Queer Politics Queer Theories – serie

How sexuality and sexual orientation intersect with gender, race, ethnicity, and religion in the ongoing formation of national identity

How sexuality and sexual orientation intersect with gender, race, ethnicity, and religion in the ongoing formation of national identity

American culture is at war over \u0022family values.\u0022 And with the issue of gay and lesbian marriage often at the center of this discourse, notable thinkers like Andrew Sullivan, William Eskridge, Urvashi Vaid, and Torie Osborn have engaged in the battle. But why, Valerie Lehr asks, debate over the right of gays to take part in a socially defined institution designed to perpetuate inequalities among people? The flaw in the fight for gay and lesbian marriage rights, argues Lehr in Queer Family Values, lies in its failure to call into question the forms of oppression -- gender, racial, and economic -- that lead society to privilege the nuclear family. Lehr calls for activists to counter conservative discourses that see the nuclear family -- what Lehr considers a socially defined institution that works to maintain, in various ways, inequalities among people -- as the only responsible and mature family alternative. She asks for an approach to family issues and individual liberty that challenges power rather than demands access to privilege.She advocates social policies that enhance the freedom of all people, not simply those gay and lesbian adults seeking to be part of the dominant vision of family in our society. Analyzing recent works on family, gender, race, and class, Lehr shapes a theory of rights, freedom, and democracy that can liberate us from the strictures of conservative hegemony. She also provides practical examples of how activists can work for a more compassionate and caring society. She devotes a chapter, for example, to the responsibilities activists have to lesbian and gay youths, who -- unlike other children, who might find refuge from social injustice at home -- most often find in the traditional American home homophobia and isolation. Asserting that family care should be seen as a community function, Queer Family Values offers an alternative political strategy focused not on gaining rights, but on enhancing democracy and equality in private life.

How do unions around the world respond to issues raised by sexual minorities? Much as been written on labor's response to issues raised by women and racial minorities, but there has been little work done on labor's engagement with gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the transgendered. The original essays in this collection attempt to fill that void by bringing together a group of experts who examine labor's response to such issues as benefits for same-sex partners, anti-discrimination language in collective agreements, and education. Speaking from a variety of racial backgrounds, sexual orientations, and political views, the contributors bring their unique personal perspectives and scholarly approaches to this groundbreaking book. The chapters included in Laboring for Rights give a global vision to the increasingly important subject of equity in the workplace. They offer a much-needed look at labor's involvement with current international workplace conditions from such diverse countries as the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands, and South Africa, as well as parts of the South Pacific.Some of these countries have strong and progressive labor unions; some, like the U.S., have relatively weak labor organizations. But whatever the context, as these articles demonstrate, there seems to be a growing and in some instances prospering gay/lesbian labor alliance in many parts of the world. Laboring for Rights is a pioneering text in an important new area of labor study. It will engage readers interested in equality in the workplace, labor and organizational studies, gay and lesbian activism, and international, comparative studies.

Is the United States a heterosexual regime? If it is, how may we understand the political position of those who cannot or will not align themselves with heterosexuality? With these provocative questions, Shane Phelan raises the issue of whether lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered people can be seen as citizens at all. Can citizenship be made queer? Or does citizenship require the exclusion of those who are regarded as queer to preserve the i??equalityi??' that it promises? In i??Sexual Strangersi??, Shane Phelan argues that, in the United States, queers are strangers - not exactly the enemy, since they are not excluded from all rights of citizenship, but not quite members. Rather, they are ambiguous figures who trouble the border between i??usi??' and i??themi??', a border just as central to liberal regimes as to other states. Life on this border structures both the exclusion of sexual minorities and their ambivalence about becoming part of the i??mainstreami??'. i??Sexual Strangersi?? addresses questions of long-standing importance to minority group politics: the meaning and terms of inclusion, respect, and resistance.Phelan looks at citizenship as including not only equal protection and equal rights to such institutions as marriage and military service, but also political and cultural visibility, as inclusion in the national imaginary. She discusses the continuing stigmatization of bisexuals and transgendered people within lesbian and gay communities as a result of the attempt to flee from strangeness, a flight that inevitably produces new strangers. Her goal is to convince students of politics, both academic and activist, to embrace the rewards of strangeness as a means of achieving inclusive citizenship, rather than a citizenship that defines itself by what it will not accept. Author note: Shane Phelan is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of New Mexico. She is the author or editor of several books on lesbian and gay politics, most recently i??Playing with Fire: Queer Politics, Queer Theoriesi??. She is the chair of the American Political Science Association's Committee on the Status of Lesbians and Gays in the Profession.

Liberal democracy has provided a certain degree of lesbian and gay rights. But those rights, as we now know, are not unlimited, and they continue to be the focus of efforts by lesbian and gay movements in the United States to promote social change. In this compelling critique, Craig Rimmerman looks at the past, present, and future of the movements to analyze whether it is possible for them to link identity concerns with a progressive coalition for political, social, and gender change, one that take into account race, class, and gender inequalities. Enriched by eight years of interviews in Washington, D.C. and New York City, and by the author's experience as a Capitol Hill staffer, From Identity to Politics will provoke discussion in classrooms and caucus rooms across the United States.