As a gay man, I have never understood outrage over the term "the gay agenda." Certainly gays and lesbians don't plot to convert straight children or stamp out religious freedom, as the accusations go. But there's no reason to avoid the obvious:
Of course there was a gay agenda. Repealing the military's humiliating "don't ask don't tell" policy, securing adoption rights, and the triumphant Supreme Court decision that recognized same-sex marriage were each not some inevitable arc of the moral universe but a hard-fought political battle.
It can feel immodest — embarrassing, even — to acknowledge what a powerful machine we forged behind our moral idealism. We eagerly swept the grit under a rug when articulating the rhetoric of our gay agenda — but gradually forgot that we ever had one. Even so, the armies of lawyers, media pundits and the staggering sums of money do not just disappear when the game is won.
True, in the last few years America has made a quantum leap in accepting homosexuality. At the same time, however, the machine built to empower us has weakened. The gay community is less marginalized, less controversial and, consequently, less politically unified than ever before. Victims of their own stunning success, organizations like the Human Rights Campaign face an existential crossroads. It seems that where huddling in the closet kept us together, being out has finally freed us to part ways.
Maybe that's a good thing. After all, there is a difference between individual identity and group politics. Those power-players with the most to lose are now desperately scrambling to co-opt anything that sticks just to stay relevant. In the supposed name of inclusion, political forces are creating an amorphous, disjointed "gay" identity.
Take the rather abrupt coupling of sexual orientation with gender identity. Many gays and lesbians have had the experience: A friend casually asks, "So, what is it like to be transgender?" To which our forgiving, though perplexed, response might be: "I don't know, I'm not transgender."
The difference, to anyone who will pause and think, is obvious. Indeed, there is no logical connection between these different groups with their different problems, except that it is useful for a decaying political apparatus to say so.
I believe in validating the experiences of others, my transgender friends included. But just because someone has a cause worth fighting for doesn't mean the gay community can do it for them. Why not simply accept that this culture war is over instead of searching for another one?
As an undergraduate at the University of Central Florida I took a course called Queer Theory, hoping to understand my newly outed self. In retrospect, the bizarre readings always offered one tedious insight, that identity is a fiction created by the powerful. I never believed that, preferring to think that we make our own identity. While that class is thankfully behind me, I am still troubled by the hollow implication that it is better to use one's identity for political reasons than to simply embrace it.
Being gay has a specific, personal meaning for me — and for many others. It's why so many of us turned out for Orlando's Come Out with Pride parade a few weeks ago. I enjoyed the commotion and wept at the Pulse memorial procession, 49 wire angels floating by with tails of ethereal fabric. Behind this unifying loss, however, something felt off. I was especially confused by the sign of one fellow attendee: "LGBTQ2IPA+ RIGHTS NOW!"
When did my identity become an algebraic formula?
I don't know what those eight letters, one number, and math symbol mean. Neither does Google. But, here's what worries me: When so many of us rely on others to tell us who we are, how far will we contort our identity for political mileage? Are we really fighting for LGBTQ2IPA+ rights?
Because, as a gay man, I'm afraid that I have no idea what those are.
Michael Hristakopoulos, 26, teaches political science at Valencia College.