Going back to our future
Finally, a readable reflection on queer activism
NOVEL THOUGHTS

After years of battling it out in the streets and in the courts, queer activist Tom Warner has served the GLBT community justice once again by writing an accessible and engrossing book on the lesbian and gay movement in Canada entitled Never Going Back.

This book is a must read for those interested in queer activism of the last 30 years. And it helps point the way to where we as a community need to go in successive generations.

I had the opportunity to speak to Mr Warner about his motivations for writing Never Going Back and his perspectives on what he calls the assimilation and liberation movements of GLBT activism.

“The first motivation [for writing the book],” says Warner, “was simply to do a comprehensive history of the lesbian and gay movement in Canada, covering all of the issues that have formed part of the lesbian and gay liberation agenda over the last 30 years.

“I was concerned that most of the books and publications have focused too much on the rights attainment strategy and haven’t really focused on the other elements that have been important to the movement, such as issues like sexuality, pornography, age of consent, sexual expression and so on.

“Also, I’ve been concerned with the preponderance of the view that gay and lesbian liberation is dead, or at least is no longer a force, and efforts over the last decade and a half to marginalize or dismiss activists who have pursued more liberationist strategies as opposed to more equality-seeking strategies.”

Warner is unapologetic about the fact that his leanings as an activist have been towards the liberation movement, rather than with the more conservative faction of rights-seeking assimilationists.

He feels that while the assimilationists have achieved a great deal over the last 30 years in regards to amending legislation to include and protect homosexuals, our community still has a long battle ahead to be truly accepted as part of a global community.

“[Assimilationists] saw the attainment of legislative equality as an end in and of itself as opposed to being a strategy that would assist in the longer-term objective of obtaining sexual liberation in all of its forms,” says Warner.

“The liberation analysis would say queer people are different and distinct in very special ways that should be preserved, and that our sexuality is quite different. We don’t need to present ourselves as the same as heterosexuals in order to obtain legal equality with them.”

While the media and more conservative factions would lead us to believe that queer liberation is dead, Warner feels the time is right for a new wave of liberationist activists to carry the torch.

“One of the points I make in my book,” he says “is that equality seeking advocacy is kind of running its course and will soon come to an end. I think it’s likely that the courts will rule that same-sex marriages should be legal, and once that happens, it’s difficult to see what other strictly equality-seeking campaigns there might be.”

Warner also goes so far as to question some of the logic behind these assimilation movements, in particular same-sex marriage.

“Many straights are rejecting marriage as an institution,” he says, “and yet here we have large segments of our community rushing to embrace marriage as the epitome of equality for gays and lesbians, without any critical analysis as to whether marriage is a good thing.

“On the other hand, there is still a need to deal with liberationist issues like homophobia and heterosexism in a number of different forms — in particular in the education system, making it safe for teachers and students to be out in the education system without facing harassment and discrimination. Also, I think there will continue to be a number of issues about sexuality, in terms of pornography and censorship, sex in public spaces, the assertion of queer community standards and what is acceptable and what is not in queer spaces.”

Warner says that laws will not be enough to change society’s continuing struggle with alternative sexual orientations.

- printed in Capital Xtra, Issue #108, Aug 2, 2002. Book cover by University of Toronto Press.