BY ANDREW PETZINGER

In print | November 1, 2007

Last week was Coming Out Week; for many, it was a time to stake a claim to their sexual and gender self-identity. For those of us who are allies, or hope to be allies, it also brought clearly to mind the ongoing collective effort to constitute a real community of support, of solidarity and of compassion. We are reminded of the imperative to be more than just passive observers in the collective endeavor of queer empowerment.

Certainly, being an ally means having a conception of what sexual and gender liberation is. It means being aware of how our various privileges play out in our daily life and interactions. It means rejecting the forced and enforced definitions of “normal” human beings and human love. It means upending the persistent efforts of an alienating culture that attempts to make discrete and clear what is robust and complex beyond reduction.

I was recently reminded of one of the basic characteristics of a queer ally. An ally is not one who obeys a set of predetermined rules for “ally” behavior or reads a basic rubric onto every situation. It is a person who is eternally in the process of becoming a better ally. Because if we are serious about collective liberation, serious about granting ourselves and the communities we support the agency of self-identification, then I believe we must realize that our real work is to constantly be coming-to-be with the communities we support. We must constitute a space in which our conception of good alliance is evolving and anti-essential, precisely insofar as we are supporting the power to reject the historical violence that essentialism has wrought.

This means that those of us who wish to be allies must desire education. We must desire an education rooted in real conversation and negotiation with those we hope to support, not to construct for ourselves a conception of the “proper view,” but to train ourselves to constantly reconsider our convictions in the interest of understanding and consensus.

I do not care to discover the abstractions by which I can calculate “what a good ally does.” I want my education to be in-the-world and informed by the dis parate and distinct voices of others. For these reasons I want an ally community that resists the tendency to tokenize, as much as they must resist the artificial effort to construct an essential, monolithic “queer voice.”

The political and social community I hope to participate in is one of mutual empowerment, where one’s personal evolution is informed by constant negotiation and collective self-education. If queer allies are concerned with constituting a space for sexual expression and self-identity, I believe we are already in the business of building this community. I, for one, hope that all of my mistakes and necessary reassessments as an ally are in the name of bringing about such a community.

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