Reflections on the National Equality March

By Tristan Feldman '12

Last Sunday’s March On Washington was amazing! A great day with perfect weather was topped off by an amazing speech by Staceyann Chin and then running into her at the rest stop on the way back to Vassar (even though I saw her just as she was getting back onto the bus and didn’t get a chance to speak to her, even that small glimpse made my day. Who cares about Lady Gaga, Staceyann Chin really stole the show). The march was all I expected and more, but it was not all that I hoped for.

Like at most LGBTQ events, the L (lesbian), the G (gay), and for once the B (bisexual) dominated. There were side references to the T (transgender), including some speakers, but no reference to intersex people, pansexuals, and to those who defy labels. Yes, there were trans speakers, yes they did speak about the strides they are taking to represent an underrepresented community, but this was just a formality. Looking at the signs people were carrying, the words they were chanting, the general sentiment of the march, I would have to label it a gay event, not a queer event.

All this happened as I am trying to find my place in a community that I so much want to be apart of, a community upon which I define my identity, but a community that so often ignores me or treats me as a side note. Events like these really make me question what holds our community together? Are we really a LGBTQAI… community? What is it that we share?

We share a history. Drag queens and trans women were the ones who fought back at Stonewall. They took the lead and fought back against the police. We share discrimination. We share high runaway and homeless youth rates. We share high suicide rates. We share class and race issues. We are groups fighting for equality. The thing about equality is that it can’t come in small bits for some people. We need social justice for all, the ending of all inequality, all hierarchy, and all privilege. But this won’t happen in a gay movement that side notes those who originally took the lead, those that have even fewer rights and are in even greater danger. We need a truly queer movement and a truly queer community.