Queerly Speaking
The Pursuit of Sexual Freedom
This week, we had some victories in the perpetual quest for sexual freedom.Your sexual freedom is frequently being determined by lawmakers and their constituents who wish to impose their own morals upon the masses. And nothing brings about a more deeply justified and righteous sense of morality than sexuality.
This week President Obama made a bold and important pronouncement, making it law that health insurers MUST cover birth control and that all hospitals have an obligation to provide it to their patients, regardless of the morality of the hospital owners, donors, staff or management. This bold and essential move puts women’s health and self-determination above a minority’s moral projections and objections.
That women’s access to birth control or young people’s access to condoms is even still debated is beyond outrageous. For women to experience true sexual freedom and “freedom of association” we must be able to decide whether and when we want to experience pregnancy. For women to experience sexual healing, we must be able to begin by avoiding an unwanted pregnancy when we have an accident, make a mistake, or experience sexual assault. These are non-negotiable in our pursuit of happiness and freedom.
This week San Francisco led the way once again on the road to sexual equality by overturning 
the now infamous Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage in California. I had never had so much shame and disappointment in my home state than the day the people “voted” to give me fewer rights than the heterosexual majority experience in California. Judge Stephen R. Reinhardt wrote in the decision that “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gay men and lesbians in California.”
These two decisions based on ethics and human well-being have several important things in common:
1. They level the ability of all people to choose how and with whom they have intimate relationships.
2. They put highly personal decisions in the hands of the people who the decisions impact, rather than allowing outside political forces to determine people’s personal destinies.
3. They bring us closer to true sexual freedom, which is an essential component of actual and total freedom. Yet we rarely, if ever, hear sexual freedom discussed as part of freedom in the pundit/candidate/political atmosphere that dominates the public/private debate in this country.
4. They bring into great relief the absurdity that a democratic government would think they could make such decisions for its people, and ironically, it’s the same folks who want “smaller government” and less “meddling” from the government who support these infringements on personal liberty and sexuality.
Sexual freedom is a non-negotiable element of our freedom. We cannot feel fully sexually empowered without sexual freedom. Sexual freedom and empowerment mean we are the ones who decide who we have intimate and sexual relationships with, we choose how we organize those relationships, we make the decisions in those relationships-including how and when we have sex, whether and when we choose to have children, how we organize our families and how we identify our relationships and sexual identities.
This is personal terrain. No government has the right to insert itself there and make demands on us about how we do this, as long as we aren’t hurting anyone. And truly, if women’s self-determined use of birth control and same-sex couples’ marriages make it impossible for others to “preserve” their own personal sexual values, then those values are built on quicksand and should be re-evaluated.
Tags: Amy Jo Goddard, birth control, homophobia, L/G/B/T/Q, Sexual Politics, sexuality
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Gay Marriage in NY! Now What?
New York State passed a law making marriage between two people of the same sex legal on Friday, June 24, just in time for New York’s biggest gay celebration of the year, and one of the biggest Pride events in the world. This has been a long road and finally we had a governor who took a strong stand for gay rights in New York and hopefully other states will take our lead and end their institutionalized apartheid. 
But what does this really mean? Is it all that important? Why do the gay folks even want to be a part of an “institution” that the heterosexuals can’t seem to manage worth a darn?
It is important but it’s not the end-all-be-all of gay liberation. It’s a beginning.
We all need sexual liberation. We need liberation from many things. I actually think we need to be liberated from marriage, not trapped in it, but I think the latter is the more common, which is why the divorce rate is so high. Our entire approach to relationships needs to shift. I believe wholeheartedly that relationships are our greatest teachers. I’ve been working on my relationship PhD since before my own divorce! I intentionally call it a “divorce” because that word helps people understand the depth of the split, although we were not officially married, domesticated partners, or civilly unionized. What I’ve learned in my own divorce has been tremendous and is already helping me to help others in their own relationships.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for celebrating love. I love that gay and lesbian couples for which actual legal marriage is important can have it in my home state of New York. They should be able to have that. But I have never felt a need to have my nation state put their stamp of approval and validation on my personal, intimate relationship. It is an “institution” which has a history that is largely economic and that was a system for ownership of women. Why do I want that? I can have my own damn celebration without their piece of paper should I want to. But rights are rights and they are supposed to be fair, right?
There are so many rights people automatically get because they become married to another human being. People who are single really get the shaft on this one, and given they (we) have to do everything themselves without the help of someone else, it’s single folks who deserve more tax breaks and assistance. But our system isn’t fair and neither are relationships.
It’s a romantic myth that we can achieve equality. Even in the most equitable intimate relationships, equality does not exist. Each person brings something different to the relationship and we can be grateful for that and hope that it feels mutually satisfying and equitable, but it will never be equal. If we can’t do that one-on-one, how can we expect it from our statehood?
It will be lawyers, wedding planners, bakeries, florists, churches, event locations, chefs, ministers, and accountants that will benefit most from the gay marriage boon. This should be really good for the New York State economy! Obama might consider that as an economic strategy.
And now what? Let this open the door to working on achieving even more important aims for the L/G/B/T community, like parent protections and rights, medical care management and being able to visit our partners and loved ones in the hospital when they are “chosen family” and not “blood family”, safety from violence on our streets and in schools, freedom to express our gender however we want and access to sensitive, competent healthcare for all gendered people, getting our gay and transgender teens off the streets and lowering the outrageous homeless rate (40% of homeless teens are on the streets because of being kicked out or facing homophobia at home), custody rights for gay men, lesbians and transgender people, protection from job discrimination…there are so many more issues that affect our quality of life and livelihood.
This is a door. Let’s walk through it and open the many more doors that lie beyond it. Let’s be joyful for this important moment and then let’s get back to work to take the next steps towards protecting everyone on our communities, including those who want to marry and those of us who don’t.
Tags: Amy Jo Goddard, gay marriage, Gay Pride, gay rights, homophobia, L/G/B/T/Q, New York, Queer, Relationships, same-sex marriage, sexual liberation, Sexual Politics
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It Gets Way Better!
“It Gets Better” is a campaign that was recently launched as a response to the rash of newsworthy suicides this past fall of gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans youth (or those thought to be L/G/B/T) resulting from the homophobia they experienced, largely in a school/peer context. It’s important to note that these suicides go on all the time, and have for years, we just don’t always hear about them in the mainstream media. But I am glad to see more attention being paid to the pain, trauma and life-threatening bullying many young people experience every single day. In the “It Gets Better” campaign, L/G/B/T/Q adults tell their stories in an effort to support and encourage young people to get through whatever difficulties they are experiencing now, to know they have support, and that it really can and does get better as they get older.
I love being queer. I love the communities I have as a queer person, something some of my heterosexual friends have noted they don’t have and sometimes envy a little. I have always thrived on not being like everyone else, not living my life along some prescribed recipe concocted out of the status quo and instead, doing things creatively, how I want to do them. My queer identity is far greater than just my sexuality or who I am attracted to. It encompasses how I live my life and express myself in the world on myriad levels from my chosen atypical profession to my politics. “Queer” for me is a very political identity.
This recent entry for the “It Gets Better” campaign is such a fun and poignant music video, I had to share it with you all. If any young people are reading this, please know that you have support to be who you are. We love you for YOU. Your life, and your sexuality are truly dynamic in nature–they won’t stay the same (nothing does) and down every dark corridor, there is always a light which awaits you on the other side. It gets better, and you get stronger and wiser. With love…
Tags: Amy Jo Goddard, homophobia, It Gets Better, L/G/B/T/Q, Queer, Rebecca Drys, youth
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