In 1990, a manifesto published anonymously by Queers and distributed at a pride march in New York called for a moratorium on straight marriage, public displays of heterosexual affection, and media displays promoting heterosexuality.

And you can call it wild, unachievable, or even counterproductive to the Queer Rights Movement, but you'd be objectively wrong in every way shape and form. This manifest is called "Queers Read This: I Hate Straights". While it is an extremely radical thought, it was and still is a necessary and positive contribution to the discourse surrounding achieving an equitable society. Until the rights of the lowest of our society are granted, nobody deserves to have them.

A Queer Retelling of American History

The story of this manifesto begins in 1987, with the reclamation of the pejorative. At the peak of the AIDS epidemic and the governmental "brushing under the rug" of the thousands of citizens and individuals across the world already dead because of neglect, the organization ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) is founded.  From ACT UP comes Queer Nation three years later in 1990. How does this history play into the modern re-envisioning of Anonymous Queers' manifesto? I'll tell you.

The Reagan presidency is the hallmark of complacent violence wrought down onto my people. Reagan waited until five years after the first documented case (and after already over 5,000 known deaths had occurred) to mention AIDS at all in public. It's as if he was saying AIDS was a possible way to contract the disease itself, nly to say, "...only to say, "... when it comes to preventing AIDS, don't medicine and morality teach the same lessons." He allowed these deaths to happen with no action and then decided that his first statement would blame the lives that were taken by this treacherous disease. Queers blame Reagan for the devastation that wrought our community in the 1980s, and with just cause. His inaction slowed scientific advancement and health care proliferation for diagnosed individuals, and it further stigmatized AIDS as a characteristic of homosexual behavior.

An Army of Lovers Cannot Lose

Our opening line would be the same: "Being queer is not about a right to privacy; it is about the freedom to be public, to just be who we are." We do not want, we are not fighting tooth, nail, and ass for the ability to express love in the confines of our property. Largely because our community is historically and currently disproportionately living in poverty, so we don't have property to be queer inside. Because I, in 2017, still cannot be comfortably queer in my hometown in public. And because trans-folx, in 2017, still get invasive questions from cis-folks about their genitalia in private and public spaces, when it has NEVER been okay to ask ANYONE else EVER.

When we call ourselves an Army of Lovers, it is because we are literally fighting for the right to love. Our agenda, as Anonymous Queers so eloquently put, is to, "make every space a Lesbian and Gay space ... a city and a country where we can be safe and free and more."

There are sixteen sections in the 12-page manifesto, most likely written by sixteen queers. Some of the information won't really apply to today's societal context. The section titled "I Hate..." while, arguably the most important to me, probably won't make a lot of sense if you weren't an adult in the 1990s and very aware of the atrocities enacted against the queer community. But it's vital to understand that the feeling contained in that section is still alive today.

Queers read this: "I Hate Straights" is a manifesto written for and distributed to queer people in the 1990s. Today in 2017, it is mandatory reading if you call yourself an ally to the queer community.