New Report Proves Need for Queer Focus on Economic Justice
New Report Proves Need for Queer Focus on Economic Justice
by Joseph DeFilippis, Executive Director of QEJ
Hey, have you heard about that economic crisis? You know — the historic one that seems to have been noticed by everyone else in the world except the LGBT movement? I only ask because with the country facing an economic recession of massive proportions, it is sort of surreal to see our LGBT organizations and media continuing to behave as if the most important issue facing queer people is whether or not we can get married. But a new study documents what some of us have been arguing for a long time now: that poverty is a far more pressing life-and-death issue for many in our community.
“Poverty In the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Community”, which was just released this week by The Williams Institute documents that the widely believed myth of gay affluence and financial clout is just that – a fairy tale.
The report documents, among other things, that lesbian couples and their families are much more likely to be poor than heterosexual couples and their families, and that children in gay and lesbian couple households have poverty rates twice those of children by heterosexual married couples. It also shows that queer couples who live in rural areas are much more likely to be poor than urban queer couples. And same-sex black couples have poverty rates significantly higher than married black heterosexuals, and are roughly three times poorer than their white same-sex counterparts.
So how did we come to be seen as a community of wealthy, white men with no children? The myth of gay affluence gained prominence in the 1980s, in no small part due to some highly publicized marketing surveys of the readership of gay magazines. The existence of gay people with lots of disposable income was an appealing pitch to make to advertisers, and it was quickly used by some gay political leaders eager to flex the community’s developing muscles. But it has also been used against us by our foes who have depicted us as privileged white gay men who do not need additional ‘special rights’. Sadly, our movement has done little to challenge that notion.
The reality is that although those magazines’ subscribers were predominantly gay white men, our community also includes people of color, who, like their heterosexual counterparts, generally make less money than do white men. And in a country where women still make 80 cents for the same work that men earn a dollar, it should come as no surprise that lesbian-headed households often struggle economically. Transgender people find it very difficult to obtain employment at all. LGBT seniors are more likely to live without the financial support of families, and without the social security survivor benefits of a spouse. And in cities like New York, queer youth make up about 30 percent of the homeless youth living on the streets.
The Williams report sheds clear light on the economic crisis that many in our community face. But the report was not able to address the lives of so many others – of gay, lesbian and bisexual people who did not report to the U.S. Census that they live in coupled households. Thousands of single LGB people also live in poverty. Nor does the report attempt to address the financial struggles faced by transgender people, about whom other reports have painted fairly bleak economic pictures.
The information in the Williams report about our community was gathered prior to today’s headlines about our county’s continued economic free-fall. We have every reason to assume that the financial struggles documented in the Williams report have only gotten worse since the data was collected.
And so, it is beyond maddening to continue to see millions of dollars poured into fighting Prop 8 in California and other marriage equality battles across the country. At the exact same time that this is happening, there has been a stony silence from most of our national LGBT organizations, media and funders about the current economic crisis. None of our national LGBT organizations have prioritized poverty as an issue in our community, and our queer media continues to ignore it.
But if you look below the radar, you will see queer organizations across the country that have been working for years on the real issues facing the less-financially privileged segments of our communities. Small groups like Queers for Economic Justice, where I am Executive Director, work with low-income and homeless LGBT people on vital issues crucial to their basic survival. And we are not alone. Other grassroots organizations across the country do amazing work with the most financially disenfranchised LGBT people on the issues that are most crucial to them – housing, welfare, immigration, police brutality, access to health care, etc.
But these groups are underfunded as millions of dollars continue to pour, instead, into the fight for gay marriage – an issue which was put on the top of our movement’s agenda primarily by people who are not facing the harshest of our economic realities. It is time that our movement prioritized the needs of the rest of our community – of the financially struggling or impoverished. And as the current crisis pushes more of us into that category, it is time that our leaders opened the newspaper to something other than the marriage announcements.