There's No Queer Liberation Without Fighting Capitalism
Back in 2005 or 2006, I wrote a short story called "How I Went Back to the Closet." It was basically about my feeling that queer liberation would never really be possible until we defeated capitalism. Queer joy, in fact, would always be partial and provisional as long as plutocrats held any sway over our lives.
In "How I Went Back to the Closet," it's the near future. The economy has tanked because a financial bubble in the mortgage-lending sector has burst in 2006. (This of course did happen, but not until 2008.) The result is rapid economic consolidation, as a few companies snap up their competitors in a feeding frenzy. Soon jobs are scarce, and the only companies hiring have a strict but unspoken code for how they want employees to behave and live their lives. In essence, it's a world where you are free to be queer -- you have civil liberties -- but if you want to eat and pay rent, you have to hide who you are nonetheless.
This story was obviously super simplistic and on the nose, but it was meant to be: it's a parable. And yeah, this is the world we've always lived in to some extent, but cranked up to a more intense and dystopian level. Also, because I was writing this back in the mid-2000s and wanted to showcase someone who had felt secure and now suddenly wasn't, the main character is a gay man rather than a trans or non-binary person. (And if you choose to click the link above, bear in mind some of the references are extremely dated and there are one or two bits that read cringey and borderline stereotypey to me now.)
In any case, I've been thinking about this story a lot lately. Obviously, I didn't predict the massively organized anti-LGBTQIA+ backlash in red states and at the national level, which has forced so many teachers, librarians and other heroic knowledge workers to leave their jobs. But I also see warning signs that giant corporations might be starting to rethink their support for queer people. Just ask Dylan Mulvaney, whom Bud Light first hired in a promotional partnership and then threw under the bus after a wave of hateful backlash. Or ask anyone whose queer merch was sold in Target until some hateful fuckdumplings started making threats.
Overt transphobia is everywhere, and it's a Trojan horse for barely concealed homophobia. And corporations that promoted and supported LGBTQIA+ people in the past will obviously think twice about doing so when the price gets much higher. You can't even blame the corporations for this -- the way we've structured capitalism requires them to care only about short-term profit and shareholder value, to the exclusion of humanity or decency.
But also, the story's warning of having to hide yourself at work feels increasingly relevant once again. Bosses are starting to test the limits of their control over their employees -- starting with "return to office" mandates, but it won't end there. Whenever I read articles insisting that it's time to return to the office, I'm always struck by the undercurrent of rage: the anger that workers might actually want to have a decent work /life balance, but also that people might not be subjected to the conformist pressures of office life. Bosses don't feel like bosses unless there's someone constantly under their thumb. (Just look at the way they've embraced the performative viciousness of Elon Musk.) And the fact that return-to-work policies are driving marginalized people, disproportionately, out of the workforce appears to be part of the point here.
And meanwhile, when far-right conservatives squawk about "woke capitalism," they're partly mad about stuff like Target's Pride displays. But they're also furious at corporations having DEI policies, and other measures to ensure a diverse workforce. At the same time, we once again are hearing people squawk about how great gendered dress codes are, thanks in large part to transphobia and general anxieties about gender roles.
Put simply, a lot of people are angry that corporations aren't dehumanizing their work force to the utmost degree, and this is being folded into the broader culture war.
Okay, this newsletter is getting super upsetting and depressing. Sorry about that. Let's have a quick dance break:
I don't have a lot of solutions to offer here, but here are a few things I think we need to do:
1) support unions and strikes.
As a member of the WGA West, I'm utterly overjoyed at the deal we've won after five months with the AMPTP. Now it's time to be there for SAG-AFTRA and IATSE -- but also the UAW, and every other union that is fighting for workers' rights. Unions are a key and crucial part of the struggle for queer liberation, always. Give money to strike funds, join people in solidarity on the picket lines, show up and make yourself visible and audible. Also, when a politician goes out there to support the labor movement, the way Joe Biden just did, make it clear this is something you want to see more of. Vote in primaries to get the most pro labor, anti -boss candidates you possibly can.
2) defend public spaces with your last breath.
We can't count on big business to keep supporting us when things get tough, so we really need publicly funded and non-profit spaces where our culture can flourish. There's a reason why bigots are trying to suppress queer and Black voices, among others, in libraries and schools, and it's because they know these public spaces are important. The ultimate goal is to dismantle any and all public institutions, and replace them with privately-funded, plutocrat-controlled alternatives. So we all need to show up for school board meetings and library board meetings, and more progressives need to run for these vital local offices. But also? Support art spaces, galleries, indie theaters and music venues, community centers, hacker spaces, maker spaces, etc. Support that little zine store that sells weird, subversive indie publications that nobody else will carry. Support free social gatherings in parks and gardens. Support impromptu open mics on street corners. Queer culture comes, primarily, from indie and DIY venues, especially places where you don't have to have a lot of money to show up. I was able to develop as a queer author because I went to so many events with low or non-existent cover charges, where people shared their work and their ideas.
3) and finally, build community.
Most of the spaces I mentioned above don't just happen -- they're created by people wanting someplace to hang out with their friends and with others like them. This is why I used to organize a spoken word event, Writers With Drinks, and I always kept the cover charge as low as I could while raising money for organizations like the Trans Life Line and the TGI Justice Project. This is why I'm now helping to organize the Trans Nerd Meet Up and the Bookstore and Chocolate Crawl. Queer people need spaces in which to gather, where nobody's identity is policed and nobody is told they're not queer enough or trans enough. And finally, and most importantly: LGBTQIA+ spaces need to be anti-racist and center BIPOC people, who have created so much of the queer culture we cherish and are also facing so much more heinous bullshit than the rest of us.
My Stuff
This weekend, I'm guest of honor at Capclave, a convention in Bethesda, MD. Come say hi!
I have a story in the new anthology From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi, about the almighty Sarlacc pit.
I have an essay in the upcoming anthology Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games, edited by Carmen Maria Machado and J. Robert Lennon. I'm writing about movies where someone from the real world goes inside a game, from Tron to Jumanji.
You can already order New Mutants Vol. 4, and you can pre-order New Mutants: Lethal Legion. These contain most of the saga of Escapade, the trans mutant superhero I co-created for Marvel. (To read Escapade's debut, you need to hunt down the 2022 pride issue.)
I wrote a young adult trilogy, and the final book (Promises Stronger Than Darkness) came out in April. It's basically the gayest shit ever, featuring a team of outrageous queers saving all of the worlds with the power of creativity and getting each other's pronouns right.
I'm still doing the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct with Annalee Newitz, all about the meaning of science fiction, science and futurism. Our latest episodes are about exoplanets, the nature of creativity, and how Silicon Valley misunderstands free speech. (Subscribe here.)
I'm still very proud of Never Say You Can't Survive, the book I wrote about using creative writing to get through tough times. And my short story collection, Even Greater Mistakes.