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just a reminder that queerness is incompatible with capitalism
a permanent and non-self-replicating minority (queer ppl don't necessarily have queer kids) often born to a) straight families of b) varying hostility that c) frequently disown or disinherit them to d) find their way in a visibly anti-queer system
Max Weber points out that western capitalism is an invention of the Protestant ethic - a system simultaneously developed around the idea of the nuclear family as a locus of production and the vector of wealth transfer
queer people are permanently disadvantaged and marginalized by the capitalist power structure - some queers CAN achieve wealth, but they do so at a permanent and reinstantiated handicap, and next generations of queers are always left to start again
it is not controversial or ideological to point this out! it is a simple fact "the family" as we now understand it is a capitalist invention, and is specifically designed to exclude queerness, which manifests unpredictably and in minority numbers
that means queerness as politic must strategize knowing 1) it will never outnumber its oppressors (whereas some communities will.are able to make demands by dint of sheer representation), and 2) it will always be cut off from wielding institutional and stably familial resources
its demands for intersectionality are thus also MUST HAVES, not secondary, because it must be plastic enough to quickly reach across inter-community lines to access fellow queer persons and their accumulated resources
strategies that try to replicate the logics of the capitalist system (raising money for "gay super PACs" or gofundmes, etc) should always be made recognizing they are a losing war - we will always be outmatched for money
victories can only come in a complete system overhaul
victories can only come in a complete system overhaul
queer strategies should always keep in mind: we will never have the sheer numbers, we will never have the funds, and our straight allies are unreliable and perfidious.
so now what?
so now what?
again, random queer ppl who have nevertheless "made it big" (Smitherman, Thiel, Jenner, etc) doesn't change the logic of the system. These ppl succeed often in spite of their queerness, and frequently by necessarily obscuring it (hence Thiel's lawsuit).
