In the media

[beetiger]

Interesting article on teenaged girls and queer identity.

Is the gay rights movement evolving the way the feminist movement did, so that kids today don't know why we old folks were so adamant about identity definitions?

Comments

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

Well, by 'kids' I meant the young folks in the article, or perhaps their peers a few years down the line. I've heard a lot of young women today minimize the value of the feminist movement circa 1970, because they can't see that it was neede in its cultural time, since things are much better now, and they haven't got a perspective on the past. The first time I heard an prolife teen say something like,"The easy availability of abortion forces young women to make bad choices about their lives", I was floored.

I'm rather noncategorical in my personal sexual identity choices -- I usually call myself pansexual, and am attracted especially to androgynous types, glitterbois, tough but sensitive women who wear corsets and no makeup, neuters, and people who can cook, and other various queers. But I can definitely see where the value in lobbying for "gay and lesbian" rights is, and the value in the culture of a decade ago through to today in standing up and saying, "Hey, I'm gay, this means something." I'm all for us getting past labels. I'm not for declaring the fight over when it isn't.