Out yet Unseen: A Racial Critique of Gay and Lesbian Legal Theory and Political Discourse

Abstract

This Article introduces the concerns of the movement aimed at revealing-or ending the silence around-the interactions of race, class, gender, and sexuality, into legal discourse in an attempt to initiate a dialogue around issues of race and class between those scholars presently engaged in the construction of gay and lesbian legal theories. Part II examines specific acts of violence and discrimination against gay, or perceived as gay, people of color, and the legal and political challenges to these acts, in order to demonstrate the ready interplay between race, class, and sexual subordination- or the multidimensionality of oppression. Part III contrasts the nature of these gay and lesbian experiences with gay and lesbian legal theory and political discourse, which, by excluding issues of racial and class subordination from analysis, have a narrow and essentialist focus. In Part IV, I locate my racial critique of gay and lesbian legal theory and political discourse within the extensive and ongoing anti-essentialist debates in feminist legal theory and critical race theory. I also demonstrate how this Article develops and extends these debates. Finally, I invite gay and lesbian legal theorists and political activists to engage in a conversation around sexual, racial, and class inequality and to adopt a multidimensional framework -- or multidimensionality-to analyze and challenge sexual subordination.