No HeterOx** is a queer and trans zine for the Oxford community, started by my friend Alexander Bee- cham and me. Our manifesto states, “Queer sounds are drowned out by the sermonising voices of the majority, and yet there is so much liberation and richness to be found in queer thought, and in queer discussion and in queer art and poetry and culture.” This is something we sincerely believe.
We lace our shoes with rainbows, we ring out wedding bells, and we strive to assimilate. The modern day queer rights movement has now undergone the most shameful reductionism, with the “we are
just like you” rhetoric of marriage equality and the rainbow flag flying above Whitehall.
The face of the queer rights movement today is white, gay, middle class and, ultimately, easy to swallow. Marriage equality is being hailed as the Holy Grail of a civil rights movement, so, necessarily, No HeterOx** must be anti-assimilationist. The very people that mainstream queer discourse tries to silence are the people that have paved the way for gay men to hold hands in the street.
The trans women that picked up bricks at the Stonewall riots did not do so for our right to assimilate quietly. There exists a mainstream belief that the right to same sex marriage “will finally legislate us wholly human”. The quote comes from a spoken word poem called ‘Marriage (Queer Rage)’, penned by a group of Stanford LGBTQ students of colour and criticises this train of thought.
This very belief is flawed.
The end goal of our civil-rights movement should not simply be queer assimilation. Assimilation prescribes a queer norm; that to espouse one’s fundamental difference is dangerous. Cuddly notions like “we are all just part of the human race” erase an important struggle and allow us to ignore the intersectional nature of oppressions, leaving behind those who cannot or do not want to assimilate.
Those at Stonewall did not riot for our right to assimilate. The phrase LGBTQ is hard to swallow for a reason – we are hard to swallow. There is this bizarre notion that modern-day revolutionaries must come cap in hand, preaching equal rights and pride with sweetness in their eyes and in their voices – but these issues are personal. Words hurt a lot less than bricks do – and I want people to remember that once upon a time queer people threw those too.
I do not want equality, I want liberation. No HeterOx** exists in the gap between ‘equal’ marriage and the steadily erased victims of a mainstream queer rights movement. We exist to drag everyone and ourselves into the light, to retell the stories that have been told about us. In the shadowy, un-pretty parts of our movement where LGBTQ asylum seekers are routinely humiliated and given effective death sentences. In a world where black trans bodies are under attack, a world where LGBTQ youth are disproportionately homeless, and predisposed to mental health disorders.
We want to add colour to a whitewashed movement, appreciate the intersectionality of ours and the oppression of others, kick patriarchy’s ass and look damn good doing it. We want to write our own history.
If you’d like to find out more about No HeterOx**, find us on acebook or at: noheterox.tumblr.com If you’re interested in contributing to the zine, please contact: [email protected]
