Sylvia Rivera

People like Pat Robertson or Fred Phelps will never succeed in silencing the voices of queers. They're too recognizably vile, and create an instant, impassioned response against them, to ever act as anything other than very good rallying points for people who believe in social justice and sexual equality. The worst enemies of sexual minorities come from within the LGBT communities themselves. They're the people whose vision of LGBT activism involves making the homos just like the heteros, and want that so badly that they strive not to broaden our culture's vision of sexuality, but instead work to narrow the community's vision of itself. Look, for example, at this quote from Joseph Sabrow's editorial in Metroline, a New England gay and lesbian publication, that Autumn Sandeen spotted: