By Michael Schembri
The gay and lesbian communities of Sydney have been mobilising against violence over several years. Dykes on Bikes, and others on foot, patrol Darlinghurst streets. Thousands of whistles have been distributed, to be blown as alarms in case of bashing. Liaison with the police was initiated. A street Watch Report has been published, and anti-lesbian violence is being monitored by the Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby. Following workshops in an inner city high school, a group of students produced a video against anti-homosexual violence. Marches have been organised in Darlinghurst and Newtown. Recently the GLRL set up an Anti-Violence Project.
The response to violence has been varied. Self-mobilisation and self-reliance are carried out side by side with liaison with the authorities. Contradictions are glossed over. But it is time to analyse the positions and implications of the various approaches if an effective strategy is to be worked out which furthers the goals of gay liberation.
Gay liberation is about destroying heterosexism — the ideology that heterosexuality is the norm, and the enforcing of its dominance. Gay liberation is not just about winning minority rights, which leaves us high and dry in a sexual enclave or ghetto. It is about liberating sexuality so that no-one grows up with feelings of guilt, or fears of being sick, bad or inferior.
Most of our responses are aimed at "public" violence. However, there is a generative force behind popular prejudice and hatred. The capitalist state, the churches, schools, the media and other institutions have all diffused the belief that only procreative sex within the confines of the family is normal.
Parliament, government, the legal system, the media, the education system are still geared to the maintenance of the hegemony of heterosexuality, the sexual division of labour and the patriarchal family. They are the instigators of popular prejudice against deviations from the dominant norm.
Our real enemies are the state and its institutions. This necessitates a particular strategy. Public actions against popular violence are called for. It is a fight for public opinion. It is a fight for self-mobilisation and self-reliance. It is a fight for creating alliances with other social and political anti-state, anti-capitalist groups.
Institutions such as the education and legal systems are battlegrounds. Anything that widens democratic gains is to be fought for, whether it is anti-violence education in schools or the decriminalisation of homosexuality.
But little is clear-cut. Getting the police to follow up on bashings is desirable. But having more police on the streets is more problematic, to say the least. More cops means more beats entrapment. While Darlinghurst/Surry Hills/East Sydney may be a showpiece to keep orally strong gay and lesbian population happy, the police force everywhere else is definitely anti-homosexual. Curtailing police powers is certainly on the agenda.
Decriminalisation is fine. No ambiguity with that. But what about legislating against the vilification of homosexuality? Some might think this desirable. On the other hand, doesn't it mean giving the state more power, which ultimately redounds against us? (Not to mention the problem of whether it delivers at all, as in the case of the Racial Vilification Act!)
It is one thing to agitate, demonstrate and lobby for reforms giving us more rights and freedoms. It is quite another thing to seriously compromise our goals of gay liberation for the sake of lobbying. The danger exists of pushing aside, marginalising and abandoning the less mainstream and "acceptable" homosexuals.
What's happened to the major issue of the age of consent (18 in NSW for gay men)? Or shouldn't we rock the boat? What about street kids, sex workers, transsexuals, users of illegal drugs and others? The game becomes dangerous when victims are sacrificed to the god of lobbying — for instance, when police liaison justifies the betrayal of radical and socialist gay and lesbian activists; when lobbying makes it expedient to dissociate oneself from radical actions carried out by militant and/or direct action groups.
A number of guidelines follow from these concerns:
- The state is powerful, having both ideological and coercive institutions at its disposal. It will not be brought down by homosexuals alone. Alliances with other workers, Aborigines, feminists, women, poor people, ethnic groups, unemployed and destitute people and others is a must. We all have a stake in social liberation.
- Lobbying should be an extension of popular pressure. It has a role to play as long as it is in line with the goals of gay liberation and increases democratic rights.
- Fighting for reforms is also essential both for the partial gains it achieves as well as for its educational and mobilisational values.
The fight against anti-homosexual violence and prejudice entails taking on violence at all levels, but particularly on the level of its source — the state — which engenders heterosexism as a powerful means of social control. The leading principle should be that short and medium term struggles and demands are consonant with and conducive to the long term goals of gay liberation. Anything else is self-defeating.
This article is obviously not the final word. I hope it provides a guideline for debating and planning concrete actions and that others will take up the debate.