Something curious has happened over the past fifteen years. For queers, in the words of John D’Emilio, “the world turned,” and now they are a central focus of mainstream politics and culture.1 Because of this increasing familiarity, queers are at once present and still despised. Gays–particularly white, affluent, stereotypical gays–experience visibility in shows such as Will and Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy; homosexual sodomy has been legalized in the United States by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas; Massachusetts’s highest court has ruled twice in favor of same-sex marriage, not civil union, rights; and renegade counties, towns, and cities in California, Oregon, New Mexico, and New York are defiantly marrying same-sex couples. But if the reelection of George W. Bush and the rise of values voters should signal anything, it is that we should hesitate to agree with the optimistic words of George Chauncey, who exclaimed, in the New York Times, that the battle for gay visibility has clearly “been won.”2 We are visible, perhaps, but definitely not victorious.
