By aurora linnea

In the storefront windows of the H&M, of Starbucks, of Nike, rainbows are breeding furiously amongst themselves, proliferating at an alarming rate; rainbows are pulsing, throbbing; rainbows are sending out tendrils stealing in all directions, like kudzu. Someone tosses confetti into the air, teeny-weeny tinsel penises showering down sparkling to the sidewalk. A man in platform heels and a pink marabou-trimmed peignoir struts down the street, his sashay impeded somewhat by the vanity table around his waist. Giant tubes of lipstick and eyeliner sprout from either side of his platinum bouffant. Following him is a squadron of white men wearing black leather cop costumes. A young Latino man in Carmen Miranda drag throws bananas to children. Men and women – all of them sweating glitter and outfitted in matching neon hotpants – hula-hoop together to a song by the Village People. A greased naked man rollerblades by—no, no, he’s not entirely naked. (Never have you been so grateful to see a gold lamé codpiece.) Goldman Sachs employees are out in force flapping around the unicorn flags they found as freebies in their cubicles this morning. And what’s that behemoth in the sky, blotting out the June sun? Why, it’s the MasterCard blimp, the banner that trails behind it bearing the all-important affirmation, “LOVE IS LOVE!” 

You have to get out of here, but you can’t. You’re surrounded. There’s nowhere to go. Behind you someone is screaming, “FABULOUS!” The rainbows begin to burrow into your skin; it burns, itches. There’s a tinsel penis stuck to your shoe. Someone hands you a sample size bag of rainbow Doritos. 

Welcome to Pride, Capitalist Patriarchy’s yearly carnival of male-styled sexual freedom. 

It is unsurprising that Pride has degenerated as it has. Pride is, after all, controlled by men. So too the “gay rights movement” and the “LGBTQ+ community.” A disagreeable reality of the patriarchal society in which we live is that, lacking a proactive effort to overturn male supremacy, when men and women come together in groups, the men rise to power. They take over, and what was supposed to be shared territory becomes just one more zone of patriarchy. This is because men have more money and greater cultural clout and because men are accustomed to being in control, while women are used to being secondary and subordinate and also to serving men. Men are socialized to lead, women to submit to male leadership. The result is that men’s values prevail. A male agenda dominates. 

In the case of the LGBTQ+ Kingdom, the ruling males happen to be gay, or “queer,” which may or may not be the same thing. One need not be homosexual to be “queer.” (Indeed, I think the sole criterion is self-absorption.) It is therefore gay/queer men’s values and gay/queer men’s agenda and gay/queer men’s power to which women are to defer. LGBTQ+ culture is gay/queer male-supremacist culture. And patriarchy voguing in a rainbow leotard is still patriarchy, sisters. 

The state of Pride today reflects the phallocratic program that festers at the heart of the LGBTQ+ movement. There is the obsessive assertion of the “true self,” apparent in the preoccupation with the individualistic discourse of “identity,” and the male self’s absolute right to express its supreme uniqueness; in the soppy “free to be you and me” mantras and queer posturing at rebel-yell nonconformity; and, most ominously, in the antipathy for whatever might curb self-expression or self-indulgence, including anti-oppression politics. There is the fervent worship of manhood and masculinity. Here we find ourselves confronted with the Leather Daddy, the Gay Cowboy in chaps, etc. There is also the infatuation with the manmade “feminine,” cherished in its most exaggerated forms by men as a never-drying reservoir of hilarity and erotic frisson, the natural complement to the masculinity they idolize. Hence the inescapable Drag Queens. Lastly, there is the credo of sexual liberalism, sexual freedom on men’s terms, which translates roughly to: unrestricted phallic access, the no-holds-barred gratification of the male self’s every erotic desire. Gay sexual liberalism often reduces to a call for, as Bradford Langrock Roth  so eloquently puts it, “as much cock as I want anywhere and anytime then life will be great.” This vision of sexual freedom goes far to explain why pedophiles, sadists, and pornographers have received such a friendly reception.

