Queering Activism & The Purpose of Pride

In mid-November 2019, I flew to Columbus, Ohio to visit my best friend from college. Megan and I are both bisexual, and have spent a lot of time bonding over our shared experience and young, bisexual women who are only out to a handful of people. While we share many similar positions, such as pressure from the LG community to be ‘more queer’, some of our positions on queerness and queer culture differ - including the role of religion in queer communities, porn, and polyamory.

Despite my awareness of our differences in thought, I assumed we shared the same opinions on queer activism - what it should look like, and what makes activism ‘queer’ and ‘not queer’. We were driving downtown when she pointed out a billboard for Columbus Pride. We started exchanging memories of attending Pride events in the past, and how it helped us connect to our local queer communities. Eventually, I brought up Exxon Mobil’s recent sponsorship for Pride events.

“OH REALLY? Wow that’s so great to hear!” She responded.

“Is it? Don’t you think that’s really problematic for the queer community?”

“No, I mean, isn’t it positive that a large company like Exxon Mobil is supporting gay rights?”

Even though I knew I disagreed with Megan, I was easily stumped by this question. Is Exxon Mobil’s sponsorship a sign of success for queer activism, or a sign queer activism is being infiltrated by a heteronormative capitalist venture?

Our divergence in opinion on queer activism stuck with me well after my visit, and remained in my peripheral as I read about queer activism, power relations, identity politics, and consumer capitalism in Queer: A Graphic History.

At the center of this argument is a fundamental question concerning what queer activism is, and how is it queer activism shaped by capitalist corporations. What makes activism ‘queer’, and what, if anything, about participating in queer culture is considered activism? Activism could be considered queer due to the identity expressions of the leaders and/or participants, the activists’ goals, the symbols used (rainbows, flags, pink “pussy” hats), or the means of protest. For this reflection, ‘queer’ is used as a verb, where ‘to queer’ is to “challeng[e] norms around gender and sexuality through different ways of thinking and acting”

Activism can take many forms - a march, a hashtag, and sit-ins are powerful, normal expressions of activism, and by altering or exaggerating means of protest is one way to apply queerness to activist efforts. In 2016, artist Spencer Tunick recruited 100 women to stand naked in front of the Quicken Loans arena holding large mirrors in protest of the Republican National Convention. Women of all ages, expression, and political beliefs applied and were recruited to participate in an act that was classified as both protest and art. One might argue that by using an application system, which limited participation to 100 people who both identified and presented as cisgender women, the protest is not in line with contemporary queer theory, and therefore, not queer activism. Although the protest’s message was not explicitly queer, and the application system limited participation, the nature of the protest - standing naked in front of a bunch of Republicans - was queer because it challenged political and social norms of how a female body should be seen in public.

Activism can also be ‘queer’ because of its participants, members, and leaders. For example, several leaders and participants in the gun violence movement have been queer, and have been able to queer the movement in a way that focuses on gun violence in minority communities. The March for Our Lives movement experienced an influx of support and participation from the LGBTQ community shortly after its launch in 2018. On March 24, 2018, 150,000 people gathered in New York City to march against gun violence, and leading the march was the national queer direct-action coalition Gays Against Guns (GAG). Co-Founder John Gauwiler commented, “I want to shout out to Emma Gonzalez… Historically, queer people have challenged the status quo, and we have led the way because we recognize our outsiderness, and we take that and turn it to action.”

While gun rights are not directly related to queer rights, the movement has gained support in the queer community largely due to leading activists like Emma Gonzalez, a bisexual Marjory Stoneman Douglas student who survived the shooting.

The previous examples have demonstrated how initially non-queer ideas, movements, and activist efforts can be queered by their leaders, participants, means, and motivations. Pride has been a hallmark of queer activism in the United States since Stonewall; Pride brings queer communities and spaces into the public eye and enables a richer, more cohesive culture to emerge.

Pride events are reminding participants “Pride is a protest” or “The first Pride was a riot”, though most modern Pride events work within existing government structures to gain permits, request police presence, and, of course, welcome corporate sponsorships. However, as Pride has shifted from riots in bars to government-approved parades and parties funded by capitalist corporations, it is important to reconsider what queer activism is and is not.

