The Temperamentals, LGBTQ history, and queer anti-assimilation

I had the pleasure recently of being able to enjoy MSU Mankato’s Theatre Departments production of The Temperamentals. Written by Jon Marans, The Temperamentals tells the story of Harry Hay and the role he played in founding the Mattachine Society, one of the earliest homophile activist groups. The play also discusses concepts around queer anti-assimilation which is a complicated topic I’ve wanted to address in a Why Not Today? column for some time now.

The production itself was well done and I was overall impressed with the hard work those involved obviously did in bringing this story to life. 

However, I did have a few critiques with The Tempermentals’ take on LGBTQ history.

For one thing, the play glosses over Hay’s support of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). However, a bigger issue for me though was how The Temperamentals sometimes to suggest that Hay, in addition to founding the Mattachine Society, was also one of the first individuals to argue that gender and sexual minorities not only constituted a distinct cultural identity but that we were also more specifically an oppressed minority.

Furthermore, the play suggests that Dale Jennings was the first individual to fight back against criminal charges of public solicitation.

While Hay certainly was an important LGBTQ activist in the early days of the homophile movement (as it was known back then) and his work founding the Mattachine Society constituted a herculean achievement, Hay was far from the first to posit the existence of homosexuality as a distinct identity or subculture. Nor was Dale Jennings whose courage was truly extraordinary for the time, the first individual to push back against criminal charges related to sexual orientation or gender identity.

The first person who is well documented as having theorized that queerness existed as it’s own specific identity and who also fought against anti-LGBTQ laws, would be German activist Karl Ulrichs. Ulrichs argued before the Congress of German Jurists on August 29, 1867 on the need to reform Germany’s anti-homosexuality laws, a speech which is considered the first public defense for the rights of gender and sexual minorities.

Ulrichs work would eventually give rise to the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee, which was the first group to fight for the rights of the LGBTQ community. Under the supervision of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee fought to reform German laws, conducted academic studies into queer identity and performed some of the earliest gender affirmation surgeries for transgender individuals. Unfortunately, their work would be destroyed by the NAZI’s and Hirschfeld driven from Germany.

If you want to look to the first individual to push back against United States anti-queer laws, then that would be William Dorsey Swann. Swann was a former enslaved man and a flaming drag queen who organized gay events and drag balls. In 1896, Swann was charged for organizing a drag ball, a charge he petitioned president Grover Cleveland to pardon him for. No pardon materialized but Swann’s petition is the first well documented attempt by a queer American to push back against the criminalization of the queer community.

The Temperamentals also attempts to address the complicated conceits surrounding queer anti-assimilation, which I would consider a laudable goal in of itself. However in doing so, the Tempermentals winds up flattening and simplifying a great deal of LGBTQ history.

It is true that the Mattachine Society, initially under the leadership of Hay, was fairly radical in its outlook. But the Mattachine Society died a quick death in the aftermath of the Stonewall Riots precisely because of it’s conservative and outdated politics relative to the jubilee of queer pride that emerged in the aftermath of the riots.

The Mattachine Society was not, as the final scenes of the Temperamentals suggest, rejected by the LGBTQ community because of its radicalism at the time of the riots.

The entire topic of queer anti-assimilation is a fraught one. I myself remember being given That’s Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, a collection of essays arguing for radical queer liberation over assimilation. The arguments of the queer anti-assimilationists fascinated me. Reading That’s Revolting made me feel like my worldview was expanding like a hot air balloon being filled with the fires of a thousand flaming queer radicals.

Like the anti-assimilationists I read, for a time I found myself trying to argue that maybe marriage equality should not be the end game of queer liberation. Maybe we just shouldn’t just be trying to replicate heterosexual relationships and the restrictive practices of straight culture.

As I’ve gotten older I found myself criticizing and rejecting many of the ideas related to queer anti-assimilation that I once embraced. I would still argue that there are plenty of underlying issues that anti-assimilationists have identified that should not be swept under the carpet. For example, anti-assimilationists have done a lot to bring attention to issues of racism in the larger LGBTQ community and that is certainly an issue that should not be ignored.

However, I am ultimately a pragmatist and I have rarely seen anti-assimilationists match their grand rhetoric with actual measurable impact or progress. Too often I would argue, anti-assimilationists have plenty of things they are against but too little that they can be said to stand for.

No police at pride! No mimicking heterosexuality! Down with monogamy! Stop corporations sponsoring pridefests!

The list of do nots anti-assimilationists have produced is quite extensive and I feel like only the Westboro Baptist Church has put in a comparable effort protesting mainstream LGBTQ pride events.

This is the crux of my argument against anti-assimilationists. That while different in every way from conservatism ideological, anti–assimilationists wind up mimicking political conservative in every practical way. Horseshoe theory ends up being very much in play here.

Again, I don’t think queer anti-assimilationists should be dismissed out of hand as there are a lot of underlying philosophical ideology that is worth discussing, I do not think they provide an actual pragmatic way forward for the larger LGBTQ movement.

As for Harry Hay, he should be remembered for both his accomplishments as well as for his flaws.

Ultimately, our imperfect world does not always allow for perfect solutions to complex problems. We can only make sure that we are there for one another and that we remember those who came before us.

Write to Jeremy Redline at Jeremy.redlien@mnsu.edu