Come Out and Win: Organizing Yourself, Your Community, and Your World
If you’re one of the many people who, in a moment of inspiration during last month’s Pride festivities, made a heartfelt resolution to get more involved in the LGBT community, you’d be well advised to pick up Sue Hyde’s excellent, essential primer for queer activism: Come Out and Win: Organizing Yourself, Your Community and Your World.
Along with Lisa Keen’s Out Law: What LGBT Youth Should Know about Their Legal Rights, these books are the debut publications in a new Beacon Press series: Queer Action/Queer Ideas (dedicated to featuring lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender-themed books that ". . .educate readers on the intertwined histories of the gay community. . .as well as offer technical guidance, legal advice, and morale boosts for those who are ready to be proactive in the fight for equality."). That ambitious mission statement is certainly a mouthful, but the clarity of Come Out and Win suggests the folks at Beacon Press are up to the task.
Hyde, currently with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, is a veteran whose sense of history and mission makes for a well-informed and far-reaching guidebook. Her 25 years of organizing and agitating have taken her to the forefront of efforts to repeal sodomy laws, rescind the military ban on openly serving and pass non-discrimination laws at the local and state levels. That she’s gone through this much human rights muck without peppering her text with swear words and world-weary bitterness is a testament to the highly evolved individual I assume her to be.
One of the things I like most about her approach is a frank acknowledgement that the LGBT political movement (and political organizing in general) is akin to ". . .parenting: tedious, repetitious, endlessly consuming of time and energy, and yet punctuated by real breakthrough events." Similarly realistic is her generous understatement that "In a room of twenty LGBT people, there can be numerous different ideas and opinions on any one subject." But, most refreshing of all, Hyde (throughout, but especially in Chapter 7: Sex, Sex, Always Sex) brings sexual activity to the forefront of LGBT activism. By acknowledging with confidence and pride that we are sexual beings (a fact repeatedly and effectively used against us), she gives concrete steps to embrace our sexuality while claiming our morality.
The book, organized into seven sections, includes the chapters I/You/We: The Three Pronouns of Coming Out, God Is a Weapon and How We Became God-Fearin’, Kid-Rearin’, Upstandin’ Citizens. The real how-to meat of the book is found at the end of each chapter, in the Game Plan section. Here, Hyde lays out a concise strategy that will transform your plans into action (among the most helpful are a resource list of national organizations for coming out, tips for organizing a Gay-Straight Alliance in high schools and colleges, running for office, writing a Letter to the Editor, organizing a Direct Action Campaign and starting a Social Justice/Action Study Group).
If that laundry list of tasks seems overwhelming, take comfort in the fact that Hyde doesn’t expect you to change the world all at once or all by yourself. Her most effective activist strategies often boil down to just going through your day as a decent human being. She repeatedly demonstrates how a kind word in the face of hostility can alter history just as much as taking it to the streets.
by Sue Hyde