Gay/queer male domination has meant that the radical social and poltical project for societal transformation some decades ago dropped off the LGBTQ+ to-do list. In the early 1970s, the Gay Liberation Front may have had a genuinely radical politics. Some men in the movement understood the direct link between gay men’s oppression and women’s oppression; they sought to tear down the hierarchy erected by the gender system and eschewed masculinity and femininity alike as symptoms of male dominance. The GLF’s radicalism flagged and faded, however, and by the late ‘70s gay men had retreated en masse to their patriarchal comfort zone. Today, discussion of ending male supremacy has gone extinct. Certain LGBTQ+ organizations, notably Stonewall UK, have protested the lack of antiracist consciousness and racial inclusivity at Pride—a valid complaint, no doubt. By reason of white supremacy the ruling males of LGBTQ+ have been unmistakably white in addition to being male. Yet there has been no equivalent public outcry about Pride’s phallocentrism, in spite of evidence that conspicuous maleness makes the event less than inclusive of females. (One recent survey found that 31% of “LGBTQ women” don’t feel comfortable or welcomed at Pride events.) 

In the words of Susan Hemmings: “Male brain death on the issues of patriarchy is not confined to heterosexual men.” 

For gay/queer men and straight men alike, eradicating male supremacy is an unattractive proposition. What gay/queer men want from the “gay rights movement” is their rightful slice of male power and male privilege, not the elimination of that power. They want the approval of their heterosexual brothers, not for those men to cease being the golden boys of a corrosive world order. The object is gay/queer assimilation into the mainstream. At their meekest these men ask for “tolerance”; at their most grandiose they hope for “celebration.” 

It is this absence of a broad-based, oppositional anti-oppression politics that makes Pride and “gay rights” palatable to capitalist patriarchy, and ripe for corporate colonization. Presumably if the status quo were in fact endangered by rainbows and unicorns and “love is love,” we would not be able to purchase Pride Listerine. 

Where the hell is the “L” in all of this?

In a technicolor sea of gay/queer male supremacy, the lesbian’s options are limited. We can emulate gay men in their pious devotion to masculinity and manhood, style ourselves after men, and endeavor to incorporate glorified gay male sex practices (e.g. anonymous trysts unsullied by emotional connection in public restrooms) into our own romantic lives. We can embrace gay men’s “camp” visions of hypersexualized uber-femininity, doll ourselves up in rhinestones and red lipstick, don some fishnets and pretend that our self-objectification is a subversive parody, which it can never be: however “performative” we fancy ourselves in our sequined bustiers, everyone else on earth will see us as women being appropriately woman-like. We can form a Lesbian Ladies Auxiliary to support our gay/queer male brothers, tirelessly fighting their fights, defending them from their persecutors, and generally acting as ego boosters and stand-in wives. Or we can buy a rainbow-wrapped cheeseburger from Burger King to signal our queer identity and tromp along after the boys, desperate to convince ourselves that this nonsense means a damn thing, because we don’t know where else to go. 

Lesbians not wishing to partake in any of the above will have difficulty fitting in at Pride. Lesbians who are feminists, who love and center women, find ourselves no less alienated by gay/queer male-supremacist culture than by heterosexist male-supremacist culture. We cannot merrily team up to cavort with our “gay brothers.” Our position, as women-loving women in a woman-hating world, is different from that of gay/queer men. Our politics are different. We mean to uproot every ideology and institution of male dominion, because these tyrannize and traumatize women. Gay/queer men mostly do not want male dominion to end, because they benefit from it. We demand an end to the gender caste system, because we understand it as fundamental not only to women’s oppression but also to the other oppressive regimes that define patriarchal civilization. Gay/queer men mine the gender caste system for laughs and sexual excitement. Gay/queer men see sexual freedom in “universal phallic access” unhindered by challenge or restraint. We are not so excited about this concept of freedom, because we’ve seen how men use their penises to violate women and girls, and boys, other men, animals. 

Since gay/queer men’s aims are often antithetical to feminist lesbian women’s aims, clashes are inevitable. It is a myth that gay men are natural friends to lesbians and women overall. This myth is based on the notion that, due to being low-status males perceived by straight men as more woman-like because they get fucked by men, homosexuality nurtures in males a special capacity to empathize with women. An alternative basis for the myth is the notion that, as a consequence of being fucked by men, or because they’re into drag, gay/queer men are literally more woman-like in some essential way. But being a low-status male is not equivalent to being a woman. Nor does getting fucked by men or having an affection for frippery turn a man into a woman. Gay/queer men are men, and unless and until they disavow male supremacy, any lesbian alliance with them will be tenuous. And when that alliance breaks down, lesbians unwilling to comply with the commands of the ruling males will be demonized and driven out of rainbowland. 

