George Santos and the Current State of LGBT Liberation

    In the Tiktok from @duncantdothisanymore, the creator addresses the evolving state of the LGBT community by posing a clever query: could the people who fought for gay liberation at Stonewall ever imagine George Santos being the openly gay, Republican Congressman that he is in 2023? Despite this question's rhetorical and sarcastic nature, its answer illuminates the current state of LGBT rights. My answer is no, I don’t think they could imagine it. 

    George Santos’ position in the House of Representatives, despite his sexual orientation, is evidence of widespread gay tolerance, at least at a superficial level. His ability to run for, be elected to, and hold what I would describe as “high-ranking” public office as an openly gay man is a feat that gay activists of 1969 couldn’t fathom. This shift in public opinion signals that gay people, while still discriminated against in other spheres, have worked their way into the majority, or hegemon, of American society, albeit conditionally. Members of the Republican Party’s acceptance of George Santos are contingent on his willingness to hurt his very own (LGBTQ) community. It seems he’s had no qualms with doing so.

    In his short time as a Congressman, he’s co-sponsored a plethora of harmful bills in the Senate. Most notably, he’s co-sponsored a slew of anti-trans House Resolutions, namely HR734, HR736, HR1399, HR3328, HR3329. HR734 is an act that would amend title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to only protect against sex-based discrimination for one’s sex assigned at birth, declining to protect against discrimination against one’s lived gender. HR736 requires that elementary and middle schools receive parental consent before providing students gender-affirming accommodations and changing their gender markers, pronouns, or preferred names, stripping their autonomy and endangering trans students. HR1399 would prohibit gender-affirming care to minors, further harming trans youth. HR3328 is a nearly identical bill. HR3329 would prohibit taxpayers from funding “gender transitioning procedures,” decreasing access to gender-affirming care and delegitimizing this care as healthcare. Santos’ (recent) history of anti-trans legislation speaks to a larger societal issue: while gay rights in the United States have increased to match societal acceptance of gays, trans people are not accepted in American society at large and, therefore, have little to no legal protection.

    While the last 55 years have seen a large growth in gay rights, recent legislation shows a movement away from trans rights toward trans discrimination in legislation and in society at large. The creator’s heavily-contested closing sentiment, “...that’s why Marsha threw the brick,” alludes to the irony embedded in the result of the fight for gay liberation. While drag queens and trans activists like Marsha P. Johnson are regarded within the LGBT community as the “vanguard” of the Stonewall Uprising (and many like it across the country at the time), thus providing the exigence for the gay liberation/rights movement, they’ve seldom been included in increased protections for the LGBT community that occurred as a result.

*It should be noted that the aforementioned video contains misinformation, as no one died at the Stonewall Uprising

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On the Topic of My Gender

 Despite heated discussions around gender, gender identity, and gender expression, there is no consensus on what gender is. Some mistakenly believe gender is determined chromosomally or reflected in external genitalia. For clarity, when discussing my gender, I define gender as the socially constructed binary of man and woman. However, recent societal changes mark the acceptance of a third gender for people who don’t fit into the categories of man or woman. I should note, however, that the formation of gender is entirely abstract. Thus, there are an infinite number of genders. In my eighteen years of life, I’ve always been aware of my gender. My shoulder-length hair, wide hips, figure-hugging clothing, valley girl accent, cardigans, tote bags, and long nails have made the world aware, too. These physical attributes allow people to identify me: there goes that girl, and more recently, there goes that woman. They treat me accordingly. I’m frequently greeted with a smile and treated like I
Read more

@duncantdothisanymore: George Santos and the Current State of the LGBT Community

Captions: Do you guys think that it ever crossed the people who fought for gay liberation like at Stonewall, rest in peace to all those who lost their lives there, by the way,  but do you think it ever crossed their minds  that somebody like George Santos could exist in the future? —that all their work, all their fighting  could lead to a gay Latino Republican Congressman  using funds from the Republican Party to buy  Onlyfans subscriptions, Sephora, botox, and Hermes items.  I personally like to think that's why Marsha threw the brick [@duncantdothisanymore]. “What i would give to go back and explain who #georgesantos is to gay people in the 70s #fyp #foryoupage #viral #gay #lgbt #gayhistory #lgbthistory #stonewall” Tiktok, 18 November 2023, https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8ffF25e/   *It should be noted that the aforementioned video contains misinformation, as no one died at the Stonewall Uprising  
Read more

FYS Final Paper: Marriage Rights In the United States

Image
Themes: hybridity  intersectionality citizenship/legitimacy historical events affecting the LGBT community marriage social construction(of race and gender)      Historically, the institution of marriage in the United States has been malleable, with the definition of marriage and who can get married changing over time. The United States federal government did not even recognize marriage in legal terms until the Revenue Act of 1913, where it outlined a tax-break applicable to married couples (Levy). The regulation of marriage is left to the states as a reserved power, outlined by the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights as any power not delegated to the federal government. The result of this is the absence of an early federal definition or regulation of marriage. Outside of federal jurisdiction, however, marriage is defined as “a legal union between a man and a woman for life”(Webster’s Dictionary) given “(1) the parties' legal ability to marry each other, (2) m
Read more