I, along with several other fortunate women, had the honor of spending the better part of an evening with Edie Windsor last weekend while she visited Philadelphia for the 50th anniversary of the Annual Reminders protest. The anniversary celebration couldn’t have come at a better time given that, as we all know, the legalization of same-sex marriage occurred just one week prior. Windsor, whose lawsuit against the federal government led to the fall of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), was honored for her huge contribution to our community.
Maybe it was the celebratory tone of the weekend that made Windsor share as freely as she did that evening, perhaps believing it important to arm younger generations with as much knowledge as possible. Or, maybe she is always such an inspired story-teller. Regardless, Windsor discussed in detail her experience of being a lesbian during a time when electro-shock therapy was a common treatment for attempting to cure homosexuality and the only way to find a gay bar was to “ask around” on the sly. From having to hide her relationship with her late wife for decades to ensure neither woman would lose her job to leaving Harvard University due to feelings of immense isolation and “not knowing where to meet lesbians,” Windsor’s story, her life, is cause for much reflection on how far we’ve come and how much further we’ve still got to go.
The gay-rights movement has made more progress in the shortest amount of time than any other social movement. Within the last 50 years, gays and lesbians have gone from being viewed as perverts and mentally ill to coming close to being granted full equality under the law. In fact, it wasn’t until the early 1970s that homosexuality was just partially removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). A diagnosis called “ego-dystonic homosexuality,” which is a fancy way of saying that homosexuality is only a disorder if anxiety or discomfort is experienced as a result, remained in the manual until 1987. That’s less than 30 years ago. Now, as we find ourselves able to get married in all 50 states, something Windsor admitted she never thought she’d see, it may seem that we’ve come to be accepted within society. The thing is, if Windsor is still around to tell her story of oppression, it is likely that her oppressors are also still around and have since birthed and raised a new generation of small-minded people.
In 2015, blatant homophobia is certainly less frequent and being openly gay comes at a much lower cost than ever before; in fact, gay is everywhere, right down to the rainbow crosswalks on our streets. In many ways, we have grown stronger and raised our voices higher than even the loudest of homophobes, a notion that is so exciting, we should be dancing in the streets. But, the fact that we can dance in the streets is also a formula for complacency: Let’s all kick back and indulge in our success. We wouldn’t be the first movement to do it — just look at the women’s-rights movement. After the right to birth control, the legalization of abortion and a relative overhaul of the traditional family structure, women stopped worrying so much about their rights because things became so much better. In fact, these days, many women shudder at the idea of being referred to as “feminists,” all the while, women are still making somewhere between 66-91 percent of what men are paid. This demonstrates that being granted full legal rights (which actually, we still don’t have) does not equate to full social equality. In our community, LGBT kids will continue to be bullied at high rates, LGBT teens will still be disowned from their conservative families, and LGBT teens and adults alike will continue to experience an increased likelihood for depression and anxiety.
We may have won a battle a couple of weeks ago, a very big battle even, but we have not yet won the war. We have to ask ourselves where we want to be in another 10 or 15 years and consider the implications of the youngest LGBT generation coming of age during a time when we’re feeling as triumphant as we are. If we couple that with a laissez-faire attitude post-marriage equality, not only would we be passively disregarding the bold action of people like Edie Windsor, but we would also be quietly agreeing to decades more of a society interspersed with people who will only tolerate us.
In the bold spirit of Edie, I am able to proudly say that I am certain we deserve more than just tolerance, we deserve to be accepted and embraced.