studies Jasbir K. Puar in 2007 to refer to the processes by which neoliberal and capitalist power structures line up with the claims of the LGBT community in order to justify racist, xenophobic and aporophobic positions, especially against Muslims, basing them on prejudices that immigrants are homophobic and that Western society is egalitarian. Thus, sexual diversity and LGBT rights are used to sustain political stances against immigration, becoming increasingly common among far-right parties. In Terrorist Assemblages, Puar describes homonationalism as a "form of sexual exceptionalism [dependent on the] segregation and disqualification of racial and sexual others" from the dominant image of a particular society, most often discussed within an American framework.
Vancouver's LGBT community is centered on Davie Village. Historically, LGBT people have also gathered in the Chinatown and Gastown neighborhoods. Former establishments include Dino's Turkish Baths, a gay bathhouse on Hastings, and the city's first drag bar, BJ's, on Pender Street.
Kenyon Farrow is an American writer, activist, director, and educator focused on progressive racial and economic justice issues related to the LGBTQ community. He served as the executive director of Queers for Economic Justice, policy institute fellow with National LGBTQ Task Force, U.S. & Global Health Policy Director of Treatment Action Group, public education and communications coordinator for the New York State Black Gay Network, senior editor with TheBody.com and TheBodyPro.com, and co-executive director of Partners for Dignity and Rights. In 2021, Farrow joined PrEP4All as managing director of advocacy & organizing.
Homonormativity is the privileging of heteronormative ideals and constructs onto LGBT culture and identity. It is predicated on the assumption that the norms and values of heterosexuality should be replicated and performed among homosexual people. Homonormativity selectively privileges cisgendered homosexuality as worthy of social acceptance.
Beyond Marriage: Valuing All Families under the Law is a 2008 book about family law reform by the legal scholar Nancy D. Polikoff.
Queer Wars: The New Gay Right and Its Critics is a 2005 book about gay conservatism by the historian Paul A. Robinson. It received both supportive and critical commentary.
