In “Equality, Inc,” Lisa Duggan outlines how equality has come become devoid of its originally radical intentions of overthrowing an unjust system and instead has aligned with providing access to existing broken institutions. An example of this is the gay and lesbian elite’s “gay tunnel vision,” which focuses only on so-called gay issues, such as marriage equality, leaving issues of other queers, including those of poverty and homelessness, in the dark. Duggan names the Human Rights Campaign as an organization that has been compliant with the politics of neoliberalism in its “top-down corporate planning process” (Duggan 46) and notes how the HRC has taken on the same functions as wealthy lobbying groups as its method of establishing political change.
The conception of “conventional gays” who cast out the ideologies of “extreme leftist queers” as too radical also relies on the assumption that equality can trickle down from the most privileged class (usually white gay men) to a less privileged class. By even producing the term “conventional gays,” any other group of queers is pitted against those who represent the norm or rather those who are white and economically privileged. The definition of equality that Duggan’s chapter concludes with is limited in the nature of the areas it covers and in the people who can be considered as equals.
Reference:
Duggan, Lisa. “Equality, Inc.” The Twilight of Equality?, edited by Lisa Duggan, Beacon Press: 2004, pp. 43-66.