in Lincoln, Nebraska after his transgender identity was revealed. His story was depicted in Boys Don’t Cry, as well as the Brandon Teena Story. Lisa Duggan situates what happens to Teena in the context of the deindustrializing Lincoln, Nebraska. In the absence of jobs and presence of abject poverty, those who transgressed boundaries were subjected to violence. They threatened an existing order that could not deal with any trepidation. She insightfully says, "A politics that cannot grasp the constraints, coercions, pressures and deprivations imposed through class hierarchies and economic exploitation, or that fails to imagine the realities of rural, agricultural and other non-metropolitan lives, cannot possibly speak to the Brandons in our midst. Brandon needed a labor movement, a working class politics, a critique of economic cruelties."
Duggan’s quote and its analysis are important because it discusses homophobia and transphobia not simply as an incomprehensible form of hate by straight folks, but rather situates it in the context of deindustrialization, poverty, and pressures that such economic deprivation creates for all folks who live in that environment. This is important for us to understand, not to excuse the violence of the perpetuator’s crimes, but rather to understand its origins so we can fight back and change the conditions that created it. An incomprehensible hate cannot be destroyed and neither can it be transformed, but through mass struggle, an economic condition and its pressures that lead to transphobia and homophobia can potentially be changed.
Yet, contrary to what middle class chauvinism would have us believe, homophobia and transphobia are not just the realms of deindustrailized cities and the working class. The recognition of the existence of homophobia and transphobia within working class communities is simply a sober assessment and recognition of the challenges we have to overcome in concreting organizing toward a vision of a working class queer liberation. As Joanna Kadi says, the caricature of the homophobic worker is also a fantasy of elitist queers who have either have had no meaningful contact, or simply outright disdain and class hatred for the working class. Middle class folks and their urban chauvinism would have us believe that queers outside of metropolitan areas are subject to even greater hate crime, or violence from their communities. These folks have no ways of understanding the myriad ways in which our families and communities have also expressed their love and support for our chosen lifestyles and partners. Bound by less rigid social etiquette norms that rich folks are socialized into, our working class families are less inclined to hide what they believe. This doesn’t mean we are more or less homophobic, simply more vocal about whatever it is. When the spotlights shine on the question of working class homophobia, what is instead left invisible, is the institutionalized heteronormativity, racism, ableism and class oppressions that have destroyed more queer lives than hate crimes ever have. The military, the abject healthcare system that increase our risk of HIV/AIDS, unemployment, and police brutality are only some examples. Let us not forget that the blood is on the hands of the capitalist ruling class and the middle class that create, support and enforce those policies.
Will we be degenerating into a class reductionism by situating queer struggles within class oppression?