For many people, like my friend Megan, attending Pride is an important part of participating in queer, culture. Dancing, watching parades, and displaying queer symbols are common components of Pride events all over the country, and often look very different from the Pride protests and riots of the past. Although Pride events have retained some of the essence of the past - participants, locations, parades - they have also lost many critical components of what might be considered ‘queer activism’. The previous examples of queer activism perform in a way that disrupts society. 100 naked women standing outside an arena in the middle of Ohio disrupted society’s idea of how the female body should be seen in public. The gun violence movement is queer because its leaders point to gun violence in queer spaces. I argue Pride has shifted from a purely activist role, and instead become a part of queer culture and queer advocacy.

Exxon Mobil has an interesting history with queer rights, particularity in their employee rights and privileges. Before Exxon acquired Mobil in 1999, Mobil had policies which explicitly protected their employees from discrimination based on gender and sexual orientation and provided benefits to same-sex couples, which was quite unique among similar corporations. When Exxon bought Mobil, they removed those employee protections. Despite backlash from the queer community and activists, some Exxon employees defended the company, saying they never saw a need for those policies because they never experienced discrimination.

While in negotiations with the company, queer advocate and employee J. Chris Martin described their negotiation process as “collaborative advocacy,'' despite reporting which stated the issue was not progressing in the company and often brushed off by top leaders.

Suddenly - in 2015, shortly after the Marriage Equality Act passed, Exxon Mobil started funding Pride events and even reinstated Mobil’s policies to protect LGBTQ employees. Employees in Houston carried banners with Exxon Mobil’s name is rainbow lettering and expressed both pride in their sexuality and pride in the company that employed them. Exxon Mobil announced they would even be the official sponsor of the Out and Equal Workplace Summit, and the previous year they recruited employees at the Reaching Out M.B.A job fair. At the same time, the Human Rights Campaign ranked Exxon Mobil last on a list of companies for their treatment of LGBTQ+ employees. Exxon Mobil’s score was -25 points. They were the last Fortune 10 company to ban anti-gay discrimination.

While Exxon Mobil’s sponsorship is accompanied by policy decisions which provide real, tangible benefits to their employees, it is not enough to negate their positions as one of the world’s leading oil and gas companies and their culpability in climate change. It could be argued that these actions are separate from their social values, however, I argue their primary missions and goals ultimately fuel a consumer capitalist society, which Scheele explained leads to a conformist culture that upholds essentialist and binary views on gender and sexuality.

Corporate sponsorship from Exxon Mobil or similar companies does not benefit queer activism or queer culture. Sponsorship do little to queer corporations, but rather, more closely aligns queer activism and culture events, namely Pride, with capitalist ventures and opens the door for more companies to ‘rainbow wash’ products in the name of solidarity.

References

Barker, Meg-John (2016). Queer: A Graphic History. London, UK: Icon Books Ltd.

Chibbaro, Lou Jr. (2018). LGBT advocates joining next week’s March for Our Lives in D.C. The Washington Post. Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonblade.com/2018/03/14/lgbt-groups-join-march-for-our-lives/

Clary, Timothy A. (2018). 100 Nude Women protested the RNC. Time Magazine. Retrieved from: https://time.com/4410323/republican-convention-nude-women-protest/

Dube, Simon. (2019). Misplaces Pride: Open letter to the River of Pride group about ExxonMobil sponsorship [Opinion]. Retrieved from: https://nbmediacoop.org/2019/06/23/misplaced-pride/

Howard, Jackson. (2018). How Queer Activists Rose up at New York City’s MArch For Our Lives. Retrieved from: https://www.them.us/story/queer-activists-at-march-for-our-lives-nyc

Morales, Ed. (2018). Emma González: La nueva cara of Florida Latinx. The Washington Post Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/03/01/emma-gonzalez-la-nueva-cara-of-florida-latinx/

Stewart, James B. (2013). Exxon Defies Call to Add Gays to Anti-Discrimination Policy. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/25/business/a-corporate-giants-missing-support-for-gay-rights.html

Stewart, James B. (2015). Exxon Lumbers along to catch up with gay rights. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/02/business/exxon-lumbers-along-to-catch-up-with-gay-rights.html