Legalize Gay, Or: So You Think You’re Illegal?
American Apparel has launched a new t-shirt. It comes in a range of colors, including teal and pink, and has the words “Legalize Gay” emblazoned in white across the upper torso area. Below this are the words, “Repeal Prop 8.” The company’s website includes this promo material:
“In the fall of 2008, Proposition 8 passed in California, striking down the legalization of same-sex marriage. Now the decision rests in the hands of California’s Supreme Court, with state lawmakers declaring the vote unconstitutional. Equal rights for all ‘“ repeal Prop 8.” The t-shirts are a variation on AA’s “Legalize L.A” t-shirts, part of the company’s attempt to market itself as an immigrants-rights-friendly entity. Clearly, this new version is an attempt to tap into the gay market.
A brief introduction to American Apparel: Founded in 1997 by Dov Charney, AA became famous for being the largest U.S. clothing manufacturer based entirely in this country. In other words, AA doesn’t outsource its manufacturing. But, it also has no unions and that fact alone should give pause to anyone who thinks this is a bastion of progressive business practices.
Its background has allowed AA to garner a niche market of mostly urban hipsters who’d like to look cool and aspire to at least the semblance of progressive politics. This t-shirt proves that gay marriage supporters aren’t afraid to exploit other struggles in an effort to legitimize themselves as the most marginalized.
Legalize Gay? Who, in the wake of Prop 8, is illegal for being gay? Sure, gays and lesbians might not be allowed to marry in California but Prop 8 has not meant that those with otherwise unblemished records can no longer leave their houses, or buy cars, or keep their jobs. Do people wearing this t-shirt have a clue what it really means to be illegal? To be, for instance, an “illegal alien” who gets swept up in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid and be deported soon thereafter? To not be able to travel freely because they lack the proper documentation? To pay for their school tuition and rent in cash because they lack social security numbers?
It’s not just the undocumented whose lives are effectively erased by this t-shirt, but the millions who are being funneled into the prison industrial complex in order to increase its profits. According to Critical Resistance, the prison abolition group, the United States currently imprisons around 2 million people and nearly “6.5 million people are presently under some form of supervision within the criminal justice system. Women represent the fastest rising prison population. Since 1980, the number of women imprisoned in the U.S. has risen by almost 400 percent.” The numbers have exploded because the PIC has been relentlessly creating new categories of the illegal, and putting people in jail for longer periods of time. 20% of new prison commitments in the US come from California, according to a 2006 statistic from CR.
The “Legalize Gay” t-shirt allows the wearer to smugly pose as “illegal” while cluelessly erasing the reality that millions are actually illegal in the terms dictated by draconian laws around immigration and the prison industrial complex.
Yeah, when I saw this shirt I thought it was pretty lame. It’s not grammatically or literally correct and just kinda dumb. Like you said, it’s not illegal anywhere in this country to be gay. In India and other parts of Asia, and most of Africa, and the Middle East, yes. But here? Come on.
Yasmin: I’ve always thought American Apparel was fashionably wrong.
I would never buy anything from this company, even if they happen to be on the right side of an issue this one time.
I love you, Yasmin. You always manage to stir the pot.
First off, American Apparel’s owner is a sexist asshole with multiple sexual harassment suits against him.
Second of all, marriage is not what makes you gay. You and I are on the same page about this, so I know I don’t need to go off on that tangent.
Third subpoint, don’t you just love when hipster companies try to commodify the struggles of minority groups because it’s suddenly fashionable? Tacky. That’s what it is.
Thanks, folks. Yes, AA is a mixed bag, to say the least, and there’s sooooooo much more to write about this topic. Serena and Nina, glad you raised the lawsuits which do reveal some alleged scary hiring practices.
Serena: “marriage is not what makes you gay” – and I love YOU for that! And yes on hipster companies commodifying struggles – tacky and ick, absolutely.
First, I think these shirts are silly, but most people don’t connect the shirt to any particular legal or social struggle, because you can’t see the secondary text unless you’re trying to do so.
Second, there are plenty of companies, like Toyota, where there are no unions because they already treat their employees well enough that their employees don’t have a need or want to pay another money-sucking bureaucracy to bargain for them.
I think the t-shirts, unless all the profits are going to help overturn Prop8, are akin to those stupid Che tshirts. That said, please stop mixing issues like gay rights and unionization. And please stop making broad assumptions and sweeping generalizations, the exact behavior for which you so often criticize conservative assholes.
“Please stop mixing issues like gay rights and unionization.”
Chad, that’s a classic statement of gay denial about the importance of workplace rights. Without unionization, queers are much less likely to have rights in the workplace as workers. I’ve written about this separation of “gay” as a class identity here:
http://www.uic.edu/jaddams/hull/immigrantcitychicago/essays/nair_leftofqueer.html
I’m the last one to be uncritical of the current state of unions in the US these days, but without a strong union movement, workers – and the right not to be fired for your sexual orientation is a worker’s right, not just a “gay right” – face much tougher times in this economy. Having the right to be married is pretty useless if you don’t have the right to not be discriminated in the workplace because of your sexual orientation.
As for matters like Prop 8, that’s not where the “gay rights” movement’s focus needs to be. I and others have written extensively about this. For more, check out http://www.againstequality.org.
When you make a sweeping generalization by accusing a writer of making sweeping generalizations, it’s helpful to point out what those are.
Regarding the message on the shirts – of course people connect them to a “social struggle” – why else are they so popular? HRC has adopted them as their official shirt for their summertime canvassing. The message is explicit – “gays have no legal rights.” That’s a fairly obvious connection. My critique points out that the shirts erase the very real problems of legalization faced by so many in favor of a fiction of gays being “illegal.”
Yasmin–
I do think AA is a crappy company and from all reports, looks to be on the brink of bankruptcy.
I do think that my lifestyle is less-than legal, subversive even as I have ‘illegal’ sex and wish to ‘illegally’ marry my partner and also ‘illegally’, wish to pass to her all of my assets should anything happen to myself, tax-free–you know, like a any other spouse.
Additionally, I’ll need surgery in the next year–After much debate, my partner took a job at lower pay that offers partner ‘benefits’ so I can get that healthcare insurance that a married ‘wife’ could receive if her ‘husband’ took a job in many, many full-time positions.
Please don’t reduce me to a reality-erasing hipster of undocumented workers… I protested the passage of SB1070 in Phoenix–Were you there? –You don’t look familiar.
Thanks!
-Christine
Dear Christine,
Perhaps you didn’t see me at that rally because I live in Chicago. And I’m not sure I see the point in a pissing contest over who has done more protesting.
My points still stand, as a general argument – you’ve provided nothing to dispute them. As for your own case – you’re not illegal. You can move freely in this country and probably outside it, I’m guessing. Your sex is not illegal – Lawrence v. Texas, 2003. It’s not illegal for you to pass on your assets to your spouse (and unmarried people face similar issues that you do – we just don’t go around calling ourselves “illegal.”) I’m very glad that you have healthcare – most undocumented people don’t, which you would know if you spoke to any of them at the rallies you attend. In fact, in states like AZ, it’s illegal to even give life-saving health services – including emergency care – to undocumented people, who are often called “illegal” and treated as such. As you know, anyone seeking such help stands the risk of instant jail and/or deportation because the hospitals are required to report them, in most places.
So far, you’re not illegal by any standards. Let me know when and if you lose your citizenship status and are forced to scrounge around in an underground economy for less than minimum wage. When you’re too scared to seek help for a terrible injury because you might risk deportation. Or if you get pulled over because you look “illegal.” Or, or, or…you get the point.