Stonewall and after

Published in the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) on 19 July 2019.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Sir, - The first sentence of Hugh Ryan's article (June 28) contains the phrase "a group of pissed-off queers", and Ryan continues to use "queer" throughout his review of four books about the Stonewall riots. I find this appalling, and speak as one who has devoted a halfcentury of his life to the cause of Gay Liberation.
    I am possibly the oldest surviving early (first few weeks) member of the New York Gay Liberation Front (GLF), which I joined in July of 1969. In the early GLF days, we discussed what our goals should be. We strongly felt that "gay" - whose hidden meaning was still unknown to most straight people - should be the word used by others, as well as ourselves. "Gay" was not clinical like "homosexual", nor timid like "homophile", nor hateful like "faggot" or "queer". We succeeded. Publications from the New York Times to the New England Journal of Medicine began using "gay" as the word of choice.
    "Queer" was and still is one of the most hateful words in the American language. "Dirty queer" is what gay men heard as they were being beaten to death. Although "queer theorists" talk of "reclaiming" the word, this is impossible, since it never belonged to us in the first place; it was always the word of our enemies. In addition to its inherent hatefulness, "queer" is unacceptable because of its core, dictionary meanings: odd, spurious, worthless, deviant, etc. Gay men are not worthless. Sex between males is not deviant or spurious.
    The evidence of history and anthropology confirms that human males are powerfully attracted to each other, emotionally and erotically. Male love is an ordinary and healthy part of the human sexual repertoire. The condemnation of sex between males is a theological phenomenon, which I chronicle in my 1998 book, A Freethinker's Primer of Male Love.
    Most gay men, excepting some in academia or the metastasizing LGBTQ+ movement, are viscerally offended by "queer". But even if we were only a minority, why should the TLS use a word that is highly offensive to us? Would the TLS use the "n" word for blacks or the "k" word for Jews? - and yet neither the "n" word nor the "k" word is any more hateful than "queer". I suggest that the TLS show more respect for a substantial portion of its readership.

JOHN LAURITSEN
Dorchester, Massachusetts 02125.

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