Lesbians who oppose gay/queer male sexual liberalism’s “transgressive desires” for pornography, prostitution, sadomasochism, misogynist femininization, and pedophilia are derided as unsexy censorious enemies of freedom. My partner and I have been known to put stickers printed with phrases like, “men who hate women love porn” on the front windows of pornography shops in a nearby city. Several years ago, our stickering prompted a gay man we know to contact my partner informing her of the hideous “homophobia” implicit in putting anti-porn stickers on a “queer” porn store. He also threatened to expose her as a “SWERF” (sex worker exclusionary radical feminist) in a way that could have put her employment at risk. 

This treatment is mild in comparison to the attacks experienced by lesbians who dare to restrict male sexual liberties and trample upon the sacred male self by refusing to include males into their sex lives, even if those males call themselves lesbians. Lesbians who publicly object to recent redefinitions of the word “lesbian” that render it more inclusive of heterosexual men intent on manipulating lesbian women into having sex with them have been vilified as disgusting fascist bigots, compared to racists, threatened with violence, and harassed by their fellow “queers” at Pride parades from San Francisco to London. Women have been targeted for abuse for carrying signs announcing straightforward facts, e.g. “Lesbian Means Female Homosexual.” A male organizer at a 2018 Pride event in Manchester, England stated that lesbian protesters with the group Get the L Out UK should have been “dragged out by their saggy tits.” Pride in London organizers have said that such noncompliant lesbians were an evil needing to be “stamped out.” 

The lesbian feminist Magdalen Berns’ immensely popular YouTube videos pushing back against the LGBTQ+ vision of a “more inclusive” lesbianism made her one of the most notorious women on the Internet.  Although Magdalen died from brain cancer in 2019, she has been allowed no peace from queer vitriol: on Twitter, activists’ missives announcing plans to “piss on her grave” abound. 

In a reversal that would seem paradoxical were it not for men’s well-known loyalty to other men, gay/queer men dedicated to championing homosexuality have become impassioned enforcers of compulsory heterosexuality for women. 

“Not to love men is, in male-supremacist culture, possibly the single most execrable sin,” Marilyn Frye once wrote. The LGBTQ+ camp’s rancor towards lesbian women unequivocal in proclaiming their love of women, not men, confirms how right she was. For males gay, queer, or straight, women who say “NO” to men are an abomination. 

In gay/queer male culture just as in heterosexist male culture, women are expected to submit to men, fall in line, lie down, shut up. It is a seductive fantasy that, amongst gay/queer men, women and lesbians will at last be on equal terms with our brothers, because we share same-sex attraction and if we unite around that pivot of sameness, all the differences between our experiences, our social positions, our needs and interests will melt away, and men will esteem us as peers. But so long as patriarchy stands, this can be no more than a fantasy. Whatever color flag they might be waving, most men enjoy male power. They are disinclined to give it up. Men rule LGBTQ+, men rule Pride. And men do not tolerate self-determining, self-respecting dissident women, women who don’t kneel before male authority. We are despised. We will be punished. It may be in our interests to develop alliances with men who share our goal of bringing down patriarchy, but we betray ourselves stooping to collaborate with men who uphold it. Instead of getting cozy with the reigning Drag Queens and Leather Daddies of LGBTQ+, we can embody our lesbian pride by getting the ‘L’ out and veering off the parade route. There is somewhere else for us to go. We can return to our love for women, and recommit to the perhaps less “fabulous” but far more urgent, serious march towards the radical transformation of self and society. 

Let the men have their party. When we take the streets, it will be in revolt. 

Stay tuned for the July 1st release of WLRN’s monthly podcast featuring an interview with Angela Wild of Get the L Out UK, commentary from Sekhmet SheOwl and WLRN’s world news delivered by Julia Beck. To hear April Neault read aurora’s article on our YouTube channel, click here.

aurora linnea is a radical lesbian (eco)feminist writer living at the ocean’s edge in the region of North America colonizers dubbed “Maine.” She strives to contribute to the global feminist struggle to end male dominion through poetic dissidence and uncompromising disloyalty to the necrophilic patriarchal empire presently destroying life on earth.