The Unfinished Queer Agenda After Marriage Equality

Book excerpt: While legal recognition of marriage has met the needs of a segment of the LGBTQ population, many still face daily struggles with issues around housing, education, healthcare, policing and incarceration, and immigration. These are issues that were largely eclipsed in national arenas by the fight for marriage equality. In reaction to this, The Unfinished Queer Agenda After Marriage Equality examines the institutional failings and overlapping systems of injustice that continue to dehumanize queer and trans people and deprive them of basic human rights. Building on a major conference held in 2016 entitled "After Marriage: The Future of LGBTQ Politics and Scholarship", the editors have collected academic papers, edited transcripts of selected conference sessions, and interviews with activists. Drawing from this source material, the book argues that any queer agenda should be informed by an understanding that the issues facing queer and trans people come from the combined influence of neo-liberal capitalism, global white supremacy, and heterosexism. The authors argue that these modes of oppression continue to be especially damaging for poor people, undocumented people, people of color, non-binary, trans, and queer people. By taking an in-depth look at the myriad social issues that continue to affect LGBTQ communities, and by exposing systemic prejudices and inequality as the root cause, this title is an important intervention for students and researchers engaged with queer and trans activism, beyond the fight for marriage equality.