The RCP's Anti-Gay Line: A Failed Effort At Rectification

[Lately, interest in the history of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA (RCP) and its predecessor organization the Revolutionary Union (RU) seems to have had a slight bump up, for good reasons and bad. Good: efforts to reassess and reclaim some of the important organizing work and promotion of revolutionary line done by these groups, and by the New Communist Movement more broadly in the 1970s. Bad: the watching-a-train-wreck fascination as the sorry, tattered remnants of the RCP settle deeper into the swamp of a bizarre cult of personality around its glorious leader Bob Avakian. 

One topic of discussion invariably triggered by such interest is the RCP's notorious longtime line condemning homosexuality as bourgeois decadence and LGBTQ  people as incapable of being communists. I have therefore decided to post this paper, written over a decade ago, which contains some thoughts on that line and its history, drawing on personal experience. 

It was written during a most unusual period in RCP history. In 2001, the group issued a draft for a new party programme, and accompanying programmatic documents on homosexuality and on the Chicana/o National Question (spoiler alert: there's no nation). Then they invited members and others to comment on it on a website called changetheworld.info. The ensuing discussion, though kept under close scrutiny by minders from the RCP leadership, was often lively and thoughtful, especially around gender issues. My contribution was posted there, and stirred some interest and discussion. In a little over a year, the website was

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Teen Breakthrough, Part 1: "I'm Not Racist Against Gays"

In my workaday world in the NYC public school system, this year's big news was the growing acceptance of and sympathy for gay guys. And because male homosexuality has been, in my experience, so deeply stigmatized among youth, I think this is a tremendous breakthrough. I still don't hear many guys in high school saying flat out, "I am gay," but there's definitely less attempt to deny or repudiate or hide attributes that might brand a young man as gay.

Little things like young men casually mentioning, "My uncle is gay," or an African-American senior who is into fashion design, tends toward the flaming in his manner and shows no romantic interest in girls being elected a class officer. Or a young man saying to a female classmate who called him "fa--ot" in an argument: "Well, I don't appreciate that because you must not think too much of gay people, and my brother is gay. " In the past, the likely response would have been to hurl back an insult, and the main concern would have been to assert his own straightness in front of the peer audience. But now, he takes the offensive and critiques heterosexism!

Another example that impressed me occurred in the context of a school art project for which students chose the theme of taboos. There was a fair amount of art about gay/lesbian relationships, but one of the most intriguing paintings showed what looked like a man in his twenties and a man in his sixties embracing, The young Latino artist, who as far as I know is straight, definitely wanted to provoke reactions and sought out feedback. It really blew me away that he was challenging two stigmas by portraying, in a compassionate way, both gay male sexuality, and the need of older people to express their sexuality (which is often is often a big yuck factor for teens!).

At the same time, teens, like all of us, have contradictory consciousness and they still come up with some disturbing anti-gay practices. One glaring example is the custom of saying "That's gay" when they think something is stupid or silly. I often will challenge this by asking, "How would you like it if when I thought something was stupid, I said 'That's so Dominican' or 'That's so Black'?" Many students will reply, "It's just a saying," "It doesn't mean anything" and vehemently assure me that they get along with gay classmates or friends or relatives, etc.

One young man listened thoughtfully and replied, "No, Miss, I'm not racist against gay people." I really dig this phrasing, because it reflects the reality of racism as the primary form of oppression and put-down that he is experiences and sees in the world. And I'm encouraged that many teens are becoming less racist against gay people.

[Next up, Part 2: Resistance Bisexuality]

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