The Human Rights Campaign Might Be Racist

Today’s edition of completely predictable gay news.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

One of the “Top Stories” this past week in The Washington Post was, “Human Rights Campaign hit with racial bias suit by former president fired in Andrew M. Cuomo scandal.”

Normally, I might skim over a headline that seemed so unsurprising. A story suggesting possible racism or sexism in the HRC’s administrative structure falls into a similar news category as the daily revelations of Trump’s corruption and narcissism. Do I really need additional evidence for my long-standing beliefs? Stupid clickbait. I feel manipulated. WaPo knows I love to hate the HRC.

Mainstream media loves watching a good chair fight on the left. At least Jerry Springer never claimed to be the Fourth Estate of Democracy. The headline pits gay rights against racial equality against the MeToo Movement. While there could be a valuable discussion on the historical presence of racism and misogyny within the heart of the more conventionally attired efforts to advance LGBT civil rights, this story probably won’t inspire much critical discourse. What it does accomplish is most accurately approximated by Edlund, the gleeful right-wing troll in the comments section for this article, “Good. The left eating its own. The faction that sees normal sex anywhere as criminal and to be banned slays the wing that wants to push for black civil rights…It is coastal elites telling the rest of us how sinful we are and how virtuous they are. What a load of nonsense. Don’t you wish they’d just shut up?”

Yes Edlund, sometimes I wish they would.

To clarify, I am queer. I am a GenX white Transman. I think homophobia, racism, and misogyny are all bad. My personal poor opinion of the HRC started in 2007, when I was a butch dyke with a mohawk who owned a dyke bar that intentionally welcomed Trans people. The public conversation surrounding Trans people was less advanced then. There was a sense in the mainstream LGBT movement that any focus on the more marginalized members of the acronym might derail the vigorous ongoing crusade for marriage equality. The HRC had just signed off on a version of the Employment and…