Identity politics can only go so far.
However, people on the left, especially people in political activism, tend to connect their sexuality with other topics. The Parkland survivors, in an interview with Yahoo Lifestyle senior editor Beth Greenfield, revealed how their work as LGBTQ activists has helped them now that they are part of the “antigun movement.”
On Saturday, Greenfield praised Emma González for her “fierce badassery” and wrote that her identity as a bisexual “just made that much more sense for a whole lot of people, particularly fellow LGBTQ folks and queer activists for whom self-identity and a willingness to stand up for justice have long been inextricably linked.”
In agreement, González told Yahoo Lifestyle that being a member of the LGBTQ and antigun activism were “definitely linked for me personally.”
Another Parkland student, Jaclyn Corin, who did not identify as a member of the LGBTQ community, was cited from an article with the headline, “Queer Teenage Girls are Leading the Gun Control Movement.”
“We’re kind of modeling this like the LGBT movement because, in retrospect, it’s the same,” Corin added. “We’re working towards a common goal as a lot of people and it’s not party-oriented. That’s marriage, and this is lives.”
For more support, Greenfield then quoted Evan Wolfson, a LGBTQ activist. He said:
“You can’t reduce something to just one identity, whether it be black or white or gay or non-gay or Jewish or Christian. Minorities have had an experience of exclusion, oppression, having to form solidarity and work for change … but we all have our something, and we have to draw on that something to make the world better.”
Irony drips from this statement. While Wolfson says one can’t reduce a person to one identity, it seems as if at least some of the people in the anti-gun movement are using their one sexual identity to enhance their activism in other matters. Instead of using broader arguments or stronger logic, groups like the oft-cited Gays Against Guns try to say that the “LGBT community is disproportionately affected by gun violence,” because “92% of transgender adults have attempted suicide by age 25.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s a problem with guns. But in the interest of being intersectional, remember: if someone’s sexual preferences are different, that makes them more of an activist. At least, that’s the lesson the media wants people to absorb.
