Ryan Conrad

When “rights” go wrong. Does gay marriage support the right-wing goal of linking access to basic human rights like health care and economic security to an inherently conservative tradition?Will the ability of queers to fight in wars of imperialism help liberate and empower LGBT people around the world?Does hate-crime legislation affirm and strengthen historically anti-queer institutions like the police and prisons rather than dismantling them? The Against Equality collective asks some hard questions. These queer thinkers, writers, and artists are committed to undermining a stunted conception of “equality.” In this powerful book, they challenge mainstream gay and lesbian struggles for inclusion in elitist and inhumane institutions. More than a critique,Against Equality seeks to reinvigorate the queer political imagination with fantastic possibility!

Queer Revolution, Not Mere Inclusion

Against Equality

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

Dean Spade

Kate Bornstein

Kenyon Farrow

Craig Willse

Kate Raphael

Yasmin Nair

Eric Stanley

Deeg

John D’Emilio

Martha Jane Kaufman

Katie Miles

While what feels like the entirety of the gay and lesbian movement is marching in unison towards some vague notion of equality, the Against Equality collective has been quietly assembling a digital archive to document the critical resistance to the politics of inclusion. This pocket-sized book of archival texts lays out some of the historical foundations of queer resistance to the gay marriage mainstream alongside more contemporary inter-subjective critiques that deal directly with issues of race, class, gender, citizenship, age, ability, and more. In portable book form, the critical conversations that are happening so readily on the internet will no longer be withheld from those with little to no online access like queer and trans prisoners, people of low income, rural folks and the technologically challenged.

Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage

 This anthology gathers together pieces by contemporary radical voices critical of the mainstream gay community's uncritical approach to Don't Ask Don't Tell. It features an introduction by the inimitable Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore and essays by writers from our digital archives on LGBT investments in militarism. This archival anthology asks why the historically left/radical anti-war critique of war does not extend to DADT and the issue of queers in the military. This book provides hitherto unavailable set of critiques on a subject that has rarely been approached with as much candor and nuance. Defying the prescriptive logic of "gay is good" that permeates mainstream gay politics, it seeks to interrogate the place of the military in a queer imagining of the world and simultaneously challenges the mainstream left to question its signing on to the damaging militarism of contemporary gay politics. 

Don't Ask to Fight Their Wars

Ryan Conrad

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