March 2, 2010
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Lavender Graduation
At the University of Michigan and many
other educational institutions, there is a special event especially
for LGBT graduates. Because I am a fourth-year undergraduate who is
occasionally active in gay-rights activism, I recently received my
invitation to this event.At first it seems like a good thing:
While we are treated as second-class citizens everywhere else in the
United States, at least at universities we are offered full rights
and privileges.But when I stop to think about what it
means to have a special graduation,
I realize that this is nothing less than self-segregation.
It’s a way of saying that
regular “straight graduation” isn’t good enough for us, so we
need our own special Lavender Graduation.By
comparison, imagine if there were a special graduation for Chinese
students, or for Black students, or for Muslim students. Even if
these were created by the minority groups themselves, isn’t there
still something problematic about this? Doesn’t it ultimately
reinforce the notion that “we are different from you and should be
treated differently”?I
think this is the fundamental problem with identity politics. When it
first began, it was intended as a way of ensuring that different
groups of people are granted the same rights and respect as other
groups. But over time it became yet another way to distinguish
between people, and ultimately began to reinforce the same prejudices
it was meant to eliminate.It
would be different if there were some kind of discrimination against
LGBT students in regular graduation ceremonies—but there isn’t! In
fact graduation ceremonies seem to be completely fair and egalitarian
in a way that few institutions are. In a world where military service
is only available to us if we remain in hiding and where marriage is
denied to us in all but a few places, graduation is one of the few
times when gay people are treated like full citizens equal to
everyone else.Of
course we should be fighting for our rights when they are actually
enfringed—but what’s the point in segregating ourselves and
fighting for rights that have already been won?
